So you’ve spent months training for a Tough Mudder. Well done, your hard work is certain to pay off on the day. But regardless of how tempting it might be to push your body as hard as possible till the very last minute, if you really want to make the most of your Mudder, the key is to scale back rather than attack your final week of training.
‘By this point you’ll have built the strength, power and endurance you need to conquer a Tough Mudder,’ says Luke Chamberlain of Impulse Fitness. ‘You should already be prepared for the event, so the final seven days are all about maintaining your performance potential and avoiding injuries.’
To do this, you need to reduce the intensity of your training. ‘This is to give your body time to fully recover from all the hard work you’ve put in over the previous months, but still be active enough to maintain your mobility and flexibility,’ explains Chamberlain. ‘For starters, you don’t need to do any heavy weightlifting or explosive activity that’s likely to give you DOMS. Instead, do multi-directional mobility-based bodyweight exercises such as crawls, squats, bunny hops and lunges. These low-impact, low-risk moves will maintain the functional strength you need to make it over, under or through most Tough Mudder obstacles. You don’t need to worry about doing them for specific sets, reps or time - just working through the movement patterns will help maintain your mobility and strength for event day. Definitely don’t thrash yourself doing them!
‘You should also focus on active recovery, including walking, foam rolling and stretching, as well as some gentle steady-state aerobic cardio such as running, all of which will increase blood flow throughout your body and raise your core temperature, helping to loosen any tight muscle tissue leftover from previous workouts.’
Follow Chamberlain’s plan to nail your final week of training. To ensure you get the most out of it, you can record your progress via the Lifelog App from Sony, which syncs with the SmartBand Talk, the SmartWatch 3 and the Xperia Z3+ to help you monitor your training. Useful features include a step counter which allows you to track how far you walk during your active recovery sessions, and a calorie counter that will give you an accurate indication of how hard you’re pushing yourself during the bodyweight mobility sessions (anything over 200 counts as overdoing it). You can also use the sleep tracker to monitor your sleep cycles during the final week to ensure you get sufficient rest, which is just as crucial as tapering your training if you want to perform at your best on the day.
Use all this crucial training advice and the precise plan below to give yourself the best possible chance of emerging triumphant from your Tough Mudder.
TOUGH MUDDER TAPERING TIMETABLE
Saturday
Final resistance-based workout
Sunday
Active recovery
Monday
Bodyweight mobility session
Tuesday
Steady state aerobic session
Wednesday
REST
Thursday
Bodyweight mobility session
Friday
Active recovery
Saturday
TOUGH MUDDER
