213 - The Ultimate Physical Prep Guide for SMU Selection (1-Year Out)

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What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Terminator Training Show. I'm Kevin Smith. Today I am going to do a long awaited breakdown of how to prepare for S-M-U-A-K-A special mission unit selection. I am going to talk about specifically a little bit more specifically Delta force selection because that is my area of expertise. I went to it myself in the spring of 2018 and successfully completed it upfront. I did not make it through [00:00:30] OTC, so I won't be talking really all that much about that, but I will talk about how to prepare for selection and I understand that that is not the only SMU in the army and I'm not going to really talk about other branches. But in the army there are a couple of different smu. There's Task Force Orange and there's green, a K, a Delta force, a K, a cag.

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And from what I understand, I don't know a ton at all about TFO selection, but from what I understand, the preparation is very similar. [00:01:00] You do a lot of rucking and it's in various different difficult terrain. So unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to break down the specific differences between what I would do for green selection A, a CAG selection versus orange selection. But I think even if you are preparing for that, you should be able to get some good solid information out of it and apply it to your own training. And just upfront, I am not going to be talking about [00:01:30] selection itself in particular, like the details of selection that are not very well known to most people unless you've attended it other than certain fitness and selection prep advice because that just doesn't exist. Like good advice doesn't exist, at least not from what I've found.

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I'm not going to be talking about things that you can't just Google or Ask Chat GBT, or you've probably heard it 10 different times on a Sean Ryan show with a former operator [00:02:00] because I respect the unit too much and I respect the mystique of that selection and I have several buddies who are still serving in that unit, and so I don't talk about that stuff. If you guys have been listening for a while, you'd probably know that I keep any questions about selection or any inquiries about selection, very, very vague and for a reason. So I am just going to talk about the preparation, how to get physically and prepared [00:02:30] for the selection. So if you had your hopes up that I'd be given away a bunch of secrets about what happens at selection, probably a good idea not to listen to this episode, but if you want to either figure out how you yourself can prepare for this selection or just learn about how I would go about it, if I were to help anyone else prepare for this election, in fact I'm helping current clients prepare for the September class, then you're in the right place.

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I'm going to get into the details. I'm pretty much going to [00:03:00] break down some of the standards, which the standards are unknown. No one knows about the standards, but I'm going to talk about some of the things that I have seen as far as guys getting selected, being successful. I'm going to talk about some of my numbers and some of the standards that I would generally shoot for as far as your up times, your runtime and things like that. I'll also talk about basically a one year breakdown from say I'm for example, one year out from attending that selection all the way till go time. I'm going to [00:03:30] break it down into different chunks, different periodization. You don't necessarily have to start prepping exactly for specifically for selection a year out, but you should start thinking about it, especially if you don't have a robust endurance base or robust endurance background.

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It is a very, very endurance biased event. So that's what I'll break down and then I'll talk a little bit about some additional things to consider as far as ruck shakeout, like things to test, hydration fueling and heat acclimation. [00:04:00] That's another huge one, especially if you're going in the fall class. And if I have time at the end, I got some questions that I ask for on my Instagram that I'm going to try and get to. That might be depending on how long my part of the episode takes without the questions that might be a part two or a later episode. But also I'm pretty much with all the questions I got that were at least worth answering. Some of the questions were ridiculous, but the ones that were worth answering should be pretty much answered with what [00:04:30] I go over in this episode. So let's hop into it with a little bit of my experience.

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So I went to the Long Walk in 2018 after four years in special forces. I was in 10th group, I was an 18 delta and I was pretty much from the moment that I saw the gate for the unit at Fort Bragg, we used to do our rucks across the street. Anyone who's been in the Q course or is in the Q course or whatever is probably knows exactly what I'm talking about. Really anyone at Bragg [00:05:00] pretty much knows where the unit compound is, but from the first time I saw that gate, I was like, I need to go see what that's all about. So I went to group and really had a great time there, but I figured I would go and see if I had what it took to at least try out for the unit. And I was fortunate enough to get accepted my first time applying to it and went in the spring of 2018.

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At that time, I was, by the time I went to selection and I was a little bit bigger than this before I started training up [00:05:30] for it, but I was probably about 180 pounds, maybe low, one eighties, maybe high, one seventies, and I'm six foot one. So very, very skinny, really, really endurance biased, and I've always been just genetically more inclined to be an endurance style athlete. I have a big history of running and throughout my military career, I was always one of the faster guys under ruck as well as running. Not to say that I didn't train up for this election at all, but the way I'm going to go about what I'd recommend for other people is not the same way that I [00:06:00] went about it myself. I personally trained up for nine weeks, maybe 10. I started training a little bit into the new year of 2018, and that selection is in mid-March, so didn't really train up for super long, but I had a really, really robust base and it transferred over pretty well.

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And some of the things I talk about in especially the last couple of months really go time when you're really getting close to selection are going to apply to what I did. I didn't have the same type of fitness knowledge back then, [00:06:30] and also I hadn't helped other people prepare for that selection back then. Since I've gone to that selection, I've helped several people both when I was still in group, guys would hit me up and be like, Hey, how do I prepare for this thing? But also I've helped guys recently as officially a coach, not in the military anymore, prepare for that selection and do really well there. But either way, like I said, not given any way any secrets for selection. I'm only going to discuss things that are available on open source. So [00:07:00] just manage your expectations properly. So as far as the standards, nobody knows what the standards are other than probably a couple of people at selection, so can't really give you any standards officially, but I have some standards that I think are generally solid to shoot for.

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So I'm going to kind of split them up into a couple different categories like competitive versus really, really good versus kind of borderline and go from there. So definitely show up and be able [00:07:30] to run fast and do 60 ish hand release pushups and hold a plank for three 30. I mean, that should be like, I mean if you can't do that, then I've got nothing for you. So be able to do that. If you're running around a 12 minute or faster two mile, then you're going to be in a pretty competitive area. 1230 is what I would consider solid, a little slower than 1230, no big deal. If you're closer to 1300 or 13 minutes, you're probably okay, but again, I don't really know when [00:08:00] I went, I ran a 1136, so I was faster than that at other parts of my career, but I had really, really focused mostly on rucking and not so much faster running.

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I definitely did some speed work and I'll get into how to focus these things a little bit later. But again, I was already a pretty solid runner throughout my entire career. Usually I'd run in the low elevens, high tens, but I was willing to trade a little bit of running speed for the ability to ruck [00:08:30] day after day after day after day after day. And the other physical event that kind of gets you in the door is the 18 miler, which this is not Land N. It's a basically 18 mile time trial. You follow a route and anything under three hours is really good. I think three or four guys in my class were under three hours. My time was 2 37. No, you do not need to be that fast to be successful there, and you could be the top dog in that ruck and still not make it because [00:09:00] that is just day one.

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You have a lot to do after that. So I would say if you can get down to under three and a half hours, you're in a pretty good spot. That would be my recommendation. If you're a little slower, maybe you'll be fine. If you're faster, again, you may not be fine because there's so much other requirements after that, but just something to consider. So a little bit of time trial bias, rucking is definitely a good idea. One mistake that a lot of people make is doing way too much time. Trial bias, rucking like doing [00:09:30] lots and lots of speed rucks and lots of ruck running, which you should do some. I'll get into some details, but a lot of people kind of set their targets on that 18 miler and then they forget about everything else, which everything else happens a lot longer and a higher percentage of that selection.

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So generally speaking, you need to be able to ruck repeatedly day after day after day in arduous terrain. The terrain is a little bit different every day, but it is well known that it's in the mountains [00:10:00] of West Virginia in general, and not every day is super mountainy, but a lot of days are. And for those days, you're going to need to be able to continuously put one foot in front of the other, and oh, by the way, you're under stress. You're land nav and you are fatigued from doing it the day before and the day before and maybe the week before depending on where you're at in the selection. So also you're going to be under a ton of self-imposed stress, like you're going to know that you need to go and find your points all day and you're going to have to do it day after day after day.

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For me every [00:10:30] single morning before we stepped off, I was worried that I was going to forget how to do land AB that day, and I think that's a pretty common feeling that a lot of guys have. It's just this self-imposed stress that you put on yourself and you got to be able to deal with that and do what needs to be done, find your points, plan good routes, and move and execute. So that's the general overview of without getting into really any details of what happens day to day, you just know you have to be a really, really strong Rucker in really, [00:11:00] really crappy terrain and something that concerns a lot of people. I had a few buddies that were with me that were from seventh group. So seventh group is in Florida and the terrain is completely flat, and that is not ideal for training for a selection that has a ton of crazy undulating terrain and lots of ups and downs, lots of elevation gain, lots of elevation loss.

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A lot of people don't understand that just because it's harder to go uphill, of course it's more energy [00:11:30] intensive. It also beats the hell out of you to go downhill. It is way more stressful on the joints especially, and it causes a lot more soreness, especially in the quads. It can beat your shins up, it can beat your feet up, it can beat your knees up. So ideally you have some sort of access to some terrain, and if you live in a flat area, it's not a death sentence. Plenty of people who are coming from flat areas have been successful at that selection. However, it is probably going to be a good idea [00:12:00] for you to make some investments, AKA, maybe take a weekend every month or maybe twice a month as you get closer to drive and find a place that has, or even if you have to fly, I mean most likely you probably don't have to fly, but you might have to drive six hours, eight hours, whatever, up to Georgia into the mountains, and I'll get into a specific place in Georgia that I would recommend going in a bit, but that investment is totally worth it.

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And also, although I'm not a huge fan in general of rocking on treadmills, [00:12:30] this might be a really good exception. I would say it is a good exception. So you are able to ruck uphill and ideally, not all treadmills go downhill. If you have access to a really nice Nordic track that goes downhill, that's great, but at least getting some uphill in and then periodically getting some downhill in, and I'll get into some details later, but that is going to be a really good general recommendation. So let's get into a one year periodization plan. So I'm going to break it down from 12 months, so one year to six months, [00:13:00] and then I'm going to break down six months to either three or four months. I'll talk about some criteria on whether you should prep for specific prep for three months versus four months. It mostly has to do with your overall fitness capacity and your general tendency towards endurance versus strength versus just being a non-athlete.

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So starting with one year out, the main goal here is to start focusing on building exceptional on foot endurance. And [00:13:30] I say on foot because you don't have to get super specific yet with actual rucking. That doesn't mean you don't have to ruck at all. It just means that you don't have to bias rucking like you will as you get a little closer right here, you should be focusing mostly on building a great running base if you don't already have one. Now, one little caveat, if you are someone who maybe you're in group or you're in the 75th or even the regular army, which by the way, yes, regular army people can go to this. There's certain criteria, ranking [00:14:00] and time and service and things like that, but if you're getting emails from them, you should be getting emails from them. If you're in the military and you're within the qualification ranges, then you can go or at least you can apply.

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So just getting that out of the way, you don't have to be in special forces. Yes, most guys in the unit are either former rangers or former Green Berets or former Seals or marsoc guys, but that does not mean that there are no options for regular military to go. So just [00:14:30] remember that. But if you are somebody regardless of what unit you're in, that takes your aerobic training very seriously, maybe you run ultras or you run marathons or you run half marathons and you're just more biased towards endurance, especially on foot endurance, then you're going to be kind of at an advantage just putting that out there. You absolutely are going to be at an advantage and you probably don't necessarily have to change much when you're a year out. I personally didn't because I for the most part, biased endurance a little bit more than strength throughout most of my career.

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[00:15:00] And once I decided to go to this selection, I absolutely am biased or just naturally biased, endurance more than strength. So however, if you are someone who really doesn't take their endurance very seriously, maybe you try and get by on every PT test. Maybe you're just scratching the 40 minute barrier for the five mile, the required for special operations minimum standard of 40 minutes, then you should really, really start dialing in your running [00:15:30] base and what's that going to look like? Mostly easy running and lots of it, high frequency, high volume, easy running, a little bit of speed here and there, but nothing crazy. You should be racking up a good amount of mileage each week. Generally that's going to look like a few runs per week. Generally some easy runs, maybe one speed work session. I'm not going to get down into the sets reps and rest intervals here in this 12 to six months out, I'm going to kind of just lay general ground rules, but a [00:16:00] few easy runs per week and generally one long run per week.

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And I would also consider a secondary focus of getting some miles under a ruck, and this could look like maybe two weekends a month. You do a really long run, two weekends a month, you do a really long ruck. And when I say really long, I don't mean start with really long if you have no running mileage, if you barely run at all or ruck at all, don't start with a 12 mile run and a 15 mile ruck on the first week, general proper [00:16:30] progression. So because everyone's starting in a different spot, you're welcome to go back and listen to my base building episode, which is episode 95, and that is only on audio, but that can give you a good idea of how to build a running base and you can pretty much apply that to rucking as well, except you just switch one of those long runs with a ruck each week and call it good.

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So what I would consider a tertiary focus would be doing some other cross training that is also on foot but is less impact. [00:17:00] So things like StairMaster and do this unloaded by the way, don't wear a ruck for these things. Totally not necessary. StairMaster, incline walking, really light sled drags. You can also do things like Jacob's Ladder. It's not quite as specific or close to being specific as on foot because you're using your arms in the Jacobs ladder too, but it's pretty close and it's something I used quite a bit throughout my prep. Not necessarily this far out, but when I got closer, but any of those are really good options. You can even use [00:17:30] the elliptical, but it's still a great option really to be honest. Any non-impact option to supplement your on foot endurance and further build your aerobic base without the joint stress and the impact is a great option.

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Maybe once a week, maybe every other week depending on the person. Again, mostly easy. Probably a speed session two to three times per month would be a pretty good idea at this point. You can do it more often than that. If you're someone who regularly does speed work, [00:18:00] you can do that more often, but one thing you want to be a little bit careful of is what I call being a perpetual speed block runner. You just do speed blocks all the time. You're doing speed work, AKA four hundreds, eight hundreds mile repeats every single week on end without any end in sight, and nobody does that. That's a really good runner. So that should give you a kind of a good clue to why it's not a great idea. The equivalent to that in the [00:18:30] strength training world would be like doing a block of heavy doubles, triples, maybe even singles just for the entire year without ever switching it up, without ever going higher reps or doing a hypertrophy block, just doing a really intense max effort strength block every single week and eventually you're going to get super mentally fatigued, physically fatigued, burnt out, you're going to reach points of diminishing return and that's not a great idea.

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So I would do something like three weeks on, one week off [00:19:00] and then maybe every so often you take a month off from doing speed work. That doesn't mean you can't run it doesn't mean you can't run fast. You can do things like strides, you can do things like short fast hill sprints, you can do things like pickups during your run, but maybe every three months or so you do a month where you don't do any four hundreds, eight hundreds, two hundreds mile repeats and so on. That way you maintain just a semblance of freshness and you are going to make more gains every time you go [00:19:30] back into going into a speed block than you would if you're just doing it perpetually on end. So wouldn't recommend that, but just something to get out of the way because a lot of people think, okay, I got to dial my running in.

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I'm doing speed work every week. Even worse. I'm doing speed work and threshold work every single week. And yes, speed work and threshold work every week for periods of time is fine. At this point, it's not necessary because again, you're only going to have to run two miles one time, so you don't have to do a bunch of 30 minute threshold runs or anything like [00:20:00] that. You can as you get a little closer and if you struggle at running, you certainly can do some threshold stuff. I wouldn't go 30 minutes straight. I'll get into some details later, but just something to consider like don't get too crazy with it. You're not doing a speed block as if you're training for a half marathon or a five mile time trial and you suck at running, just wrap your head around that. Additionally, you want to lift.

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A lot of people think that because this selection is so biased towards endurance and on foot endurance that they [00:20:30] can lift minimally. And if you're super duper strong and you suck at running and you cannot move for long periods of time under a ruck, then you should definitely dial back your lifting even this far out. It's totally fine to dial back to two days a week, maybe three days a week full body, but for the most part, you could probably maintain a four day per week upper lower split at this point. You could do something like a three day per week full body split or three day per week, upper, lower full or something similar to that [00:21:00] if you're doing twice a week, probably best to do full body days each time, but you really want to maintain that durability throughout this time. And strength training is going to be a great way to do that, especially if you focus on certain parts of your body.

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So rucking involves, of course the legs. It involves the upper body, the upper back, the mid-back, the lower back, the glutes all the way down, basically the whole posterior chain. So you want to focus a ton on upper back [00:21:30] strength, and a lot of people put upper back strength or I should say a lot of people don't treat the upper back with as much respect as they should. So you'll see a lot of programs that have tons of pull downs and tons of lat exercises and lat exercises are great, that's awesome, pullups pull downs, et cetera. But maybe they'll have once a day or once a week, they'll have three sets of rows and oftentimes people will just execute rows using mostly their lats because usually you can lift more with [00:22:00] your lats then elbows out upper back. So really focusing on the traps, the rhomboids and that area is huge because that is literally your connection to the ruck, which oh, by the way, you're going to have the ruck on almost the entire time.

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So getting a nice big beefy upper back is huge and also lower back huge. Your erectors are going to take a massive beating. Just having thick, meaty, resilient erectors is going to be massive and you [00:22:30] don't necessarily have to train those with isolation lifts. Any sort of heavy hinge will do a really good job at developing those. You can also do bent over rows without chest support. Those are great for erectors and really that's all you need, but you just got to load those and train them properly. And even though they're not mainly erector lifts, they definitely involve them and strengthening that lower back is going to be huge because a lot of guys just can't handle day after day after day with a ruck on because their lower back and their core kind of gives out. And core is important as well. Most people [00:23:00] don't train the core properly.

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Most people do a million reps and they do circuits and they do a bunch of random stuff that pretty much just trains their hip flexors and makes their core really high endurance. It doesn't really strengthen their core. So the abdominals are just like every other muscle in the body, just like you don't get jacked legs from or strong legs from running AKA, doing tons and tons of high rep stuff when [00:23:30] you're running, you're doing high rep basically little jumps. You're not going to get a strong resilient core from doing 8 million reps of flutter kicks or leg races or anything like that. Eight to 12 rep range, maybe up to 15 once in a while, maybe even down to four to five. Load them basic movements that do extension inflection. Bring your rib cage a little closer to your pelvis, bring your pelvis a little closer to your rib cage if you're doing a leg lift or something [00:24:00] like that.

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And that's really it. And maybe some oblique stuff like 45 degree side raises on a 45 degree back raise machine, something similar to that. Some farmer's carries, some suitcase carries. All those are really good. You really also want to focus on the glutes and the hamstrings. Most people, at least most guys that I've been around in soft do not have well-developed glutes or hamstrings. They have very, very well-developed quads and chest, basically muscles you can see in the mirror, but oftentimes [00:24:30] their posterior chain, especially their lower body foot, posterior chain, as well as their upper back, basically everything but the lats lag. So really targeting those glutes and generally you want to do things that are going to be very stimulative but not super fatiguing. A little further out like this. You can definitely do barbell squats and barbell deadlifts and heavy stuff like that that really load the spine in because you're not doing a ton of rucking, but as you get closer, we're going to talk about this a little bit, just how to change your exercise selection as you get closer is going to be huge.

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But [00:25:00] I really like things like hip thrust, doing really sound, hamstring curl exercises, whether you do it on a glute ham raise or you do actual seated hamstring curls or lying hamstring curls or single leg standing hamstring curls, whatever you got, or a mixture of both would be best is a really good idea. You really want to make that posterior chain as robust as humanly possible and then working your way down. A lot of people forget about below the knees. A lot of people think calf raises [00:25:30] and things like that are not very functional. What's not functional is when you can't run and ruck repeatedly day after day after day without getting shin splints or Achilles tendonitis or runner's knee and your calves mainly your soleus take a huge beating when you're running and you're rucking. So making your calves stronger and more resilient is honestly one of the most functional things you can do in this case, even [00:26:00] though the calf raise doesn't necessarily mimic what you'll do in daily life, it kind of does because you're walking but not really.

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It's a machine exercise, so most people don't think machines are functional. It still is highly functional and highly critical for this time. So targeting the calves, I like seated hamstring or seated calf raises because they are going to cause less soreness. They're not in that stretch position and they really target the soleus. The standing calf raise also targets the soleus as well as the gastroc, and you can definitely do those, but [00:26:30] they're more soreness inducing and they can potentially interfere a little bit more with running. So I like high frequency seated calf raises. Really long stretch at the bottom, really slow negative, don't mess around with the top too much. A lot of people will pause at the top and then go down really fast and bounce and then pause at the top. You're not really doing anything when you do that. Most people don't do calf raises anywhere, any semblance of correct, really slow stretch at the bottom.

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Hold that stretch for 3, 4, 5 seconds. Come back up and slow lowering, hold that stretch and back [00:27:00] up. Generally want to stay in the lower rep range, so 5, 6, 7, 8 reps. And if you think about it the way I just described it, a set of six is probably going to take you almost a minute because you're going really slow on the way down and you're pausing at the bottom. And if you go super crazy high reps, you can do that. It's not like the end of the world and if you want bigger calves, that's probably a better option to go a little higher reps not necessarily like crazy high, but you can go a little higher. But for this specific purpose, strengthening the calves [00:27:30] and really getting those isometric contractions where you're holding at the bottom as well as going really, really slow, they can really help with tendon strength and your achilles tendon is going to be a major component in your potential success.

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So also just like you train the hamstrings and the quads or the quads and the hamstrings, you probably definitely want to train the tibs. A lot of people over index tib raises and think that they're more important than calf raises because they are next to your [00:28:00] chin and a lot of people get shin splints and I get it, but it's not really, science doesn't show that. And in my experience, if you focus mostly on the calves, a little bit on the tibs, just to balance it out a little bit, you're going to be way better off. And tib raises are pretty simple. I would recommend doing tib raises very similar to calf raises. You can go a little bit higher reps, but really hold that bottom stretch. Another benefit to holding these bottom stretches, whether you're doing a calf raise or a tib raise, is better ankle mobility.

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[00:28:30] So tib raise, you're in that full planter flexion or pointing your toes as far away from your shin as possible. You're getting that loaded stretch there and holding that for a few seconds. Really awesome to A, improve your ankle mobility and B, strengthen your Ts. And same with calf raises. You're doing the dorsiflexion, so you're bringing your toes up towards your shins and you're getting that loaded stretch. Excellent for ankle mobility and something a lot of people struggle with and better. Ankle mobility is going to transfer very well to continuous rucking without just destroying your lower [00:29:00] legs. And then also you want to make sure that you are doing some jumps, skips, hops, et cetera, lots of pogo hops, lots of jumps where you land back on the ground. Also some jumps where you land up on a box and a lot of people mess this up, they jump on the box and they jump back down off the box usually backwards and the whole point of the box is to absorb the impact of landing.

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You jump high and you land high as opposed to jumping high and then landing from that jump. [00:29:30] So if you're using a box to land, actually use it for what its purpose is and don't jump back off. Nothing wrong with, and you absolutely should do some jumps where you land back down on the ground. And you can also do things like depth jumps where you're intentionally jumping off a box and landing like an athletic person, not doing it backwards for a thousand reps after box jumps. So just getting out of the way. Make sure you do some jumps, skips, hops, do this throughout. This is not just this phase. It honestly should intensify and get more [00:30:00] frequent as you go. You can pretty much do pogo hops and single leg pogo hops almost ad nauseum. I wouldn't just start with a hundred minutes a day, but you can start with doing it for a few sets of 30 seconds, a couple times a week, maybe add a little bit of duration to each one or add another day where you do them and you can really get to where you're doing a ton of little hops like that.

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They're not fatiguing, they don't beat you up. You're not jumping crazy high, you're just getting your feet used to coming up, down, up, down. You're getting used to [00:30:30] that impact. It's going to help strengthen the Achilles and all good things. So that's basically what I've focused on for lifting. And another thing that I would recommend for anyone who's able to is increase your step count. So if you can get up to where you're walking 12 to 15,000 steps a day during this time, you are just going to get used to more time on your feet and walking is beneficial in many, many, many different ways, and I've talked about this a million times on my podcast so I won't get too into it, but a lot of guys are anti walking because it's not exercise [00:31:00] and I was like that too, and that's a mistake.

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Just spending more time on your feet, especially in a low stress manner, like going out for walks throughout the day is just a great way to, if anything having neutral effect, maybe like a little bit of a recovery enhancing effect, but most likely it's just going to make you more used to being on your feet and only going to help you long-term. It's not going to eat into your recovery. In fact, it's probably going to help your recovery because walking is a low stress activity. You get time in nature, you get time [00:31:30] in the sun, you get time disconnected. Ideally you're not walking and scrolling, please don't walk and scroll, just leave your phone at home or maybe throw a podcast or an audio book on or go for a walk with your dogs and your wife or your kids or whatever or friend and just go spend time on feet.

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You don't necessarily have to regiment it necessarily, but I would consider setting some sort of step count goal and trying to aim for that 12,000, 14,000, 15,000 steps. For me, I was, before I went to selection, I was averaging like 22, 20 3000 [00:32:00] steps a day. This was not six months out to 12 months out, but that's what I got up to and I was always, this was kind of right when I was getting more into walking as a way to kind of improve health and enhance wellbeing. So during this time, I would've to look at my Garmin. I still have all my Garmin stats from this time. It's kind of fun to look back at 'em once in a while, but I was probably in the 12 to 15 K step range and that's something I would recommend. So what should you generally [00:32:30] work up to during this time?

(00:32:31):

Something in the 30 to 40 ish mile per week range. You can go higher than that, especially if you're already a well-established endurance athlete. You can go a little lower than that if you want, especially if you are maybe someone who is just that you can run and ruck well on lower volume. Some people can, there's a lot of individual variants in this, so there's no perfect mile per week range for any of these phases, not just this further out phase, [00:33:00] but any of them. Some people can get away with a ton and benefit from a ton. Some people do a ton, but they are not benefiting from a ton, but they just heard from someone else that they're doing, oh, I did 65 mile weeks before I went to this election and I made it so oh cool. That's just what I'm going to do too without giving it any second thought.

(00:33:20):

There's a lot of nuance in individual variance with running volume on foot volume. So 20 to 35, sorry, 30 to 40 miles per week running [00:33:30] and some weeks you can kind of exchange some of those miles per rocking. So two to three rucks a month, you're going to be good to go and then some sort of stairs or incline walk once a week, maybe every other week, maybe once every 10 days, maybe two weeks on, one week off, something like that would be a good thing for cardio conditioning general. So what's huge throughout this time is that you're not banged up and injuring yourself. So if you find that you're getting shin splints or runner's knee [00:34:00] or something's starting to creep in Achilles tendonitis, whatever it is, you are so far out right now that you are way, way, way better off. Just taking some time off from on foot stuff and doing non-impact, do a bunch of biking and rowing and swimming for a week, 10 days, two weeks, whatever it is.

(00:34:18):

Really focus on the tib and calf raises exercises that I was talking about earlier as well as the jumps, the skips, the hops as tolerated. You can definitely walk if walking feels good, basically anything under the three out of 10 [00:34:30] pain is fine, but if running causes a five, six out of 10 pain or maybe it's three out of 10 while you're running, but afterwards for the rest of the day into the next day, it's a five, six out of 10, that is a good time to intervene if you let it go for too long, which a lot of people in this situation, you're type A individuals like you're going to let it go for too long. But if you can fight that urge and swallow your ego, swallow your pride and just be like, Hey, I'm overdoing it a little, I got to dial it back.

(00:34:58):

I've got plenty of time, everything's going to be [00:35:00] okay. Make sure you do that. I would strongly recommend doing that because if you go into the next phase, a little banged up, guess what? You're probably going to be even more banged up going into the final phase and when you're banged up going into the final phase the last few months before you go, guess what? You're already way behind the power curve because that is the most I intense phase. That is the intensifying phase. You're literally peaking for selection and trying to go and crush. So make sure you listen to your body and don't be dumb. So phase [00:35:30] two, what I would call the support phase, by the way, I would call that initial phase, the base phase going into phase two, which is six months to three to four months out. This will be the support slash transition phase.

(00:35:41):

You're kind of making your prep a little bit more biased towards election, but you're not getting super specific yet. And I'll talk about some details as we go. So the main difference here is going to be more rucking, but it's not going to be as much rucking as you'll do in the last couple of months before you go. So probably once [00:36:00] per week, give or take once per week, maybe five rucks per month. You could do once in a while, say you're going and practicing land nav and I'll talk about a little bit of details later on how to practice land nav, but maybe you're going once a week or once a month to practice land nav in that week you happen to do two rucks, but you don't necessarily have to go more than four or five rucks per month during this time. Secondary focus, you really want to get to where your runtime, you're very confident in your two mile runtime.

(00:36:26):

So maybe what could potentially happen is this [00:36:30] happened to me, you get your two mile runtime really, really fast during this phase. You might even lose some two mile run time in the final phase, but that's okay if you already have a really, really good two mile time throughout this phase. If you develop a really good two mile time throughout this phase. Main reason being when you transition into the last phase, which I'll get into the details, but you transition into a lot more rucking bias and a lot less running bias, you're maybe going to lose a little bit of top end two mile run speed. The [00:37:00] difference between being able to run a fast two mile and being able to ruck forever day after day after day at a slow pace is enough to where you may not, some people may be a really good rucker day after day and be able to maintain a solid split as far as walking in mountainous terrain, but maybe not great at a two mile run and vice versa.

(00:37:24):

So that's just one little nuance that it's okay it you work your two mile time down to well [00:37:30] faster than you know need to be during this phase. If you lose a little bit of it in the last phase, no big deal. So that's going to be like your secondary focus is getting really fast at a two mile if you're not quite there. I will say this too, if you don't get quite there by the end of this phase, that's okay, you can still get faster in the last phase, but just something to consider if you're going about it as optimally as I would recommend going about it. So as far as workloads, by the way, in phase one, 40 to 50 pounds is really what [00:38:00] you need. And then same with this one. I would say 45 to 50 pounds maybe up to 55 once in a while, but you don't necessarily have to go up there yet.

(00:38:08):

Don't do any ruck running yet. By the way, you should not do ruck running in phase one. They should be only ruck walks. And same with this phase. You don't have to do any ruck running and I wouldn't recommend doing any ruck running because you want to be available again for that last phase. And if you get to where you're really good at walking with a ruck on and you have a great running base and you're strong, which I just basically gave you the exact recipe [00:38:30] to do that, then once you do start ruck running a, you're going to be available for it. You're not going to be banged up already or injured or having to take a bunch of days off after every time you ruck run because it hurts you. But B, you're going to be able to walk pretty much almost as fast as you need to walk.

(00:38:50):

If you just walked the entire 18 miler, yeah, you'd be probably not one of the top dogs. You definitely should run it, but you'd still be if you get up to 13, 30, 14 [00:39:00] minute per mile walking pace, which by the way a lot of people don't think is possible, which blows my mind. Most people just don't focus on walking fast with a ruck on and so therefore they don't think it's possible to walk 13 minute miles or 1330 miles with a 50 pound ruck on. But I am here to tell you it absolutely is, and yes it is even if you're short. I have a couple of clients and I have had several clients in the past that are below five eight who can walk 1330 miles with a 50 pound R [00:39:30] on for two, three straight hours. So it's possible, but you just have to do it and this is what I would definitely focus on.

(00:39:37):

If you've never gone out and trained rucking with a purpose like ruck walking with a purpose, really trying to get your ruck walking pace down, then I would really focusing on that here. A lot of people either ruck run or trot, they kind of just go fast like they were doing a time trial or they just leisurely walk. They don't actually push that ruck [00:40:00] walking and it's going to be really uncomfortable and you're not going to like it when you first do it, and a lot of people just write it off after they do it once or twice. I don't like that it's more comfortable for me to shuffle or run, so I'm just going to run or shuffle and I can't think of many things that you could do once or twice that would feel extremely comfortable after doing it once or twice, let alone rucking, which is just inherently going to always be at least somewhat uncomfortable. Imagine [00:40:30] thinking that it's going to be perfectly comfortable the first time you walk as fast as you can with a ruck up. It's not. It takes time. You actually have to allow your body to adapt to it and get used to it. So just remember that if you are struggling to get your ruck walking pace down, I would say a great target for the end of this phase would be my dog's itching herself.

(00:40:51):

Hopefully she stopped. Anyway. If you are getting to the end of this phase, generally what you want to be at is something like 1330 [00:41:00] to 1430 walking pace for two plus hours. If you can do that, you're in a pretty good spot. You're a little slower than that, no big deal. If you're faster than that, awesome. But it is possible, I promise. You just have to work at it. If you are struggling to get that walking pace up or faster, what you can do is add some repeats and these are walking repeats. They're not running repeats. So what you'll do is say you do a two hour ruck as one of your training sessions. After [00:41:30] that ruck, you find a little hill ideally three, four, 5% incline that you can walk up for about a minute and you go as fast as you possibly can up that hill and then you kind of leisurely walk back down to the base and go back up the hill.

(00:41:43):

It's almost like strides doing it for 45 seconds, a minute, minute 15, whatever, like your running strides except you're ruck walking strides as fast as you can. Additionally, and I wouldn't do this on the same day, you could do it on the same day, but I would probably do it like alternate week to week. You should do some downhill [00:42:00] rock walking very, very fast. That gets you used to faster leg turnover. It beats you up a little bit more, but it's still a very worthwhile trade F especially if you are just walking, which I would recommend walking for all these. Those are great tools to enhance your ruck walking pace if you need them. Not a lot of people need them, honestly, I would say maybe one third of my clients that are going to this selection need them and they work really well for them.

(00:42:27):

But if you are able to just continuously [00:42:30] ruck week after week after week and get your times down to that 13, 30 14, 14 30 pace, then you're going to probably be totally fine. You don't necessarily need to add these. You can if you want, but you don't need to lifting. This is a period where I would go three days per week max. Going more than three days per week is just totally unnecessary regardless of who you are, even if you're lacking in the strength department, you don't need to lift more than three times per week. If you're lifting with any semblance of soundness, [00:43:00] then you should be able to gain plenty of strength lifting three times per week. Or if you don't need to gain strength, which most people probably don't need to gain strength again, you don't need to be super strong for this election, then it's still totally fine to maintain it and it's not going to interfere or eat up into your recovery reserves.

(00:43:16):

Well, if you do it properly and you don't do way, way, way, way too much, it's not going to eat too much into your recovery reserves from your rucking and your running. So during this time, I would also consider doing more speed work. [00:43:30] So something like three to four weeks on one week off, three to four weeks on one week off where you do speed work, two hundreds, four hundreds, eight hundreds. You can go up to miles, you can do one Ks, whatever. But I would keep it really simple and just do two hundreds, four hundreds, eight hundreds for the most part. If you were to follow my ruck run lift plan, which is by the way, by far the best way to prep for this selection as far as TTM programs, then you'll have a little bit more variety in your repeats in your speed work just because I programmed [00:44:00] it and I know what I'm doing.

(00:44:01):

But a lot of people, if you're self programming and you're not very, very well-read and well-versed and highly experienced on running programming, then I would just keep things really simple. Things like two hundreds, one-to-one work rest ratio, four hundreds, one-to-one work rest ratio, something like two to three miles of volume is really all you need. And doing that with high quality at the proper pacing at around your goal, two mile pace, maybe a little faster, sometimes maybe a little slower sometimes depending [00:44:30] on the rest periods and so on and so forth, would be a good idea. But additionally, I would really, really, if you didn't do it in phase one, I would get your step count up. That would be a fantastic idea because just spending more time on your feet is never going to be a bad thing and it is just a good way to build that kind of in the margins fitness that you never know might pay off sometime.

(00:44:54):

Honestly, older running philosophies like much older before a lot of science came [00:45:00] out, a lot of high level runners would spend their off seasons just walking an insane amount. They would just walk 20 K steps, 20 5K steps. They would probably break it down into mileage because they didn't have pedometers. I think pedometers have been around for a while, but most people didn't wear smart watches around, so they didn't really track step count, but running coaches would have their athletes do a ton of walking in the off season to kind of build that robustness of their base before they really got into kind of transferring that into more long runs. [00:45:30] So walking, never going to hurt. You definitely consider getting your step count up and a lot of people say they don't have time to walk, and I find that laughable because I mean, if you have time to sit down and watch this entire episode, then you probably could watch this whole episode or listen to it on a walk if you want.

(00:45:50):

That is, it's so easy to work walking into your life. Walk for five to 10 minutes after meals, walk anytime you're on a call, anytime you sit and scroll, [00:46:00] Hey, I'm sitting and scrolling, I could be walking. I tell people I don't have time to walk. I'm going to stand up and walk and scroll. At least you have time to walk. Maybe not 15,000 steps, but you can get your step count up higher than it is right now, and I guarantee that to you. So some skills also that you want to consider practicing during this time. So I've talked all about fitness thus far, but oh by the way, you have to be really good at Land Nav when you go to this selection in order to do well. So I would get out and start [00:46:30] practicing Land Nav. Now, this can look a few different ways.

(00:46:34):

My number one recommendation is to go to Dahlonega Georgia to fifth RTB, where they have Mountain Faar Ranger School. There's a former unit guy who puts on a land nav course there. He literally runs the whole thing. He organizes the whole thing. I did not go to this, but I have some of my clients go to it as well as some of my buddies that were in my selection, especially Rangers that didn't have a lot of land nav experience. But I would say [00:47:00] if you're a gb, you should probably go too, because there's a massive gap between selection Land nav as far as SFAS and Long Walk Land Nav, very, very big gap. So consider going to Dahlonega and doing that. There should be a staff duty number. If you just Google like fifth RTB staff duty, you should be able to find the number and you can call that and coordinate it.

(00:47:21):

But if you can go do that once a month or at least a couple times throughout this phase, you're going to get a lot of similar exposure to similar terrain [00:47:30] as what you'll see at selection. And again, it's ran by a guy who's been there, done that, so he knows what he's doing as far as setting up the courses and the points and just the logistics of all of it. So should you wear a ruck during this land nav or should you just go slick and maybe just bring, of course, bring food and water and things like that? Clothing I would recommend mostly going no ruck during this time, especially the first couple times. Once you get a really good warm and fuzzy on the land nav, yes, you can throw a ruck on and go do [00:48:00] it, but the ruck adds a whole different dimension to land Nav, which is why it's so hard to pass the selection and any selections that involve land ing with a ruck on.

(00:48:09):

But to get the skills down, or if you're already skilled at it and you're just kind of knocking off the rust first few times, just go no ruck, and then you can add weight later if you want, especially if you tie this into your training, which is a great option for a lot of people. So other options, you can come up to Camp McCall and go to TF [00:48:30] Voodoo's Land Nav Muster. It is very, very high quality instruction. If you have no idea what you're doing land nav wise, I would probably recommend starting with this because you're going to get a really good down and dirty instruction on it. Now, the terrain there, the practical exercises you'll do at that particular muster are nowhere near sufficient as far as matching up to what you're going to see in West Virginia. The terrain is totally different, the movements are different and basically a lot of aspects [00:49:00] of it are different.

(00:49:01):

Basic land nav skills, however, are universal. So if you need to equip yourself with basic land nav skills and or say you're at third group and you're looking to get a little bit of a refresher or you're trying to knock some rust off, which I would recommend, then it is 100% worth it to go to this course, even if it's not going to match up perfectly to West Virginia, which is not. So that's another option. Orienteering clubs, [00:49:30] most states in the country have orienteering clubs. You can go on Google and just Google Orient Orienteering Clubs near me or Orienteering clubs. There's a big website that has a big map of where they're all located. When you go there, you're going to learn some different terminology. Civilian Land Nav and Military Land Nav don't use the same terms and they might use some different techniques, but for the most part, land Nav is Land Nav and getting reps is getting reps.

(00:49:56):

So that is another great option. You're going to meet some really weird people there. [00:50:00] Believe it or not, people go and do Land N for fun. Basically, what I like to describe these people as is ultra runners who also love to not necessarily follow a set ultra course, but make their own ultra course. They're absolute freaks. You're going to get beat by them. If you go out and do competitions, you're going to get absolutely destroyed by them. Don't worry about it, just build your skills, gain confidence. That is the huge thing is going to this selection, extremely confident in your land nav ability [00:50:30] and worst case scenario, you can do it on your own. If you already have at least say you're a Green Beret or maybe even arranger and you just know general land nav tactics strategies and plotting points and planning routes, dead reckoning versus train association, the basics like that, then going out and doing it on your own is totally fine.

(00:50:52):

Just make sure you tell someone where you're going when you're going to be back. Give them a gwa. You don't want to be lost in some [00:51:00] undisclosed location where no one knows where you're at and no one knows how to find you. That would not be a good idea, not worth it. So make sure you're smart about that and you can definitely go do it on your own and give yourself your own points and go do it and you're still getting some good value out of that. When you're at selection, I mean a lot of people ask, do you mostly terrain associate or do you mostly dead? Reckon I did not. Dead reckon one single time at that selection, not once. [00:51:30] I did not take my compass and shoot one single azimuth. It's all general direction. It is all terrain. A association. If you don't know how to terrain associate AKA, look at the map, match the map up to the terrain and walk it, you are, I mean I guess you have a fighter's chance, but your chances are very, very low and you are in no way going to be the most efficient out there.

(00:51:55):

So getting a really, really good warm and fuzzy on terrain association and becoming very [00:52:00] skilled and confident with that is what I would recommend doing and the best way to do that is to make sure you have some decent terrain. If you're at McCall, one of the downsides of Cam McCall A, it's I mean very easy to walk, but B, because the terrain's not prominent, you can't really terrain associate other than using roads and draws and lakes and things like that, but it's not like up down, up down mountains, ridges, et cetera. So better than nothing, but still I would try and get yourself into some mountainous terrain or at least some undulating terrain. [00:52:30] You practice your land F, so a lot of SF guys will ask, do you still recommend that If I've already been to selection, say I found all my points at selection.

(00:52:40):

I do. I did not do any prep for land nav and obviously it worked out for me. I still was good at land nav enough to go and crush selection. However, the first couple days when we started to do the easier practical exercises, I was definitely rusty and [00:53:00] I would've loved to not be rusty and use those days to really refine things rather than to knock the rust off. So can you get away with not going and doing it? If you're generally sound in the woods, you know what you're doing and you have done well in land have in the past, yes, but it does make sense to me. I would highly recommend going and getting some reps in if you possibly can and you probably can. So last three to four month push. Let's get into it. This [00:53:30] is the official selection prep and real quick, how to determine whether you should do three months or four months generally if you are just a running stud in a rucking stud, you can do a more abbreviated prep.

(00:53:44):

That's what I did. I did nine, 10 weeks. If you are in any way questioning whether you're a running stud or a rucking stud, then I would go probably four months and the main difference is you're just going to start doing more frequent rucking and more ruck running [00:54:00] a little bit sooner rather than a little bit later if you're already really comfortable with those things. That makes sense. There's no perfect exact way to give exact criteria on when you should start, but if it makes any difference, my CAG selection program, which can be used for other selections, but R run lift, which also involves CAG prep is four months long, but mainly that first month is sort of like an intro base phase. You do definitely do some rucking, you do some faster [00:54:30] running and things like that, but it's more of like a base intro phase and the last three months are really down and dirty and high volume, high intensity, especially rucking.

(00:54:38):

So this is when you want to ruck at least twice a week and some people will say, oh no, you don't need to ruck, you can ruck minimally as long as you run a lot, as long as you do a lot of stairs and incline walking, less impact. Guess what? If you do that, you are going to go to this selection without having made the necessary [00:55:00] adaptations, the connective tissue, the bone impact adaptations necessary and you're going to be more beat up than the people who ruck on a regular basis a higher frequency. If you properly program your rucking and you recover well and you're strong and you have done what I just went over in the first two phases before you get into this phase, you will definitely be able to handle rucking twice per week and in fact [00:55:30] some weeks you probably ruck three times per week.

(00:55:32):

Some people, not necessarily everybody, but three times per week is definitely not off the table, especially if one of those rucks is more of a land nav practice style ruck where you're just kind of practicing, you're going pretty slow on uneven terrain and just getting a feel for different ways to walk on side slopes up, slopes down slopes, et cetera. Yes, that still beats you up a little bit. It's still going to cost some recovery, but it's not that stressful as opposed to going out and doing a 15 mile time trial biased [00:56:00] ruck. So generally what that should look like is at least one of those rucks per week kind of what I just went over some undulating terrain. It could be more like up and down hills walking only. Maybe you can go a little heavier with that. Ruck 55, 60, 65 pounds. I wouldn't say there's any necessity to go over 70 ish, maybe once, do a 70 pound ruck.

(00:56:24):

I don't think as far as I can remember, the ruck ever got that heavy at selection, but either way you want to do a [00:56:30] periodic heavier ruck, but it should not be every single week. Rucking with 65 70 pounds for the most part that walking only ruck on the uneven terrain, whether it's just rolling hills or whether it's off terrain, cross country style ruck should be in the 50 to 55 pound range, maybe up to 60 and then on your second ruck, that's more of a time trial biased ruck, so say it's on the weekend, you do a ruck that involves certain periods where you run. So maybe you start out and you're doing [00:57:00] a 100 minute ruck and first 10 minutes, last 10 minutes walking only and then one minute out of every 10 minutes in between there you break into a trot on flat ground or on slight inclines.

(00:57:12):

This is one difference that I want to get out of the way A lot of people because they know that when you're getting tested on rucks, the technique or the strategy to get your best time unless you're a stud and you can run the whole thing is to run the downhills, walk the uphills and then flats is kind of a hit or miss depending on the [00:57:30] person. Yes, that is a great strategy when you are testing, but when you're training you are not testing and there's a difference, like I said earlier, way earlier in the episode when you're going downhill with a R on, especially if you're running downhill with a R on, it is going to beat you up so you should not just do that ad livid. Almost every single program I've ever seen that involves a selection prep has R programmed just like you would recommend someone do a time trial on when they're getting tested [00:58:00] and that is a nuance that a lot of people miss.

(00:58:02):

If you're doing a bunch of downhill running with your R on in prep, you're just going to beat the hell out of your joints and your quads and it's going to be more of a recovery burden. So that being said, later on as we get closer, you want to probably definitely do some downhill ruck running, but it should be measured and controlled and it should be very, very intentional, not just, oh, go out for a 15 mile ruck and run all the downhills. That is not a good idea. So keep that in mind, but [00:58:30] say you are back to that ruck you're doing besides the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes you're doing one minute of running on flats every 10 minutes, then the following week maybe go a little longer on the ruck and you do one 30 or two minutes. You just add a little bit of time over and over or week to week and get a little bit more exposure to ruck running, but you're not just going out and you could do this if you're a freak and you're a stud and you've been ruck running for a long time, you've [00:59:00] been rucking for a long time, which is uncommon that a lot of people can get away with that, but to be honest with you, I could and I would go out and run these rucks and am I more banged up now than I could have been had I not done that probably, but I got away with it.

(00:59:15):

That being said, just because I did it does not necessarily mean that I recommended to other people. Honestly, a lot of former soft guys that are doing some similar things to what I'm doing recommend that they train their clients train just the way they did without [00:59:30] implementing anything that they've learned since then because it worked for them, it's going to work for you. That is not how it works. It's everybody's different. Everyone needs different things and if your coach just gives you the same thing that they give everything everyone else, then I would probably consider opting out of that. Or if in a program there's no nuance like Hey, make sure you run this much, walk this much, run this much, walk this much and there's no progression to it, then you probably are not in their best hands, [01:00:00] so just going to put that out there.

(01:00:02):

But anyway, if you are still lagging a little bit when I was talking about earlier the walking uphill and walking downhill repeats, you can take your ruck and do running trotting uphill and downhill repeats. I would do them mostly uphill, periodically downhill, maybe once a month where you do like five or six dimes 45 seconds downhill and you're not going full sprint, you're just doing downhill trotting. You're getting used to rucking a little bit faster. That can be [01:00:30] a good thing to implement. Again, if you are really struggling for most people, not necessary, if you're doing the ruck running periods during the time trial bias ruck, you're usually going to be pretty good, but some people need a little bit of extra running should be a lot less than the first couple phases because we're getting more specific here and you're not going to be doing a lot of running at selection.

(01:00:51):

That doesn't mean you can't do any running and it doesn't mean you should never potentially every few weeks switch one of those rucks out for a run or [01:01:00] do some running throughout the week. I would for sure maintain some speed work. You don't have to, especially if you follow directions and got your two mile time really, really good in the last phase, you should be already pretty damn fast, so it should be mostly maintenance. If you're still really slow at the two mile and you need to get faster, that's one thing. Then you should put a little bit more emphasis on both speed work as well as threshold. But for the most part, most people don't need any threshold runs during this time. Maybe a speed work session and [01:01:30] one easy run per week and then like I said, every so often, maybe every 3, 4, 5 weeks you switch a run out with a ruck or maybe you switch a ruck out with if you're feeling like banged up, you switch a ruck out with a cross-training modality that's either partial impact or minimal low impact like a StairMaster or an incline walk or non-impact like swimming or biking or rowing.

(01:01:53):

All fine options and I would probably do something like that at least every couple of weeks. [01:02:00] What I used to do was wait list, Wednesday I would do a two to three hour session where every 20 minutes I would go from Jacob's Ladder to StairMaster to what was it, incline Walk, Jacob's Ladder StairMaster incline walk. Once in a while I would do Jacob's ladder StairMaster and then a really light sled drag for like 20 minutes straight down and back down and back down and back up to you still on your feet but you're not really pounding your joints and that can be a great way to just build that robust aerobic base without [01:02:30] more joint stress and a higher recovery cost like it would be if you were running or rucking during that time. I would continue to keep your step count really high, 15,000 steps, 17,000 steps, 18,000 steps, 20,000 steps.

(01:02:43):

Ideally you have a little bit of extra time. I know not everyone's going to have time for a perfect or the freedom of schedule for this perfect, amazing ideal train up. I understand that if you're already in the military and you have things to do, you've got going out in the field, you're going on deployments, I get [01:03:00] it. Do your very best but try and get some good solid walking in 15, 17,000 steps a day would be awesome. And during this time too, you got to remember that you are going to have to do pushups and planks on the first day, so if you need some extra work on that, make sure you're doing that. Get your hand release pushup and plank up. Honestly, I'm not going to get into the details on how to improve those, just do them on a regular basis and I mean plank, there's literally never been an excuse for anyone to fail A plank.

(01:03:28):

Planks are so easy and [01:03:30] they're mostly mental and if you need extra plank work, do it. But it's not fatiguing, it's not damaging. You could literally live in a plank if you have to in order to get your plank up to three minutes and 30 seconds. Most people shouldn't need to, but if you do do it, this is when too. I would also consider if you're doing maybe once a month or twice a month, if you're doing land app still, I would practice with your ruck on now you don't have to do this every time. It doesn't have to be a super crazy heavy ruck on, but a good thing during this time in general, whether [01:04:00] you're doing land nav practice or you're going out for a training ruck or whatever it is, is to kind of shake your kid out. So practice where you're going to set up your water, whether you use an ultra running vest or a belt or some other contraption.

(01:04:14):

I personally use an ultra running vest with water on the front here and then a camelback on my back. So practicing that and seeing what you prefer for layouts. Also practicing your fueling. The great thing about this selection is you can bring gels and gummies and bars and whatever you want and eat them. [01:04:30] So really getting that nailed down, making sure you're taking in as much as you possibly can within reason within how much you brought. Generally if you're getting up to 80 to a hundred grams of carbs per hour on rux and or long runs, you're in a really good spot and that sounds a lot like a lot to people and I would not start there. Notice how I said getting up to it. I want to start a little lower and build up. As your gut gets used to the intake and the specific cadence [01:05:00] as well as the types of carbohydrates you're taking in, you build more of a tolerance and you can take in more.

(01:05:06):

There are certain Tor de France athletes that take in 150 grams of carbs per hour while they're on their bike. Biking is a little different than on foot because there's no up and down churning of the gut on a bike like there is when you're running and rucking. But you can get up to about a hundred, I would say getting higher than a hundred. I mean you could do it, you get up to one 20 going higher than one 20 is definitely not really all that fruitful. Your body [01:05:30] can only handle so much per hour that, and these things are expensive. The gels and gummies and GOs are expensive, but you definitely want to do this throughout your entire training and other things you should focus on during this time. So actually I'm getting a little bit off track. I'll talk more about some other shakeout stuff here in a bit, but a general week structure would be something like on Monday you do a full body lift and some speed work.

(01:05:55):

On Tuesday you do a rough terrain style ruck 90 [01:06:00] minutes, two hours, three hours, work your way up. You can get up to three, three and a half, four hours for that and maybe you implement some land nav practice, maybe some of those Rucks Wednesday, something like a wait list Wednesday that I just went over, non-impact stuff, really long duration Thursday, maybe a full body lift, no conditioning Friday, maybe get an easy run, longer easy run and then Saturday you go out and do a really good hard time trial bias ruck. That could be one of many [01:06:30] different splits. That is not even a split that I have in my ruck run lift program. I've got a slightly different split. I think it's two lifting sessions per week, one calisthenics day per week and then two rucks most weeks. Once in a while there are back to back rucks I would say as you get closer to going to selection, make sure you're getting maybe once or twice and I would space these out by a couple weeks where you do back to back ruck days.

(01:06:55):

So you go out, this is like an ultra running tactic where they do instead of going [01:07:00] for say a 50 mile run all at once because that would just destroy them. You don't want to necessarily run that long in training. Even if your race is that longer than that, you go out and do something like a 25 mile run followed by a 15 mile run the next day. In this case it would be something like a three hour ruck one day where you're doing maybe more time trial biased and then the next day you go out for another 75, 90 minute ruck where you're just walking only. I wouldn't do two time trial bias rucks where you're doing a bunch of running [01:07:30] both days, but you're getting used to running or rucking on fatigue lakes. So that's another not necessarily make or break strategy, but something I would consider.

(01:07:39):

One thing I used to do was a back-to-back day where I'd go out and do a time trial bias ruck 14, 15, 16 miles and then the next day I would go do double incline in Manitou, Colorado and that was a brutal couple of days and then of course I'd take a couple days off after that or a couple easy days after that to recover. But that just gets you used to performing on fatigued [01:08:00] legs, which oh by the way, the entirety of that selection you're going to be on fatigued legs. So lastly, as you get a little bit closer, so say maybe six weeks out, four weeks out and two or three weeks out, this is when you want to start making those downhill adaptations. So start doing a little bit of ruck running downhill on these rucks. It doesn't have to be anything crazy. It doesn't have to be super long.

(01:08:25):

Again, it beats you up more. It's more of a recovery burden to ruck run downhill. Even if it's more [01:08:30] fatiguing acutely to ruck run uphill. It is more of a recovery burden because it beats your body up more. It's more of a stressor to ruck run downhill. So something like eight to 10 minutes your first time total, not all at once, but total throughout say three hour ruck. Second time, say you're four weeks out, maybe you do 14 to 16 minutes of total downhill running throughout the entire ruck. Then maybe when you're two, three weeks out before you start your taper, you do 18, 20, 22 [01:09:00] minutes of downhill running, something like that. It doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be exactly that. I'm kind of just coming up with not necessarily coming up with numbers, random numbers, but based on what I do with my clients for both SFAS as well as the selection, just to get them used to that, just to make those adaptations.

(01:09:16):

Again, it doesn't take much and they also kind of hang around. They linger around for a while. So if you do it three weeks out and then you start your taper, which generally by the way, I would probably do a two to three week taper where you're really reducing volume. If you're doing [01:09:30] three week taper, maybe that first week you do 66% of your volume as you've been doing second week, 33% fourth week, 25% or you could do 75, 50, 25 if you do a two week taper, you could do something like 60%, then 25% or 50%, then 25% or 50% than 20. It doesn't have to be this exact perfect science or anything like that, but it should be a really intentional taper where you dial back, especially the volume but also a little [01:10:00] bit of the intensity and that way you show up fresh. You don't show up as if you had just finished an entire selection prep without resting at all or without letting that fatigue subside.

(01:10:13):

You finish your hardest training week well before you actually go that way. You allow that fatigue, that inflammation, the mental fatigue, the nervous system fatigue to subside. You allow yourself to de-stress your body's just in a very high stress state when you're training for these things, physical [01:10:30] stress, mental stress, life stress, all stress really does add up. And you're by the way, stress that you're about to go to this selection, which not a lot of people do, not a lot of people attempt and even fewer people actually make it. So it's a high stress period and when you dial back that training, your body's just going to catch up almost. It's catching up stress hormones, your stress hormones are going to reduce and you're going to feel a lot better and you really want to keep your nutrition dialed in throughout this entire time. I'll talk a little bit about [01:11:00] details here nutritionally in a second, but some of the other critical considerations besides ruck and ultra vests shakeout are one, do you need to use amali rucksack?

(01:11:16):

Yes, you'll have to use Amali at that selection, but in training, as long as you're familiar with Amali, you should be totally fine if you don't use Amali. I did my entire train up using my tactical tailor malice pack and not once did I [01:11:30] say, oh man, I wish I trained up with a Molly. I am a big fan of specificity, but in this case, it's okay to train with a ruck that you're comfortable with even if it's not the Molly, as long as you've used a molly in your past history. The main reason I didn't use my Molly is because the strap fasteners were so worn down that every five steps I had to cinch them down and it was a pain in the ass. The ruck that gave me at selection was not like that. It was nice and it was never an issue.

(01:11:55):

So use whatever ruck you want as long as you're familiar with a mo. Again, [01:12:00] fueling hydration prep, make sure you're also breaking in two pair of boots, not just one two pair of boots. You can have your main boots where you use for most of your rucks, but also consider a second pair of boots. Do not overthink boots like 99% of people do. There is no such thing as an off the shelf optimal boot. The optimal boot is the boot that you get off the shelf and you try on and it feels pretty good and then you wear it again and again and again and again. You increase your [01:12:30] training mileage, your overall volume over time. With that, your feet get used to the boots, the boots get broken in. You make the necessary adaptations to become basically blister proof. I never once used any sort of blister prevention, anything other than keeping my feet clean and my nails trimmed and maybe some foot powder the entire time train up as well as selection.

(01:12:55):

My feet were totally fine because I grabbed a pair of boots and [01:13:00] I stuck to them and that was that. I will say funny story on the second to last night, I fell asleep by the fire and my boots were right by the fire and it burnt the soles off and I emphasized breaking in a second pair of boots because I didn't do that. My backup boots because my soles fell off, the only boots I'd used the entire time. I hadn't used my backups at all, but I couldn't use them for the really long walk that they have at the end. And so I had to use my backup boots and I did get a blister on [01:13:30] that ruck because I was not used to those boots whatsoever. But aside from that, that was it. You can get your feet to where they're indestructible without using all these different foot care shenanigans that people talk about all the time.

(01:13:42):

Doing prophylactic foot care is like wearing gloves to the gym. If you want your hands to be resilient, you allow them to build calluses, you expose them to the weights over time and they get tougher and more resilient and more durable. Same with your feet and you're [01:14:00] rucking and your boots. If you're putting mole skin on every single time you go and just covering that area up that you normally get blisters or hotspots, guess what? When you're not in the perfect condition to put mole skin on at selection, which you're probably not going to be or you might have other areas that you just haven't identified in training that kind of act up at selection, you're just going to get destroyed. And I would much rather rely on my feet to actually be capable of withstanding day after day after day of rucking and then maybe have these things as a backup plan if [01:14:30] I get a hotspot or if something goes south. That is a much better mindset to go about your foot care with and that's another thing most people don't talk about, but it is strongly recommended and it's what I deal with all my clients. My clients have never had any issues with blisters or anything like that at selection because we train out properly and I really emphasize breaking in their boots and having a backup pair that's also broken in.

(01:14:55):

So outside training, I am not going to get super duper detailed into this because [01:15:00] it's already been a really long episode and it's general stuff that I talk about all the time for overall recovery and performance, but you want to really take in a lot of calories and especially carbohydrates by the end of this. I was taken in like 5,200 calories per day and probably 650 to 800 grams of carbs depending on the day, sometimes even more than that on longer RT days where I would have several hundred grams of carbs during my ruck. So a lot of people eat kind of like baby birds [01:15:30] throughout this time and you're training for a very, very high stakes selection that is very, very physically demanding and psychologically demanding as well. And if you are underfeeding yourself overall, you're not going to do well. Your injury risk is going to be higher.

(01:15:48):

You are not going to perform well, you're not going to recover fast and that's no bueno. And when you get there too, make sure you're continuing to eat as much as you possibly can while you're there. I think I lost like three pounds this entire selection [01:16:00] because I was just basically every waking hour that I was not actively rucking or sleeping, I was just eating food and sometimes you're going to have to force yourself to eat food. Sometimes I was force feeding myself, especially during stress week the last week where I was just pounding mountain house meals because I knew I needed. And if you are one of those people who just like, oh, I don't like to eat, or Oh, I'm just not hungry, just suck it up and eat. I promise you it will pay off. And this [01:16:30] includes during your prep. So high carb, high calorie, no baby bird shit.

(01:16:34):

Don't try and cut while you're going into selection prep. If you need to cut by the way, go way back to the intro phase, the base phase and do your cut then and do a really reasonable gradual cut. Don't do anything crazy extreme. You should not be cutting and prepping for selection at the same time. That is a terrible idea. So sleep, of course, dialing in your sleep, making sure you can sleep as well as possible. Of course, if you're in [01:17:00] the military, you might not be able to perfect your sleep, but you can probably put some things in place and make some sacrifices and move some things around to get better sleep than you're doing now. And that would be strongly recommended because sleep is one of the most important factors of this entire process, even though I'm barely talking about it. You are going to be so much better off across the board with your prep, less injury prone, perform better, you're going to make more gains, you're going to have a better mental outlook if you sleep [01:17:30] well.

(01:17:30):

So some of the top things, consistent sleep and wake times is by far number one as best you possibly can. Getting some sunlight in the morning in your eyes, getting outside maybe for a 10, 15 minute walk each morning after sunup sometime before 10:00 AM ish is a good idea. Making sure that you are not slamming caffeine in the afternoon, last hour of the day. No screens, no stressful stuff, no work, no email, just wind down, read chat with your spouse, pet your dogs, [01:18:00] take a shower, get stuff prepared for the next day, something like that. Dim all the lights, keep the house nice and cool. Basic sleep stuff. I mean I've talked about this a million times in pretty much all my episodes so I won't get too much more into sleep. Just don't treat it as an afterthought. A lot of people do and it's a massive mistake.

(01:18:16):

And then managing your stress, something like yoga nidra or mindfulness or breath work or journaling or even watching comedy intentionally going and watching comedy just so you can relax and laugh and [01:18:30] chill out and not think about it for a little while, something to take your mind off. It is going to be a really good thing. It's most soft guys and most type A individuals scoff at this stuff. And ironically, they are by far the best candidates for this stuff to get helped by this stuff. And I used to scoff at it until I started doing it and it is an absolute night end day game changer. I do yoga nidra at least three days a week. Recently I've been doing like five or six days a week. If you need a yoga nidra resource, it's basically like a body scan. Breath [01:19:00] work kind of calms you down, resets your nervous system.

(01:19:03):

It's not like the science term, but that's how you feel. You feel better after and less stress. Go to YouTube and type in Ali Boid. She has a great yoga Niger channel and she has a bunch of different durations of them. They're a little bit different each one, and it is literally like I look forward to doing it almost every day. So definitely manage your stress, make sure you're not just stressing over a bunch of random stuff, intentionally drop certain stressors that are just unneeded, like [01:19:30] bad relationships or other things that just aren't going to serve you any positive purpose. If anything, they're just detracting from your mental state and therefore probably going to detract from your physical state. That is when this is the time to drop them throughout this entire last few months. Mobility and prehab, this is something that I notice at selection.

(01:19:52):

So when you're in your downtime, and this kind of applies to pre-selection as you're prepping, but when you're in your downtime [01:20:00] at this selection, you can pretty much do whatever you want. The guys who are always foam rolling and stretching and making up these random recovery exercises typically got dropped sooner or did not last as long as the guys who did as close to nothing as possible. My recovery habits or my recovery routine every day was to lay in my bed in. I put compression pants on sometimes, but I would lay in my bed, eat food and read or chat with [01:20:30] the guys around me. That was it. I didn't touch a foam roller the entire time. I didn't stretch. I didn't use a lacrosse ball, I didn't use any of that stuff because I didn't use it in training. But also I know that recovery happens not from doing more mobility and more foam rolling and other stuff like that.

(01:20:47):

That is not how recovery works. Recovery is sleep, nutrition time, managing your stress, relaxing AKA, doing as close to nothing as possible. That doesn't mean you can't do any of this stuff. And if you're [01:21:00] someone who loves doing this stuff on a regular basis and also you're making sure that you're not over indexing it and focusing mostly on your training, your needle moving training fine, but just know that you're not going to foam roll your way out of poor preparation. You're just not. And a lot of guys wish they could have. And I saw a bunch of guys trying to do that. There was a couple guys that were literally on a foam roller for like two hours plus at selection during downtime, like what are you doing dude? And they did not make it because [01:21:30] what they did was probably over index that stuff in prep and under index, the actual needle moving training, which I pretty much just went over.

(01:21:39):

So lastly, throughout this time, you're going to want to make sure that you take some deloads throughout this entire time. And deloads for me, my preferred method for deloads is, Hey, next four days, don't even think about training. Don't train, don't think about it. Get great sleep, get great nutrition, stay active [01:22:00] for sure. You can walk and whatnot, but don't think about training. You can do classic deloads where you still go in and do less volume and or less intensity. You can do weeks where you just train non-impact stuff. And I would probably recommend doing that regardless. But if you are dead set on going to this election and you decide a year out, I'm going to go and you think that more training is always just going to be better, whoever trains the most is the one who's going to make it. You are mistaken.

(01:22:30):

[01:22:30] The guys who have a really good understanding and grasp and are able to accept the fact that training hard is really important, but so is resting and recovering hard. Those are the ones who do best not just at the selection but just in general with their life in the military as well as after. It's the same with work. If all you do is just work and you never recover, you never let loose and relax and take some time away to build up that desire to do it again, you're just going to burn yourself out. [01:23:00] And physical training is the same thing. So even though it might mentally say you're four weeks out or six weeks out or six months out and you're taking a few days where you're dialing back your training or taking some time away from training, even though during that time mentally you're going to feel like you're losing ground, honestly, you are gaining ground as long as you're doing the right things during that time, you're not going on benders and whatnot, you're gaining ground.

(01:23:26):

For example, when I got into my taper [01:23:30] before I went to this election, I would not recommend this, but I pretty much stopped training when I was 11 days out. And the next four days I went to Breckenridge and I just skied with my wife and we went out and partied a little bit. Wouldn't recommend doing that, but we did. And I ate a bunch and I didn't really think about training. I didn't think about rucking, I didn't think about selection. I just kind of let loose and my taper was shorter than what I would recommend and I wouldn't recommend going and tearing it up at Breckenridge [01:24:00] or another ski resort for half of that duration. But that's what I did. And I felt mentally refreshed. I felt physically refreshed and I went in and I did pretty damn well at this election. And you can too if you rest hard just like you work hard.

(01:24:19):

So lastly, I'm not going to get into a q and a just because it is almost an hour and a half in and I'm losing my ability to talk. But I will talk [01:24:30] about heat acclimation and I'm not going to get into too many details, but I would strongly recommend watching my heat training podcast that I made a couple of years ago. I will link that below in the description, gets all into the details, why it's important, why you should do it. And you absolutely should do it regardless of which selection you're going to, even if it's not hot, at least you cross your T's and dotted your i's beforehand. And worst case scenario, you do your heat training or your heat exposure training, [01:25:00] whether it's actually training the heat or sauna or hot bath or whatever. You can watch that episode to see some details.

(01:25:06):

But if it's not hot, it's not going to hurt the fact, the fact that you did, it's not going to hurt. If it is hot and you didn't do it, then you are probably going to be in for a world of hurt. So don't take that lightly, take it seriously. Make sure you do that. Make sure you watch that episode and go in and crush. So hopefully you guys got something good out of that. That was very challenging for me. I jumped around a little bit, [01:25:30] but I think I got all the points across that I wanted to get across. And if not, I will maybe talk in a future podcast episode a little bit more about something I missed. Or if you guys have questions or follow on questions, you can drop 'em below. Let me know what you thought of the episode. And yeah, thanks for tuning in. If you're still here, I'll be back soon with another episode. Until then, Terminator out.