Yancy Culp explains obstacle-racing grip strategy, emphasizing that many rig-style obstacles (monkey bars, rope climbs) should be attacked quickly to maximize the ATP–creatine phosphate energy phase (~8–10 seconds). He demonstrates this on a challenging monkey-bar station, notes event-specific tradeoffs (e.g., Battlefrog allows retry, Spartan penalizes failures with 30 burpees), and shows observable fatigue after repeated runs.
Questions this video answers
Approximately 8 to 10 seconds.
30 burpees.
Chapters
How we do team. Three weeks ago, Ben Greenfield and I launched an article and a video to go with it on proper grip strength training. Give you some ideas on how to train your grip strength. Just kind of all things and everything, grip strength. So Ben and I talked, we wanted to follow that up with some obstacle strategy. You see behind me here, I've got a monkey bar station. It's a pretty tough monkey bar station, tougher than most that you would see in a lot of races. And the one thing I want to talk about today is the different energy cycles. So in the ATP creatine phosphate energy cycle, we have approximately 8 to 10 seconds.
To go as hard as long as we can until we go into the lactate energy cycle, and then eventually the aerobic energy cycle. So, long story short, what I'm getting there, getting at with.
That conversation is the fact that certain obstacles like rope climb rigs, monkey bars, you want to maximize that creatine phosphate energy phase. So if I get up on the monkey bars and I take my time, or if I'm climbing that rope or attacking that rig and I take my time during that 8 to 10 second phase, I'm doing myself a major disservice. The body can accomplish a lot in eight to 10 seconds. If you go into attack mode, you come up to the monkey bar. What I'm going to show you here in a second is I'm going to get up there and when it's go time, it's go time. I've got my mind right, my body right, I'm going to attack it and get as far as I can in 8 to 10 seconds. There's a little bit of strategy involved there. Let's look at Battlefrog and Spartan Battlefrog. I'll find myself attacking the obstacle a little more because if, if I accidentally slipped off, I can obviously come back and try it again. Spartan, if I accidentally slip off, I've got to do 30 burpees. But for somebody that struggles a lot on monkey bars, rigs, ropes, you're just kind of on that verge of almost getting it. But you fail it a lot. If you'll find yourself attacking that obstacle, maximizing that creatine phosphate energy phase, I promise you you'll get farther.
If not completely finishing the obstacle and being all pumped up and excited because you maximize the energy phase. That's what the video is about. Today I'm going to jump over the monkey bars and show you how far I can go. But watch how far I get, how quick I get in the first eight to ten seconds. All right.
Alright. So that was down and back four times on a pretty tough obstacle. There's a transition there in the middle that makes it tough. As you can see, I'm gassed right now after I got down one time and started coming back. Sometime in that second time. Coming back.
From round two, I got out of my creatine phosphate energy phase, rolled into that lactate section where the biceps started to fatigue, my lats started to fatigue, the core started to fatigue, but I maximized my speed. I was careful that I went fast and hard during that 8 to 10 second phase. So do me a favor, if you find yourself falling off of ropes, rigs, monkey bars and such next time you're training or your next race, suck it up and allow yourself to attack that first eight to 10 seconds. And Ben and I are confident that you'll see a benefit. So check us out@yanceycamp.com if you sign up a trade with Ben or any of the other athletes that I train in the obstacle course racing world on my acceleration, speed and power program, you can check out Ben at Ben Greenfield Fitness. And till next time, Team Rocking.
