Ninja vs Spartan

Now that I've been training at the local ninja gym for several months, it's inevitable that people would ask me when I'm planning to do a ninja competition. The short answer: "never." The longer answer is what I will analyze in this post - the difference between ninja and obstacle course racing.

At its heart, ninja IS obstacle course racing. It's just an entirely different kind with entirely different skill sets. Let's look at various skills/facets of fitness and how much either ninja or OCR (let's use Spartan race as the template) requires them for success, on a scale of 1 (not particularly necessary) to 5 (essential).

Cardiovascular endurance: Ninja 1, Spartan 5. Ninjas do utilize their cardio systems, but generally only for a few minutes at a time. Spartan races start at 5K and go up to 50K, therefore the ability to turn glycogen into work is necessary. Additionally, banging out burpees is a big part of Spartan racing.

Running: Ninja 1, Spartan 4. You don't necessarily need to run during a Spartan, but it helps. Ninjas only really need to run up a warped wall.

Upper body strength: Ninja 5, Spartan 4. Having a strong upper body is useful in Spartan, but technique can make up for it on a lot of different obstacles (rope climb, walls, etc). There is no shortcut for ninja - you gotta be strong as hell.

Lower body strength: Ninja 3, Spartan 4. Ninja doesn't use too much legs, and when it does it's the big muscles in big dynamic movements. Spartans need pretty strong legs for hills and mud.

Core strength: Ninja 4, Spartan 2. Being able to throw yourself through the air requires a huge amount of core strength. There are not many Spartan obstacles that truly test your core, although it is helpful for keeping your body generally upright the whole time.

Flexibility: Ninja 2, Spartan 2. Being flexible seems to be merely a bonus for both sports. It helps with certain techniques, but it's not essential.

Balance: Ninja 4, Spartan 1. There are almost no Spartan obstacles that truly require balance. Meanwhile, balance obstacles are basically the bane of every ninja's existence.

Grip strength: Ninja 5, Spartan 4. It is legitimately a top 3 concern for any ninja, and Spartan surely tests grip strength as well, but in a much more basic way. Ninjas might need to hold on to any number of different types of holds - cones, balls, ropes, cubes, rectangular prisms, Kardashian buttpads, etc. The possibilities are endless. Spartans really only need to hold on to four or five different kinds of things.

Risk taking: Ninja 4, Spartan 2. Most Spartan obstacles can be skipped and burpee'd if you feel unsafe. Injuries tend to be more along the lines of overuse. Ninjas have dynamic moves and dynamic, acute injuries, and they need to be adrenaline junkies to succeed. If you are risk-averse, you will not make it through ninja training.

Body awareness: Ninja 5, Spartan 2. Besides yielding to faster traffic and crawling under barbed wire, you don't need to be terribly body-aware to do a Spartan race. Meanwhile, if a ninja doesn't know where they are in space, they're probably about 0.2 seconds away from being totally screwed.

Plyometrics: Ninja 5, Spartan 2. Spartan stadium races are most likely to have some plyometric obstacles. In ninja, though, it's all about explosive movements all the time.

Failure consequences: Ninja 5, Spartan 3. In ninja, if you fall, you will possibly be soaked and your run will be over. In Spartan if you fail you do 30 burpees, but you are at least allowed to continue the damn event.

Suffering: Ninja 1, Spartan 4. For long Spartan events, there is a huge potential for suffering. Particularly if the weather is rainy, hot, humid, or inclement in any other way. Ninja competitions generally aren't long enough or nasty enough for the suffering to set in.

TOTALS: Ninja 45, Spartan 39. If the overall points matter. I made up the points and I don't think they matter much.

TAKEAWAY: Ninja requires much more specific skills that require a good deal of technique and practice. Spartan races are much more general (except the spear throw, natch) and test basic, big components of fitness. The sprint vs marathon metaphor is helpful here. Ninja is a sprint: honestly, not everyone should be sprinting, because god knows you could pull a hammy. Spartans are marathons: most people can finish if they train. In both, it requires a lot of work to be truly great. But I strongly urge ninjas to try Spartan races, and Spartan racers to go to ninja gyms, so that you can locate gaps in your fitness and perhaps work on them. And appreciate the "other side of obstacle racing."