Overview:
It was similar to a CrossFit competition that uses exclusively strongman implements combined with a two-gun competition. It spanned two days with four events per day, spread roughly an hour or two apart. Two events were purely tactical shooting, two events were purely physical, and four were combination.
Events are arranged by “squad” and “lane”. Each squad does different events at different times, and your lane is your constant position on the line up.
Ours went:
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Two-gun relay
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3 rounds 150lb cooler + bucket carry, rifle, pistol
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Walking pistol challenge + rifle longshot
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10 rounds: Throw an 80/60lb bag / climbing over a series of fences then a wall, rifle/pistol, drag bag under fences, repeat
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80lb Bag & body over high yoke, AMRAP 90 seconds
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16-minute EMOM bike, rifle long shot, rower, pistol short range
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1 mile run w/ 30lb ruck relay
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150lb bag over bar + duck under x 6, rifle + pistol, hand release burpees over box penalty per miss
Observations and differences from strongman
One thing that stands out it THERE ARE NO WEIGHT CLASSES. Bigger guys tended to do well on things like the rower and sandbag lifts but struggled climbing over obstacles, and smaller guys had the opposite problem. There are skill classes though and M/W. The competitors who rose to the top were strong, well-conditioned for high threshold lactic work, agile (lots of climbing) and very good marksmen. I’d say think good CrossFit competitors, but the lack of Olympic lifting and gymnastics stuff coupled with high obstacles favored a taller athlete. We did not rise to the top.
All the exercises were what I’d call “field exercises.” Lots of loading at various heights, carries, throws, climbing, run/row/ruck and stuff like burpees. No big barbell lifts or gymnastics-specific stuff.
You can’t really “zone out” and go mindless ape like you could in some strongman medley. The rules are relatively very complex, and each stage has different but critically important rules that you must remember under high fatigue, and each round itself often has a subset of rules. An example of this would be: you have to carry 3x10 pistol mags and 3x10 rifle mags on your person but relay race with your partner’s first magazine as if it were a baton, and round 1 rifle is fired from above barricade, round 2 pistol is two hand, round 3 rifle is fired from 90 degree port, round 4 pistol is strong hand, round 5 rifle if fired prone from low port, round 6 pistol from weak hand, but you can’t touch either weapon system until your partner has scaled the wall and drug his sand bag past the line – and you’re doing this while also blowing your lungs out with high lactic work, with sweat in your eyes and dust in your lungs.
Following up on “dust in the lungs.” All the (what, eight?) strongman shows I’ve done are, by comparison, in comfy sterile settings. Air-conditioned convention centers. Parking lots with tents and chairs. This took place on a prickly Texas ranch in summer heat with thick, powdery red dirt, high wind, and rocks of various sizes peppered across the competition area. You’re in prone position with a rifle on a baking mat with searing hot shell casings raining down onto you from the other competitors, amid a cloud of dust and gun smoke elbowing their way into your desperately gasping lungs (because you just climbed over a series of walls with a heavy sandbag for the sixth time in a row wearing a full kit), and attempting multiple 200 yard low visibility shots. Farmers carries are easy on pavement, doing it the third time in soft dirt while catching it on a rock every two feet while another team falls directly in front of your footpath is harder. You also have to carry your gear wherever you go and it’s fairly spread out.
Your body takes a beating, but t’s a different kind of beating than strongman in my opinion. Strongman is, to me, more taxing on the structural components of the body. Inching your way to the finish line with 550lbs on your back does something that a 30lb ruck just doesn’t. A max axle deadlift has your vertebrae feeling like over-inflated water ballons. This was more surface level injury but there are A LOT. Burns from hot shell casings, blood, blisters and bruises from head to toe, swollen traps, but I feel like I could train just fine this week if I wanted to, and probably will tomorrow.
Takeaways for those interested in doing it:
Tactical games align much more with my goals than strongman, or any other sport truly. I much prefer the idea of being an excellent generalist: a well-melded combo of strength/power, agility, conditioning across the energy systems AND mental acuity under stress. I also like the idea of being more “capable”, which to me means being able to do to what real life could realistically throw at me. Being able to lift 1000lbs or run an ultra-marathon is cool and very admirable, don’t get me wrong, but it has niche utility in my opinion. I guess you could say that, as a desk jockey, I’m far more likely to run an ultra than engage in a firefight, but training in this style might at least have a slim chance of improving my ability to protect myself and others. I want to be able to thrive (or at least not crash and burn) in a realistic scenario, or a zombie outbreak, and I think this type of training/competing nails it better than others. Also it provides a great metric for those “zombie apocalypse” scenarios. If my skills currently set me up to get eaten on day one, I want to KNOW so I can measurably improve my odds, instead of thinking I’m readier than I am.
Pack like you’re going on a multi-day camping trip. Food, water, supplies, etc. The ranch, while nice, had limited resources and in the middle of nowhere.
It is VERY expensive, all around. The bullets alone set you back hundreds of dollars.
Training
Michael Scott said he learns more from the losers than winners, so read this with that in mind as we finished comfortably in the bottom quarter.
I didn’t log much training, but ran Ashley Jones’ In season Rugby Conjugate alongside Tactical Barbell 2 conditioning protocol.
I want to love conjugate, but I’m a “fast” lifter and thrive on submax work, so taking things to a max week in and out wrecked me to the point that I couldn’t do anything but pull a light sled a couple weeks out and some token floor/incline press.
For shooting, we hit the range at least once/month but it wasn’t enough.
Big things are I need to improve my lactic threshold and accuracy while fatigued.
NOTE:
Apologies in advance for creating a thread and leaving, as I only get on once in a blue moon these days. I really wanted to put this out there though, since the sport is growing and more data can be helpful.