Grit or Grits?

by Dr. Jeff Godin, Ph.D., CSCS, and director of Spartan Coaching

Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake.

- William James, American Philosopher and Psychologist

According to Webster’s dictionary ‘grit’ is defined as a hard, sharp granule, an abrasive particle. Webster’s also says that grits are a coarsely ground hulled grain, usually corn.

One is used to smooth out rough, uneven surfaces through persistence and repetition, the other is an overly processed porridge that is energy dense and nutrient poor. One is unyielding and resolute the other is smooth and gelatinous.  If you get a little grit in your sneaker you end up with bleeding blisters, get some cooked grits in your sneaker and you might enjoy it. In terms of hardness, they are on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Among other things, Spartans are gritty. Through persistence of effort they accomplish their goals. Physical fitness and good health isn’t accomplished with a single, monumental effort. They are attained by consistent, focused, strenuous effort .  Angela Duckworth, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, has conducted research on high achievers and has determined that the human attribute of grit predicts success better than any other personality trait such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Duckworth says that grit is even a better predictor of success than intelligence (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly, 2007) .

Duckworth studied West Point candidates using multiple personality tests and intelligence scores and found that that freshman candidates that scored the highest on grit had a higher probability of surviving the first summer of training. Grit predicted success even better than West Point’s  Whole Candidate Score that is used to select candidates for enrollment (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly, 2007).  Duckworth also studied National Spelling Bee candidates and again grit was an important predictor for advancement into the final round. Duckworth noted that the grittier candidates put more time into studying vocabulary (harder workers) and performed better that some of their more intelligent peers (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly, 2007).

I can think of more than a handful of individuals that had great talent in their sport yet never attained the pinnacle of success in their career. Conversely, there were those that had modest talent, yet worked on their skills and honed their talent through daily vigorous practice, over a long period of time, and became extremely successful. The former had grits for breakfast and the latter had a big bowl of grit.

Grit isn’t a short term phenomena. A conscientious, persistent athlete can achieve short-term goals such as improved fitness and weight loss. But grit is much more than that. According to Duckwork “Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina.” (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly, 2007. p. 1087-1088)

Can a leopard change its spots? Can a human change their personality and become gritty? Generally personality is stable over time as indicated by research conducted at the University of California (Nave, Sherman, Funder, Hampson, and Goldberg, 2010).  But it is important to understand that our behaviors can be influenced by the environment. We may not be able to change our biology but we do have the capacity to change our behaviors.  We do have free will. In similar vein, someone may have a genetic predisposition to develop heart disease, but if that person makes the conscience choice to eat healthy, be physically active, and not smoke then the manifestation of heart disease is less likely.

For some becoming gritty may be an easy transition. For others it may require more conscious effort. Do you want more grit? Start here:

1)     Write out your plan for success – establish your baseline, set a goal, define a clear path towards that goal.

2)     Eliminate distracters – What are your barriers? Is it TV, internet, video games?

3)     Keep a journal – Journal your successes and failures. Contemplate them; monitor your feelings and emotions. Work on solutions.

4)     Share the plan – Share your plan with someone that is supportive yet can offer constructive criticism when needed. Hire a coach.

5)     Keep track of your successes – Remember the days when you would receive a gold star for exceptional performance in grade school? Give yourself a gold star for every success you have during the day.

6)     Last but not least, don’t give up. Success is a marathon…ultramarathon, not a sprint. There will be peaks and valleys. Expect failure, but don’t accept it. Learn from it and keep moving forward. You must remain passionate about your goals.

7)     All of this is work, hard work. Expect it, and embrace it. I looked for some research that supported the idea that success was the result of sleeping more, day dreaming, and quip facebook posts, but I couldn’t find any.

What is your next meal, grit or grits?

References

Duckworth, A., Peterson, C., Matthews, M., and Kelly, D.  (2007).  Grit: Perserverance and passion    for long term-goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; (92), 1087-1101.

Nave, C., Sherman, R., Funder, D., Hampson, S., and Goldberg, L. (2010). On the contextual independence of personality: Teachers’ assessments predict directly observed behavior after four decades.  Social Psychology and Personality Science; (1), 327 – 334.

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training

The Top Three Body Weight Exercises for Female Obstacle Racers:  Part 2 of 3 – Reverse Bear Crawl  

by Joe DiStefano, co-founder of Spartan Coaching

Click here for Part I:  Bowler Squat

Because what woman doesn’t want a stronger upper body and tighter core!?

Regardless of your own gender, you may have noticed that when compared to men, women have several distinct differences in the ways their bodies are designed. The largest differences clearly relate to pregnancy and child birth and include a larger percentage of body mass being carried below the midsection and the increased Q-angles and anterior (forward leaning) pelvic tilt discussed in my previous post. Last time, we also discussed a propensity for females to do more things, like wearing high heels, which tend to exacerbate these genetic disadvantages even further. For these reasons, women typically need to focus a lot more on upper body strength and core stabilization and when it comes to training for a Spartan Race, cranking out sit ups and triceps pushdowns are not going to cut it.

Holding a stable, quadruped “Bear” position requires both upper body strength and core stabilization in itself, throw in moving backwards and a need for significantly more dynamic neuromuscular control and strength is added to the exercise. In addition, the Reverse Bear Crawl also works the type of contralataral coordination (moving the opposing leg and arm in a unison) necessary for more efficient running, confidently climbing cargo nets, and effortlessly crawling under barbed wire.

The Reverse Bear Crawl requires alternating “shoulder presses” over an active and reflexively stabilized core. During this exercise, the hips and core are continuously alternating between stabilizing one hip while mobilizing on the other, exactly the way they do in sprinting, hiking, throwing, or most other athletic maneuvers. This type of function and reflex is what we need most in obstacle racing and is something a habitual reliance on traditional standing, or [worse] a seated overhead shoulder press simply does not give you. I should mention that I am by no means saying “Old school” shoulder pressing does not have it’s place or is something we want to eliminate entirely, however, substituting or adding reverse bear crawls into a program that does not currently have them is going to add significant benefit to your “injury-proofing” and overall Spartan Race performance.

Finally, the Reverse Bear Crawl allows you to give your body a break from constant straight bar or dumbbell training, which is going to lower the risk of rotator cuff issues. The Reverse Bear Crawl is going to change the angle of the “press” to a more advantageous one relative to training proper scapular upward rotation, something many of us lack due to our widespread degrees of keyboard crunching postures. For more information on dysfunctional shoulders and assessing their risk for injury, check out my third installment of the “Top 5 Benefits of Alternative Locomotion” found here.

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training

The Top 5 benefits of Alternative Locomotion Movements (aka Animal Movements):  Part II

by Joe Di Stefano of Spartan Coaching

click here for Part I

Eliciting a more balanced training effect.

“Body weight training” not so long ago was synonymous with doing a whole bunch of push ups and sit ups each night in front of the TV. Occasionally including chin ups for some but let’s face it most either did not have access to a chin up bar, did an entirely imbalanced ratio of push ups and sit ups to chin ups, or simply couldn’t do a single chin up so focused on the other two…as for legs, they either got the total shaft or were taken care of by “running”. Today “Body Weight” training for most has evolved, improved, and got a little more balanced but still many people do not balance the program anatomically. There are those that do of course, but sometimes only after incorporating outside equipment such as suspension trainers or other implements that continue to isolate specific movements or combinations.

Alternative locomotion, or animal movements, allow us to utilize the entire body in an athletic, fluid manner that forces all of the muscles to work as a single system. This helps us avoid a need to work the back, the middle, the top and the bottom which tends to develop “mirror muscles” but can actually impede athleticism and coordination while increasing injury potential in unforeseen or untrained scenarios, i.e. any Spartan event.

At the start of Day 2 of a recent SGX Workshop, where Day 1 included multiple workouts using Crab Walks, Ape Walks and some Bear Crawls all the trainers could talk about was how sore their butts, inner thighs, upper and mid back muscles were. How often is that the case in bootcamp?! People are almost always universally sore in the chest, shoulders, quads and abs! This makes it clear that our effectiveness to work the “anterior” or frontside, of the body far outweighs our ability to work the “posterior” of the body. In fact, the postural adaptations discussed in the previous post along with a human body that is incredibly efficient at compensation, most of us tend to use all the same muscles in almost everything they do! Which also explains why people literally “forget” how to squat, lunge, or pick something up yet can “relearn” simply without stretching a single muscle once they switch on some of those dormant muscle groups.

Since the posterior side of the body is ultimately the side of the body whose strength and function will dictates head to toe injury potential, it is critically important to incorporate training that trains it efficiently and in synergy with the rest of the body it is designed to protect.

A Spartan WOD on Motion by Spartan Coaches Part II

All motion is cyclic. It circulates to the limits of its possibilities and then returns to its starting point.

—Robert Collier

Cover 1 mile for time carrying a sand bag, dumbbell, or Lowe’s bucket full of sand or rocks.

Then:

Crab Walk, 50 ft

Sideways Ape Walk, 50 ft (left)

Sideways Ape Walk, 50 ft (right)

Reverse Crab Walk, 50 ft

Rest 1 minute, Repeat 3-5 times, then:

Match your previous 1 mile time from the warm up.

Lateral Ape: Beginning in a bear crawl position, “push” yourself backwards until your feet are flat on the floor and you are in a deep squat and “hands free” position. Now reach both arms to one side and shift as much of your weight into them as possible. Maintain this pressure as you “hop” your legs to that side. Continue in a fluid pattern and repeat on the opposing direction.

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training

The Top 5 Benefits of Alternative Locomotion Movements aka Animal Movements

by Joe Di Stefino by Spartan Coaches

Part 1: Reacquaints your body with more evolutionary muscle activation sequences and patterns.

According to almost any source you can find, upwards of 80% of our population will have some form of back pain and/or treatment during their lifetime…with shoulders and knees lagging not too far behind. It is my contention that the vast majority of these injuries are caused by a sedentary lifestyle and are entirely avoidable, even those that are seemingly “freak” accidents, wear and tear, or even trauma.

Human beings evolved to be weight bearing and active for the majority of each and every day. This created a muscular system that fired in rhythmic and predictable patterns depending on what we asked of it. Being weight bearing also kept the joints strong and lubricated, the posture tall, and even things like digestion working properly. The less active we are and the more time we spend in a habitual position, typically seated, the more intensely all of these systems are impaired. Consider the foundational lesson of any university program on Exercise Physiology; The SAID Principle. The body essentially views everything we do on a regular basis as an “imposed demand” that it needs to “specifically adapt” to (Google search: SAID Principle). In other words, just as a professional baseball player trains their body specifically to play baseball with no regard for the influence it will have on their horseback riding, or a body builder pumps iron without worrying about the effects large muscles will have on their golf game, “practicing” sitting down for the majority of your time is literally pushing your body to get better at sitting down. If you rarely expose it to anything dramatically different, the body will willingly and intentionally sacrifice it’s ability to skip, jump, run, bend, twist, and even stand. People have trouble moving with fluidity and athleticism not because of tight hamstrings or a bad back but because they have sacrificed their innate functional abilities in training for their preferred activity, or “sport”.

This leads to the muscles that move your body into a seated, forward head, back breaking, perfect keyboard typing posture to be chronically over used and in many cases, almost permanently contracted. These chronically “tight” muscles, such as the muscles of the neck, are usually the ones that mysteriously hurt when we “sleep wrong”. They can also have a negative influence on opposing muscles which increase their injury potential. For example, if the hip flexor muscles are chronically “tight” and the gluteal muscles are dramatically underused, our risk for lower back pain or injury skyrockets…picking that pen up off the floor might be the last straw, but that was in no sense of the word an unavoidable, “freak” accident.

Most of us have joints that are literally drying up from lack of use. On top of that our guts are getting heavier and our postures are getting worse, all of which leads to pain, injury, injury-potential, and younger and younger people saying “i am too old for that”.

Bottom line, let’s get weight bearing, get moving, and impose demands on our body that are new and different. Here’s a good way to start:

Workout

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training

Burpee Equivalents:  Understanding Junk Food in terms of Your Favorite Exercise

by Dr. Jeff Godin, Ph.D., CSCS, & Spartan Coach

Occasionally we slip up with our diets and sneak in some junk calories. When we do, we have to pay the price…In Burpees!  At Spartan Coaching HQ we have been conducting research to quantify energy expenditure during the Burpee exercise.  Here is what we found:

First we calculated the amount of work being performed during the Burpee. We calculated work as:

-  Work (w) = force (f) x distance (d)
-  f = weight of the individual in kilograms
-  d = distance from the floor to the maximal height of the head during the jump in meters.

Example:

Male Athlete A:

-  Height: 71 inches (1.80 meters)

-  Weight:  180 lbs ( 81.8 kg)

-  Average Vertical jump during 5 minute Burpee test:   5 in. ( .12 m)

-  Total vertical displacement from the floor to maximal jump height:  1.92 m (height plus jump height)
-  work = 81.8 x 1.92
-  work  = 157 kg/m
-  Given:  1kcal = 426.4 kg/m
-  Thus, 0.368 kcals of mechanical work per Burpee

External mechanical work or the work that is being performed does not equal the amount of work that is being produce internally, humans aren’t 100% efficient.  Efficiency during running and cycling is about 25%, thus for the body to perform 25 kcals of external work, it must produces 100 kcals of energy internally. That means that the body has to produce 1.47 kcals of internal energy to produce 0.368 kcals of external mechanical work per Burpee repetition.

We can also calculate energy production during the Burpee exercise by measuring oxygen consumption with metabolic cart.  We had several athletes perform the Burpee exercise at a constant rate for 3 minutes while wearing a portable metabolic measuring system that continuously measured oxygen consumption.  The average Burpee rate was 10 Burpee repetitions per minute and average oxygen consumption during the last minute of exercise was 35 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml O2/kg/min). We found the measured oxygen cost of a single Burpee repetition to be 3.5 ml O2/kg/Burpee.

To convert oxygen cost to energy expenditure we did the following:

Example same athlete as above:

-  Total oxygen consumed during a single Burpee is calculated as the product of body weight (kg) and O2 cost in ml/kg/.min
-  81.8 kg X 3.5 ml O2/kg/Burpee =  286 mlO2/Burpee or .286 liters (l) of O2/Burpee.
-  One liter of oxygen is equivalent to about 5 kcals.
-  0.286 l O2 X 5 kcals/l  = 1.43 kcals/Burpee.

As you can see , there is good agreement between the 2 methods (1.47 and 1.43 kcals/Burpee respectively).

Founders Breakfast Stout is one of my favorite beers. If this athlete had 2 beers at 250 kcals per beer he would need to perform 349 Burpees to burn off those calories.

2 slices of Domino’s pizza = 600 kcals or 419 burpees

Pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough = 980 kcals or 685 burpees.

Use the chart below to figure out your Burpee equivalent of junk food calories.

Example –  for a 140 lb person:

2 slices of Domino’s pizza = 600 kcals

600kcals/ 1.11 kcal per Burpee = 540 burpees

You can have your cake and eat it too, but be ready to pay in Burpees!

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training

8 Reasons Warming Up is Vital

by Robert DeCillis

Warming-up is one of those aspects in a training session that people either do on a consistent basis or do minimal movements or none at all. Many people feel as though they warm-up effectively but many actually do not do what is necessary to get the body ready for the work that is about to take place. How many times have you seen an athlete just go through the motions of a warm-up?

Warm-ups have improved over the years. I remember a time when you would do a couple of stretches, some would pretend to actually stretch, run a few laps around a track and get into whatever practice or training you needed to do. Still today you will see many gym goers do some quick stretches before they are off to the races.

If you are going to compete or even if you are just doing a Spartan Race for fun you will need to warm-up.

The main reason we warm-up is to prevent injury. Now many of you are thinking, I never get injured. Most people think of injury as something big, even if you get a small tweak in a hamstring during training you have injured yourself. These small injuries are usually overlooked until they become bigger problems down the road.

Warming-up properly will ensure that you are ready to go not only before your training session but also prior to your races. Besides the prevention of injury, the warm-up can serve several different purposes. These are in no specific order but are of importance nonetheless.

The purpose of the Warm-Up:

1. To Increase Core Temperature: Getting a little sweat going in the warm-up is a great way to start off a training session. Most times people train cold. A warm-up will get the muscle ready for the work to come.  Muscles will fire or contract much quicker when they are at a higher temperature. This obviously leads to a better training session or competition.

2. Increase Heart Rate: When performing a warm-up it is key to get your heart rate up. I have completed warm-ups where my heart rate has been between 130-150 BPM. You will see in the warm-up below how fast we can get your heart rate going and waking up your body. Here is a piece of advice that will help tremendously with your training, go out and buy yourself a heart rate monitor. Your heart rate will be your guide to how well you are progressing especially in your conditioning.

3. Introduction to New Movements: This warm-up may introduce you to new movements that you may not have performed before. As part of a warm-up I have included movements that will target weak area in many people. These movements will allow the athlete to improve on their weaknesses, which will help reduce nagging injuries later.

4. Increase Strength: Not only will the inclusion of new movements improve your weak areas, but you will also have the great side effect of training, which would be getting stronger in many areas.

5. Increase Aerobic and Anaerobic Capacity: Once you get the movements down of the warm-up presented here you will see how you will begin to flow from one to the other. This will allow you to increase your heart rate that will also help increase your aerobic capacity. The sprinting at the end of the warm-up will also get you anaerobic capacity fired up.

6. Become More Flexible, Mobile and Stable: Our bodies are meant to be flexible in certain areas, mobile in other and stable in yet others. But as time goes on our bodies seem to lack all of the qualities above. A lack in these qualities will eventually lead to an injury. During the warm-up you will be able to see where your weaknesses are. The different ranges of motion performed in the movements will allow your body to improve on its mobility, stability and flexibility. By performing the warm-up you will see how all the qualities will improve and you will become a better athlete.

7. Improve the Function of the Central Nervous System (CNS): The warm-up acts as a wakeup call for the CNS. The connection between the CNS and the muscles become strengthened during the warm-up. If you are doing the movements the right way each and every repetition you will see how easy it will be to acquire new skills as well as become more coordinated with the skills you already possess. If your CNS is firing on all cylinders you will be that much more prepared to perform well in the training sessions or the race that follows.

8. Improve Focus: During a warm-up is a great time to get your head in the game. Obstacle course racing and training are very similar. Your head needs to be in the right place to achieve a high level in either one. The warm-up is a perfect time to begin to focus on the task at hand. During training you not only train your body but your mind as well. While warming-up, focus on positive things and leave all distractions at the door. There is no room for negativity creeping in during training or a race.

Robert DeCillis is a strength and conditioning specialist and a Spartan Group X coach. He coaches athletes from different sports including those preparing for obstacle races. He operates the site http://obstaclecoursetraining.com and is the owner of Training for Warriors Long Island.

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training

by Geishel Valverde, Miami Race Manager

Hot, Hot, and more Hot

The Reebok Spartan Race was held in beautiful sunny Florida with partly sunny, warm temperature in 82°F at Oleta Park, Florida’s largest urban park.  Located on Biscayne Bay in the busy Miami metropolitan area.  Although it offers a variety of recreational opportunities, the park is best known for miles of off-road bicycling trails, ranging from novice trails to challenging trails for experienced bicyclists. Along the Oleta River, at the north end of the park, a large stand of beautiful mangrove forest preserves native South Florida plants and wildlife. Canoeists and kayakers can paddle the river to explore this amazing natural area.  It also makes for an epic course for Spartan Racers!

Known for our fire jumps, Miami’s Mile 7 presented an unprecedented Spartan challenge in the form of a forest fire!  Ever resourceful, Spartan staff and crew mobilized quickly and worked alongside Dade County officials to safely keep the race going throughout the Saturday heat times and avoid the unexpected flames!

Notable Participants

Pamela , Captain of team The Phalanx was the biggest team bringing in a total of 55 Spartans at this year’s Super Spartan. This is a group of athletes that train together all year round and have built a network via word-of-mouth that started from family and has evolved to co-workers and friends.

The Biggest Loser was another success; Chris Davis ran the whole course alongside Mayra Dumenigo, a diabetic with MS who still attempts to live her life to the fullest.  Dumenigo says, “it was exciting and a real inspiration,” who also said “the best part was the crossing of the river and the ocean.”  She was also very thankful to say she could not have accomplished the Traverse Wall without the help of the team, concerned she might pass out.  Her finish was inspired.

Spartan also wants to make a shout out to Downtown Athletic Club and thank them for inspiring our Spartans to train all year round and find a support group. The Spartan Group X Training Two Day Workshop and Certification was held at this location this month by Jeff Godin, Ph. D., C.S.C.S., C.I.S.S.N. For more information Take the Spartan Fit Test.  Click HERE for more information on Spartan Coaches. 

The Spartan Kid’s Race was adorable, as usual!  Spartan Races are for the whole family and the little ones who competed were incredible and the proceeds for those races benefit the Kid’s Fit Foundation.  

We’d like to thank our volunteers, medical staff, and Dade County for their support in the largest Florida Spartan Race to date!  We couldn’t do it without your help!

Coming Soon

Heading into March, we’ve already had a busy month of racing, but we’re just getting warmed up!  This weekend, we’ll be hosting our inaugural Australian Spartan Sprint race in Melborne March 2nd with another Spartan Sprint in Sydney scheduled for March 16th.  Spartans are international you know!

In the States, we’re staying out East with the upcoming, The Reebok Georgia Sprint, and the Reebok Carolina Sprint but we’ll be returning to Florida more than once in 2014.  We’ll be invading Orlando for a Spartan Sprint in January 11 and our Super Spartan now in April 12 & 13 in Miami, Florida. Where will you find your Spartan finish line? Sign up today.

Tags: Biggest Loser, Downtown Athletic Club, kids fit foundation, miami, Miami Dade County, Oleta Park, Reebok Spartan Race Australia, Reebok Spartan Race Carolinas, Reebok Spartan Race Florida, Reebok Spartan Race Georgia, Spartan Coaches

Variations on the Long Run

by Jason Jaksetic

Once a week I plan on performing a long run.  Doing this for awhile now, I’ve come to refer to this weekly activity as the long run.

The long run, once completed, become’s my long run for the week.

What is a/the/my long run?  The long run is the run workout I do once a week that focuses on building my aerobic capacities through prolonged exposure to aerobic conditioning.  Depending on where I am in my fitness, and in my racing season, this could be anything from a 45 minute road run to a 5-hour trail adventure.

The term “long” is in reference to the duration of the workout relative to my other runs of the week, whether measured in distance or time.  For example, if running 25 miles in a week, through workouts of 5, 5, and 15 miles in length, the 15 mile run would be ‘the long run’. If I were running 57 miles in a week, and breaking it down into 5 workouts of 5, 10, 10, 12, and 20 miles, the 20 mile run would be ‘the long run’.

Running long is the theme.  Here are some variations to keep your training fresh from week to week so that you don’t burn out or dread this looming day on your calendar.  Besides, your body will benefit from the different ways you can push your aerobic and anaerobic systems with a long run.

Variations with Time and Space

Think distance, forget about time:  This is a great long run for when you have a particular run course you want to enjoy.  Leave the watch behind.  You will be finished when the miles are run.  There is no rush.  And there’s no reason to slow down either.  Just enjoy the run each step of the way.

Think time, forget about distance:  When traveling this is my ‘go to’ for the long run.  If I am in a new area and know I have the next 90 minutes free, I’ll pick an interesting looking direction and run for 45 minutes, before turning around and running back the way I came.  The goal is to maximize each minute.

Forget about time and distance.  Too often we are slaves to both our watches and our regular routes.  Keep it simple:   Start running.  Run.  Stop running.  Resume normally scheduled life.

Variations with Tempo

Start Stong:  After a solid warm up, throw down your first 3-5 miles at race pace.  Then pull in the reigns and ease up into a conversation pace for the rest of your run.

Finish Strong:  After warming up, ease into the first 3 quarters of your run at conversation pace.  Stay loose.  Then, with 3-4 miles to go, drop the hammer.  Negative splits.

Track Intervals at end.  Doing this ensures you will be above a great deal of the competition.  Try and find a long run route that wraps up at a running track.  Running fast on tired legs is different than running fast on fresh legs.  Get some practice running fast at the end of your run by doing some ½ to 1-mile repeats to wrap up your run.  Recover 1–2 minutes between each interval by keeping it to a light jog or even walk.

Variations with Strength Building

Carry a sandbag:  Great for building stabilizers.

Wear a weight vest:  Be sure to be gentle on your joints.

Do 10 burpees every mile:  Simulate the race day experience of mixing up lots of strength building burpees into your running.

Regardless, of how you want to approach a long run, be flexible and keep an open mind.  Your long run might be determined by how much time you can free up that day.  That’s cool.  Make every second out there count!

For more details on training for long distance, check out this blog by Dr. Jeff Godin, of Spartan Coaches.

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training

by Carrie Adams

We’re back with another installment of some of our biggest stories of 2012!  Not surprisingly, many of our top 10 blog posts dealt with, what else, training and nutrition!  Spartans commit to a healthy way of living and it was clear that our community was paying attention and getting it done.

Some of our biggest blog posts of the year were centered around how to get fit and how to eat right.  In addition to providing resources on our blog, at Spartan HQ, we are trying to make it even easier to get these tips delivered to you, so if you want our daily WOD delivered directly to your inbox for FREE, click HERE.

Here are our three biggest training posts of 2012!

Breaking down the Warm-Up: As our own Spartan Coach manager Jeff Godin, Ph.D. CSCS always says, “Always start your workout with a warm-up.” Although flexibility and unrestricted movement may be important for long term injury prevention, static stretching and flexibility exercises are not an important part of a warm-up. Stretching moves a joint through its full range of motion, however it does this passively and does very little to increase the temperature of muscle. The warm-up should be active and move the joints through their full range of motion. The warm-up progresses from low intensity towards high intensity. For some, the warm-up may actually have them gassed by the end. The benefits of a warm-up include; increased tissue temperature, tissue compliance, energy metabolism, movement efficiency and reduced tissue stiffness. The warm-up can also be used to reinforce fundamental movement mechanics related to speed and agility. The warm-up should emphasize proper foot placement to promote acceleration and prevent deceleration.  Read the rest of the post by clicking HERE.

Spartan Ab 300:  In this post, Dr. Jeff gives a great ab workout for the ages!  300 reps never felt so good!  Click HERE for the full workout and breakdown.

Buck Furpee Day:  The burpee is quintessentially Spartan in that there is nothing wasted in the activity.   It carries with it efficiency,  and, therefore, concentrated effectiveness.  When you train, focus on training – don’t over-complicate things.  When in doubt, do burpees.  How did Buck Furpee Day go down?  Click HERE and find out.

Spartan Race Nutrition:

It should come as no surprise that training, while a critical piece of the Spartan equation, it isn’t everything.  You need the right fuel to get that Spartan body and keep moving!   Whether your goals are to lose weight, get lean, or perform better, nutrition has to be a part of your plan.  And if you’re not sure where to start and you want some help from the Spartan team, we have good news!  Just like our daily WOD’s we offer FREE daily Food tips and recipes as well.  Simply click HERE to get signed up for yours!

Eat to Live: Spartan Performance Nutrition: Not sure what to eat the night before a race?  This popular blog post solves that problem with ease!  Our own Spartan Champion and Chick Rose-Marie Jarry provides her favorite recipe for a pre-race trio.

Click HERE for the full recipe.

Tags: Ab 300, Buck Furpees, burpee, dr. jeff godin, FOD, Rose-Marie Jarry, Spartan Coaches, Spartan Performance Nutrition, Warm-up, wod

Cooling Down:  Post Workout Stretch

If you are not flexible you are not fit.

- Joe De Sena

Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training