Spartan Obstacle Techniques for Maximum Efficiency

A lot of times, Spartan obstacles can be extremely intimidating, especially for beginners. There are plenty of YouTube tutorials on obstacles, but those tend to assume a certain level of fitness already. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to watch a Twister tutorial, only to see “just keep your biceps locked at 90 degrees as you haul backwards hand over hand!” If I could do that, jerk, I wouldn’t need the tutorial. Here is a tutorial for clearing certain Spartan obstacles using good old-fashioned technique rather than brute strength. I will also classify the obstacles as Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced, with the later categories requiring more advance preparation in the gym to build more grip and upper-body strength.

Note: this list is not an exhaustive list of every Spartan obstacle. I decided to stick to obstacles that I either see a lot of folks requiring help on, or that I see people fail that I think could have done it with better technique.

Beginner

Tall wall (6’, 7’, 8’): jump/grab the top, put feet as flat against the wall as possible, then walk them up until you are hanging in a crouching position. From here, reach up with a foot (I like my non-dominant one) and hook your ankle on the top, using it to leverage your knee and groin so you straddle the wall. This technique works best when your feet are not coated in slick mud, but if you get your feet flat enough against the wall (requires some Achilles flexibility), it’s still doable when wet/muddy. This technique uses very little upper-body strength.

Z-wall: if your hands are large enough, hold on to the top holds with a pinch grip that is just hard enough to keep you up. Don’t overgrip. Walk on the bottom holds with the side of your forefoot, NOT your midfoot. This gives you the most surface contact. Count backwards on the bottom holds to ensure that you can round the outside corner easily (you will want to be straddling it, which is a much easier position).

Multi-rig (sprint): this is almost always just rings. Straight arms, use momentum to swing from ring to ring. If you need more momentum, generate it by pulling with the back arm on the backswing. This requires a bit of grip strength but in my opinion they are WAY easier than Spartan monkey bars.

Atlas carry: get on one knee, roll the ball up the kneeling thigh, then stand up with the other leg. Try to use as much legs and as little back as possible.

Herc hoist: use your body weight to “fall” backwards with the rope, then walk the hands up. Do this repeatedly until you got it up. To give your hands a break, you can stand on the slack rope that you’ve already pulled. Do NOT wrap the rope around any part of your body, as it could send you sailing into the air if you drop the bag.

Inverted wall: walk yourself up the underside, get your legs on the top rung, and get your ribcage over the top of the wall. Once your ribs are over, you can get the legs up and you won’t plummet.

Slip wall: lean back and keep the feet up and planted flat into the wall. Very important is the backwards lean. You should basically be squatting back, taking small steps to get up. Even if your feet are extremely muddy, you can clear this with proper technique.

Intermediate

Monkey bars: go thumbless. Grab the first bar, generate swing, and once you have enough momentum, COMMIT and grab the next bar. Go as quickly as you comfortably can. If the bars are set at different heights, get more swing for the higher grabs. In your training it is important to practice 1) swinging to get momentum, 2) gripping a thick bar, and 3) grabbing at different levels.

Multi-rig (super): these have rings and a horizontal bar. Use the straight-arm swing to get yourself up to the bar, then stay thumbless and shuffle sideways across to the next rings and continue.

Bender: grab whichever bar you can reach, then work up like monkey bars to get your arms to a higher bar. From there, put your feet on the bottom bar, work up the underside, put your ribcage as far over the top as you can, then get a leg up and over the top rung. Requires some hip flexibility, so do your hot yoga, people.

Beater: similar to monkey bars, except there is a spinning component. The spinning will actually help you generate momentum with your body swings to grab the next beater or bar. This one is all about commitment.

Rope climb: watch videos online to learn the S-wrap method (which I find more stable than the J-hook). Grab high on the rope and bring your knees up. The rope will be laying across your dominant foot between each lock. Stand on the rope with your non-dominant foot which will pinch the rope between your feet. Make sure you put your weight on your non-dominant foot rather than just trying to use muscle to pinch your feet together. Stand up straight, grip your hands higher up on the rope, then bring the knees up and repeat.

Advanced

Multi-rig (beast): this rig has vertical ropes to hold. Make sure your lane has knots at the bottom of the ropes before you start. All I can say is, practice gripping and swinging on ropes. There is no substitute for practice on this particular obstacle variation.

Twister: the method that uses the most momentum is a sideways swing, where you get going sideways and shuffle yourself across the holds laterally. I got nothing beyond that, though, because I can only make it to the end of the first section before my hands just hurt tremendously on those often-crappy grips.

Olympus: keep your feet high and flat, and work your way sideways methodically using the holes and the ball chains, always maintaining three points of contact with the wall. I never got anywhere on this one until I’d been training my lateral movement and grip for a LONG time.

Spear throw: hold the spear in the middle, take a deep breath, and throw straight at the target. Most folks pull across their body when they throw it, think straight forward. Even if you have great technique, this is always a crapshoot. Practice your burpees, haha.