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I'm looking at doing a Spartan Beast late August (26thish - I can't remember the exact Saturday). I have TB, TB conditioning, and Ageless and was looking for a little advice on putting it all together.

I am coming off of foot surgery from last September (some weird deal where my 2nd toe had a partial dislocation, hammer toe and trying to repair the feeling of a pebble under the 2nd metatarsal). I haven't done any lifting since last summer and that was usually body weight. I haven't run in about 3 years because of the foot. I'm 5'11'' and weigh about 215. I can do about 15 push ups before sissying out and 1 pull up. I am currently doing some PhyTherapy to get ROM back into my toes and was trying to think through my programming.

Initial thoughts
April - modified base build. Focus on a lot of yoga, core and basic bodyweight exercises following the 10/20/30 reps and then a recovery week. Cardio will be mainly mountain/road bike, swim and rowing for 30 min. Follow a return to run (scaling run walk) once I feel capable.

May/Jun - Operator Cycle looking to mainly build some strength. I'll probably still work an E - fun runs into each week to continue to increase my base. Pull Ups will be a must here as well as bench and squat. Thinking I might also add in farmer carries for some grip strength and plank and shank for core to help with some of the climbing. HIC will be climbing, embarrassing playing on a little kids play ground, hill runs. Open to ideas here.

Jul/ Aug - either base build again or go into a fighter green with a mix of HIC and Endurance.

Plan to take off every 4th week or so, timing it around Memorial day, 4th of July and maybe taper the last week.

Open to thoughts and recommendations.

Ahhhh the Spartan. I did my first Spartan last year, a Beast ,in a mountainous state with my wife. We'll be doing the Trifecta this year.

While the Beast is the hardest one, it doesn't require elite fitness to simply complete. You'll be shocked by the wide variety of people out there. My wife and I finished in the top 10%, even though we went at a casual pace and I'm by no means an endurance athlete. You'll see more walking than actual running. Everyone ran out the gate and then a short while later started walking, and all I thought was, "Oh, thank god."

If I had to break down your ability to be successful in the Spartan I'd split it into three categories: stamina, pulling and grip strength to body weight ratio, and long distance loaded carries.

1. Stamina
I differentiate this from endurance. I'm defining stamina here by your ability to perform in a wide variety of exercise domains for a long duration, as well as take an actual physical beating. The exhaustion I felt at the end of a Spartan was a lot less like running a half marathon, and a lot more like going on a long hike or ruck in rough terrain. It's just.... different. If I had to prioritize your E work it would be: trail runs in rough/steep terrain, rucks wherever you can get them in, fun runs, then LSS.

2. Pulling and Grip Strength/Bodyweight Ratio
Rope climbs, monkey bars, and wall climbs of varying types make up a huge number of the obstacles. There are also horizontal pulls like sled drags. If I had to throw a number of it, you should be able to do at least 20 pull-ups to be successful. I can do 30 and I was still pretty challenged. Since you can only do 1, work on your pull-ups and try to drop some bodyweight. Since your going to the park practice monkey bars. Maybe work rope stuff like rope climbs and sled pulls if you have access to that. People that are pretty good at pull-ups would benefit from specialty grips when doing pull-ups and monkey bars.

In this category I also include jumping over walls, since losing weight would help. While these are prominent, they aren't that big of a deal because you can usually cheat and get a boost. If you have a wall you can practice, but box jumps and muscle ups would also help.

These pulling obstacles are generally where people fail and do burpees, since on most loaded carries you can rest.

3. Long Distance Loaded Carries
The good news is it's hard to fail these since you can usually set the load down and rest. The bad news is these are pretty damn hard. The two that stick out the sand bag and bucket. For the sand bag we just carried a sandbag however you want up a massive steep incline and back down. For the bucket, we filled a bucket full of sand and gravel and bear hugged it for like a quarter mile. These were the hardest and second hardest obstacles for me respectively, and I'm not weak. The distance more than the load is what made it a challenge. Fortunately the second one is pretty easy to train. Just go buy a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with a 50 lb bag of play sand, and just carry the damn thing. Both items are like $7 total at Lowes or Home Depot. You can try to replicate the sand bag, but it takes a little more of a specialized location. Go read the Strongman Sandbag thread for ideas on sandbags.

4. Burpees
I know I said 3 categories, but if you aren't good at the other 3 (especially #2), get good at these. 30 burpees for each failed obstacle. I'd throw them in your fun runs.

Green2Blue wrote:Ahhhh the Spartan. I did my first Spartan last year, a Beast ,in a mountainous state with my wife. We'll be doing the Trifecta this year.

While the Beast is the hardest one, it doesn't require elite fitness to simply complete. You'll be shocked by the wide variety of people out there. My wife and I finished in the top 10%, even though we went at a casual pace and I'm by no means an endurance athlete. You'll see more walking than actual running. Everyone ran out the gate and then a short while later started walking, and all I thought was, "Oh, thank god."

If I had to break down your ability to be successful in the Spartan I'd split it into three categories: stamina, pulling and grip strength to body weight ratio, and long distance loaded carries.

1. Stamina
I differentiate this from endurance. I'm defining stamina here by your ability to perform in a wide variety of exercise domains for a long duration, as well as take an actual physical beating. The exhaustion I felt at the end of a Spartan was a lot less like running a half marathon, and a lot more like going on a long hike or ruck in rough terrain. It's just.... different. If I had to prioritize your E work it would be: trail runs in rough/steep terrain, rucks wherever you can get them in, fun runs, then LSS.

2. Pulling and Grip Strength/Bodyweight Ratio
Rope climbs, monkey bars, and wall climbs of varying types make up a huge number of the obstacles. There are also horizontal pulls like sled drags. If I had to throw a number of it, you should be able to do at least 20 pull-ups to be successful. I can do 30 and I was still pretty challenged. Since you can only do 1, work on your pull-ups and try to drop some bodyweight. Since your going to the park practice monkey bars. Maybe work rope stuff like rope climbs and sled pulls if you have access to that. People that are pretty good at pull-ups would benefit from specialty grips when doing pull-ups and monkey bars.

In this category I also include jumping over walls, since losing weight would help. While these are prominent, they aren't that big of a deal because you can usually cheat and get a boost. If you have a wall you can practice, but box jumps and muscle ups would also help.

These pulling obstacles are generally where people fail and do burpees, since on most loaded carries you can rest.

3. Long Distance Loaded Carries
The good news is it's hard to fail these since you can usually set the load down and rest. The bad news is these are pretty damn hard. The two that stick out the sand bag and bucket. For the sand bag we just carried a sandbag however you want up a massive steep incline and back down. For the bucket, we filled a bucket full of sand and gravel and bear hugged it for like a quarter mile. These were the hardest and second hardest obstacles for me respectively, and I'm not weak. The distance more than the load is what made it a challenge. Fortunately the second one is pretty easy to train. Just go buy a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with a 50 lb bag of play sand, and just carry the damn thing. Both items are like $7 total at Lowes or Home Depot. You can try to replicate the sand bag, but it takes a little more of a specialized location. Go read the Strongman Sandbag thread for ideas on sandbags.

4. Burpees
I know I said 3 categories, but if you aren't good at the other 3 (especially #2), get good at these. 30 burpees for each failed obstacle. I'd throw them in your fun runs.

Nice write up!

Can't even come close to topping G2B's excellent post, but I'll add that you might want to include kettlebell-Funruns. KB in a pack, go for an E run, stop and do swings/snatches/goblets every 5-10 mins.

Awesome. Thank you for the information and suggestions