Our ‘Ask Rob’ series is a direct line to MTI’s Founder, Rob Shaul. We’ll provide in-depth answers on training, coaching, gear, and mountain/tactical topics of any kind (within reason).
If you sent a question this week and don’t see a response, don’t fret. We’ll publish the answer to your question in the following week.
Question for Rob? Click the button below to submit. See below for this week’s responses from Rob.
I struggle to find a plan/workout routine I can stick with that allows me to confidently maintain a high level of fitness while also accounting for specific physical tests we have to do in the military(PFT/CFT). I find that I will follow one plan for 2-3 months and then have to take 1-2 months off to prepare for the specific physical fitness test. How would you recommend we best balance the specific physical standards of our service while also maintaining high ‘overall/tactical’ fitness that not tested (more gym specific activities). Thank you!
You can’t train for both, effectively, concurrently.
One of the issues is the mission-direct fitness demands of a US Marine Infantryman are different than those assessed by the PFT and CFT. The actual job, for example, involves loaded movement – at least 45 pounds, and up to 100 pounds – and neither the USMC PFT or CFT assesses rucking or loaded movement.
MTI’s approach is to train “base fitness” until the 4-6 weeks prior to the assessment, then drop into a PFT-specific plan to train specifically for the assessment, and then drop back into base fitness programming after the assessment.
Most of our PFT plans are 5-6 weeks long, and all have a beginning, middle, and ending PFT. The programming is based on your most recent PFT scores, so the plan automatically “scales” to the athlete’s incoming fitness, and then increases in difficulty as the athlete’s fitness improves.
Doing the entire PFT Plan is the way to score the best possible on the PFT … however, many tactical athletes just do the first 3-4 weeks of the plans, and score to their expectations on the PFT.
Taking 4 or even 6 weeks off from the base fitness programming to train for the PFT will cost you some strength and rucking fitness, however, this fitness will return quickly when you get back to it. It’s not really an issue to worry about. It’s not like you’re taking 6 weeks of and sitting on the couch – our PFT programming is intense.
You often program the explosive movement last (eg in big-24 the hang clean comes last, or in leg blasters the jumping lunges and squats come after the squats and lunges), doesn’t this run counterintuitive to doing the most neurologically demanding movements first and if not do you have research which shows the explosive movements work better/ to the same effect when programmed last?
The “train the jumping movements” first approach is traditional sport-performance programming, and early on in my coaching career I followed this, but with more experience and programming growth, this was one of the many traditional coaching “rules” I found eminently breakable without much consequence. My understanding of the theory behind this “rule” is to reduce chances of injury by programming the most athletic movements first … but when coaching and doing this myself, I never found that to be an issue. And indeed, even in traditional sport-performance programming (team sports), you don’t have to search far to see this rule broken.
The two examples you give come from two types of programming. The jumping lunges example comes from my “bodyweight flow” programming where I try to train bodyweight strength and strength endurance in multi-exercise circuits that are choreographed to “flow” together. I’m not sure there is much injury risk from doing jumping lunges after doing in-place or walking lunges prior. However, the pre-fatigue of the walking lunges should make the jumping lunges harder.
The Big 24 example is a better one. Big 24 is an assessment-based program and the exercises are trained in the way they are assessed … so the hang squat clean assessment is completed after front squats or hinge lifts (or whatever). Likewise, the hang squat clean is trained after front squats and hinge lifts are trained. The prior exercises likely mean that the athlete won’t be able to hang squat clean as much weight as he’d be fresh – but that’s okay. The total training effect of the session is cumulative.
Rest periods aren’t emphasized in your programming as much as in some other strength training programs where the general rule is 3-5min between sets.
One thing to understand about MTI strength programming is the strength work is designed for multi-modal athletes (mountain and tactical) who have many other fitness demands (work capacity, core strength, endurance, etc.) I’m not just training strength athletes like powerlifters or Olympic lifters – and this is reflected in the programming. I’m sure research has shown that for the best result, full 5-minute rests between heavy back squat sets is best for max effort strength improvement, and sitting around this long might be okay for powerlifters or Oly lifters, but it’s simply not efficient training for tactical and mountain athletes.
My strength training focus for them is high relative strength, but the standards I want them to have (1.5x bodyweight front squat and bench press, 2x0x bodyweight hinge lift) are not super strong in strength terms. But these are impressive levels of strength for athletes who must also be able to sprint and/or run/ruck for hours. Over the years, I’ve found that the shorter rest periods I prescribe and design can get athletes to these standards consistently and still have time to train other stuff in the same training session.
To this end, I’ve developed the MTI Relative Strength Assessment, scoring for both tactical and mountain athletes. For these athletes, taking the assessment will answer the question, “Am I strong enough?”
Have any tips for smaller females who workout? I’m 4’9 and most of workouts seem like they are big men, I’d love for a workout plan to be tailored to me, working out is a big part of my daily routine.
The only issue that might affect you would be loading – and only then for the warm-ups (possibly) and some of the work capacity efforts. However, much of our programming is assessment-based, and so your initial assessment results dictate the loading for the follow-on programming, and in this way is automatically scaled to the individual athletes. The point is, there’s nothing about your size/height that is keeping you from using MTI’s programming. Email me with your fitness goals and I can recommend a program and will help with any issues along the way while completing it.