- Mudder Guide: Chapter 2.5 -
Good friends stick together…
Only in case of an emergency you should attack Tough Mudder on your own. While everybody helps everybody on the track, it’s much more fun to conquer the course together we friends. That creates a bond that will hold forever.
Try to drum up a team at all costs. Don’t accept your friends’ excuses. With our tips on how to prepare, even the least athletic couch potato can become a true mudder.
Once you’ve found your team, you can train together. Either agree on a regular practice schedule or sporadically meet for a performance check. That way, you can make preparing a lot more fun.
Keep your team’s motivation up
You and your team members might live far apart, work shifts, are occupied with your job, etc. None of these things should stop you from using peer pressure to your advantage.
For our first Tough Mudder, we from Mudder Guide created a private Facebook group and agreed to a monthly performance check, which consisted of a number of different categories. We had to publish the results of our performance check in the Facebook group before the 15th of each month.
If someone missed the due date, he had to buy a round at the Irish Pub for all our friends, not just the team members. Since this costs a lot of money, you can imagine how effective this rule was.
The performance test was a great motivation. We didn’t only post this month’s results, but also those from last month. That way, we always knew which of us had improved the most.
It didn’t matter who lead which category, all we cared about was our individual progress. And that was very positive for all of us in all categories.
Decide collectively, which disciplines you choose. We chose a 2-mile run, push-ups, chin-ups, and wall-squats (primarily to strengthen our will, not our quads). We were allowed to spread the individual exercises over as much days as we wanted. Try to find a similar solution that fits your team.
Fancy a bet?
Alternatively, you can turn your preparation into a competition and compete in a number of different categories. If your team members start out with very different skill levels, you can adjust your bet: Simply create the rule that A has to finish a 6-miles run 5 minutes ahead of B.
Use your creativity and you can create any competition and wager you can imagine.
Hopefully, you and your team find a these ideas helpful. Always remember, Tough Mudder is a team sport. Every team is only as strong as its weakest link.
If you have a good tip for us, . We’d be happy to hear from you!
