From improving your concentration to expanding your circle of friends, there are many ways that obstacle course racing improves your life beyond the obvious factor of physical development. OCR promotes a kind of fitness that is well-rounded. You don't just get in a good amount of cardio and strength training; you also gain a sharper mind and an enhanced collaborative skills. All of these carry over to the next races that you sign up for, and some of them can even be used in your everyday life.
You Become Stronger
When you start training for obstacle course racing, you also start a healthy new lifestyle. The exercises recommended for OCR preparation – pull-ups, push-ups, burpees, squats, and planks, among others – significantly strengthen the corresponding muscles in your body when you do them regularly. You will have to do a bit of everything while training: agility, upper body strength, adaptability, and body-weight movements, primarily. There is no room for weakness with such a wide range of possibilities on the obstacle course, so naturally, you training can't be limited to one or two areas.
Burn Your Fats Away
While you’re building muscle, you’re also burning fat. Losing excess weight will make continuing your exercise routine and doing more races easier for you. Not to mention, you’ll love checking out your slimmer, more sculpted body in clothes that fit you perfectly.
You Don’t Get Tired Easily
As fitness buffs will quickly notice, OCR training alone is invigorating, and you'll be getting in shape long before you actually start a race. Just being significantly more active from day to day trains your body to have more energy, which helps you go more places and get more done. Add to that the complexity of the traps, tunnels, and walls that you'll encounter, and you have a workout that requires you to grind and think at the same time.
Keeps Your Circulatory System On Track
No matter what age or level of fitness you are, getting into OCR will have a positive impact on the health of your heart. All of that high-energy activity will get your pacemaker moving, leaving you with a stronger heart and better blood circulation. That means more oxygen into your brain and other organs, positive cell growth, and better skin.
Improves Your Mental Health
It's not just physical endurance. In fact, many racers and organizers seem to agree that the real challenge of obstacle course racing is mental. How do participants make it through a series of such strenuous tasks? Physical adeptness is only half of the battle. The other half is holding on to the determination you have at the starting line all the way until the last few obstacles, in spite of the sweat, dirt, and exhaustion.
Spartan racer, coach, and gym owner Joe Di Stefano understands what it takes to get people to stop second-guessing themselves and step – or in this case, run – confidently outside of their comfort zones. As he aptly puts it, "We're not putting a 7-foot wall in front of you because we want to know if you can climb a 7-foot wall. We want to know if you can conquer something you weren't expecting."
Thorough, regular stretching and getting sufficient sleep are absolutely essential in the week leading up to the big race. They're also good practices to keep both your body and your mind in excellent shape.
Heightens Your Pain Tolerance
Once you've endured wading through thick, sloppy mud, plunging into freezing cold water, and powering forward after being jolted by 10,000 volts of electrified wires, things that used to be dreadfully uncomfortable seem like no big deal. Many OCR enthusiasts show off their post-race wounds and bruises with excitement and even pride, like well-deserved battle scars that tell an awesome story of survival.
Some racers use the pain they suffer on the obstacle course as a kind of escape. Whether for work or for leisure, we tend to spend a huge amount of time in front of a screen every day. Races force you to do two things: first, to be completely in the moment and give 100% of your attention to the task at hand, and second, to fight for the safety and comfort you've grown to expect from your daily life. When people claim to hurt in places they didn't know that they could hurt, this is because they've activated parts of their bodies that they usually don't pay attention to. It's jarring, but it also makes you feel alive.
Helps in Overcoming Your Fears
Billy Wilson staged the first ever commercial obstacle course race back in 1987. Before inviting the public to join him, he tested out some of the most dangerous parts of the course, like a 50-foot plastic sheet that contestants would have to swim underneath – with no oxygen to breathe if they broke the surface in the middle of it. He said that in setting up this obstacle and others like, "We go to extremes to give people a challenge in life." Wilson, a former soldier, compared OCR to having a near-death experience. But more importantly, he said that OCR is about overcoming fear and looking out for your teammates.
Whatever your motivation, there's no denying the power of that invincible feeling you get from brushing off electrocution and continuing the race like it's just another day.
Helps You Meet New People
Running obstacle courses affords you the opportunity to meet new people from different hometowns, fields of work, cultures, and walks of life. As you're all brought together by this common interest, you also get the chance to build a close connection that you wouldn't be able to forge inside an office or at a conference.
You’ll De-stress and Have Fun
The foundation of these new bonds is working together without the pressure of delivering a presentation or meeting a deadline. You can forget about those responsibilities for a little while. The only “work” for you and your team to do is having the time of your life as you run, climb, and jump your way to the finish line.
Be Part of a Supportive Community
Dr. Mustafa Sarkar is a senior lecturer in sport and exercise psychology at Nottingham Trent University. In his professional opinion, obstacle course racing helps participants "stretch themselves physically and mentally", and effortlessly creates a "sense of community". It's not hard to understand the science behind these claims. While many sports foster an atmosphere of intense competition, OCR focuses instead on camaraderie. The time it takes your team to finish the circuit is way less important than all of you finishing together, and the best way to accomplish that is simply to help each other out. Rather than judging and trying to one-up the other races, you need to give your teammates consideration and guidance in order to emerge a winner. To put it simply, in the best case scenario, you and your teammates are working with each other, not against each other.
Accept Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Though it might sound corny, through OCR, you'll come to appreciate that no one is perfect – and accept that that includes you. There will be obstacles that you overcome with ease, and there will also be obstacles that you need more time and focus to complete. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, which is why teamwork and mutual support are crucial on the course. It's humbling to get through a challenging obstacle with the help of a stranger. You might even be the one to help that stranger finish the next obstacle, and the cycle continues.
Boost Your Self-Esteem
A cool bonus that comes with getting involved in OCR is your newfound self-confidence. As you take on the challenge, you’ll gradually doubt yourself less and less. It’s a byproduct of overcoming obstacles that at first looked impossible. The next time you have to do something that scares you, even if it’s related to your day job or your personal life, you can just think of it as a warped wall or a set of monkey bars: tiring, difficult, but definitely not impossible.
At the end of a race, don’t forget to celebrate what you’ve accomplished. You'll be glad to take home some share-worthy photos of yourself and your teammates in action. Don't be shy about showing them off – you've worked hard to get them, and you might even recruit a new wave of first-time racers with your stories and pictures.
Helps You Develop Functional Skills
You'll be pleased to find that there are many other applications for the know-how that you get from obstacle course training. Lifting heavy objects like grocery bags will be no sweat, and carrying your own weight will get easier, as well. Any time you do other outdoor activities, your friends and family will be blown away by how freely and quickly you navigate rough terrain, and how long you can last on a hike. After all, you've already endured much rougher and had to last much longer than the average casual nature hike.
You might get the chance to use your skills if you find yourself in a difficult situation. Accidentally lock yourself out of your gate house? Concoct a plan to get inside with the creative problem-solving chops you honed on the obstacle course, then make the most of your firm grip and upper body strength to climb and crawl your way to the other side. You never know when you might need to make do without tools or an extra set of hands to help you out. On the flip side, you can always use that ample supply of energy and stamina, whether you're swamped at work, playing competitive sports, or having a fun day hanging out with your family. On those days, you'll also be able to utilize your intense focus and determination to do what needs to be done. Productivity will come more easily to you than it ever did before.
Builds Your Character
Perhaps the greatest takeaway from training for and participating in OCR is the difference it makes in your attitude. You'll leave the course with a sense of accomplishment from having pushed your limits and achieving feats that you probably never thought you could before. When you're confronted with new challenges, physical, personal, or otherwise, you can give yourself an instant boost by recalling how you didn't give up and walk away from obstacle course racing just because some obstacles gave you a hard time.
During the race, you’ll help everyone stay motivated as you build yourself and your teammates up. Along with self-control and self-discipline, which you can also learn on the course, this is a vital quality for taking the lead in whatever future situations might call for it.
OCR doesn't just build muscles and grit. It builds character. It equips you with self-assurance and heightened self-worth, which you in turn can use in whatever aspect of your daily, normal life you need to develop.