When you train for a kids obstacle course race you do not need to be in top physical condition. Use the below tips and exercises to train for your next obstacle race for your kids.

1. Grip training is essential to using a wrist roller or the captains of crush need to be in your program. Like any exercise, you should start with something you can manage doing both directions 4 times and increase the weight each week. The captains of crush come in plenty of different resistances for you to use and progress.

2. For most of these family obstacle races, you will be running up a hill or a mountain so using a sled is vital. You should put on a heavyweight and find a long hallway or runway to push and pull the sled. Your legs will thank you when you are running or walking up the mountain for the 4th and 5th time, going past people lying down massaging cramps.

3. Pull-ups, you should be able to do pull-ups anyway so just do these for your own sake. This will also help with your grip and monkey bars but also help in pulling yourself over walls and climbing obstacles.

4. Run stairs! If you’re lucky like I am you are in a building with 8 floors to run, with a weight vest. If not you can do stadium stairs with sandbags which we do sometimes too. This will help you again with the hills and really get the calves ready to do battle for 3 hrs.

5. Duck walk, this will be another way to prepare your legs for long hill runs and a long day. You can do this anywhere and no equipment necessary but you could add a weight vest to push it more if you wanted to. Make sure you stay low and keep track of your distance and push it further as the race date is getting closer.

6. Box jumps will also help in a couple of ways, one thing it will do is strengthen your legs if you are jumping at a challenging height and push your conditioning if you do 75-100 in a workout so you get used to pushing through the pain. You may also have obstacles that require you to jump or be helpful if you could jump higher.

7. Run, even if you hate running like me you need to do some and there are many ways to put it into a program so you don’t have long boring runs. The fact is that you won’t be running too long at any point during these races so you really should train with long runs, good news for some of us. Some runners do run and skip obstacles to get a better time, I catch them and they love to tell you their time but not that they skipped multiple obstacles to get it.