Speed
My first event was a Tough Guy race in 2010,’ says 25-year-old Jon Albon. His motive wasn’t to become a champion. ‘It just sounded like a bit of fun because it wasn’t a standard running race – you needed to jump over and crawl under stuff. I saw it as a test of how tough I was. I started quite a way back, but I managed to make up a few places in that first race.’
It was clear, though, that just being a good runner wasn't enough. ‘I did very well in the running,’ says the Norway-based Englishman. ‘But I got really cold and slowed down by the obstacles.’ Albon finished 76th. His next race was the far less competitive Wolf Run, which he won fairly easily, going on to win several more races. When he started out, he says, ‘you could just run and win. But the sport has become a lot more competitive since then.’ He knew he needed to up his game if he wanted to stay out in front.
Albon was happy with his speed – which he kept up with running and cycling – but knew his grip strength was letting him down. ‘I added bouldering sessions to my training,’ he says. ‘Going climbing made a massive difference to my races. People think you need strength to get over the obstacles, but it’s the strength in your fingers that will go first.’
And while Albon’s foot speed was good, he realised that the style of running in obstacle races is different to the steady pace found in 10Ks or marathons. ‘Orienteering is a similar type of running,’ says Albon. ‘The stop-start nature of having to run through woods and slowing to look at your map lends itself to obstacle racing.’
The change in preparation paid off. Albon won every single obstacle course race he entered in 2014, becoming OCR World Champion and Spartan World Champion in the process. This year? More of the same. Time to get even tougher.
Lessons Learned
Don’t worry about weights
You can get all the strength you need from bodyweight exercises. During training runs for Tough Mudders, do ten burpees every 2km to prepare for the stop-start nature of the race.
Take on Calisthenics for more bodyweight training
Record your training
Download social training app Strava to monitor your sessions. It’ll let you share your running and cycling routes online as well as see other people’s so you can see how you measure up by comparison.
Go running
Don’t just focus on the obstacles. Go hill running – a 2010 study in Medicine And Science In Sports And Exercise found that runners who varied their pace on different gradients had a more consistent level of oxygen consumption, allowing them to keep going for longer.
Read about Anthony Johnson's change
Size
Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson’s reason for competing in the 77kg welterweight division was simple: ‘I felt I could be the dominant fighter – I was bigger, stronger and faster than the rest,’ he says.
For a while, this worked. He’d dwarf his opponents in the Octagon, and became known for his hard-hitting fighting style. However, against an opponent who could neutralise his power, Johnson’s oxygen-hungry frame would often start to wilt late on in fights. There was another problem: the amount of water Johnson would have to sweat out before the fight meant he started to fail to make weight. ‘Sometimes my body wanted to work with me and sometimes it just didn’t,’ he admits.
After missing weight a third time Johnson was cut from the UFC, leaving him to work his way back up through smaller promotions. Johnson knew he had to change something. ‘I didn’t want to disappoint anybody any more so I decided to go up in weight. The first time I fought at light heavyweight I made weight [93kg] fairly easily.’
Johnson wasted no time in his light heavyweight debut. ‘I beat the guy less than a minute into the second round, but it should have been stopped in the first,’ the Georgia-born fighter says. ‘When I got that feeling after the victory, I thought, “OK, I need to stay here”.’
A big part of the switch up in division was food. ‘At welterweight I had a strict diet and couldn’t really enjoy the finer things,’ says Johnson. ‘At light heavyweight my diet hasn’t really changed – I just get to eat more of it. I typically start my day with egg whites, maybe some bacon, oatmeal and fruit. For lunch I have pasta, and then at 3pm I eat some more fruit or yogurt. Dinner is at 6pm where I eat another small meal like chicken with vegetables. It’s just about the right portion sizes and not pigging out.’
Get some healthy eating recipes here
Now that Johnson didn’t have to worry about making weight, the overall quality of his training went up. ‘’My skill level went up tremendously,’ he says. ‘I spent so much more time on the mat than on the treadmill [trying to keep my weight down]. I always knew I had the talent – I just wasn’t dedicating the time I needed to the sport. It’s helped my confidence go up a lot.’
After a string of wins outside the UFC, he was invited back and has been on a tear ever since, most recently making short work of top-ranked Alexander Gustafsson to earn himself a shot at Jon Jones’s title in May. ‘I just feel very different now. I’m more cheerful and happier,’ says the 31-year-old Johnson. ‘I’m smiling all the time. Life is beautiful compared with what it was at welterweight.’
Lessons Learned
Confidence in your ability is key
It’s arguably more important than physical strength. A University of Wales study showed that as self-confidence increased, athletes perceived their anxiety to be more helpful to their performance.
Think fat loss, not weight loss
Your body fat percentage is a better indicator of health than the number on the scales. No callipers to hand? Take well-lit top-off reference photos before a new training plan so you can accurately assess results.
Get these healthy meal plan services for fat loss
Treat yourself
Scheduling cheat meals can help optimise your body’s hormone levels to avoid it entering a ‘starvation’ mode and holding on to calories. Your rule: plan two a week and throw away any remaining nasties afterwards.
Read about Will Kane's change
Strength
‘Before I got into CrossFit I’d tried lots of sports, from football and rugby to mixed martial arts and athletics,’ says Multipower athlete Will Kane. ‘But this is definitely the most competitive sport I’ve been involved in.
The 27-year-old only began CrossFit when a friend said he should try out this ‘circuit-training session’. He was soon training regularly at CrossFit Cheltenham, and started competing in, and then winning, local events. ‘From there I started doing national ones and that was it,’ says Kane. ‘I’ve competed in Italy, Poland, Germany and France. In the UK, I won Battle of the Beasts and missed out on winning the Athlete Games by just a few points.’
However, Kane’s results were masking his deficiencies. ‘I always finished strongly in the workouts that required my heart rate to go higher,’ says Kane. ‘Whereas in the strength events I’d be placing, like, 27th.’ He realised he needed to improve his strength if he wanted to progress.
‘When I started CrossFit, I would hit random metabolic conditioning workouts whenever I could, multiple times a day,’ says Kane. ‘It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I was hitting them at 100% every time. Now I only go all out once or twice a week and I take my recovery much more seriously. The rest of the time I’m lifting weights, focusing on my snatch and clean and jerk.’The results are impressive. ‘In the past year I’ve put 15 to 20 kilos on all my main lifts,’ says Kane. ‘A year ago I’d have said I’d needed steroids to achieve that!’
Improve your Crossfit performance with this crash course
And although Kane says he’s done less conditioning work, his scores in endurance-heavy workouts have actually gone up. ‘As I’ve got stronger I don’t have to work as hard to move the barbell now,’ he says. ‘Knowing that my strength is now on par with my endurance is a huge boost to my confidence.’
Lessons Learned
Keep it simple
Pick a few key lifts and hit them hard. A study published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition And Metabolism found that complex arrangements of exercises had far less impact on results within a programme than keeping the intensity high.
Take your recovery seriously
It’s as important as the workouts. A study published in the International Journal Of Sports Physiology And Performance in 2010 found that a recovery of 48 hours between heavy bench press sessions optimised strength development.
All improvements are important
Even if you’re only making small improvements you’re still getting better. Buy some micro weight plates – they’re not often found in gyms, but they’re useful for adding small increases to your lifts.
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