When programming for events I believe it is essential to get a gauge on where you are at prior to prescription. I like to look at all of the following:

1. Biomechanics – static posture and functional movement, length strength relationships, fascial lines etc.
2. Lifestyle/wellbeing – food, sleep, stress (from all stressors), mental and emotional state, mindset, general wellbeing and more.
3. Fitness – specific to the event.

The first two have already been covered and I discussed Helens biomechanics/physical state in the last post. Willis Street Physiotherapy also discussed the physical state of us both.

Helen will be soon discussing our nutrition plan moving forward and the justification of it.

I will now talk about our fitness specific to the event.

I did a bit of research looking into the Spartan Sprint and I came to the conclusion that it is pretty well rounded in terms of physical conditioning. I like that! The essential requirements are:

• Have to be able to run 7km
• Need to be able to do a lot of burpees!
• Strong push pattern – push and lift objects etc
• Strong pull pattern – climbing, carrying and dragging etc
• Good lunge, squat and pick up pattern – lift, jump, incline run etc
• Good crawl pattern – crawling under nets etc
• Good rotation pattern – reactive, unilateral loading, dragging etc
• Agile – multi terrain, dodge Spartan warriors
• Stability – multi terrain and unpredictable environment
• We need good teamwork 🙂

Taking into consideration all of the above I created the simulation below:

• 20 burpees
• 500m run
• lizard crawl 100m
• 400m run
• 20 burpees
• 500m run
• Vipr push press 100m
• 400m run
• 20 burpees
• 500m run
• 50 Lateral Vipr jumps
• 500m run
• 20 burpees
• Vipr carry 500m

Then repeat it one more time.

All up:

• 7km distance
• 160 burpees
• 200m Lizard crawl
• Vipr push press 200m
• 100 Vipr lateral jumps
• 1km Vipr carry

As we are racing as a team we decided to do this simulation together.

Time completed: 1hour 16 minutes

How did it go?

Well as Grant said it was an hour and sixteen minutes of madness, although I thought it was really enjoyable! We performed well as a team and picked each other up when it was needed. Helen had experienced quite a bit of tightness leading up to this so we spent a good amount of time before hand doing triggers, releases and switch on’s. Helen was really nervous about this day as she had never run 7km, she was nervous how her shoulder would go with the crawl, all the burpees and the vipr work. I felt some nerves for her as I really wanted her to succeed and do so pain free as this is quite a step up from what we had been doing. I also knew this would give her good confidence going into the race and training leading up to the event. For myself I was a little concerned as to how my ankle would go (this was pre break diagnosis) but was excited about the challenge.

We got through it reasonably unscathed; Helen had a little shoulder discomfort the next day and a little bit of DOMS in her calves. My ankle was fine and had no DOMS or complaints.

Next I will talk through the training we have been doing in preparation and the plan ahead, taking into consideration the three points above. Wish us luck (not that we’ll need it with this training plan ;)!