Strength Endurance/Strength, Soreness, Etc.

Alright, here’s my basic situation. For the past 2.5 years my main focus has been on maximal strength and relative strength, with some work on strength endurance while participating in martial arts. I’ve been in the national guard while attending college, and am now going active duty. 2.5 years ago in Junior college I could score a 300+, but in the desire to gain size, I changed my goals. I now regularly score 250 or more, but am not where I need to be to attain my goal of 300. For those not familiar with army PT scores, 300 consists of 75 push-ups, 80 sit-ups, and 13.00 min run.
I’ve been conducting PT 3 days a week with the cadets, so those days are pretty much limited to whatever is planned. On off days I lift weights, mostly back (pull-ups/rows) shoulders, triceps, and ab work, with lifts such as the hang clean, with cardio work such as stair running (40 flights or more) or treadmill or rowing. My rep parameters on those days are generally 5-8 reps, with 3-5 sets, resting 30-60 seconds between sets.
Anybody have any suggestions on exercises or workout parameters for off-days? Or should I also start working out twice a day on certain days, doing a hard work-out easy work-out type of program?
My other question was about soreness. Currently I rarely experience DOMS. I realize one shouldn’t guage their progress based on soreness, but as stated in Chad Waterburies article about soreness, certain people, such as myself, should train themselves to work through certain levels of soreness. Any thoughts on this?

no thoughts or suggestions at all? Or is my post unclear?

Drew

what branch are you going, and is your only goal to max the APFT?

As a member of the Army 300+ club, my suggestion is keep working on those three basics. My very first PT test, I scored a 260, would have been nice if my recruiter told me that would have gotten me rank, but whatever. By time I finished AIT I was in the club. Superiors in the Military love guys who can max the PT, it makes em look good on paper. Which one are you falling short on? For me it was the run…But I finally got my run below 13:00…here are some of my basic suggetstions. Situps, catch the rhythm of the bounce. Pushups, just barely break paralel. Run, RUN LIKE A SOB UNTIL YOU FEEL LIKE YOU"LL DROP DEAD AND THEN RUN HARDER!!!

Take a look into kettlebells for some cross training experience. Guys I threw the idea at some guys on campus and they started seeing big improvements on their PT tests by incorporating kettlebells into their PT training. You can drop down for some pushups and then go into some swings/snatches in between pushups.

props for serving your country,
tridub

I’ve been away for awhile, sorry bout that. I’m in the army, was accessed into ordnance corps (argh). Main goal is to max the apft, a right now i’m back to 90 or more in each event. thanks for the tips, I’ve been looking into kettlebells, and have incorporated some of the exercises into my workout.