Thanks for everything!

RANGER SCHOOL TRAINING PLAN

“First and foremost, I’m in the National Guard so I required RTAC before Ranger school. So, my experience is a bit different than most (IBOLC, Ranger Regiment, MCCC, etc). Prior to the Ranger training program, I already had completed the Valor program which gave me a nice base of fitness due to the 3 mile interval rucks and added running. I started the Ranger School training program 9 weeks before the start of the school (this was when the program was only 7 weeks). I doubled up on Week 4 and Week 5 since I had a little extra time. During Week 7, I did a lot of “active recovery” with walking and swimming. I believe this week was the most important..I also upped my diet so I could gain some “healthy” fat.

I initially tested at the following numbers:

PU: 57 (these are to “Ranger standard”…arms completely locked out, chest tapping the ground, back up at the pace of a metronome. Slow and methodical.)

SU: 64 (also performed at perfect standard)

2 mile: 31:20

Pull-Ups: 10 (perfect, all the way down…even disengaging my lats so I knew they were to standard)

12 mile: 2:25

After the assessment I was pretty wiped out due to the 12 mile ruck. It’s definitely normal because rucking sucks ass anyway.

I finished the program at the following numbers:

PU: 72 (this is without stopping during the 2 minutes, slow and steady)

SU: 80

2 mile: 30:15

Pull-Ups: 18

12 mile: 1:55 (I was at an airborne shuffle the entire time)

I reported to RTAC in January 2018 and graduated Ranger school in April. There were a couple of things that the RTAC cadre loved that wasn’t in the Ranger programming:

1. Mountain Climbers

– We did these more than push-ups

2. Hill Sprints

– The infamous “tab runs” in RTAC were you run down a large hill, touch a Ranger tab and spring back up the hill.

3. Flutter Kicks

– You do have these in the programming but I strongly suggest if you can go over the prescribed # in the Ranger program do it because you do a shit load of them.

I had 2 days between RTAC and Ranger.  Not much time recover but I definitely lived it up with food and some active recovery. As for RAP week I had no issues. I completed the ruck march in 2:28 and received a Major Plus for finishing before 2:30. A tip is to have 1 duffel bag filled with all of your clothes and use it to prop up your feet with the 1-2 hours of sleep you get each night prior to the ruck. It’ll help a lot.

I want to touch on a few things that I loved during the programming and a couple of things that I changed:

1. Mountain climbers during the Work Capacity

– RTAC and Darby cadre preferred these

2. 2 mile intervals

– After about 4 weeks of the interval training, I started to remove them and used that time for rucking.

3. Mobility work

– The program does a wonderful job of hitting this. But, it’s definitely worth stressing.

Other than that, I suggest the program to any and every one. Just a reminder, I did the v1, not v2, so I’m not sure what has changed.

Thanks for everything!”