I have not been in an event yet that did not feature at least one up and over wall that I was expected to hoist my aging carcass over. Most of the walls are in the 4' to 6' range and well within the grasp of your standard fit human being. It's those 8' and 10' foot suckers and beyond that can bring most running paces to an absolute stand still-hence, the often long lines as we wait to see how those folks in front of us are doing, and perhaps pick up a tip or two from those who did well.
Now, most course designers are accommodating souls and often the high walls have a teensy step or hand-hold along the side for those who don't feel up to tackling the wall mano y mano. There's no shame in admitting you don't quite have the vertical jump or upper-body hoisting down yet. If you're not there yet, use the training wheels this time and keep training for the next time.
Often these walls will feature good sorts who offer a knee, a hand, or shoulder to step on to get yourself over. Me, personally, I love this teamwork aspect of the game. My fondest memories are of a single handful of races where I spent upwards of a quarter hour boosting and shoving men and women overhead with abandon. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I just love the bonding aspect of these events.
With all that said let's get some technique under our muddy belts so we can tackle these all on our own.
Tip #1--Place your foot with care. Often high walls are approached by the uber-athlete with good speed (i.e., very little slow down) and a foot placed about hip to chest high to tic tac/assist on the initial reach--this resembles a sort of run into the wall and then up motion. This is an excellent tactic in parkour or in dry race conditions that I have used myself, but...
Remember that your shoes are going to be muddy?
Remember that hundreds of other muddy shoes have already dislodged their cleated loads against the very surface that you plan running directly into at speed?
I have been privy to seeing more than one competitor place that foot only to have it immediately slide askew leading to a less than cool head-on collision with the wall. Most of these collisions have been of the bump and bruise variety, but one led to some pretty impressive scalp bleeding and that image has stayed with me, and I switched to a jump and reach permanently after that day.
I'm not saying you can't use the foot on the wall jump up, just saying--be careful.
Tip #2--Jump Up. I use this to clear walls from 6-10".
Stand at the base of the wall (you don't have to stop your stride if you choose not to, just make sure you jump more up than in, or your knees will crack into that wall).
Jump as high as you can, reaching for the top of the wall with both hands.
As soon as your grip catches, aggressively pull upward until you can hit an elbow lever position-that is throw the crook of your arm (or your entire armpit) over the ledge to lock you into place.
Once you hit your elbow lever you have two ways to mount, that is get on top of the wall.
Numero One--Muscle-Up.
From your elbow lever position, lean into the wall so that your chest is on it.
Aggressively hit a quasi-bar-dip position bringing yourself to arms-extended position. This one is prime for those with good upper-body strength.
Numero Two--Heel Hitch
From your elbow lever position swing your leg (on the elbow-lever side) up and hook your heel or the inside of your knee on top of the wall.
Use the hitched heel or knee to pull your hips on top of the wall.
Whichever of the two methods you use you will find, with work, that you will be able to coordinate all three steps: jump, elbow lever, and muscle-up, or heel hitch into one smooth motion.
Now that we're on top of the wall let's talk dismounts.
We've got three ways to go here.
- Sight & Drop--The easiest of the dismounts if a little slow.
Cross over to the other side of the wall hanging in the bottom of a pull-up position.
Sight your landing (look before you leap). Please, look before you drop, God knows what might be on the other side, crew.
Let go and land with good form.
- Prop Vault--A speedy way to cross over the top but...perhaps iffy as the transition from mount to dis-mount is made so rapidly you may not have time to do a proper landing evaluation. With that said...
From the top of the wall, position yourself on the palms of both hands and the sole of the heel hitch foot on the wall.
Sight your landing and pass the un-hitched foot underneath the hitched leg.
Land with proper form.
The Prop Vault can be trained to become one smooth continuous motion but that just may be its deficit as you may become so proficiently smooth that you dampen the wise habit to stop and sight. But if you've got the smarts to remember to assess landings even when wet, muddy, and exhausted go for it.
3. The Hip Circle or Hip Roll. Another speedy way to cross that becomes one smooth motion and it has the benefit of allowing for landing assessment. The drawback-- the head-down position worries some folks.
Disclosure: I use the Hip Circle almost exclusively and have never had a problem with it.
I will describe how to hit the Hip Circle with your body passing to your left in this sequence.
From the top of the wall, grip the top of the wall with your right hand--fingers pointing behind you-towards the direction from which you came.
Lean your head and chest down towards your landing and place you left palm on the wall approximately 2-3' down the wall. The wall on the dismount side is usually markedly less muddy, sticking that palm to the wall has never been an issue for me even in rainy conditions.
Sight your landing and pulling with your top hand and pushing with your bottom hand allow your hips to roll your legs over the wall.
As your feet and knees come even with your bottom hand, release the wall with your top hand and stick proper landing form.
Again, the first method, while the slowest, is the surest for newbies. The second two are faster but require a bit more athleticism, but it's well worth working towards both of them.
