psmith wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2019 6:57 pm
I'd be mighty interested in seeing a writeup of your experience with that training cycle.
(And, of course, interesting suggestions generally ITT.).
I did it nearly a decade ago and didn't take any notes other than recording the workouts. But the training itself was a Rob Shaul Military Athlete program entitled "Afghanistan Pre-Deployment Training Plan." You can find pdf copies of the original 2009 program on the web, though he's selling what I assume is an updated version on his site:
https://mtntactical.com/shop/afghanista ... ning-plan/
It was a 6-week, Monday through Friday with weekends off structure that went like this:
Monday - DOT Drill and Step Ups
Tuesday - Distance run, moderate pace
Wednesday - Sandbag Getups and Leg Blasters
Thursday - Ruck in kit, with 25# in ruck sack, carrying weapon
Friday - 300m sprints and Calf Tabatas
It's a progressive program, with the last week of training including 1,000 step-ups with 40# in less than 50 minutes, a 5-mile ruck, and 20 minutes of 80# sandbag get-ups. The "leg blasters" on Wednesday are brutal. It's a circuit of air squats, lunges, jumping lunges, and jumping squats that adds eccentric training that's useful for the purpose of the program (preparing to hike up and DOWN mountains). As you can see, there's no upper-body work, so I added circuits of pull-ups, chin-ups, push-ups, and dips. Can't remember which days (or the exact format), but I'm guessing Tuesday and Friday.
Since doing the program, I've kept both step-ups and sandbag get-ups in my mix, though I tend to use a 60# bag these days.
One workout that I really like with step-ups is to do as many rounds as you want of...
Run 400 meters
50 step-ups
A steady pace for me is finishing each component under 2:30. So approximately 5 minutes per round. 12 rounds and you've run 3 miles and done 600 step-ups in less than an hour. That probably doesn't sound like much, but it's not easy running after the step-ups. I typically use just 25# for the step-ups when doing that particular circuit. It's a decent substitute when I can't trail run but want to pretend that I am.