Hey guys. A little background, I was big into powerlifting in high school and I love training but now I’m going to college and want to go Army ROTC. I weigh around 215, I’m a fairly muscular guy, I’ve benched 380 and squatted in the 520 area but other than football conditioning I never ran much. I’ve got a scholarship locked up, I just have to pass the pt test.
I went to take it monday on extremely short notice and failed miserably (except push ups of course) lol I’m going to take it again on August 10t.h I’ve done some form of cardio every day since then in the forms of long distance running (1.5 miles is long to me right now) and interval training. First question, would doing 10-15 minutes of HIIT in the morning and then longer distance training in the afternoon be too much?
Second, can I do some form of cardio every day? And third, can anyone recommend a weight training program that will help? I’ve been doing DC for around a year and a half and love it, but I feel it takes me in the opposite direction of my goal now.
I’m taking in around 2600 cals with 200 g of protein and sub 100 carbs and trying to eat as clean as possible. I know its not all that much but I really feel like dropping some bulk, hopefully mostly fat, will be beneficial to my progress.
you are young and used to training hard, so training twice a day might not be too much but RUNNING twice a day probably will be.
i doubt training twice a day is necessary. maybe a couple few days a week you could do that if you really want to, but one hard, productive workout a day should do you pretty good though - especially because you should be losing fat with the macro ratios you are on. and unless you are already quite lean, losing some fat will probably help your running quite a bit.
the thing about the APFT is that its very focused - just a run, situps, and pushups. thats all. no cleans, deadlifts, pullups, sprints, anything. so your training for it right now should be quite focused.
I’d do LSD runs probably twice a week (maybe 3 if your legs can handle it) and also do sprints or hills twice a week. Keep up your routine a couple days a week also - maybe focusing less on heavy lifts and more on complexes and high-rep OL lift - and do pushups and situps during your warmup and after your workout. keep your diet dialed in, of course.
before long you’ll be able to pass the APFT and if you keep working towards it eventually you’ll max it out. once you get used to running and situps you’ll probably find the APFT silly easy and you’ll figure out how to work hard at strength training and general conditioning and still do well on the APFT whenever it comes up.
I was in the Canadian Army years and years ago and if I could tell myself what to do before I joined it would’ve been run 30 mins on Monday and Wednesday and do a 2 mile fast run every Friday.
It wouldn’t hurt to do some 400m sprints on a Tuesday or Thursday but I wouldn’t do them both days.
I’d do 3 or 4 sets of 25 push ups and sit ups before and after each run.
I’d put on the ruck sack and put about 50lbs in it and go for an hour walk on Sundays.
I was about 210lbs or so back then and I did my 2 mile fitness test in just over 14 minutes and I didn’t do all the stuff I just recommended, I think I did 2 shitty 15 minute runs per week and was going to the gym. I’m not really sure how much squatting and benching could help with the army. I mean it’s great to be strong, but that kind of strength wouldn’t help too much. Chin ups would be a good idea.
Oh, most importantly, for my own motivation I’d tell myself to read “Starship Troopers” by Robert A Heinlein!
[quote]Tyrus63 wrote:
Hey guys. A little background, I was big into powerlifting in high school and I love training but now I’m going to college and want to go Army ROTC. I weigh around 215, I’m a fairly muscular guy, I’ve benched 380 and squatted in the 520 area but other than football conditioning I never ran much. I’ve got a scholarship locked up, I just have to pass the pt test.
I went to take it monday on extremely short notice and failed miserably (except push ups of course) lol I’m going to take it again on August 10t.h I’ve done some form of cardio every day since then in the forms of long distance running (1.5 miles is long to me right now) and interval training. First question, would doing 10-15 minutes of HIIT in the morning and then longer distance training in the afternoon be too much?
Second, can I do some form of cardio every day? And third, can anyone recommend a weight training program that will help? I’ve been doing DC for around a year and a half and love it, but I feel it takes me in the opposite direction of my goal now.
I’m taking in around 2600 cals with 200 g of protein and sub 100 carbs and trying to eat as clean as possible. I know its not all that much but I really feel like dropping some bulk, hopefully mostly fat, will be beneficial to my progress. [/quote]
If your training for Army ROTC then HIIT will not benefit you. You should be running 400m at mile goal pace and either actively walking 400m rest or jogging it back for atleast the 2 mile run. I’m not sure if you had to take the pull up portion of the test but if you did the best way is to drop fat… train for the event using overhand grip and take the test using underhand grip that worked best for me. Sit ups usually come with weight loss and practice thats about it. do timed sets and pyramid sets.
Fartlek training is the best way to increase 2 mile time. run fast as long as you can and then cut back to a slow jog then keep repeating. its sort of like interval training but without any set time or distance limits. another way that worked good for me was if your doing the even and training on an actual track as opposed to a road course… run faster than goal pace on the straight aways and jog a little bit under pace speed around the corners.
in the army you have to be ready to take atleast 2 tests a year with no notice at all. depending on if you actually enlist, each unit has their own extra standards and can give you a test as much as they want. so be ready big dog.
Yeah I’m completely open to changing my lifestyle for what I want to do. In high school it was all about getting as big as possible, so this is a change but in the end I think it will be worth it. I just want to be the best that I can be and go as far as I can while im in the military. Another thing, I tore my acl last november and I can squat and run withot real discomfort all ready but do any of you army guys know how would it affect my chances for ranger school/sf? It’s 4 years down the road but I’m just curious…