What equipment should I get to help train for a Spartan Race?
I get asked this questions so often that I decided to write a short post about what equipment you must have when training for a Spartan Race. I have to admit, it is a hard question to answer because I love using so many different tools that I hate to limit myself.
But I also realize that most people may not have a gym with cool OCR equipment just laying around that they can use whenever they want. Now depending on when you ask me this question, I may have a different response. I usually rotate through tools that seem to work best. Then I like to incorporate new tools to change it up.
But for now here is the list that I will stick with. Just don’t be mad if in a few month I post another article with a few new items. These are things I would absolutely purchase for your home gym to get you in top conditioning for your next race. Plus these are great for other goals like improving strength or losing body fat.
1. Body Weight
I know, what a cliche. But your own body is always going to be your best tool. If you can’t control your own body weight, then do not bothering reading the rest of this list. Just master the basics before you get fancy with equipment. Plus, this is the only one that is free which is nice. You also have it no matter where you are. And what is also great, is that you can choose body weight exercise that are great for a beginner, like a floor bridge, or more advanced like a burpee or pistol squat.
2. Kettlebells
There are tons of articles already written on this ancient piece of equipment so I don’t have to say much here. You can also listen to one of our first podcast episodes where I interviews Strong First Coach Todd Cambio on all the benefits of KB Training. Check it out here: https://ocrunderground.com/episode-3/ Or you can listen to the interview with Coach Riley Nadoroznick and how he using KB Intervals to replace running: https://ocrunderground.com/episode-10/
The thing I love about kettlebells is that they are really good for training multiple components of fitness. There are very few tools that help improve mobility, improve strength, improve power, and improve endurance, all at the same time.
3. Strength Bands or Monster Bands
These bands have different names depending on who you talk to, but they are essentially a large rubber band. Bands are great that they provide significant resistance without haven’t to carry a lot of weight around. This is why I travel with them so often. I created an entire DVD based on all of the different uses and reasons to use Monsterbands. https://youtu.be/-3ogCWc93kY
These bands are great for making tough exercises easier. For example you can use them to help with a pull up or chin up if you do not have the strength on your own. Or you can make an exercise harder. Wrap the band behind your band and to push ups if body weight push ups are too easy.
The two things I really love about band training is they have a variable resistance and they are a great way to train for power and speed development. Variable resistance means the resistance changes based on how stretched the band is. So this can add a completely new aspect to training. Take the push up for example. If you wrap the band behind your back and perform push ups, it obviously makes it more challenging. But you will find that they most resistance is at the top of the push up, when you typically are strongest or tend to relax. This band will make that portion of the exercise harder and you will not be able to relax.
Or maybe you aren’t a big fan of Olympic lifts but still need to get power work. Adding resistant runs and jumps is a great way to improve power development with much less risk of injury than power lifting. Or just perform any exercise at a quick tempo with no fear of dropping db’s or weight stacks.
4. Sand Bags
There are a few different Sand Bag companies out there but I am a big fan of The Ultimate Sandbag. They have a great product plus an awesome education system with their program. They are also discovering new ways to improve training and movement using these bags. 
A few reasons I love sand bags is again variable resistance, they are easier for power lifting moves, and it is easy to simulate race day training. The variable resistance is similar to the bands, but here it just means that the sand moves so there weight is not always constant. This is incredible for training the core, total body stability, and proprioception.
I mentioned power lifting earlier. For most people this can be just too risky to attempt. Power cleans and snatches are difficult to teach and to learn. The risk doesn’t always outweigh the reward. But most people can very quickly pick up these movements with a sand bag.
And finally, you will be carry a sand bag during your race so it makes sense to get use to lifting one up and moving around with it. The sandbag carry should be one of the easiest obstacles you see during a race if you are training properly.
5. Suspension Trainer
Again there are quite a few companies you can go with here. TRX is probably the biggest, but I am a big fan of the Trufit Unit. As mentioned with body weight training this is a great way to make an esercise easier for a beginner or much harder for an advance person. You can do push ups on an incline, reducing the amount of weight you have to move, or you can hook your feet in and doing atomic push ups.
You probably see a trend here that the equipment you should focus on are ones that give you the most variety. If you ever see a piece of equipment for sale that does one thing, you should just keep walking. These are not nearly as useful at what you see on this list.
For those who are members of the Spartan Underground Membership site, you should check out the video I made of my essentials workout. I put together a program using only what you see above. I did one round in the video and you can see how winded I got from it. Just click here to see it.
Not a member yet? Just follow the link below to try it out for just $1.
www.spartanunderground.com/join
