I need the help of the GB community!!

Good Evening,

So due to an interesting turn of events that started with me going to an interview to be in a commercial, a few things came out of it.

I have been asked to design a course/competition that will test the limits of athleticism so that eventually athletes from all around the country can sign up and be a part of it.

Of course there are similar things that have been done, i.e. ninja warrior, crossfit games, tough mudder

Right now things are still in the works and everything is purely conceptual. The goal is to test general athleticism and not have anything too skill-specific.

My idea is to try to bridge the gap between weightlifting strength, athletic ability, and bodyweight strength. I think of specialists like the 5'3" 120 pound japanese fisherman who can climb ropes and curtains all day but would get crushed doing strongman type events. Then you have the fat viking type, who can farmer's walk, deadlift cars, flip tires all day but throw him a rope or a set of stairs and he's done. There is the athlete who is used to doing skills and feats specific to his sport, but can't manage much outside of it. Of course there is the crossfitter who tries to be mediocre at everything but never really succeeds.

Anyway, the competition will have 3 rounds, and I'm thinking every round to have a couple events and an obstacle course.

What I need from the community are ideas! This is the chance to have control over this. What do you think would be useful?

Throw me any ideas you may have, I don't care how crazy they are. I have plenty of my own, but it's always better to get others' feedback. The more unique the idea the better

Thanks!

AWESOME!!!!! WHATEVER YOU DESIGN I VOLUNTEER TO HELP TEST OUT!!!

To the drawing board....

pinwheel pegboard: pegboards on pinwheels rotate like gears next to each other, you must traverse a series of these, including gaps, without falling into the drink!

100 foot chain rope: a 100 foot 100 lbs chain is attached to your waist. you must climb a 100 foot rope, each step you take the chain gets heavier...

Metal jungle: a bunch of twisted metal bars organically arranged into a web / jungle that you must navigate through.

more to come....

LOL @ Chain rope... That's just mean! ... I hope something like that makes the cut

I haven't seen much of any swimming stuff in any of these, so an aquatic section would be excellent. Say a 30-50m underwater swim through obstacles, and perhaps a section where there are underwater jets/currents pushing you around or working against you to make you work harder for a few moments, like say you have to swim through a certain gap and every 5 seconds there is a 2-3 second burst of water that you can't get through because it pushes you back. You have to perhaps power through the beginning of one burst to make it to a safe eddy zone, then move to the next, swim through one of a few different underwater mazes without coming up for air, perhaps swimming down and grabbing the bar for the jumping pull up ladder from the bottom and starting from in the water. Stuff like that would be a neat aspect of athleticism that is currently not represented and I think it would be a great way to get creative with the course and give viewers and competitors alike a unique experience!

Joshua Naterman said:

LOL @ Chain rope... That's just mean! ... I hope something like that makes the cut

I haven't seen much of any swimming stuff in any of these, so an aquatic section would be excellent. Say a 30-50m underwater swim through obstacles, and perhaps a section where there are underwater jets/currents pushing you around or working against you to make you work harder for a few moments, like say you have to swim through a certain gap and every 5 seconds there is a 2-3 second burst of water that you can't get through because it pushes you back. You have to perhaps power through the beginning of one burst to make it to a safe eddy zone, then move to the next, swim through one of a few different underwater mazes without coming up for air, perhaps swimming down and grabbing the bar for the jumping pull up ladder from the bottom and starting from in the water. Stuff like that would be a neat aspect of athleticism that is currently not represented and I think it would be a great way to get creative with the course and give viewers and competitors alike a unique experience!

I second the underwater course idea. Underwater swimming is even more fun with hands and feet bound though

Somehow, I foresee John's chain rope idea being a progression at a future seminar. Better start practicing now.

Underwater would be so hard! That thing would just kill me! It has to be used! Same for the rope, it's a cool idea! 100 feet is pretty high, too! The rope should be marked every foot to help deciding who went the furthest.

What about carrying a 200 pounds sandbag through obstacles? Firefighting style!

And contestants could have a wrestling match, too.

There could be a tight wire or something tiny like it that you'd have to balance on and avoid things on it. Like, you have to step over something, then there's something to force you to crouch to keep walking with your point of balance really low, then at some point you have to jump and land on an other one...

Great Ideas guys!!!

John, chain rope is the best thing I've ever heard. Easily doable and brutal. That's going in the competition for sure

Underwater course sounds interesting, but is a but risky and may not be viable. Plus the cost seems like it would be high. I'll still add it to the list though

Wrestling will not be in, it will be an individual competition, plus the bigger guys would have easier time with this.

Sandbag course and balance beam type obstacle course are great ideas as well, I don't think tightwire will work, too skill specific.

yuri said:

Underwater course sounds interesting, but is a but risky and may not be viable. Plus the cost seems like it would be high. I'll still add it to the list though

Any kind of swimming challenge would be good. Get creative! Having to swim in full clothes is hard enough, but having to do so against a current is a challenge all by itself.

Having to chuck somewhat heavy sandbags over a moderate obstacle and land them into a counterweight basket or something to open an obstacle would be neat too. Sort of a forced power event.

Might also be nice to have a section where they have to bend a somewhat thick piece of spring steel or something to close a switch temporarily (like a button that takes lots of strength to press) in order to progress (or perhaps as a branching tree to access a slightly easier obstacle for the next challenge).

I think that a combination of swimming, climbing, carrying, jumping, and variations of peoples' favorite obstacles from other games would be a winning combination, but I think that whatever you come up with and decide to include will be worth watching!

What about 50m + timed dash and a timed swimming sprint with any style and also a course to test one's agility? There can also be a part in one of the obstacle courses where one has to long jump and high jump to get through.

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1.04 in this video the guy has a cool strength and precision exercise that you could definitely adapt into a very fun event, all kinds of variations could be thought up hooking into loads of different things, it could be made easier with handles too, but the different things you hook into setting off distractions, water falling on you etc.

John Sapinoso said:

100 foot chain rope: a 100 foot 100 lbs chain is attached to your waist. you must climb a 100 foot rope, each step you take the chain gets heavier...

How about just use 100ft of chain and have to climb the CHAIN ITSELF?

Personally, I like the Weaver from BUD/S. You have to traverse a number of parallel bars by moving over one and under the next horizontally. There was a technique for it that was really neat and required a fair bit of skill to traverse super quickly, but anyone can make it.

What about a slackline to walk across?

Yeah, I really like balancing stuff. If you have a bad balance, then this ability is lacking to your athletism. What about some kind of throwing event?

Hi Yuri. Quite a challenge. Good idea to ask for some random ideas. Here is what I can offer.

I think you need a pretty good definition of athletic ability, so you know whether your events challenge the full spectrum instead of just a limited set of athletic abilities. The best definition I have found so far of athleticism is the one given by coach Glassman in an article about “What is fitness†way back when he was still trying to position “crossfit†in the existing spectrum of training tools. In his article he defined being fit (i.e. having above average athletic ability) as having above average endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy; all brought about by training. Be aware that “above average†and using "athletic ability" instead of "fitness" are my changes. I personally think that the mental aspect of athleticism is missing in this definition. Namely, concentration or the mental ability to stay focused in the face of setbacks and fatigue.

With this definition in mind, I am not sure that I understand what you mean by “to try to bridge the gap between weightlifting strength, athletic ability, and body weight strengthâ€. I do suggest though that you decide (after having received more suggestions) whether your contest should test the full spectrum of athletic abilities or just a subset, like ring HSPUs (power, strength, balance, coordination and concentration) or front and back flips (power, agility, flexibility, coordination), etc., etc..; I think you get the drift. In the end your choice of events will also be dictated because you want to have a contest that is spectacular rather than putting the spectator to sleep by mindless repetitions (like the crossfit games).

The specific suggestion that I have is to include one of Ido Portal’s locomotion variations (e.g. 50 meters of the lizzard hand-feet locomotion rather than the military elbow crawl; power, endurance, speed, coordination, agility, flexibility) in your obstacle course that you probably will end up including in your contest.

I will think a little more and let you know if I have any more suggestions.

i suppose a handstand walk obstacle course would be too skill specific?

Zach Armijo said:

bring on the psychological stress with various elements, strobe lights, temperature, ect... perhaps a tied up loved one dangling over a pit of alligators is too much?

strobe lights and temperature are no problem, it's 3-4am call times and morning dew on something that shouldn't be slippery that's the problem...

My idea of the greatest all-around athlete probably came about from the decathlon, which includes both

strength and speed events. I would love to see something that inlcuded even more endurance events,

perhaps a sprint or olympic distance triathalon, plus speed and strength events. A difficult obstacle course could test flexiblity and mobility. These things can be interesting even if the events are staid.

The difficulty with this is putting it into one day. It could be but perhaps but it could also be spread over several days as well.

Although I like to watch "crazy events" at the end of the day I'm not sure what they prove about one's general capabilities.

FutureisNow said:

My idea of the greatest all-around athlete probably came about from the decathlon, which includes both

strength and speed events. I would love to see something that inlcuded even more endurance events,

perhaps a sprint or olympic distance triathalon, plus speed and strength events. A difficult obstacle course could test flexiblity and mobility. These things can be interesting even if the events are staid.

The difficulty with this is putting it into one day. It could be but perhaps but it could also be spread over several days as well.

Although I like to watch "crazy events" at the end of the day I'm not sure what they prove about one's general capabilities.

It's not going to be one day there are going to be rounds of competitions, I believe about a month apart from each other. I'm trying to plan for a couple events and a timed obstacle course on each.

I want some events to be typical of athletics, like 100 meter dash for instance, but I want there to also be some things that have never been done before, as it may be broadcast on a major tv network if things go well.

Maybe a game of chess to test athletes strategery...

Zach Armijo said:

bring on the psychological stress with various elements, strobe lights, temperature, ect... perhaps a tied up loved one dangling over a pit of alligators is too much?

Perhaps. Chances are the competition will be in Vegas, so it's already pretty hot. The strobe lights may rule out the chances of the epileptic competitors

timg said:

i suppose a handstand walk obstacle course would be too skill specific?

I would love to do this, but it has been done by unbeatable banzuke and is a bit too skill-specific unfortunately.

Joshua Naterman said:

Personally, I like the Weaver from BUD/S. You have to traverse a number of parallel bars by moving over one and under the next horizontally. There was a technique for it that was really neat and required a fair bit of skill to traverse super quickly, but anyone can make it.

What about a slackline to walk across?

Slackline is too skill specific, but I love the idea of an obstacle course on a balance beam with high/low obstacles and jumping gaps, etc. perhaps add a bar into the mix where you jump from the beam, swing on a bar back to another beam.

It's just there are lots of people with good balance who are simply not used to slackline and would fail because they have not practiced it.

Vagabond said:

Yeah, I really like balancing stuff. If you have a bad balance, then this ability is lacking to your athletism. What about some kind of throwing event?

throwing is not a bad idea. Perhaps strongman style keg toss?

Thanks for all your ideas guys, keep them up. I am going to start trying to put things together and I will let you know what I have.

I think this should mix Gymnastics, Climbing (indoor?), Olympic weightlifting or Strong man stuff and of course some water activity.

yuri said:

throwing is not a bad idea. Perhaps strongman style keg toss?

Stongman? Pfft. HIGHLAND GAMES

Shin kicking and cheese rolling.......... oh so very British...

i suppose a handstand walk obstacle course would be too skill specific?

Not if the handstand obstacle course was down/up a hallway or in between a set of custom metal rails that were narrow enough to allow them to straddle their legs to help with balance. :twisted:

This could possibly be a new franchise method of separating the men from the boys as the finger tip climb does in Ninja Warrior.

Sideways HS walks around the inside perimeter of the gym is something that I have used in the past with my 6-9 year old athletes with great success. This single movement led to enormous increases in not only press handstand strength, but bent arm pressing strength as well.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach,

Is that with their feet against the wall?

Cheers,

Craig

I'm pretty sure it was...

Very cool idea to allow support for handstands.

And the old World's Strongest Men also had keg throws. I'm pretty sure I've seen Bill Kazmaier doing it.