No kidding? Small world. I actually turned down West Point for Navy, looking back if I had to do it again I think I would of chosen the Army route. Went Navy because the whole family is marines, what I always wanted to do, but after getting more exposure to all the different communities I really started to like some of the Army roles. Looking into maybe cross commissioning but the brass aren’t big fans of that the past few years, we haven’t had a midshipman go army in…6 years? Maybe 7? Something like that.
Honestly, thought Marines until last summer, all I ever wanted was infantry. Spent some time on a sub and it made me question a bit, I just found I really liked the community. Spending a bit of time with Marines and Subs this summer, should help me get a better feel for what i want to enter for service preferences. No real bad options, I’m will be happy with whatever I end up getting, just trying to figure out which one I would like most
First off, props on dropping 50lbs in 5.5 months. That’s a great start.
Like everyone else said, sprints are awesome, but you need to do more long runs and calisthenics for the task at hand. If I were you I’d readjust a little bit and tailor your training more towards being a PT beast. Maybe something like:
Day 1: Track 1
PT run
Calisthenics
Day 2: Weight training 1
Day 3: Track 2
Sprints
Calisthenics
Day 4: weight training 2
Day 5: Track 3
PT run
Calisthenics
This is just a skeleton outline obviously, you can find a metric shit tonne of different run/calisthenics/sprint progressions online. As you progress you could probably add in a ruck march on day 6 or 7. I’m not well versed in navy boot camp, but I imagine they still do rucks, and if you don’t prepare your feet and back for them they’ll fuck you up. Just don’t run yourself into the ground because it’s not productive. Idk how you plan to add in 4 WODs on top of all this. It sounds brutal and kind of overkill. If I were you I’d wait til after basic when you don’t have such specific fitness goals.
As far as lifting you could probably do a 2-day/ wk full body 5/3/1 template or CTs built for bad strength circuits. Idk how long you have until you ship, but the closer you get to your ship date I’d start shifting the weight training more towards “bodybuilder” training to build a lactic threshold and pain tolerance, cuz that’s pretty much all basic is lol. And make sure you take a deload week leading up to your ship date so you’ll be fresh and ready to crush it.
As for diet: I’m entirely unqualified to give any advice lol. For a 265 lb dude that’s training as much as you are 1800cals sounds really low, but if it works for you, that’s all that matters.
To clarify, I talked to a recruiter a few months ago when I was up around 285, and he told me to come back when I weighed 250. From there he would do some prelim assessments and potentially start the application process for the nuclear program. So, I don’t have a ship date or anything like that.
My thoughts with the sprint workouts was that it would help me get to a lower weight, we’re running distances would not be as hard on my body.
The standards to get a “good” rating at OCS would be 41/31/13:45 for sit/push/1.5mi run. That would probably be my goal to be able to do before I “ship”.
From my understanding, the process for the nuclear program application is about 2-3 months from start to finish, so once I drop another 15 lb, I’ll go to the recruiter, and then start adding long (5k?) runs to my workouts once or twice a week.
I’m going to try to stick to 2000 cal or so, and add some rice and sweet potatoes into the mix, and see how I feel and how the scale moves.
I really do appreciate all the advice, I work a third shift job doing work that he’s not at all interesting to me. So I have a good amount of free time and I’m just trying to make the best of it. I’m definitely excited about getting into much better shape, potentially working with what I studied in school, pun not intended, and being able to do a meaningful job.
Ah, I was assuming you were going through basic training. If you were the above strategy would be fine. OCS is a different animal though. Basic isn’t a competition, which leads people to “stay under the radar” and sandbag it to just meet the requirements to graduate. OCS IS a competition though. You want to be as close to the top of the class as possible. The goal shouldn’t be to pass the test, it should be to max it out.
The idea that sprints are a better fat loss tool is a point of contention lol. Fat loss is 90% diet. Even so, like I said, sprints are awesome and an excellent conditioning tool, which is why in the example I gave above still has you doing em once a week. But specificity is an Important training principle. 99% of people that are really good at calisthenics and running do a lot of calisthenics and running. I’m like you, I love HIIT and heavy weight training, but if my goal was to ace a PT test my training would reflect that, and I would begin preparations asap.
To help keep your sanity you could periodize your training into 4-8 week blocks where the focus switches between long runs/calisthenics-centered blocks and sprints/weight training-centered blocks.
(Not trying to come off as confrontational or argumentative, just wanna make sure you get the best score possible lol)
Your workout plan looks good to me, maybe a little low on volume but you are trying to maintain strength while prepping for OCS (unless I read that wrong?). This lifting routine plus the 100 pushup program and 100 situp program would make for a great OCS prep in my opinion. The sprint workouts are similar to what I would recommend (and have used) to improve the 1.5 run. A mile and a half is not an endurance event, it’s a pretty short run all things considered. My last official PRT run time was right around 9:30, at 37 years old - I got there using 400m repeats (hard run 400m, rest XX, do it again), decreasing my rest times each progressive workout - I have done as low as 45 sec rest periods between bouts with no significant increase in lap times. Some advice on this type of track workout: the first couple times, start a little slower than you feel like you should until you find a challenging pace that you can maintain. 400 is a long way for an all-out sprint, think of it more like a hard running pace for that distance. The point is a challenging pace you can hold steady for the whole lap, and have fairly consistent lap times across the workout (no more than a few seconds variation between laps).
Once you get approved and ship to OCS, you are there. The only way you don’t get commissioned is if you quit or fail something. The only reason competition will matter is if they allow you to pick your first assignment based on class rankings. Like I tell guys heading to BUDS or SWCC, you want to be one of two guys when you get there - top 10, or grey man. Top 10 is self explanatory - the cadre know who you are because you bust your ass every day fighting for first place. Grey man - this is the guy who stays middle of the pack the whole time, doesn’t stand out but isn’t dragging ass. The guy who walks across the stage at graduation to get his certificate or whatever and the class proctor says, “Who the fuck are you? You were in this class?” Not telling you to sandbag, just saying if you aren’t able to fight for top 10 then stay in the middle and be invisible - caveat: this may be harder to accomplish in a smaller setting like OCS.
Long winded, sorry. Your PT plan looks good. Try it out for a while, if you aren’t progressing and seeing the results you want then make some adjustments or look for another program. Stew Smith has some great prep routines for various military programs (very heavy on calisthenics though). As to the carb issue, try your plan and see where it takes you. If you can’t do the workouts and recover, then add a little more carbs at a time.
Well I concede my point. This guys walked the walk and knows what he’s talking about. I guess it depends on the individual. I spent my whole high school and college years playing football and rugby and ran stupid amounts of sprints, had great conditioning, and was always dog shit at long runs(anything over a mile is long for me lol). The I got accepted into the Fire Academy, and like @Frank_C, they had a very military-esque PT program. I pretty much only did weight training and sprints leading up to it and my PT scores at the beginning were trash because of it. By the end of it though (12 weeks of running longish distances 3-4x /wk) I got my 1.5 mile run down to sub-10 minutes while weighing 250 lbs. some people see a lot of carry over to their PT runs from sprints, but I’ve only ever been able to improve my run by running
You have a good point, and it reminded me of something I meant to mention before. The sprint-style workouts work for improving PT run times (at least for me), but you will most likely be doing a lot of longer conditioning runs at OCS so whether it is now or down the road a little ways, you may want to start incorporating longer runs into your program and build some mileage - this is conditioning your legs and feet to get used to the pounding. Best way to figure that out would be after doing the sprint routine for a month or two, try doing a 3 miler and see what kind of pace you can hold and how you feel, then adjust from there. For class runs (on the beach) we were told to be able to hold an 8:30 pace when we arrived, but I don’t think we ever ran one that slow (again, NSW training, not OCS - YMMV). As you get closer, an officer recruiter should be able to tell you what to expect specifically at OCS (the rest of us are really just guessing).
One reason I had originally not had any situps was because I have all this extra mass making situps pretty tough. I figured that going beltless on all the lifts would start working the abs, but I gotta start somewhere with the situps, soooo they’re in now.
Based on the talk here, this sounds like what I am going to do, along with the 100 pushups and some situps program.
For the officer nuclear program, you are interviewed and accepted before even getting sworn in, so you are basically tracked through. That being said, I’m very competitive, and I am glad there will be good energy at OCS. Also, my personality would never allow me to be the “Grey Man”…
100% listen to @boatguy for the PT advice. Man knows what he is talking about. I’ll advocate what he said, I live and die off of 400 and 800 repeats when prepping for the PRT, only way I have ever been able to break 9:30 on that run.
Yeah, I understand that part. I’m talking more about first duty station - sometimes the military will allow the top graduates from their career field training to get first pick of orders out of school or at least geographic location.
I started a training log if anyone is interested called Training For Navy OCS, please feel free to yell at me when I start doing stuff that I shouldnt…