hey guys josiah here with aesthetics
fitness in today's video I'm going to be
talking to you about running a Spartan
beast alright so just this last Saturday
I ran the Chicago Spartan beast race
which is a 12 to 13 mile long race with
30-plus obstacles through a terrain park
and I wanted to share with you guys a
little bit of my experience of that race
also a little bit of my training that I
did in preparation for that race and
what I plan to do differently and add to
my training before I run the Michigan
Spartan super next weekend that way you
guys are getting some functional
training information and a little window
into my personal experiences with
functional training because this channel
is not just meant to be purely an
aesthetics or looks based channel when
it comes to your fitness journey I also
want to help you guys train functionally
and build functional strength and
endurance and fitness but before I get
any further into today's video make sure
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below as well now the way let's get
started all right so first I'm going to
give you a quick rundown of basically
what specific training I did in
preparation for this race in addition to
my usual four times a week lifting
schedule which is slightly more
aesthetics or bodybuilding oriented in
addition to my normal lifting I also did
a lot of functional movements things
like farmer's carries and tire flips at
the large gym that I go to our actual
have access to big tractor tires to flip
as frequently that is an obstacle that
actually appears in Spartan races I also
did exercises like dead hangs from rock
climbing holds lots of pull-ups and an
attempt to do a pull-up release one hand
grip pull-up release the other hand grip
to help with things like monkey bars and
using unilateral arm strength and in
addition to that I also did a lot of
emotions involving just pure grip and
trap strength things like farmer's
carries and similar motions because in
Spartan races and most obstacle races
you're going to almost entirely be
encountering grip strength and pulling
related exercises you'll be you know
pulling ropes or climbing ropes or
hanging onto monkey bars or picking up
stones
you never really encounter pushing
motion so I wanted to make sure that in
the months leading up to this race I was
really training my grip strength and
pulling motions my back and bicep and
shoulder strength to ensure that I had a
really strong foundation there's
wasn't failing any obstacles on the race
because in case you didn't know in a
Spartan race if you fail an obstacle you
have to do 30 burpees which is basically
a jump up toughs this guy hit the ground
do a push-up and repeat 30 times and
that gets really tiring special when
you're running 12 and a half miles and
in addition to these strength training
exercises I also really wanted to
improve my cardiovascular ability
because I myself am NOT a particularly
adept person when it comes to cardio
when it comes to long-distance running
and good at sprinting short distances
running really fast and doing like heavy
lifting exercises with a lot of
intensity but I'm not great at keeping
up a steady state activity for a very
long period of time like I was going to
need to be on this race so I practiced
running longer distances moving from you
know a mile and a half two miles three
miles four miles running a five mile
race a few weeks ago just in kind of
preparation to get my body ready to run
longer distances and another very
important thing I would integrate into
my training is mixed training which is
where I'd run a half mile and then do
like four sets of pull ups to exhaustion
run another half mile do like four sets
a farmer's carries sprint a quarter mile
and then do you know four sets of
deadlifts and doing my training that way
so that I'm actually simulating the
running and distance doing an exercise
we're running it 'since completing an
obstacle and then about every third or
fourth exercise I would do I would just
drop and do like fifteen burpees
afterwards to simulate kind of failing
an obstacle just in kicks that would
happen on the race so that my
cardiovascular ability would keep up
with that and my stamina be able to
endure if I did have to suddenly do
burpees and then run a long distance all
right so that's it for my training now
on to my actual race experience it was a
ton of fun I have done several different
Spartan races in the past but this is
the first beast I've ever done that's
the longest Spartan Race I did about
twelve point seven miles just under 13
and it was like 60 degrees outside which
is great but it was pouring rain the
entire time which was not great and it
was in a terrain off-road park for like
ATVs and SUV so basically all of the
trails that were running on are made of
like mud sand and rocks so the rocks are
all slippery the mud was deep and you
would suddenly like be running along a
mud slick path and then just drop into
like a three-foot deep puddle because it
looked like it was just a couple inches
deep but in fact it was just a huge pit
there and I'm not complaining about that
that was actually part of the fun of the
experience was just you know getting
down in the mud and scrambling over wet
rocks running through rivers and up sand
dunes and things like
tons of fun however there was an element
of it that I was not prepared for and I
had not prepared for in my training and
that was just the amount of hills it was
like they were trying to kill us with
Hills especially in the second half of
the race about four or five times every
mile there'd be about a 30-foot
60-degree incline climbing up like a
bunch of rocks and a small hill and then
just straight back down 60 degrees the
other side so while you may laterally
only be covering 12 to 13 miles you are
adding a lot of verticality into that
which made the race a lot more
challenging than it otherwise would have
been and I myself from the time the race
started was actually having an easier
time of things than I thought it was
going to again and not a distance person
so I was anticipating kind of begrudging
the entire experience however until
about mile nine and a half I was having
a really good time and thought it was
all going quite smoothly and then smack
dab we hit nine miles and I start
cramping horribly in my quads like every
time a hill comes up my legs just
completely stiffen up and I just
couldn't move I was like tottering along
like an old man it was it was not fun
about the last three miles of the race
and luckily I had some people who
donated their Gatorade choose to me the
little like lift blocks at the salt and
electrolytes and I had brought some of
those myself and stopped halfway through
the race at a little aid station to grab
some because they had one set up by the
side of the trail but I guess I just
didn't have enough where I wasn't
staying hydrated didn't have enough
carbohydrates or something because I was
just cramping my body was not able to
process that lactic acid fast enough to
get me to keep moving so it was really
an issue of trying to stretch out my
legs that kind of stopped for a couple
seconds just stretched let my you know
legs relax for a minute and then kind of
tried to just slowly move through it
start walking and I moved to jogging and
eventually I was able to overcome it but
as you can see here even by the time I
reach the end of the race I was nursing
some pretty bad cramps and it was not
fun at all but I will say other than the
dreaded spear throw which has an 82%
Burpee rate if I recall correctly I did
not fail a single obstacle on the entire
race out of the 30 obstacles that were
there which of course felt very good and
meant that I did a bare minimum number
of burpees which is always a good thing
and I finished the race in a grand total
of 4 hours and 31 minutes which while
not a great time is something that I was
proud of because I really wanted to make
sure I did it in well under 5 hours and
I did especially given the fact that
this is the first time that ever
running a race of this distance so I was
happy with that time but there are some
things I would like to do differently
before I run my Spartan super next week
and those things are training with hills
and inclines a little more so doing more
hill sprints in order to get my body
used to running up and down inclines
because that's something that I didn't
exactly train a lot of in preparation
for this race and also I want to bring
more exotic sources of electrolytes to
the races because I think having that
extra little actually boost especially
toward the tail end of the race is
really gonna help prevent me from
cramping up and really boost my
performance know me to finish in an even
shorter time and given the next upcoming
race is a super and will be a little bit
shorter it's gonna be eight to ten miles
as opposed to twelve plus I moreso want
to train my actual running speeds like
decreasing my one-mile time rather than
working on running endurance and by
doing this I hope to increase the speed
with our general to get from one
obstacle to the next significantly
shortening my overall race time so with
that being said that's it for today's
video thank you guys so much for
watching hopefully you found it
entertaining and enjoyable if you liked
the video leave a like down below and
remember to comment on this video
letting me know your thoughts and if
you've ever run a Spartan Race how'd you
do in fact if you ran the Chicago
Spartan Beast let me know your time down
below and we can compare and of course
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