T Nation

Training for Military

Beginners
#1

Hey all,

I am joining the military in about May I believe. It was supposed to be January but the job became full so I have to wait until the next round of picks then I’ll be in. But I kind of see this as a sign however that I should get in a lot better shape. That way I’ll be ready to dominate others at basic training and try to top my coarse.

As of right now I am 5’6 and 146 lbs. No idea what my body fat percentage is and it doesn’t really matter to me at this point. What I want to accomplish in this training phase is just to get a strong as I possibly can and build a good base to start with. Also since I’m joining the military and all cardio will be of some importance. As long as I can run 3Km and get a 10 on the beep test will be fine for me until I get there. If I can do better than that then so be it.

I have some experience in the gym but not that much. Just go when I can here and there. But Now I’m going to be making the time to go and really focus on training. Alough part of my job is doing things that require me to travel… mostly to hotels with a run down treadmill and a broken universal. I will be trying to avoid those trips as much as I can and seek out gyms while I’m there.

Being a beginner and all I will read the almighty beginners articles. And from what I’ve heard starting strength will be the recommended plan of choice. But just not sure if it will be right for what I’m trying to do(Although I haven’t read it yet so it could be perfect for what I want, I just don’t know). I will be willing to update the log weekly or even daily if that is what is requested in order to help me the best all you can.

It is late and I have to get up early, which I know is not a good start to the training. But I will be checking tomorrow to see what all advice has been conjured up.

Thanks In Advance,

Cody

#2

How old are you

#3

Are you Canadian by any chance? I just went through basic a little under a year ago and if there’s one thing I should have trained more it’s holding a push up plank. And if you want to earn top athlete in your course running is your best bet, sprinting in particular. Strength isn’t even half as important as endurance in the activities you’ll be doing.

Your ability to keep pushing and to recover quickly is key, train with that in mind. Of course strength training is always a benefit and shouldn’t be neglected, it just shouldn’t be the focal point of your training.

#4

You know, you don’t need to do much. The Drills on the trail will take care of you. Yes they will. Enjoy your time with your friends, girlfriend, family, right hand, whatever before you go. Because boot camp is going to suck for you, and the younger you are, the more it is going to suck (lots of young guys crying the first few nights away from home - hey it happens).

You’ll get plenty of workout time, every day, even waiting in line to eat, right before bed. Sometimes in the middle of the night. Every time anyone f’s up you’ll get a chance to work on them muscles.

I was a fatbody 27 year old smoker when I shipped out, I left Benning lean and the civilian clothing I brought with me looked like potato sacks when I wore 'em. Trying to get in good shape before going there would have been pointless; you will be pushed to your limits. And you’ll look back on it all fondly, even though it sucks while you are going through it.

#5

What job/branch/country? Age?

#6

I’m a former Marine, have no idea what branch you’re going in to. But above is good advice, I went in at the young ripe age of 18… and to say the least it was a slap in the face (with reality). Spend time with family and friends, as much as you can.

As far as training goes. Bootcamp or basic training (wherever you go), is the worlds most catabolic event. Forget trying to get big and ripped, won’t happen. You’ll be smaller, an endurance machine, able to fall asleep anywhere, eat anything, and fairly more humble a person when you’re done. So my advice to you is just run, do sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and swimming (if you’re going USMC or Navy). If you really really want to train hard for it, I would suggest finding/Google the “BUD/S Warning Order.” That will get you in more than enough shape and will carry over fine to what you’ll be doing.

Good luck, stay positive, make the best of it, don’t take anything too seriously, and you will be fine.

#7

What Evolv said. When I went through basic 20 years ago, the only things I wish I’d done to prep were:

  1. run my ass off to build endurance
  2. gotten my pushups to the point that I could do 20 in my sleep
  3. gotten my pullups to the point where I could do 10 in my sleep
  4. gotten my situps to 100 in 2 minutes.

Of course, I ended up doing all those things in basic. It would’ve been a lot easier had I already been able to do them, though. :slight_smile:

#8

run. eat. pushups/situps. eat. jumping jacks and 8 count body-builders!! eat. run. sleep. That’s pretty much it…

I joined the NAVY ummm, 12 years ago(dang, I’m old!!) and those are most of the things I did while in bootcamp, that I wished I would have done a little before I went…but they make sure you keep up! :wink:

#9

I’m 19. I know endurance and all that is very important and I don’t want to be big and ripped. I want to be strong and have lots of muscular endurance. Doing mostly body weight exercises is what I was thinking as well. Along with rowing and running for cardio.

#10

What branch did you join?

By the way, don’t come in thinking you’re going to dominate your peers. That’s the wrong attitude. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s good that you want to do well on the physical aspect of it, but that’s a small part. Put it into perspective because once you graduate from basic training, nobody is gonna care how well you did. Neither should you.

#11

[quote]zugzwang wrote:
What branch did you join?

By the way, don’t come in thinking you’re going to dominate your peers. That’s the wrong attitude. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s good that you want to do well on the physical aspect of it, but that’s a small part. Put it into perspective because once you graduate from basic training, nobody is gonna care how well you did. Neither should you.

[/quote]

Might make the drills yell at him less. For PT, anyway.

Or, if you have a sadistic drill (I did), you’ll end up doing all sorts of extra PT since they can’t derive satisfaction from watching you suffer with everyone else.

#12

You will build endurance but I find that in ROTC at least physical fitness is a good thing. Don’t act like there is no competition in the military because I think it is like a constant competition among your peers. A friendly competition but still you do want to go in with every advantage. It seems that the more physically fit you are the less you have to worry about physical challenges and you can spend more time concentrating on technical problems. When you said three km and beep drills im going to assume that your not enlisting in the US military. Besides I believe that if your MOS is full we will still send you through basic.

As was said before Endurance is really important but on road marches and stuff like that you can only go as fast as the slowest person so and average endurance athlete with a strong upper body will stand out more than a marathon runner (they can actually be really annoying because they end up as run group leaders and don’t realize some of us are not 6’1 and 160lbs)

Your training is up to you, obviously I haven’t gone through basic so I cant tell you about the whole missing family thing. But if you spend so much time training that you cant spend time with your family, that’s impressive. Good luck, try to remember to have a life outside of the military a bunch of my enlisted friends are so hung up on army stuff they’re hard to hang out with.

#13

I am Joining the Canadian Air Force… And it’s not that I want to dominate them all the PT part, and I don’t think I am going to. But having the idea to be better not just at the PT but the drill, and studying as well, is the fact that it will keep me motivated to be the best that I can be. And I don’t care whether or not I would get any satisfaction from other people from doing well or not. The satisfaction that I get from my self knowing I did the best I could and never held back is that satisfaction I’m looking for at basic.

I don’t need to prove to anyone other than myself who I am. They will probably also respect the person who comes in knowing that they will train that person for the military and having the motivation to push through every single thing more than the punk who comes in thinking he is king shit and that whatever they will say he already knows or is too good and is just wasting their time.

I’m going into the military to better myself for myself. And that’s all there is to it.

#14

And I am not training all the time and not making room for family/friends…ect. I still have plenty of time away from my current job and and training that I hang out with friends/family every day. I don’t plan on being a marathon runner and Being able to do 150 pushups. I just want to be all around in good shape so I am prepared for whats coming.

#15

Sorry, I came off a bit hot.

Like everyone else said, I would focus on your core body weight exercises, as those are the ones you’ll be tested over. Lots and lots of repetitions, like 200 push-ups a day. Do a set of 15 every hour. That’s one way anyways. There’s actually a ton of different programs for increasing your push-ups. Pick the one that you think will work best for you, and go with it. Progression is all that matters in the end.

Running is the same way. Might want to start out 20 minutes a day of slow running, and increase it 5 minutes every two weeks. Slower if you need more time to adapt. I’d recommend about a third of your running time doing high intensity running, between 3k-5k speeds. Break it up into intervals, fartlek, or just all out. All these methods have different pros/cons.

You don’t need to be too elaborate though. Most important thing is to be aware of your goals and make sure what your doing is working toward that goal. If you want to increase pull-ups, do more pull-ups. Simple as that.

#16

If you’re going to St Jean practice your stair climbing, I’ve never been there but I’m told you’ll be going up and down alot.