World's Toughest Mudder Training - Day 12

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Yesterday morning my client called to say he was running a few minutes late. I primarily train out of Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland. One of the great things about this park besides all the trees, fountains and amazing views, is during the Great Depression the Works Projects Administration (WPA) built an amphitheater in the park. Leading up to the back of the amphitheater are 234 stairs of awesomeness. Since I train clients at the base of these stairs, a quick sprint to the top seemed like a great use of time while waiting for my client. Two minutes and 34 seconds later I realized it's time to adjust my training and ramp things up again.

In the last Norcal Tough Mudder my climbing skills served me well on several obstacles. I've got a hunch this, a decent cardio and recovery component, and a healthy dose of grip strength will be the case for the upcoming World's Toughest Mudder. I incorporated both of these into today's workout.

Bouldering 5 v2s

1 15' no foot rope climb

50 burpees 6:23



This is the first time in a long time that I've done burpees (partly because of my shoulder and partly because of the pukey feeling they tend to cause. But hey, that type of metabolic conditioning is just what I need these days). I have my volleyball kids do these all the time because they truly are a great all around full body exercise. Plus volleyball players have to be able to both get to the ground and get up from the ground quickly. I followed this with a rowing machine workout to further work my conditioning and recovery rate. Distances per round are shown after the row duration.

3 rounds of
:45 row 206m, 207m, 213m
:45 rest
1:30 row 398m, 352m, 348m
1:30 rest
3:00 row 676m, 734m, 661m
3:00 rest

Rowing is another great full body exercise that is also low impact and works my lats helping to strengthen the stabilizer muscles in my shoulder.