Ben Greenfield discusses his obstacle-course-racing training methods. He reports winning Train to Hunt Utah (which qualified him for nationals) and describes using steep-incline treadmills (up to 40%) for hill training to avoid downhill impact. Typical workouts cited: walking at 40% incline at ~1.7–2.0 mph carrying a 50 lb sandbag or backpack, or wearing a 40–50 lb weighted vest. He references top masters Spartan athlete Matt Navakovich ("the Bear") who trains primarily by walking 20–40% inclines, and mentions NordicTrack as the maker of incline treadmills (he bought one used, paying roughly $1,100–$1,200).
Questions this video answers
Train to Hunt Utah (qualified him for nationals).
40% incline at approximately 1.7–2.0 miles per hour.
About 50 lb in a sandbag or backpack; weighted vests of about 40–50 lb.
Matt Navakovich (aka "the Bear"), a top masters Spartan athlete who trains at 20–40% inclines.
NordicTrack; he reported buying one (used on eBay) for roughly $1,100–$1,200.
Chapters
Foreign.
So, yes, I have a manual treadmill in my office and then out in my garage I have one of these incline treadmills that will go up to 40%. And I was explaining this to someone at that. So I did, I did Train to Hunt Utah last weekend. And you won. I won. I actually, I won Train to Hunt Utah, which, which qualified me for nationals. And for those of you not familiar with Train to Hunt, it involves obstacle course racing combined with shooting your bow, combined with hundred pound meat packs, straight up hills and downhills. And one of my secret underground training methods for that is I have an incline treadmill. Because what an incline treadmill allows you to do is hill training to get all the benefits of going uphill without ever having to get all the knee pounding and hip pounding of going downhill. And so for a typical workout, for example, I will just walk as far as I can at a 40% incline and 1.7 to 2 miles an hour holding a 50 pound sandbag or with 50 pounds in my backpack and I'll just walk straight uphill. The other thing that I'll use is a weighted vest. So I'll wear a 40 to a 50 pound weighted vest and just walk straight uphill on this treadmill. You do not even need to run to vastly increase fitness if you're going up a treadmill. I've got a friend who is one of masters Spartan athletes. He's actually one of the top Spartan athletes, period. But he rarely, if ever runs. He does almost all his training walking at a 20 to 40% incline. His name is Matt Navakovich. He's also known as the Bear in Spartan racing. And the majority of his training he's just walking uphill because his knees and his hips can't take the pounding of running. But he's still super fast. He's turning out incredibly fast. 5Ks and 10Ks in these Spartan races. But he's just walking uphill for the majority of his training, typically holding a sand, holding a bucket, or with a weighted vest, but at a 20 to a 40% incline. So NordicTrack is the company that makes, makes these treadmills. I got mine from NordicTrack. I actually got it off ebay. Got a really good deal. I think I got mine for like about the same price as that elliptical trainer. Like 1100, 1200 bucks, something like that. So they're not super cheap in terms of treadmills. But check Craigslist, check Amazon. Amazon has NordicTracks, the NordicTrack website. They'll let you get on a payment plan, but incline treadmills as a way to get a lot of bang for your buck out of your run training, especially when combined with something like a weighted vest. Huge, huge way, you know, good, good, good way to increase running fitness fast. And then finally, there's this guy that I interviewed, and his name is Jay Schroeder. I met him at one of Dave Asprey's biohacking conferences. And this guy uses, like, high, high intensity electrical stimulation on the NFL athletes that he works with. And he'll use, like.
