QUESTION
Curious if you have a program to prepare for The Tactical Games, or one you recommend if you don’t have something that specific. It appears to be a lot of loaded carries, along with sled drags/pushes, rope climbing, all while wearing a 15lb+ vest.
ANSWER
– Rob
QUESTION
I am a fan and have been recommending for 5-6 years to friends,
colleagues and training clients.
I am 67 years old and want to train and complete the Rainer Infinity
Loop in the next two years – I have a deep bench of endurance and
strength experiences across the last 25 years.
Please let me know whether any of your current plans will work for my
goals or if you believe I need a customized plan.
ANSWER
I’d recommend you build to our 100-mile Ultra Training Plan to train for this event. The order would be …
100-Mile Ultra – directly prior to the event.
The trick is your age.
The fitness demands of the event are the same for everyone – which means for me, the programming is the same. The question given your age is the timeline and whether or not you at 67 years old to take the volume of this programing on the timeline in the plans.
I doubt it. My guess is you’d need to build in more recovery/rest days – these plans are all 5-6 days/week.
How much extra, I’m not sure. That you plan to attempt this event at your age sets you apart as unique right away.
Also – where you’d start depends on the amount of running you’re doing a week, now. You may be able to skip the Run Improvement Plan, or start at week 5 or 10.
I don’t design individual training plans so I can’t help there. But in general, If you follow this programming, I’d recommend you start the Running Improvement Plan at week 1 (it’s a 15 week plan) and follow it as prescribed – 6 days/week.
The Ultra Pre-Season Plan is already a 5 day/week plan – so you could follow it as designed and get an extra day’s rest.
For the 50-mile Ultra Plan, I’d have you drop back to 4 days/week training, and strength the plans out accordingly. Follow the sessions in order, just take more rest. See how you recover given the volume.
Use what you learn from the 50 mile plan and deploy the schedule to the 100 mile plan. For example, you may find you can go 5 days/week initially, then drop down to 4 days/week midway through the plan.
– Rob
QUESTION
I am looking for a little direction and help. I thought of you after looking into this and coming up empty handed.
I am the proud father of an 11 year old who races downhill mountain bikes. His season starts in 7 weeks and he has started practicing specifically for this on the bike for the last couple of weeks.
He wants to work out, and does some, and I would like to help him maintain and learn the skills of some goal oriented work outs for, not only his performance on the bike in season, but as a lifelong habit. However, there is a lot of conflicting information in regards to children working out.
Any references and readings in the right direction would be fantastic. As someone who has purchased and used some of work outs for around 10 years now, I trust it and believe in it.
ANSWER
You could do bodyweight stuff with him.
I’d recommend the strength work from the Bodyweight Foundation Training Plan. What’s great about it is it’s assessment-based – so he’ll take an initial assessment and his progression will be based on his assessment results. This way the plans “scales” to his incoming fitness. You could do it with him and both be pushed.
I imagine he’s doing a lot of riding right now, so I’d just have him do the Mon, Wed & Fri sessions from the plan.
– Rob
QUESTION
I’m targeting joining the Army as 18X in 2 years. I’ll need to do all the prep schools (OSUT, jump school, SOPC) before I get my shot at SFAS.
- The SFAS pack is 1 year long. Should I start that so it ends right on SFAS, or so that it ends when I start OSUT?
- What plan(s) do you recommend for this first year? I’m doing Bodyweight Foundation right now to get back into things.
ANSWER
1. It ends when you start OSUT. You can’t count on the training time once you’re in.
2. Plans/order in the Greek Hero Series.
– Rob
QUESTION
I was looking to buy SFAS Training Packet to prepare myself for Special Forces selection, I just have a couple of questions..
I’m not in the Army at the moment and I want to go for an 18x contract.. should I do this program before speaking to a recruiter or before getting shipped off to bootcamp? I’ve experienced over-training before and would like to avoid that before selection.
ANSWER
Before going to bootcamp.
– Rob
QUESTION
I’m going to be attending a 36-40 hr event in August that is somewhat similar to a GoRuck Heavy. I’ve been told to expect lots of rucking miles, sandbag and other heavy object lifts/carries, etc. I have plenty of time to train. What plan or plans would you suggest to hit both the weights and the endurance needed? I have about 20 weeks to work with.
ANSWER
1-7 Fortitude
8-10 Valor (1st 3 Weeks)
– Rob
QUESTION
I appreciated the P:E diet article (and “Garbage Reps“). I’m not sure I could stick to it, but then again I am also one of those freaks with a high metabolism. I’ll definitely check out the book. A couple of notes/questions…
Fasting – have you tried it? There are a dozen different ways to do it I know, but success for me has been one 24-36 hour fast each week (usually preceded by my cheat day). I only do this fast on Rest days. A good (and old) read on this is the “Fasting Cure” by Upton Sinclair. He’s got some weird ideas.
PE diet sounds almost like Paleo or Carnivore diets. Do you get all your nutritional needs when you cut out food groups (fruit/dairy)?
ANSWER
Fasting? Not intentionally. I eat when I’m hungry, but sometimes find I don’t eat until 1100, and then finish dinner at 1800 – so there’s a natural 15 hour fast there. However, again, if I’m hungry, I eat.
Nutritional Needs?
Fruit – tomatoes, cucumbers, avocados are all fruit without the sugar.
Dairy – you can still eat low-fat cottage cheese and I eat some hard cheese. I avoid milk/cream.
– Rob
QUESTION
I have listening to various podcast over the years that cover military training, health and fitness, philosophy, doomsday prepping etc… they all agree on being physically fit, and my service in the military has taught me many things about being a tactical athlete.
I enlisted in 2015 for the ARNG as a 91B, (one thing I wished I knew before signing was the lack of pt training on a scheduled IDT/drill weekend). Over the last few years my abilities as a 91B have increased 100 fold, however, my physical condition has not stayed the same since leaving AIT.
I am physically strong, I received passing results for all events on the ACFT minus the leg tuck and the 2 mile run.
I have struggled in losing weight and could stand to lose some where between 30-50 lbs.
As a federal technician I has more access to pt training and with my new unit currently slated to deploy within the next 9 months, I am looking at increasing my overall body strength, my specific muscle strength and weight lose. Your Afghanistan predeployment program is of interest, however, I’m unclear to what would best serve me.
Any advice or suggestions you have would be beyond appreciated.
ANSWER
I’d recommend you begin by focusing on fat loss and complete our Fat Loss Training Plan.
Also – fix your diet. 95% of fat loss is diet-related. Here are our recommendations: https://mtntactical.com/knowledge/nutritional-guidelines/
– Rob
QUESTION
I wanted to ask which plans I should consider doing before and through this summer. A friend was doing your military on ramp program preparing to join the infantry so I did that with him this winter. I just finished 4 weeks of hypertrophy to gain a bit of muscle, since ive always been a bit light. Now im getting ready for rock climbing season and my seasonal job as a backcountry ranger. The ranger job is diverse and in addition to frontcountry enforcement I do up to 10 day backpack trips carrying a 50 lb pack plus a full size chainsaw. I am 34 years old, an ex wildland firefighter and some of the plans i was considering are the wilderness pro packet, afghan deployment program, ruck improvement or the backcountry big game hunting program. My climbing season starts soon but my mountain trips wont really start until the melt in late June or July, so I have tIme to do a strength program to build on my hypertrophy gains, followed by an endurance based program to prep for my mountain trips. What do you think is most suitable? I have access to a gym and I dont want to trade my climbing strength for gym based strength.
ANSWER
I’d recommend Helen from our Mountain Base programming. This plan includes strength, work capacity, mountain endurance (run, uphill), chassis integrity and climbing fitness.
– Rob
QUESTION
I’m a 31y old security guard who is looking to pass the police academy entrance fitness test, and I’m wondering which one of the programs would fit my needs?
The test consists of the following:
-Bench press 65kg max reps
-Pull ups max reps
-1,5km timed run
I’ve tried multiple different training styles and just don’t seem to get any real progress, so maybe this is what I need.
I’m thankful if you take the time to answer me.
ANSWER
I don’t have the perfect plan for you but you can modify the DEA PTT Training Plan and it will work. This plan includes programming for the 1.5 mile run.
Instead of the Sit Ups in the, complete a max rep pull up assessment and follow the same progression as prescribed for the sit ups.
Instead of the push ups in the plan, complete a max rep bench press effort at 65kg and follow the same progression for the push ups.
– Rob
QUESTION
I’m a 46-year-old dad of two, who finished SEALfit’s 13-hour 20X event just shy of turning 45. My next event is a GoRuck Tough, another 12-hour event. I’ve done a few Spartan races and 5k races here and there, but my main focus is practical, tactical fitness. Pre-pandemic, I had just finished being part of the cadre for our local Community Emergency Response Team. I often consider getting EMT training and/or becoming a certified personal trainer after having trained up a team for their first Spartan race, and really loving the experience of training others.
I am not a competitive athlete; my focus is on things like, “If someone starts shooting, can you sprint 25 yards to cover? Can you drag a wounded person to safety? Can you climb this wall to evade an attacker?” Things like that. While I won’t need to be exposed to those situations professionally, it’s still the sort of fitness I’m expecting from myself. I want to continue to do these endurance events like GoRuck and SEALfit till I’m dead.
With all that in mind, what program or programs would you recommend from MTI? I’ll be in the market for a new program in a few months. Also, I live in the Phoenix area, so I need to take the summer heat into account for my training.
Thanks!
ANSWER
I’d recommend the plans/order in the SF45 Packet – which is designed as day to day programming for mountain and tactical athletes ages 45-55.
These are multi-modal plans which concurrently train strength, work capacity, endurance and chassis integrity (functional core.)
– Rob
QUESTION
I’m going to be attending pre scuba following my deployment to the Middle East. With that being said there won’t be a pool accessible for me to train in but I still want to get ahead of the curve for pre scuba. I’m assuming that involves an assortment of cardio, but I would like to maintain strength in Olympic lifts aswell. Is there a program you recommend for this. Either it being two programs I can skim from or a whole program. Please let me know. Thanks.
ANSWER
Options:
2) Hector – first plan in our Greek Hero series for full time SOF/Infantry. Plan concurrently trains strength, work capacity, chassis integrity (core), tactical agility and endurance (run/ruck).
– Rob
QUESTION
I recently moved and won’t have access to my normal gym set up for a few months; however, I do have 1 set of 25 lbs. dumbbells. Any suggestions or your top favorite 5-10 exercises with a set of DBs?
I also have a pull up bar, a strong rucksack to hold weight, and the ability to do 18″ step-ups if helpful.
ANSWER
I’d recommend:
1) Humility
You’ll need to be resourceful and build a 60lb sandbag.
– Rob