Obstacle Mud Runner - issue 13

obstaclemudrunner.co.uk ForEliteAtheletes toFunRunners 16 RACE : TRAINING what’s holding you back? Road 2 WOW The OCR athlete has come a long way over the past few years, but I personally feel development of the sport is still in the early stages. It is debatable when modern obstacle racing started but I would suggest that the sport we see now really took hold around 5 years ago, with more focus going towards the technicality of obstacles. This threw in a whole new area of training and meant that the runner needed to become stronger all round and find a way to manage their training better. At this stage we really see the sport side of OCR grow and the athletes need for further learning/training. At the start it was tough because obstacle racers were mostly made up of strong runners or hardened boot- campers that threw themselves at a course and hung on in there to try to make it to the line first. Very low skill was needed but all-round fitness, running speed and conditioning was important. Previously OCR Specific Training came in the way of people hurling themselves over walls, carrying a log and doing some press ups. To remain competitive the athlete needed to build strength previously not needed and learn a whole new skill set. Fortunately, The P.T Barn if only by accident was adding this new element of OCR a few years ahead of its time. What started as fun in between normal training evolved into what is now known as “The Rig” which lays base to many of the commonly found obstacles. Because of this we were able to work on this development from the very start and with the introduction of Team UK Training days in 2014 and the Road2Worlds Package in 2017 we were really able to take hold of the development of the athletes. Fast forward to 2019 and you will see quality coaching and development happening up and down the UK. UK Athletes have stepped it up every year, but they were always going to struggle to compete against the best until they went back to basics. We were getting good results but certainly not hitting potential. In 2018 when we were looking to start set up for our 2019 Road2Worlds Training Package we seriously questioned whether what we were teaching was too far ahead of OCR Coaching. 1 Because we didn’t know if the sport would be at the level needed. 2 Because we were unsure that the athlete was as interested in going into the detail we were teaching. Fast forward to September 2019 Road2World Trained athletes have successfully achieved over 100 podiums already this year at a range of levels including International. This isn’t including lots of P.T Barn and Tony Leary trained athletes. The athletes were absolutely prepared to put into practice what we have been banging on about for years and are now flying. Interestingly, historically Road2Worlds trained athletes have always performed better in the following year to their first year in the programme. We feel this is because they use the first year for trial and error and know exactly what works for them by the following year. The key to our success has been ‘Base Building’. Without a solid base there is only so far the athletes can go without tumbling back down. This has been apparent up and down the country where we have seen athletes working on their Strength, Conditioning, Fitness, Skill, Mobility and Pre-Hab. This area starts in the gym in the winter where they work on such things as strength through single planes of movement and progressively builds up with technicality as the year goes on until all components come together and they hit their peaks for ‘A’ races. Why the Road2Worlds course is for EVERYONE