Benjamin Bunn, CrossFit affiliate owner at Cigar City CrossFit in Tampa, FL, has a Special Forces background and unique respect for rucking. He spent over sixteen years in the army and about half of that in Special Forces. “A big part of training in Special Forces is utilization of the ruck. It’s hard work and tough work, but it’s very rewarding and it’s something that’s an anchor for training in Special Forces. Having this ruck, doing this hard work and oftentimes more than physicality, it takes a lot of heart.”
At a recent competition, The Combine, Bunn decided to incorporate rucking into one of the workouts. He reached out to GORUCK to develop a ruck-based workout that looked like this:
1.5 mile ruck // 200m row // 100cal on the assault bike
While weighted runs are common in CrossFit workouts, the utilization of the ruck is not as common. Bunn thought it would add a new kind of challenge to the two-day competition he hosted at Cigar City CrossFit, called the Combine, and he hopes to continue integrating it into his programming on a regular basis.
“For our most recent competition, we teamed up with GORUCK and we’ve got all of our athletes this year utilizing a ruck in an endurance event on day two. I think it’s very interesting and for sure very challenging for the athletes.”
And in both Rucking and CrossFit, beer tastes better at the finish line.