Tribute Training: The Hunger Games Workout Strategy

Spoiler Alert: If you have not read the Hunger Games Trilogy, you might want to do that before reading this post. If you don’t care or have read the books, ENJOY!

As long as you can find yourself, you will never starve. – The Hunger Games

5…4…3…2…1…

How would you like to know that as the time ticks closer to zero, you are getting closer to facing not only your possible fate, but that any and all efforts to (or not to) become a Beast in your life are about to be tested?

How would you like to know that when zero hits, you will be testing your body to its finite limits to try and survive?

How would you like to know that everything you have done up until this very moment to reach your physical and mental pinnacle will be tested in a battle royal to survive?

I don’t know about you, but the blood starts to flow for me.

This is what The Hunger Games are about and, in a small way, what your life is about.

The Hunger Games

A few weeks back, with the impending movie release of this random movie about some hungry people and some games or something, I read a short synopsis of the book The Hunger Games and decided to read the first book of the trilogy before everything truly good about the book leaked out with the movie.

About 8 days later, not only had I finished The Hunger Games, but Catching Fire and Mockingjay as well. Needless to say, I was hooked harder than a teenage girl at a Twilight convention.

Over those 8 days or so, I intently electronically flipped pages on my Kindle and salivated for whatever was to come next until that final page when I re-entered the real world from my slight nightlock-enduced death from the real world.

After reading the trilogy, I came away realizing that not only was this a political and societal masterpiece, but it truly shined a light on the aspects of pure survival and how we train for our death or for our life.

Throughout the majority of the books, there is a focus of survival within The Games themselves, but I like to look long before that. I like to see how the characters developed into people that thrived to survive the conditions outside of The Hunger Games.

How to Survive in the World of Panem

In District 12, Katniss breaks the law almost daily. She flees the gates of her district within Panem to support her family. Her father trained her to catch their own food so their family could make it in a controlled environment where what little rations one did receive from The Capitol cost them their name in the picking jar for The Games.

From Katniss’ youth, she was training. As you might watch in the film or read in the books, it may seem as though her training was just for food. For all intensive purposes, it was. But, let’s dig a bit deeper. Her training was a means of making her stronger. Sure, the food helped, but the physical condition she kept her body in (…spoiler coming…now) led to the ability to dominate The Hunger Games.

It’s amazing to me to think of the reversal of time, where humans go from hunter/gatherer livelihood to everything-is-made-with-corn fatness (if you don’t get it, that’s our time) and return to hunter/gatherer/baker livelihood. And besides having cool iPad’s and cars that go really fast, humankind thrived in terms of physical prowess in our early days on this big blue dot and Katniss and Gale in the perceived future thrived far greater by implementing the similar lifestyle all while that middle generation (US!) keeps getting fatter and lazier.

Here’s the good news (finally, I know), you don’t have to live in caves or sneak out of your Districts perimeter fencing to live at your physical pinnacle. All it takes is implementing the lifestyle approach that those during those times did (and will?!).

You can be the Katniss of our time minus all of the killing of other human beings and all. You can become the healthiest you. You can become a TRIBUTE!

The Hunger Games Workout Strategy

In the outskirts of District 12, the young woman Katniss became what we might think of as a decathlete. Sure, she could put an arrow through a bird 100 yards off, but where Katniss thrived was in the fact that she could survive in nature just as she later would in The Hunger Games. It took the decathlete mindset of not excelling at one thing, but being highly talented and skilled at a lot of things that led to her success in The Games and out of them.

The following are workouts that you too can implement to become a proper tribute.

Katniss Crawl

Slithering through the pond, across the forest floor, and near the Career Tributes base camp, Katniss crawled to safety time and time again. Though crawling may seem lazy, you try to do it for an extended period of time and you might rethink your answer. It’s pure lack of natural form that makes the feat difficult.

You can perform the Katniss Crawl workout by going to your nearest park and doing variations of crawls (i.e. bear crawl, army crawl) over specified distances (i.e. 10 yards, 20 yards, 50! yards). This will be tougher than you think, I guarantee it.

B-Line to the Beehive

Though it may sound weird to make a b-line to the beehive, Katniss unassumingly did just that and it probably saved her life.

Thanks to the Career Tributes on the prowl, Katniss took a b-line up a tree where she found the tree sitting beside her hosting her ally-to-be Rue. The beehive ends up taking the Career Tributes out thanks to Rue’s suggestion to knock it down. They key to this entire scene was the pure fact Katniss had the ability to climb the tree to safety in the first place.

You can learn these tree climbing skills by heading to your local gym that might have a climbing rope.

Backpack Bullets

As the clock hit zero for The Hunger Games to begin, the tributes dashed to the provided backpacks that would save/hinder their chance at survival. Unfortunately (fortunately?) for Katniss, she was in a daze and missed out on getting to the best backpacks. She still took a full sprint to the nearest backpack and darted for the woods after a bit of struggle with a dead-tribute-walking.

You can implement the backpack bullet strategy by filling an old gym bag or old backpack half way with sand then placing about 25 yards away. Sprint for the backpack as if you were Katniss trying to get the only supplies possible. Pick up the backpack and sprint back with it to your start. Drop the backpack and run back to where you picked the backpack up the first time. Repeat.

If you aren’t as winded as Katniss after her first day at The Hunger Games, you must have won The Hunger Games at some point.

Climb the Cornucopia

To survive the pursuit of the tribute mutts, Katniss, Peeta and Cato flee to the cornucopia where all of the fun began. They climbed the large structure to rid themselves of the beasts.

You can leave the mutts behind too by hitting up a local rock climbing gym and gripping onto whatever you can to rise above the danger below. Sure, it may not seem as dangerous as The Hunger Games, but the workout it gives you will be more than enough to get your heart rate up.

Let Your Training Begin

Fingers crossed, we never come to a point where we are in need of such physical fitness to survive some random reality television show deathmatch. However, if that day comes, you might just be ready to survive your own Hunger Games through the strategies detailed here at Become a Beast.

(image sources: 1 / 2 / 3)