Military - Red White & Blue Fitness

Theories and Philosophies of Military Physical Preparation

Primary Goals

1. Injury Prevention

2. Psychological Edge

3. Maximal Strength

4. Work Capacity

Secondary Goals

1. Speed

2. Power

3. Cardiovascular Endurance

Injury Prevention

Why does injury prevention come first in this little matrix? Because the typical training now creates injuries! How many guys do you know who have knee, lower back or shoulder problems? Probably just about everybody in your unit who's been in more than a couple years and isn't a desk jockey.

Psychlogical OPS

Next is the psychlogical edge. It's almost never addressed in western countries military training. Other than maybe basic training and that's mostly by accident not planned. You look at eastern countries philosiphies and most of their training is deeply rooted in martial arts, which in turn emphasizes meditation and self awareness. A warrior is not fully efficient if he cannot control his fear. Nor will he stay alert on a patrol if he is not consciously aware of his surroundings. One must be attentive to his surroundings and know when something is not right. Be sure to check out Mike Mahlers article on Mental Toughness Training

Maximal Strength

Maximal strength is the foundation to all others aspects of a physical perfomance nature. Training maximal strength will increase speed strength or power. It can increase muscular endurance to an extent. But the reverse is not always true. We all know the little weasel looking jokers who can run for miles at a five min mile pace, but the second you put so much as just full battle rattle on them, they're useless. God forbid if you should put a ruck on them, most will crumble and fall into a pile of dust. Running should only be done if being chased or chasing. Not only will it eat your muscle mass faster than a pool full of piranhas, but it goes against your instinctional patterns. Patterns that have been eroded over the years, turning us into soft squishy Gumby-like people. The reason you get a runners high is because it used to be a tranquilizer before the Pterodactyl bit your leg and flew you around a couple miles before he and his buddies chowed down! Does that mean all forms of repetitive movement of the legs are out? Of course not. Sprinting for instance is probably one of the best exercises for the entire body. What about having to do things like filling sandbags for long periods of time? This brings us to.....

Work capacity

...Work capacity. It's not your barbie aerobics instructor type of endurance! We're talking moving heavy equipment followed up by shooting some bad guys, raiding a house and subduing the suspects inside. This calls for levels of medium to high intensities of muscle endurance. Which is longer than a 2 minute push-up test! Not to mention in real situations your rarely under constant tension and constricted by rules of how to move. If you wanna survive, you gotta ditch the book. Do what's best for you and your team, not what some chimpanzee randomly selected, which is now your field manual! Moving on.

Secondary Objectives

Speed

Speed is king. If you can move properly through movements faster than your opponent, you'll probably beat him. When it comes to military, does speed mean doing sport speed drills, such as increasing your 40? Not necessarily. Mostly we want to improve the over all neural components. Make the nervous system fast. In other words, getting the hell out of the way of an RPG coming at you like the local trailer trash running to a blue light special at K-Mart.

Power

Along with speed comes power. What is power really? A combination of maximal strength and speed. In others words pushing Colonel Sanders out of the way of that RPG and having him land on a nice rock 20 meters away.

Cardio

Lastly an aspect which is pretty much already covered. It's pretty low on the training matrix. Cardiovascular work can actually fit in with work capacity. Reality is after we've trained the other components, there's not much that can be improved with direct cardio. Once you've reached the point were your "wind" is sufficient, one session a week can maintain this level. And more than likely you won't even need it with all the other training components. It's more to help General Motors from having a heart attack after he finds out Colonel Sanders had to be MEDIVACed cause he got a scorpion stuck up his ass after an RPG attack.

Oh and we almost forgot one.....Looking good at the beach, guess what it comes dead last. But don't worry when properly training for function, form will follow. The reverse is rarely true. Most big fluffy bodybuilders will get their ass kicked by a 16 year old figure skater in the gym. Don't beleive me? Christian Thibaudeau of T-mag.com takes some of his girls to the gym for pure entertainment of watching the pride on these guys go down the drain. Read all about it here

That's the training matrix for now. Later it may be updated or changed to better suit readers needs.