Down and Dirty

by Matt B. Davis

  “Wow, you are hard core!” I hear from yet another friend who looks through endless pictures of me in the mud, under barbed wire, carrying things, dragging things, lifting things, and running for hours.

  Why, yes. Yes, I am hard core. To be more accurate, I have a hard core. A strong core is incredibly important in the sport of obstacle course racing.

  The common question that I get from racers is to how to strengthen the lower back. “Why the lower back?” I wonder. “Because I always feel it after the race,” sighs yet another obstacle course racer friend.

  “Yes, I am hard core. To be more accurate, I have a hard core.”

  While seemingly unrelated, a sore lower back after physical exertion, be it a tough workout or a race, is a common symptom of a weak core. In fact, lower back pain is the second most common neurological condition reported in the United States, second only to headaches, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

  Any movement that will challenge your balance will also strengthen your core.

  This is hardly surprising, given our sedentary lifestyles. Chances are good that even if you train and race regularly, a large portion of your day is spent in front of a screen with your shoulders hunched forward and your stomach relaxed.

  Your Core Basics

  Let’s start at the beginning.

  A “core” is the central part of a galaxy. The innermost part of something. The seed. The base. The essence.

  Your core does not end with your stomach. “Core” refers to a wide band of muscles all around the torso, connecting your upper body to your lower body. Thus, strengthening the core will include strengthening the front, sides, and back. As a result of strengthening your core, you will improve your breathing, stability, and balance, and you will also prevent injury while running obstacle races.

  In fact, some yogis believe that toning the abdominal region is a sure way to develop your inner strength as well. Is there anything a strong core cannot do?

  Did you know core muscles are used during forced breathing? As your breathing becomes more labored, as it does during vigorous exercise, your body starts to engage more of the abdominal muscles with every inhalation and exhalation. Try breathing out forcefully, and you’ll notice your stomach contract.

  The transverse abdominis muscle, the deepest layer of the abdominal wall, contracts during forced exhalation, while intercostal muscles help to lift the ribs as you inhale.

  For example, singing teachers will encourage their students to strengthen their core in order to improve their breathing. While you may not be singing the opera anytime soon, better breathing translates into more oxygen for the muscles, and therefore, better performance.

  The Importance of Stability

  Stability refers to your ability to hold your trunk steady as you move. Hitting a tennis ball, running down the track, or performing a deadlift all require a stable position of the body.

  When do we need stability in an obstacle race? The perfect example is walking uphill. While it seems that your legs are doing all the work, a strong posture helps to keep you upright.

  Obstacle race directors love hills. So you have to prepare for them. If you live near some mountains, get out and hike up and down them. If you don’t live near actual mountains, be sure to climb every single incline in the neighborhood time and time again. As racers get tired, their form suffers. They collapse through the middle and overload their lower backs.

  Regular hill training will increase your speed both on flat and hilly surfaces. It will also be beneficial in conditioning both the legs and the core.

  While the research findings regarding core stability training are mixed, it seems that incorporating core training into resistance training is especially effective. Exercise balls provide an easy way to include an unstable base into your workouts and to engage the core.

  The Importance of Balance

  When was the last time you had a balance workout? I thought so. We don’t usually think about our balance until we lose it, and we’re on our way to a face plant.

  “Incorporating core training into resistance training is especially effective.”

  The vestibular system is the sensory system in your body that provides you with sense of balance and spatial orientation. Obstacles challenging your balance are appearing more and more often in the sport. For example, participants have to traverse thin planks suspended in the air, jump over hurdles, or walk across a rotating log.

  A strong core can prevent injury.

  To improve your balance, try experiencing positions other than simply standing upright. Consider jumping, climbing, hanging upside down, and standing on your head. Try hopping onto a log next time you’re running on a trail. Or try performing a familiar exercise, such as a shoulder press, while balancing on one leg. Try the yoga Tree Pose, balancing on one foot, while placing the sole of your other foot against the inner thigh of the standing leg.

  Still too easy? Close your eyes. In addition to the vestibular system, visual input plays an important role in proprioception, the sense of your relative position in space. Removing the sense of vision severely impairs your ability to maintain an upright posture, and therefore, provides an excellent training opportunity.

  Preventing Injury

  Having a strong core can help you to prevent an injury for two reasons.

  First, a strong core can protect you if you fall. Falls are one of the leading causes of unintentional injuries in the United States, according to the National Safety Council. Slipping on a muddy downhill or falling off a rope climb or monkey bars are also some of the most common causes of injuries in obstacle racing.

  Chiropractors and doctors often recommend strengthening the core as a way to minimize the chances of “slip and fall” injuries. If you lose your footing, regaining your balance will require a fast reaction time combined with the ability of the muscles to quickly take the unexpected load of the body weight. As the body braces for impact, the core muscles must engage. If these muscles are weak, injury may occur.

  Second, having a strong core can help you to prevent an injury because your core will protect your lower back when completing obstacles. A strong abdominal region will allow you to carry those sandbags and cement stones without straining the relatively weaker lower back. When picking up a heavy weight, remember to bend at the knees, as if you were doing a squat, keeping the hips flexed, core engaged, and back flat, then cradle the weight in your arms, and lift, using the legs.

  Strengthen that core to help you become “lord of the rings.”

  How to Strengthen Your Core

  Why don’t I first tell you how not to strengthen your core? Don’t do crunches. Please. For me. While it is possible to perform crunches safely, most of us simply lack the necessary body awareness required to do so.

  Imagine the most shredded set of abs that you can find. I bet that if you approached their owner and asked if he/she did crunches, you’d get laughter in response. Even when performed correctly, crunches and sit-ups isolate the surface muscles, and they don’t include the whole body. Instead of doing crunches, you need to include full-body compound movements in your training regimen. That will result in a strong, defined abdominal region.

  It’s important to note that you should do the bulk of your strengthening during the off-season. Racing season may not be the best time to start building strength.

  Thankfully, there are many alternative ways of strengthening the core without straining the neck. Essentially, any exercise that will challenge your balance will also strengthen your core. Some examples include unstable planks on your side or with one leg up and one arm out, balancing your elbows on an exercise ball, or trying to balance a water bottle on the small of your back.

  Consider exploring other activities and sports that will challenge your core. Often, simply changing up your usual training routine will be enough to discover the abdominal muscles you did not know you had. Belly dancing will introduce constant movement an
d hip figure eights as you focus on engaging the smaller core muscles. Yoga class will keep you sweaty with endless planks and balancing postures. And kickboxing will test your abdominal endurance and stability with quick jabs and knee thrusts.

  In obstacle racing, the focus is on functional strength, rather than appearance. We’re less concerned with getting “ripped” and more concerned with developing a core that’s strong enough to support your body through any obstacle course race, be it a 12-mile (19.3 km) Tough Mudder or a 3-mile (4.8 km) Warrior Dash.

  This is one you don’t see at every race.

  Elite racer Amelia Boone has a really strong core.

  In your pursuit of a hard core, do not neglect other components of training. A good example of this is Bruce Lee. One of the most influential martial artists of all time, Lee was renowned for including all the elements of fitness into his training: strength, endurance, and flexibility.

  Another way to look at it is to think of functional training, which originates in the field of rehabilitation. Functional training prepares the body to excel in the activities of daily life. Physical therapists working with patients include exercises that mimic what the patients will face at home or work.

  “Functional training prepares the body to excel in the activities of daily life.”

  Similarly, we need to consider what we may face on the obstacle course and train accordingly. For example, relative strength to your own body weight will be much more beneficial in an obstacle course race than absolute strength. It’s much more helpful to be able to easily pull yourself over a fence than to bench press 200 pounds (90 kg).

  DOWN AND DIRTY TAKEAWAYS

  • Learn to love hills. Running up and down hills will improve your stability and increase your leg and core strength.

  • Challenge your balance. Hop on logs and walk on the tops of walls. Do planks and other exercises that challenge your balance. Closing your eyes really makes you work for it.

  • Don’t do crunches. Forget what you read in the 1980s.

  • Train outside the box. Do something outside the norm. Yoga, kickboxing, and belly dancing all work your core tremendously.

  I’d like to leave you with a quote from Bruce Lee himself. Both in a race and in life, “Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.”

  Ekaterina “Solo” Solovieva is a Toronto, Canada–based obstacle course racer, health coach, and college professor. She writes about the sport of obstacle course racing, awesome gear, and all things extreme at www.solovieva.com.

  11 DOING PLYOMETRICS TRAINING

  Your plyo practice will pay off at the Log Hop.

  Featuring Jeff Cain, EdD

  After spending some time with Jeff and his wife (who he commonly refers to as “Mrs. on the way to Sparta”) at a race earlier this year, I asked him to contribute a chapter on something that he knows a lot about, plyometrics, and that I felt could greatly help the OCR community as a whole.

  I remember one sprint distance obstacle race early in my racing career in which I was struggling to keep pace with the guy in front of me. He had caught my attention before the race because he was wearing neon green running shorts and a sunshine yellow racing singlet with some witty running slogan on it. We were roughly the same size except that he was slightly more muscular than I was. He was fast. In fact, as we approached the first rolling mud hole obstacle, I had all but conceded that he was going to finish in front of me. Then something happened. He leaped over the mud hole. Actually, he tried to leap over it, but he came up a few inches short and splashed muddy water in every direction as he landed in the slushy hole. I jumped, landed steadily with both feet on the other side, scrambled up the berm, and continued on. I didn’t see him again until after the race was over. He came sprinting in several minutes after me. As I reflect back on that race, I can’t help but think that my jumping ability propelled me to finish in front of him.

  I’m not naturally a gifted jumper. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time suffering through various plyometric workouts to be better.

  Plyometrics Basics

  You may be asking yourself “What the heck is plyometrics?” It has nothing to do with that silly metric system that continues to confound American students. Plyometrics is often referred to as “jump training.” It can involve any number of exercises that require repetitive, rapid stretching and contracting of muscles. Plyometric exercises are designed to create explosive and powerful movements, and they also condition the body for stable landings.

  Plyo, as it is sometimes called, can be a useful component of any athlete’s training arsenal. Relatively few sports don’t require use of the fast-twitch muscle fibers that plyo targets. In fact, I can’t even think of a single one at this moment.

  “Plyometric exercises are designed to create explosive and powerful movements.”

  For purposes of obstacle course race training, why is plyo training important? Isn’t running, cardio, and leg strength more important? Of course you should focus on those areas of fitness, but plyo will contribute to each of them. In addition to conditioning your body in a way that enables you to run faster, all the jumping and landing will help build the stabilizer muscles used for running. As for cardiovascular fitness, some plyo exercises are relatively easy, resulting in moderate elevations of heart rate. Others, however, will shoot the heart rate through the roof in a matter of seconds.

  Plyometrics will increase your confidence and ability to bound up, over, and around obstacles quickly and easily.

  The ability to generate quick, explosive movements when reacting to changes in the course landscape is crucial for being fast on an obstacle course. Becoming good at plyometrics will increase your confidence and ability to bound up, over, and around obstacles quickly and easily. I can rattle off a long list of obstacles that plyo will help with. Obviously, jumping over anything will be enhanced: walls, logs, ditches, ravines, creeks, snakes, anything! You want to have the explosive ability necessary to propel you off the ground and up and over whatever stands in your path.

  However, leaving the ground is not the sole act of jumping. You also have to come back down. That’s when you need well-conditioned muscles that are accustomed to absorbing the impact of your body returning to earth. I cannot even count the number of times I have dropped from a wall, a rope, or a cargo net or jumped over a hole onto a muddy, uneven surface. Being able to land like a cat and spring away from potential ankle sprains is a valuable asset on an obstacle course.

  A Brief History of Plyometrics

  Believe it or not, plyometrics is not some new trendy fitness rage that has sprouted in the past few years. We all know about those. Can anyone say “Zumba?” Just teasing! Zumba is a great exercise routine, just not for obstacle racing. Don’t hate me, Zumba people!

  The term “plyometrics” was supposedly coined by an American track coach who observed the training routines of European Olympic athletes in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, those athletes were dominating the sport of track and field.

  For the anatomically minded, plyometrics involves rapid switching between concentric (while jumping) and eccentric (while landing) muscle contractions. Purists will insist that true plyometrics always involves this “shock” method of quick switches between concentric and eccentric contractions of the muscles. One can jump around without actually doing plyometrics.

  Scientific studies have shown that plyometric training has significant positive effects for runners. Runners who incorporate plyometrics into their routines see greater gains in running efficiency. Plyometrics has also been shown to increase speed through enhanced eccentric and concentric muscle contractions and by conditioning the central nervous system to respond faster for quick movements. In addition to the speed and power gains, increased stability is an important safeguard against injuries.

  Dr. Jeff Cain leads two other competitors by practicing what he preaches.

  Trying Plyometrics

  If you’re just star
ting out with your exercise routine, don’t go bananas with plyometric exercises. If your muscles, tendons, and connective tissues aren’t ready for the rigors, there’s a good chance that the injury bug will bite you. Ease into it. Just like any other exercise, you build strong muscles and connective tissue slowly over time.

  I also feel obligated to offer additional words of caution. First, it should be obvious that if you have joint issues, weak ankles, or other medical concerns, you should consult with a sports medicine professional for guidance.

  Assumedly though, you’re reading this because of your interest in obstacle course racing. If your body isn’t ready for plyometrics, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not ready for obstacle course racing. Put this book down, find yourself a good physical therapist, strengthen those weaknesses, and then come back to this chapter.

  Here are some tips to get started.

  CHOOSE THE RIGHT SURFACE. To avoid undue stress on your bones and joints, make sure the surface you use has some “give.” Don’t do plyo on a mattress, but absolutely don’t attempt plyometrics on concrete or asphalt. Those surfaces are unforgiving and will likely cause serious damage to your body over the long term. Level grassy or dirt surfaces, mulch, or running tracks are ideal. If you’re inside, use an exercise mat. The last thing you want from exercising is an injury that could have easily been avoided with an inexpensive mat purchased at the local sporting goods store.