WOW, two 91w10 (combat medics)(if in the army) on T-Nation. How kick ass is that. Let me tell you something about lifting weights, scoring high on apft, and doing army pt. These are all hard things to balance, now come in constant short notice missions, often lack of food and rest, and you are now working out while deployed. Not easy. The only way you can make it is bust your ass, try to eat and workout ass best you can, and hold on!!
When I started lifting seriously I weighed 145 at an honest 8-9% body fat. I was scoring 285-290 on the apft(109 pushuos, 87 situps, and 12:38 2 mile. Then I decided I wanted to get bigger, so I started busting my ass. I now weigh 178 at about 15-16 bf. I gained quick but it hurt my apft score badly. I lifted alot of basic power and mass lifts, high weight, low rep. Squats, deads, snatch, presses, rows…
I got awhole lot stronger, looked better, could firemans carry a 245 lb guy 50 yards, but my apft dropped badly!!! (went to 73 pushups, 71 situps,and ran 14:11)
So now I can tell you what worked for me. I found that if I have 3 cardio days it works well. The army will usually make you run at least 2- weekly anyway. So you run then and on the 3rd day you do circuit training. For me this worked awesome!!! I would do a 1hr pt session of circuits consisting of pushups, situps, ruck squats, ruck throws, 25 m sprints, llunges… Doing this allows to to improve on pushups, sit ups, wholebody exercises, and build mucle while doing a hell of a cardio workout!My routine basically stayed the same except for adding that day and busting ass on it.
I also re-worked my run. I found what pace I wanted to run my 2-mile at. Being heavier and still wanting to bulk I picked 13:00 min. So I starting running 1 mile at that pace. Then every week I would add 1/4 mile staying at the same pace. I got to where I could run 3.0-3.5 miles almost around a 13:30- 14:00 pace (god i hate running!!!) If you do this you will smoke the apft. It was like running a 100 m dash when i ran the 2mile timed! I ran a 13:02 (god i hate running) did 97pushups, and 85 situps. Weighing in at 176 at 5’5.
So that is what I did that worked very well for me. It was not easy though. I remeber getting up 2 days after a leg day when I could barely walk and having to run a 5k (radar hill) run. We got some damn steep hills over here!!!So good luck and just remeber these.
- Always bust ass
- Eat and rest as best as possible.
- Work situps and pushups to failure into your workout.
- Run, not on an eliptical, no bikes, go run, it sucks but you have to!!!
- Always bust ass.
- It will be hard, You will have days where you are sore ass hell and you have to go do morning p.t. but you just have to make do and keep a good attitude.
This is all i got for now combat, let me add that lifting made my job as a medic better in almost every way, I can do manual caries longer on bigger guys,carry my ruck,aid bag, flackvest,and lbe (about90-120lbs total)for longer and move better with it all on. can roadmarch better, (did a 25k hill march with 65 lbs in 3:19 1mo ago) everything physical is alot better.
Note: A ruck or duffle can be a great tool, filem with rocks, mre’s, sand… and you can lift em, squat em, toss em, run with them, sprint with them, do pushups with em… they are awesome for your cicuit day.
Note: Dont worry about training for combat…you have adrenaline for that. =*)
Well i hope this is usefull for you. If you have any other questions let me know. Good luck
Soldier Medic
Dastang