All About Mud Fighting and Mud Runs
Playing in the mud isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Many people dislike that they get so dirty, and it can take a long time to clean yourself and your clothes. On the other hand, there are a bunch of people who enjoy mud baths.
Yup, these baths or mud pools allow you to dip your entire body into the mud. Now, we know you’re wondering who would want to do that, and the answer is people who know the benefits of mud.
Children aren’t wrong — playing with mud is fun! Even though it’s dirty, mud can help you strengthen your body and mind. So, how does that happen? To answer that question, we’ll tell you all about the benefits of mud fighting and mud runs.
These mud exercises are a lot less competitive and harmful than they sound. Mud fights don’t encourage participants to hurt each other, and mud runs are all about overcoming obstacles as a team.
Many people don’t even know about these exercises, and if you’re one of them, we’ll tell you why you should step out of your comfort zone and get muddy.
You Improve Your Immune System
We’re sure you know all about the importance of exercising already. Your doctors tell you to take a 30-minute walk every day, parents tell you to leave the room, and you never forget the things your P.E. teacher put you through. So, why are all these people insisting you exercise? That’s because it can help you boost your immune system.
What we usually know about exercise is that it helps you strengthen your body and mind, but mud exercises take it a step further. One of the benefits of mud exercises is boosting your immune system through rigorous training. Don’t let that scare you because, remember, playing in the mud is fun.
So, how does it work? When you do mud activities, your body releases the messenger molecules, i.e., cytokines and chemokines. These are the same molecules that your innate immune system produces as a response to pathogens. Basically, these molecules let your body know that something is happening.
Additionally, strengthening your body and mind will directly affect your immune system. So, if you catch a cold more often than you’d like, playing in the mud might be the solution you were looking for.
These Activities Strengthen Your Mental Health
One of the benefits of mud runs is mental health improvement. It’s important to say that mud activities won’t cure your depression. However, they’ll be able to help you strengthen your mind and maybe even see the world in a different light. How does it happen? Well, mud runs are the same as life itself — both have a lot of obstacles. Plus, doing a mud run is all but easy. This is especially the case if you get stuck. During mud runs, you’re constantly challenging and pushing yourself, and that takes some serious mental power.
Mud activities are great for people who want to jump out of their comfort zone and rid themselves of potentially toxic habits. One of these habits can be the desire to control everything. You never know how things are going to go during mud activities, and you’re always dirty. There’s nothing you can do about these things but deal with them.
Another thing mud activities offer is the unknown. Throwing yourself into the unknown is scary for most people, but that’s what stepping out of your comfort zone is all about. This will definitely help strengthen your mind in the long run.
Enhances Your Team Work, Cooperation, and Social Skills
As you now know, mud activities are a team effort. This is the case even when it comes to mud runs. Many people think that these are competitive races where it’s every man for themselves. However, this kind of thinking can’t be more wrong. Mud runs are all about team effort and cooperation. That’s why mud activities are great team-building activities, whether you’re a company or just want to strengthen the teamwork in your group of friends.
Even when you do mud activities alone, you’re bound to meet so many people. Since we’re talking about team efforts, you’ll have to learn how to work with people you don’t know. This naturally means you’ll make a lot of new friends. This is how mud activities help your social skills and enrich your friend circle.
Everyone knows that getting stuck in the mud or on an obstacle isn’t fun. This is when you’ll learn that you can rely on complete strangers to help you out. Similarly, you’ll want to help out these strangers, too. So, mud activities are a great way for you to find new like-minded friends or romantic interests.
Improves Body Shape and Performance
While working out in your local gym seems fun for a while, it can easily become boring. Even when you’re doing different exercises, there’s nothing to make things entertaining. If you want to lose weight or improve body performance in a fun way, you should try mud activities. For example, mud runs are a great choice if you’re looking to improve body shape and performance. These runs are a couple of miles long before you’re faced with obstacles. These obstacles can be going through deep mud, crawling, climbing, etc.
Whatever it may be, you’re constantly on the move, and that’s what matters most. The fun thing is that mud runs are never the same. So, you never really know which obstacle is next, and you can’t prepare for it. This puts your body through a lot of positive stress, forcing it to improve performance and lose unnecessary body fat.
Not to mention, you’ll feel motivated and encouraged by other people that are in the same kind of mud as you. They’re all there to improve and will help you do the same. Just when you think you’re about to give up, someone will pull you up on your feet. That’s just the beauty of mud activities.
Enhances Your Strength and Endurance
Simply put, there’s no better strength training than playing in the mud. Life often makes us think that there’s only so much we can take. However, all of that changes once we improve our endurance. Mud exercises help you enhance both your physical and mental endurance by putting you through a tough course.
While you may try finishing the course on your own, the people around you are what will push you further. That’s what these exercises are really all about — the people around you. They’ll help you push yourself to and through your limits.
At the same time, you’ll enhance your overall strength. No gym exercise can work your entire body like this. With every muscle in your body working, you’ll notice a significant difference in your strength. The best way to measure this is to go on another mud run or wrestling match.
Don’t be afraid to get dirty. Mud exercises offer too many benefits for you to skip on just because of a bit of dirt under your fingernails. Don’t believe us? Find mud activities near you and see for yourself.