Whether you are a professional or collegiate athlete, age group competitor or weekend warrior figuring out your game plan for a race, match or fitness competition is one of the most important elements of your training.
For Camp Gladiator trainers and campers the training year culminates with CG Games competition in November at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Campers and trainers prepare all year for their final challenge where events target strength, endurance, agility, and intervals.
The Hyperwear team joined CG trainer Marion Jones' boot camp where she demonstrated her favorite training moves with Hyperwear gear.
She also shared some of her top coaching strategies to get you across the finish line with confidence.
Marion loves the SandBell Rainbow Slam for its total body burn.
The SandBell Rainbow Slam is a full body move engaging your legs, core, and upper body not to mention improving overall balance and endurance.
The SandBell sequence takes you from a squat position to an overhead stance and back to the ground for a side reach. Many athletes see these movement patterns in competition from obstacle course racing to high-intensity interval events making it an effective training tool.
You hit everything with the SandBell Rainbow Slam and nothing gets your heart racing and muscles burning like this calorie-torching move. Done alone or with partners, you can scale this move by starting in a kneeling position or in a fully upright stance.
SandBell Rainbow Slam
SandBell Rainbow Slam"Find your own groove, figure out your technique."
Be efficient and be prepared.
Her top competition tip is to be efficient in tossing and handling the SandBell. It’s about finding your groove and not wasting any energy. Thinking too hard on game day is inefficient so arrive prepared. Train to find how are you most effective and identify your optimal technique. Do you like to carry the SandBell on your shoulder, at your hip or hug it close to your chest? Once you figure out your strategy have an option B to prepare for competition surprises and fatigue.
Increase training load.
Increasing your load during training builds strength and power and helps train the body to perform more efficiently when tired.
You can accomplish this by wearing a weight vest during training runs or boot camps. Running with an extra 10 pounds is hard. However, once you are running without the extra 10 pounds you feel faster and lighter.
Another approach is to choose a heavier SandBell during boot camps or other training sessions. Marion pushes athletes to train with 20-pound SandBells when they might be using 15 in competition.
Prepare the mind to handle anything by changing your perception of effort.
Enter the SoftBell.
You may be familiar with the shifting weight in the SandBell or SteelBell but put them in a dumbbell and you have a whole new level of training.
Marion works on balance and perceived effort with many of her campers. The SoftBell dumbbell amps up the intensity of traditional strength training moves due to shifting sand. It can be deceiving as your shoulder, arm, forearm and grip strength are all challenged.
Due to the shifting load, the body must adjust to find balance from head to toe. A solid training plan includes teaching the mind to adjust and shift to the changing environment or challenge. As many people know, competition is anything but predictable so train to be agile and adaptable.
The overall goal is to make athletes feel lighter, faster and stronger by increasing load and finding efficiency. Preparation is key both mentally and physically because you never know what events may appear the day of competition.
Get your game face on and #riseabove.
Check out CG Trainer Joel Hagaman's tips!
SandBell Carries and why you should be doing them! Hint, hint... for CG Games training of course!
Looking to train with a partner? Check out this HIIT workout!
