Why Military Fitness is Not The Best Kind of Fitness and How a Few Tips From The Military Can Help You Reach Your Goals
Recently, a reader asked me why I don’t write more about military fitness and about how to get in shape military style. It was a good question, and I’m going to address it now. There are two reasons that I usually don’t talk about fitness in the military, one that is more obvious and one that might surprise you. The first reason is that at the end of the day, how we train in the military is not public information and I take that seriously.
The second reason is that even if I could discuss how we train in the military, the training is not necessarily ideal, healthy or even better than civilian training. In fact, from my own experience I found that training the military way is not close to as good as training normally. Why? Because the military, and that goes for every military on the planet, is not a place to pamper you or help you get strong healthily. It’s a fighting force and as far as it is concerned you are just another pawn on the board that has to be fit enough to do its job. It may be necessary, but it is far from ideal.
That being said, I think that once we understand that overall, military fitness isn’t the best way to go about training, we can then take the things that are actually good about military style training and try to incorporate them into our routine. Here are a few excellent tips I got from the military that can help you achieve your fitness goals:
Discipline Yourself Not to Miss Workouts
A military cannot function without discipline, and there is no such thing as a soldier skipping a training session because he’s “not in the mood”. How many times have you skipped a workout or let yourself be lax in your diet and then regretted it after? You know how important consistency and hard work is, so it’s time to steel yourself and make the effort to keep up your workouts, even when you’re feeling discouraged or unmotivated.
Workout Even If You’re a Little Sore
In the military, you can’t tell your drill sergeant that you’re not going to do push ups because you’re feeling sore. And while I don’t recommend working out when you’re extremely sore, how many times have you not done a workout because you’re a “little sore.” Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to keep working out when you’re a bit sore, and you’ll even get a better feeling for when you’re too sore to workout and when it’s good to keep going.
Take Better Control of Your Diet
There is almost no overweight person in training in the military who isn’t able to lose weight. Why? Because the person is forced to live a different lifestyle, meaning a ton of activity and meal plans that are provided by someone else and not themselves. Sometimes, losing weight just requires a little more vigilance in counting calories and paying more attention to what you’re eating.
No Excuses
One of the first things a soldier learns in the military is that there are no excuses for poor performance. Make a habit of taking responsibility for yourself and instead of blaming other people for poor performance, pinpoint what went wrong in your training or diet, make a change, and start marching down the path towards victory.
There You Have It…
There you have it. Now you know why military fitness isn’t the best kind of fitness and how a few tips from the military can help you reach your goals. Do you agree that the way the military goes about getting in shape isn’t the ideal way?
August 16th, 2009 at 7:59 am
As you may know from my comments one of my primary interests is in ’special forces’ and I intend to join the s.a.s when I am old enough. In the s.a.s there is a focus of cardio and endurance, in the selection process there is 4 weeks of of hill walking over a mountain range, the
distance and the weight that must be carried increasing every day ending with a 40 mile hike with a 60lbs pack in under 20 hours. Although I am sure this would make you very fit I am concerned about the long term damage damage this type of training could do to your joints, a lot of ‘fitnesss fanatics’ end up needing joint and hip replacements. I agree that military training is’nt the best kind, my reason being the focus on long distance cardio which I have read elsewhere to be damaging to your health.
August 16th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Henry – I’m going to go ahead and assume to kind of training they do in the S.A.S. is not done with a focus on your overall health. I think the best way of going about it is to acknowledge that the training isn’t the best, and to try to prepare your body as much as possible so that you don’t get injured.
That means strengthening your joints, ligaments, and tendons by doing exercises like weighted squats and moving up the weights at a slow pace. It means stretching at regular intervals to remain limber and make sure you have good ankle and toe flexibility. (A great stretch once you’re able to do it is sitting on your toes.)
If you start preparing your body now, there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to come out of training without any injuries. Also, if you do have some joint, tendon, or ligament pain after training, I’d highly recommend finding a skilled prolotherapist and getting some prolotherapy. Hope that helps!
-Rafi
August 16th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Thnx 4 d article man.i dunno why but i hv tons of respect n interest 4 d military.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
thanks for your informative response although I query recommending squats for joint protection. I have always thought squats and lunges are dangerous exercises placing lots of pressure on the joints increasing the risk of injury. Squats are one of the main exercises ballet dancers perform and they are known for having to retire at a young age due to injury. Anyway I don’t think ex s.a.s are really prone to injuries for example Ranulph Fiennes is the oldest man to climb everest
August 16th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Lihan – No problem.
Henry -Yeah, squats and lunges can be dangerous unless you work your way up really slowly, in which case I think they can work to strength the joints instead of injuring them. And thanks for bringing up Ranulph Fiennes. I didn’t know who he was until I just looked him up on Wikipedia. He’s definitely a really interesting guy.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
This was really interesting, I didnt know much about military fitness.