BUILT FOR MEN? THEN EXPLAIN THE WOMEN ON THE PODIUMS.

Following The Midwest OCR, Dana received a few comments suggesting that the race was “built for men.”

It’s a criticism they hear after almost every race, and it needs to be addressed because repeating something does not eventually make it true.

Obstacle course racing is not built for men.

It is built for capable athletes.

If The Midwest OCR were truly designed for one gender, it would be difficult to explain all the women who continue to conquer its obstacles, finish its courses and fill its podiums. These women are not succeeding because somebody made the race easier for them. They are succeeding on the same course that supposedly proves the race was built for men.

Their performances do not support that narrative.

They destroy it.

I volunteered at The Midwest OCR, and I have coached some absolutely incredible women in this sport for well over a decade. During that time, I have watched women outperform men on obstacles more times than I could possibly count—especially when those obstacles become highly technical.

Yes, men are generally bigger and possess more absolute upper-body strength. That is biology, and acknowledging it is not controversial. But OCR has never been a bench-press competition with some running thrown between sets.

Pull-ups and bench presses won’t get you to the bell, bro.

Technical obstacles require grip endurance, coordination, balance, timing, body awareness, foot placement and the ability to position your center of mass correctly. They demand that you understand how to create momentum and transfer force through your entire body instead of attempting to curl your way through every transition.

Science actually supports much of what experienced OCR coaches have watched for years.

Research on muscular fatigue has repeatedly found that women are often more fatigue-resistant than men during sustained or repeated muscular contractions, although the size of that advantage depends on the specific task. That becomes extremely relevant during a long race where athletes must repeatedly grip, pull, carry and climb after fatigue has already started changing how they move. 

Research into climbing performance tells us something else that should sound familiar to anyone who understands technical OCR: success cannot be explained by raw strength alone. Relative strength, finger endurance, hip mobility, balance, efficient movement, footwork and control of the body’s center of mass all contribute to performance. Skilled climbers conserve energy by maintaining stability, shifting their weight correctly and initiating movement through the legs. 

In other words, biceps don’t win races, bro.

But the hips you didn’t know you had might.

Women often display exceptional body mechanics because many of them learned early that muscling through every obstacle was never going to be the most effective option. They learned to use their hands appropriately. They learned to rotate their hips. They learned when to extend, when to compress and when to let momentum perform work that their arms should never have been asked to do alone.

Meanwhile, some guy is still hanging under the first third of the rig doing a strict pull-up on every grip because he has confused making an obstacle look difficult with being good at it.

You can usually spot him because he is the one shaking out his arms while the woman who used her entire body is already ringing the bell.

None of this means that every woman will outperform every man. That would be just as dishonest as claiming every man should outperform every woman. Individuals arrive with different athletic backgrounds, physical characteristics, experience levels and technical abilities.

That is precisely the point.

OCR exposes individuals—not genders.

A poorly trained man is still poorly trained. A technically gifted woman is still technically gifted. A large upper body can be an advantage on one obstacle and an expensive piece of luggage on the next. A smaller athlete may have to generate more momentum to reach a distant grip, but may also carry less mass across every hold. Longer arms can shorten one transition while creating a disadvantage in a compressed position.

Every athlete must solve the course with the body they brought to the starting line.

That is obstacle course racing.

Could individual obstacles be tougher on different athletes? Absolutely. An obstacle can favor height, reach or absolute strength so heavily that technique has very little opportunity to influence the outcome. Race directors like Aaron and Dana have always been determined to examine those obstacles, just as they should evaluate safety, flow and whether a challenge tests the ability it was intended to test.

But a difficult obstacle is not automatically a sexist obstacle.

Failure is not proof of discrimination.

Sometimes the obstacle exposed a weakness. Sometimes the athlete lacked the necessary technique. Sometimes fatigue caused an otherwise capable athlete to make a mistake. Sometimes the answer really is that you need to train more.

That applies to men too, although we rarely hear a man claim that an obstacle was “built for women” after watching a technically superior woman move through it while he falls into the crash pad.

Instead, we tend to invent excuses. Her hands were smaller. She weighed less. The obstacle favored flexibility. She had better hips.

Yes.

Those are called athletic attributes.

We never apologize when strength, power, height or reach benefits a male athlete, so we should not diminish a woman’s performance when mobility, efficiency, fatigue resistance or superior body awareness benefits her. Using what your body gives you is not getting around the obstacle.

It is the entire purpose of the obstacle.

The women standing on The Midwest OCR podiums are not exceptions who somehow survived a race built against them. They are evidence of what happens when strong, skilled and prepared athletes are given a legitimate challenge.

They adapted. They solved problems. They moved efficiently. They earned their results.

The course was not built for men.

It was built to expose people who believed strength could replace skill.

Apparently, some of them are still upset about it.