Obstacle Course Race (OCR) Training

Training to compete in an obstacle course race is different than training for other events. Good grip strength is fundamental to completing obstacle courses without failing. Core strength is required to get your body over, around, and along walls. A good running pace is key to keeping good time between obstacles. Even if you do OCR events just for fun, most people will want to compete against themselves, pushing themselves to their limit.

Obstacle Course Training with Heather Gollnick

If you are looking to do your first obstacle course race, or if you are a seasoned athlete looking to shave time off your race time / eliminate burpees from your race, Heather Gollnick provides sport-specific coaching through her IronEdge Coaching. Heather is a 5-time Ironman champion and Spartan SGX coach. You can contact Heather directly by emailing her at IronEdgeCoaching@gmail.com.

Recommended FitBar Obstacle Training Products

FitBar products help mud runners develop a strong grip, and it can be a key part of your OCR training. We have found that pull ups with the Ball Grips, pronated grip, supinated grip, and neutral grip, are some of the best grip exercises for strength. Some of our customers have stated they prefer doing pull ups with Ball Grips in hand as opposed to gripping a pull bar bar. As a second choice, we recommend the Minicane Pinch Grips. These require a strong grip, and your grip will typically fail before your arms do, so if you typically do sets of 10 pull ups you may only be able to get out 8 Minicane pull ups. The Minicanes seem to really work your forearms as well. If your home gym or garage gym only has a straight bar (i.e. a wall mount or ceiling mount pull up bar, or a squat rack), we recommend using our Neutral Grips or the Pull Ups Handles. For working out with cable machines, we recommend using the eyebolt products: the Cannonball Grips, the Nunchuck Grips, and the Ninja Tee Grips as these can be securely fastened to the cable carabiner. This way you can perform curls, rows, lat pull downs, etc while also training for grip strength. The eyebolt hand grips also are great when hung from straps if you have monkey bars, either in your backyard rig, local park, or local OCR gym / Ninja warrior gym. Check out this instructional video by our good friend, OCR athlete, and personal trainer Joanna:

The recommended FitBar exercise for core strength is to do hanging leg raises with Ball Grips or Minicanes in hand. This way you can develop core strength, grip strength, and upper body strength with a single exercise. Another good exercise is to do dead hangs with the Ball Grips in your hands – this is good OCR training that helps build forearm and grip strength endurance for the longer obstacle course races.

For developing obstacle course skills, we recommend using either the Grip Wheel or the Beater Bar. The Grip Wheel is great for building body upper body strength and hand-eye coordination. It can also be used to emulate the Spartan Twister Obstacle if you place your body perpendicular to the bar. The foam grips are easy on the hands so you can train without tearing your callouses.

The Beater Bar emulates the Spartan Beater obstacle. While the Spartan Beater has 4 spinning pipes, and the beater bar has only 3, it still provides the training required to reach and grab for a moving object. Also, pushing your limits on the number of Beater Bar repetitions is a great way to build upper body strength! The current world record is 136 repetitions held by elite obstacle athlete or Jon Brown!!

Check out this video below that goes over the similarities and differences between the Beater Bar and the Grip Wheel - we get asked this a lot! We recommend exercises for cores strength such as this be part of your OCR training regimen.

Keep in mind there are many other OCR training skills that you need to work on: such as wall climbing, bucket carries, trail running, and many others. There are many resources out there to help you train. Get in touch with your local Spartan SGX coach if you are interested in improving on Spartan Races. If you google “OCR training” you mostly likely will find an OCR coach in your area.