Meet, Maintain, Exceed Army Physical Fitness Standards
as a member of the Army National Guard
This is SSG Fries’ plan for the Army National Guard Soldier, male or female, to pass, maintain, and to excel in the current standards regarding the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test).
First a very brief note about the author, I have been in the military, both in the active component and the Army National Guard for close to 26 years at the time of this writing. I have a current PT card with 297 as a record PT test on it. Recently I scored as high as 328 on the extended scale. I have not always been such a high scorer and had to employ some very direct methods to obtain these results.
Let me start by saying that the reason I chose to make a change in my fitness was a desire to attend SFAS and become a Special Forces Operator. At the age of 43 I was less than a top performer. I showed an interest in training with the SF and before I knew it was drawn into that world of elite and very fit warriors. Being in the National Guard meant that I had all month between our weekend drills to improve my fitness but a very few number of months before I would be expected to hang, without excuses, with the big dawgs.
When I was a young guy I was quite the athlete, but that was long ago and far away. I was a swimmer and had stamina for days. My father was my coach and a brutal task master. An All American Swimmer himself and University of Michigan Alumni he taught me that practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. In the following text you will see how I apply his coaching techniques here; however, you need not fear that I am going to ask you to get up super early and sweat your butt off. On the contrary, this manuscript is designed for the National Guard Soldier that wants it all but has little to no real time to put toward working out at length every day.
In my late 30s I could still swim short distances faster than most guys my age, but alas, swimming is not on the APFT. It can be used as an alternate event but here I’m just concentrating on the standard APFT. The pushups have always been my strongest event and I could easily get up in the high 60s to low 70 range in two minutes. My situps have been my weakest event in the past, and I hate to say it but I even failed a PT test many years ago due to my poor situp performance. My run had been getting progressively worse since I got out of basic training in 1987. In Basic I ran a 12:00 flat twice. Since then I have never quite been able to reach that pinnacle mark and have been losing seconds and minutes to the point of hitting a 16: and change just before making my decision to try out for SF.
Requirements for SFAS (Special Forces Assessment and Selection) are as follows:
Pushups: 75+ perfect Army pushups in two minutes.
Situps: 75+ situps in two minutes
Run: 2 miles in 13:30 or under
Pull ups: Yep, they want pull ups in the SF and you should at least be able to get 6 good quality pull ups getting your chin well over the bar with each rep and without swinging.
12 mile Ruck March: The Army standard for the 12 Mile Ruck is 3 hrs., but the SF wants 2 hrs. and 30 min. or less, so ya better be running if you know what I mean.
For a 43 year old fat body, Special Forces presented a challenge that I felt I had to stand up to. Finding a reason to improve oneself is the biggest hurdle. If you don’t sell a need for change to yourself then no matter how much you want those rock hard abs or to be able to knock out 60 pushups in two minutes, good luck, you’ll never hit it. You seriously need to have a reason, a steadfast goal, something you know needs to be accomplished. Your resolve needs to be set in concrete.
With that said I end all my sales talk and smoke blowing about myself. From here on out it’s all about you. So listen up, or don’t. It’s up to you.
What did you get on your last PT test?
Pushups:
Sit ups:
two mile:
Also how did you do on the weigh in?
Height:
Weight:
Body Fat Percentage:
We have to determine how far we have to go to get you back to the Army Standard. Once there, we can chill out a little and then work on maintaining and finally exceeding the standard. If you are already meeting the standard, cool, now let’s blow the standard out of the damn water.
Moving on…
Some things to consider as you prepare your mind to change your lifestyle.
Feel free to jot down your thoughts after each point...
1. What are the Army Standards? I don't mean the numbers on your PT card that say what you have to get to pass, I mean what are the reasons for them?
1a. Why do we have them?
1b. Who do they apply to?
1c. Who is responsible for making sure they are maintained?
2. What does it mean to you to be a Soldier?
2a. Does it make you proud to wear the uniform?
2b. If so, why?
2d. What do you expect from the Army now that you're a Soldier?
2e. What can the Army expect from you?
3. What does it mean to you to be a leader?
3a. What do you expect from your leaders?
3b. What can your leaders expect from you?
3c. Are you happy with your leaders?
4. Do you want to lead the way yourself one day as an NCO or an officer?
4a.What will your Soldiers be able to expect from you?
4b. Will you set the Standard, or will you just barley meet it?
5. Do you have NCOs now that just scrape by year after year? If so, those
NCOs are holding slots that truly exceptional troops could be filling. How do you feel about that?
5a.Shouldn't someone that holds a slot bust their ass to be the best
Soldier for that slot instead of just "riding the gravy train" and holding a position that others that are better than them could be filling?
5b. As a leader, do you want your lower enlisted Soldiers to know that even though you out rank them, they are better than you?
5c.Wouldn’t it be a good thing to command your troops respect because you can train and mentor them with your technical & tactical knowledge, as well as showing them your dedication to the Army with your ability to maintain & exceed the Army Standards?
6. Health is important to most people but how many people tell themselves
that they're healthy while avoiding a full length mirror like the plague?
6a.How many guys/gals run Master Chief (from the video game "Halo") all day long through 20 levels of game play, but they themselves get out of breath running up three flights of stairs?
6b.Shouldn't a Soldier be in better shape than a good portion of his or her peers in the civilian sector?
6c.How long would we sit and play a video game if the hero of the game was in the same physical shape we are in?
6d.Wouldn't it be a drag to have to wait for our first person shooter to catch his breath after just three or four minutes of playing? Wouldn't it suck to watch him get weak trying to run halfway down a city block in full battle rattle?
120 degree heat cooks you. You have to wear gloves just to pick up your weapon 'cause it's so damn hot. Add body armor, ACH Helmet, 210 rounds of ammo (7 full 30 round mags), 1.5L of water, now get all that up off the ground and run like hell for three to five seconds. Hit the ground, fire accurately to cover your buddies movement against a fierce and determined enemy for another three to five and you're up running again. How long before you put the X-Box controller down and say, "Dude, Master Chief needs to hit the gym!”
Alright, that’s just some food for thought. Write down your current numbers and thoughts
above and we’ll get started on this plan.
Pvt. Joe Snuffy says:
“My last PT test was crap. I did 29 pushups but I need 42 to pass. I did 54
situps which is passing, I only needed 53, and I didn’t finish my run due to me hyper-extending my left knee about a mile and a half in. I needed to get a 15:54 to pass. My weigh in was horrible. I’m 5’ 9” (69in) tall and I weigh 276lbs. My max weight allowed is 175lbs. I was over 37% body fat and my Platoon Sgt said he couldn’t even calculate it because I was off the chart. I think I’m only allowed 20%. These are the numbers.”
Does that sound all too familiar? My reply to Joe is:
“Hey man, it's really important to be ok with your numbers and know that it's going to be so easy to fix. Check it out... If you were 340lbs eight months ago, how GREAT would you feel about being 276 now? You'd be thrilled with your progress and feel so much healthier than you did. You have to look at it like that. Tell yourself that, how you are now is great instead of telling yourself how crappy things are right now. If you lose 10 lbs. a month for 8 months now, you'll be 196 by Aug. What would that be worth to ya? I can add at least another 30 pushups to your number in that same amount of time. Your situps are ok but let's add another 16 to your number just to be on the safe side. Your run, well I'm not a doctor so the knee thing can be an issue but maybe with a some running instruction and weight lose you won't be hurting it as much. Either way, if your knee is screwed, you can still do an alternate event so don't let it get you down.”
To you I say:
Insert your own situation, your own excuses, your own numbers and then turn around and take a look at how good you are. All too often we look at how bad off we are and say we’re way too far gone to show any progress without serious labor and who’s got time for that? Look at the dude or chick that’s 380 lbs. and thank the Lord you’re not that far off the mark… and you know what… if you are that person… thank the Lord you’re not the 480lb dude, ‘cause no matter how far gone you are, there’s always someone that’s farther gone than you.
Let’s start by throwing a positive spin on your situation. You’re breathing, you’re in the Army National Guard, maybe you even know someone who likes you… It’s a good day to be a Soldier so let’s go!
You’ve heard it before and here we go again, drink water. I want you to fill a gallon jug of water every morning and make sure it's gone by 1900 every evening.
Next, do you have a half way decent scale to weigh yourself on, a mirror you can write on with a dry erase marker, and a dry erase marker? You will also need a pad to do situps on. It should be small like a piece of paper 8 1/5” x 11” or a little bigger but not like a full length PT mat. It can be thick, the thicker the better. I use a piece of foam packing at home that's about an inch and a half thick. Do your kitchen cabinets have an overhang above their base boards? In other words, can you put your toes under the cabinets to hold your feet while you're doing sit ups? If not then find something that can.
Your home can be a gym and this transition can cost you almost nothing. You'll have to change what kind of food you eat for a while but it should cost you less rather than more. Look at how the average dog eats. You feed it dog food. It eats when it wants to, knows nothing of dieting, hardly exercises and never gains weight. I mean, if you're feeding it dry food that it really doesn't wolf down as soon as you put it in front
of it. There are fat dogs too but if you're feeding the dog something that it's not wild about, it just eats when it's hungry and never gets fat. If you stop looking at food as it's something to enjoy but only something to fill your hunger and give you nutrition, you're half way there.
I want you to put some deep thought into the questions I asked. I don't want you to be hard on yourself but it is important to be real with yourself. It's said that you can't lie to yourself, but that's not totally true. By ignoring an issue and not dealing with it makes it kind of go away in your head, but you'll face it again when the problems it causes come back to bite you in the ass.
Cheers! Drink Water!
Alright, Now let's talk about how you eat.
Regardless of how you feel about dieting or any certain diet, please give me just two weeks on this diet and then you can tell me what you think of it. It's not going to be super fun but it won't be too bad either. You aren't ever going to be hungry, if you are then you're not doing it right. You will crave (I mean CRAVE) stuff like fries, cookies, and potato chips. If you have that stuff around the house, put it away so it's out of sight ‘cause it's off the diet and you will WANT it. Your body will go through a withdrawal period where you'll lack energy and be in pretty much a foul mood. That will be four or five days and most people crumble and run to the chips before getting to the stage where their body levels off and starts to burn the fat they already have stored.
Check it out, ask yourself... If I drink blood, will I have more blood? The answer to that is too obvious... No, you will not have more blood. Whatever goes into our body, our body breaks down and uses in ways it thinks will help us out. Blood, if you were to drink it, would be broken down into proteins, amino acids, and so on and used as food for your cells. So what happens to fat when you eat it?
Fat, like blood is broken down in a similar way. You will not have more fat if you eat just fat. It is a really common misconception that eating fat makes you fat... Or even worse, that if you don't eat fat you'll lose weight. Neither is true... Well then, what makes us fat? Carbs! Carbs and fats together are the killer... I'll tell you why.
NOTE: Fiber is counted as a carb but can be subtracted from the amount of carbs contained in a product as it does not affect your level of blood sugar whatsoever.
When you consume carbs, whether they be in the form of candy, chips, fries, mashed potatoes, ice cream, soup, pasta, salad dressing, or whatever, your body changes those carbs into simple sugars. The sugars are then released into your blood stream. Your body must release insulin to bring your blood sugar down. **Insulin** is responsible for then taking the fat that you've eaten and moving it into storage all over your body including in your blood stream. That fat in your blood is called cholesterol and causes heart attacks and other bad stuff.
If you ate nothing but starches and carbs but absolutely NO fat, then you wouldn't get fat either... That's where this misconception comes from... But how hard is that?! Almost everything including cooking oil has some level of fat in it. Okay, so let's turn it around and say that if you eat all meat, cheese, bacon, sausage, salad, stir fry, vegetables, mayonnaise, mustard, oil/vinegar, chicken, chicken wings (non-breaded), and absolutely anything else on the planet with NO CARBS then you will not release insulin. **When you do not release insulin you CANNOT store fat.**
Ah, I hear you say, "But, your body needs fat to survive!" Quite right! And that's why our bodies go out of their way to store that stuff so that if there's ever a rainy day and we have no food available, we don't die on the spot. Most of us here in America have very little to worry about as far as actually starving to death. We eat in such a manner that
we continually save for a rainy day... but never actually have a rainy day. We need to make our own rainy day for our bodies. Our bodies aren't used to using up their own stored energy and they don’t like it, so no matter how much meat and cheese you eat, for a few days you'll still CRAVE the goodies. Once you get through that period, your body will begin to burn its own fat and before you know it the weight will begin to DRAIN off like water. Every time you hop on the scale you'll be a little lighter.
As there is less and less of you to drag around AND since you're still eating the proteins your body needs to stay healthy, you will maintain all the muscle that's used trucking around a 276lb. dude and you'll begin to feel light as a feather. A dude that feels light as a feather that also goes running now and then, does some pushups and sit ups, maybe throws a ruck on his back and goes for a walk, will soon smoke that easy breezy PT Test.
See where I'm going with this?
&nbs
p; If you have a scale, a mirror, and a dry erase marker, weigh yourself every few days as you follow this plan and mark on the mirror your progress. The no-carb diet can be rough but seeing the numbers drop day after day as well as seeing the change in your body shape in the mirror can be just the incentive you may need to stay strong and keep it up through all the temptations you will face. There are many cook books and other literature that you may find supportive and cater to the no-carb life style.
The US Army Pushup and how to master it.
How many exercises does your body feel like it’s doing with each pushup? Let’s break down a pushup into all of its parts, analyze the human body, and ask ourselves why we aren’t able to knock out as many as some other guys/gals.
That time you’re given before you start this event is a gift and take as much of it as you can. Swing your arms! Do you remember the old school thermometers that had mercury in them? Do you remember having to get the mercury down before being able to take a reading? You had to swing the end of the thermometer in such a way as to drive the mercury down into its reservoir.