Getting fit for the All-Ireland

Glenman

I'm a member of the Scruffy Murphy Tug of War team from Donegal and we are going out to win the all ireland title this year. We are also travelling to the World Championship in Holland.
Does anyone have any tips on how to get into top shape to give us that winning edge?

Dragan

Tug of war is without a doubt an all body sport, you really want to be well developed strenght wise, and have some decent muscular endurance so you don't begin to weaken before your opponents.

DO you guys have any sort of structured training right now , any kind of plan you follow as a team? What sort of training do you currently do?

Glenman

Well, you need to be fairly strong but most of all you need to have good endurance. Some of the pull last 5/6 minutes. The muscle in your arm ( from hand to elbow) need to be able to withstand the lenght of a pull. Once this muscle tires and you can not hold the rope tight with your hands then you are finished for the day.
Therefore the main training is aimed at building this muscle using hand grips and also a technique known to us as minute on, minute off. We would have a piece of rope fixed to the wall in the garage and we would lie on it in the pulling position at 45 degrees for a minute, then take a miutes break and repeat 15/20 times.
This would be done in pre-season along with some weights aimed at Tug of War wiich build legs arms and body muscles.

The team then begins to train together about five weeks before competition time. A gantry is used in training. The team (8 men/women) line up and pull the rope while a 800kg concrete barrell is raised up in the air using a pulley system.
The main skills practiced in team training are the Drop (falling quickly into a pulling position when the referee shouts pull). Also the team footwork is practiced moving back in smalls steps, right foot leading the left, the 8 persons need to pull as a one with equal footwork.

Team training takes place on Tuesday and Thursday night and we train on our own on the other nights which may involve some individual rope work and running. Long distance running is not done as it saps your strength and weakens your muscles. Shorter runs at a fast pace are usually done, this increases the fitness and lung capacity.

There are only about 30 clubs in Ireland and the all-ireland championships take place over a course of five Sundays in June and July, the weight catagories vary from as light as 560kg (11 stone a man) to 720kg.

The World Championships are taking place in Assen Holland this year in September, there are roughly 34 countries involved in Tug of War.
To re-enter the Olympics after a 100 absence we need about 50 countries involved. I hope that this will happen within 15-20 years.

Tug of War is also contested indoor during the winter. Pulling flat footed wearing special runners on a mat. The World Indoor Tug of War Championships took place in Killarney Ireland this Febuary where over 20 countries competed. Scotland were the overall winners with Ireland coming third.
Indoor Tug of War is not as popular as the outdoor.

t-ha

Well, other than school competitions, I have no experience with Tug of War so I apologise if some of my assumptions aren't exactly correct.

I would say you need all over strength and endurance. I would say deadlifts would help alot to bring up your maximal strength. These work your legs, core, back, arms & grip (virtually everything) but I would imagine the cross-over to tug of war would be excellent with this exercise. For endurance I would say sled dragging would be absolutely great, both in terms of short sprints and longer drags. In the weeks before the competition you could try using a HIIT protocol with the sled drags. That basically means sprinting all out for as long as you can (generally about 20s or less for most people) and then taking a short rest (say 30s) and repeating 6 - 8 times.

Those exercises would seem to have an obvious cross-over to tug of war but I would further add squats and push presses just to make the workout a bit more complete. Obviously you can switch this up a bit but the important thing is that the weight is heavy enough that you can only complete a low number of reps (like 3 - 6).

For grip I would say you seem to be going about it the right way. Try to increase your max grip strength with the grippers ( I presume you have heavy grippers BTW and not those ordinary sports shop ones). Buy some Captain of Crush Grippers if you don't have them. I would imagine you would be going straight to the #2 and #3 grippers. Also, it might be a good idea to get rope that's thicker than regulation to train with. Obviously, if you're doing alot of crushing grip training it's a good idea (from an injury prevention point of view) to work the flexors too. My favourite trick for working the fore-arm evenly is as follows;
Make a box about 15" x 15" x 4"height with one partly open side. Fill it with small stones, sand & clay (ends up like tough bread mixture) and then just basically mush it with your hands - gripping the mixture and then extending your fingers back out through it.

Just out of curiousity, what is the diet of a typical tug of war competitor like?

joejoem

t-ha wrote:

Just out of curiousity, what is the diet of a typical tug of war competitor like?

New Born Babies, Guinness and the odd virgin.


Maybe a goat, everyone loves a good goat.

justsomebloke

joejoem wrote:

New Born Babies, Guinness and the odd virgin.


Maybe a goat, everyone loves a good goat.

LOL, i see we still aren't giving any serious replies:D

Glenman

As regards diet, well you need to eat healthy but we don't follow a special diet which I suppose we should. The key is to keep the weight as low as possible in order to get the strongest team into the various weight categories. I would eat a good breakfast, 5 pieces of fruit a day and alway a good dinner with meat and spuds!!