I have always been a fan of Ninja Warrior, the Japanese extreme obstacle race show, and have loved watching it on Challenge TV since the first episode I saw years ago. We chat to Ben and Aslan from Ninja Warrior UK to find out how they train for it! For those that don’t know what Ninja Warrior is – watch this video.
Ben and Aslan on how it all started
It appealed to me as it looked like it took a bit of everything physically and mentally- strength, power, endurance, agility and balance to get through it as well as being a lot of fun. The mentality of the contestants was very endearing, they would always present themselves honorably and humbly both in victory and defeat. Although an individual competition, it always felt like a team sport as all the athletes would will each other on to defeat their common enemy-the course!
Watch the training in action
How did you get into it?
I was exercising regularly and needed to keep fit for my role as a firefighter but I eventually had enough of just being a spectator and thought that I would start training specifically for this enigmatic event in the hope that one day the opportunity may arise to take on the course myself. Unlike many other sports I had seen that some of the most successful participants had everyday jobs such as shoe salesmen, janitor and a legendary fisherman in the form of Makoto Nagano so began to think why not?
It wasn’t long before the opportunity arose to travel to Malaysia to compete in their version of Ninja Warrior-the Sasuke ASEAN Open Cup. The experience was everything I had hoped for and more but it has left me with a thirst to compete more and also share the experience with as many people as I can within the UK.
How do you train for something like this?
The beauty of Ninja Warrior is the range of obstacles that you will face and the different range of skills and strengths that it tests. I have focused my training around key exercises and movements from a range of sports that I think combine to create a well rounded Ninja Warrior!
Gymnastics
Great for developing core strength, flexibility, power and shoulder strength. Not to mention how much fun it is somersaulting into a foam pit!
Exercise
Develops
Obstacles
Rings
Upper body strength with chin-ups, muscle-ups and static holds!
Arm rings, salmon ladder
Rope Climb
Upper body, grip strength and endurance
Various transitions, Tarzan jump and if you can make it there-the final climb!
Trampolining
Underrated for its cardio, great for quads and hamstrings
Essential to get a good leap onto obstacles such as the jump hang and spider jump
Calisthenics/Street workout
Rocketing in popularity, calisthenics uses only your own bodyweight so you can literally train anywhere! I haven’t done any weights (excluding weighted chin-ups) for over a year now. I am not against them-I just don’t enjoy it as much as other forms of training. Being involved with a group like BarMob means you constantly have team mates around you keeping you motivated and making you stronger.
Muscle-ups & Chin-ups
Explosive upper-body power and endurance
The salmon ladder, obstacle transitions
L-sit, plank variations
Strengthening the core
Body prop, spider wall
Dips, Press ups, pistol squats
Fundamental and essential general strength
All obstacles!
Parkour/Free running
As American Ninja Warrior crept onto Challenge TV it was hard to ignore the success that the free running community were having on the show including the UK’s very own Tim “Livewire” Shieff (he recently captained Team Europe to victory over USA and Japan in the Ninja warrior Special: America vs the rest of the world!). I have recently attended some Parkour classes and going to indoor Parkour facilities like The Chainstore in East London and Paramount Parkour in Milton Keynes to improve these skills.
One of the things free running is great for is teaching your body to ignore your brain when it says ‘no don’t do that!’. Like street workout-the beauty is that the World is your playground!
Hand rail walks
Improving balance and agility
Quintuple steps, bridge of blades
Lache (swinging from one object to another)
Grip strength and controlling momentum
Jumping bars, pole slider
Wall pass/Wall run
Power and explosivity
Warped wall
Climbing
One of the key attributes any successful Ninja Warrior athlete has to have-particularly for the later stages is phenomenal grip strength! For me there is no better place to develop this than at a climbing wall.
I personally prefer bouldering. Climbing at a low height means you don’t need any ropes so aren’t dependent on having a partner with you although it is much more fun training with someone. Most climbing walls will normally have a good conditioning area to really exhaust your forearms too! With the variation of grips required for different obstacles I try and range of conditioning from going old school with the rice bucket to hand grips and power balls.
Bouldering
Grip and forearm strength
Globe grasp, doorknob grasper
Campus boards/Finger boards
Finger strength
Cliff hanger
One of biggest challenges of Ninja Warrior is not knowing which obstacles you will be faced with so you can never get too comfy in your training as the courses are always evolving. I try to look for new ways to train and constantly keep an eye on other people for inspiration too. I recently made a visit with Ninja Warrior UK Team mate Aslan Steel to see Doug ‘The Beard’ Spence from www.dirtydozenraces.com .
We tested ourselves on some new obstacles, got some coaching on technique and will be signing up to one of his races soon. Obstacle races are a great way to challenge yourself and see how you would fair. A big difference with Ninja Warrior is the course is over a shorter distance, typically lasting between 1-5 minutes so best to throw some sprints into your training too!
Being competitive and doing some high intensity interval training against the clock or a partner is an excellent way to push yourself and get your heart rate up to simulate that race environment. You can see some footage of our training at The Beards back yard and our visit to David Draper’s training facility Connect-Fitness & Performance in Brighton-a great training venue for the obstacle enthusiast! There is lots to play on there and keep an eye on for future Ninja Warrior classes and events being held there.
So what next?
Aslan and I were lucky enough to be a part of the course tester team for Ninja Warrior Sweden and are now heading off to Ninja Warrior Turkey!
We hope we can generate a lot more interest in Ninja Warrior here in the UK. We will be entering a team at Urban Attack, the UK’s largest indoor obstacle course in November 2014 with a great range of athletes signed up who hope to one day compete on the show and make the UK team to compete in Malaysia’s ASEAN Open Cup in 2015. The ultimate goal is to get the show brought over here and also get some purpose built training facilities so people can really get themselves to a level where we can compete with the likes of the USA and Japan!
If you would like to get involved with Ninja Warrior UK you can go to www.NinjaWarriorUK.com for more information, like the Facebook Page Ninja Warrior UK and follow on Instagram @NinjaWarriorUK and Twitter @NinjaWarrior_UK