Military

Rob, I’m driven to write this email for two reasons. The first one is purely selfish. I’m 45 years old, 6′ tall and weight 212 lbs. as of this morning. But, on January 1, 2009, I was 44 years old still 6′ tall but weighted 278 lbs. I can confidently say I feel i’m in the best shape of my life. This brings me too the second reason for this post. I wanted to thank publicly the people in my life that have helped to bring me to today. First of course my spouse, telling me I had to get off of the couch and do something, and then the couches that I found to help me on my way. I started Crossfit last March after losing 30 or so pounds the traditional way, Globogym style. Crossfit has taken me further than I thought I could achieve at my stage in life and overall physical condition. The couches at Crossfit Asheville (if you will allow the plug), Shanna & Corey Duvall, are truly wonderful people and true inspirations. This brings me to the “Heart” of this letter. The third coach is a man named Randy Kite. Randy is 41 years old in fantastic shape and also getting ready to deploy to either Afghanistan or Iraq. Randy’s a member of the North Carolina National Guard, but not a long time one. Randy was in the service before, had served his country, returned to civilian life started a business with his wife and started a family. What inspires me is his need to re-enlist even when this will bring tremendous hardship into the rest of his life. Randy’s continuing drive to serve his country in a time of war is the greatest inspiration that I have. Randy turned me on to Military Athlete, and I have been hooked since, sometimes to the consternation of the two other wonderful coaches at our gym. I’m not ready yet to begin the prescribed program, but I’m working towards it. My goal is to be ready when Randy deploys in the spring and for the year that he’s away serving our country, I want to honor him by following the Militaryathlete.com training program. Yesterday I completed “gym rat nirvana”, and it was truly an experience, Rx’d weight, with no unbroken sets. This next weekend I’m going to do Operator Ugly. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ve attached two photo’s one is of my last rep of the fuckin 400, and the other is Randy Kite. Sorry about the length of this email, if you see fit to add it to your site feel free to edit it as you see fit. Sincerely D

I have been a faithful Military Athlete for a few months now. I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done here. I am addicted to the sessions. Every night I wait for the next one to be posted, so I can see what kind of hell I’ll put myself through tomorrow. I have become so hooked on it that I even get angry when I see people in the gym doing all their bullshit vanity lifting. I have been working to put my own gym together just to avoid the headache of working around the others guys. Your sessions have made me functionally stronger than I have ever been. I barely even have the extra $25 a month for gym dues but I will make it work. Its a small price to pay for the gains I have made and plan on gaining. Thank you for all of your work. i look forward to one day making to a MA seminar.

I graduated from the sapper leader course yesterday. I began your program last september while deployed and I definitely was able to “use fitness” over the last month at sapper school. I’m looking forward to getting back to training after some recovery time. I feel like I will recover fast and hopefully be ready to attend ranger school later this month. Just wanted to say thanks and reaffirm the effectiveness of your training. Take care, God bless, and stay hungry.

Rob, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I love your program and I can honestly say that thanks to the conditioning I have undergone by being a member of your “operator sessions,” I am still here today. There have been multiple engagements I have been in where I have had to run across open riverbeds or run up the side of a mountain searching for cover. Being a JTAC embedded with the infantry I have to be able to move and communicate to the CAS platforms overhead enable to get bombs on target. If I’m breathing too hard the CAS overhead cant understand me. I simply just want to convey I appreciate the work you produce.

Wanted to share some kudos and pictures with you. Last week my unit did a Competition for the TACPs currently deployed in Kuwait. I had the fortunate opportunity to run the 3 day event. I wanted to pass along our PT testing we did. Day one I started everyone with Operator Ugly, slightly modified due to equipment and time constraints (details below), the next morning they had to do a 6 mile ruck @ 55#, the final morning they had to conduct the Air Force PT test and pass. Everyone enjoyed Operator Ugly. Like I said before I had to slightly modify it for a couple of reasons: (1) we didn’t have Sand Bags so I substituted with 62# kettlebells, which I found to be equally difficult on the core and legs but some added upper body while holding the KB to the chest. (2) due to time constraints, space available and heat I removed the 3 mile run. (3) each event had to be worth a total maximum of 100 points. So I put caps on the exercises: Bench, Squat and Deadlift were worth 1pt/rep max of 15pts; Sprints were worth 1/2pt/length max of 20pts; pull ups were worth 1pt/rep max of 15; Kettlebell Get Ups were worth 1/2pt/rep max of 20pts. Nobody was able to get 100% on the test, there was a 97 & 96 though. My operators averaged a 79%.

We all just wanted to send you our thanks for the awesome PT session! There is a group of us here that have been doing the operator sessions for the past 5 months of our 9 month deployment. We plan to conduct the full Op Ugly before we depart back home. Please find some attached pictures of the 82 EASOS TACPs doing Operator Ugly last week Wednesday 31 July 2013 (pictures will be broken up over several e-mails do to size)

Thanks for the sessions!

A few months ago I acquired your scalable APFT plan for and used it to prepare for a similar pt test here in Canada.  I added the pullup and bench training as per your advice and it worked like a charm and kept my body weight down.  I just wanted to say thanks and let you know that I find your methods and programs to be top notch, especially for those who train for results outside the gym and more specifically for combat.  So thanks again, keep up the good work.

Firstly let me thank you for all that you and your lab rats do, I love your programming and your methodology has inspired me to become more professional in my training. I have successfully used your lower back and body weight training plans with great results and attempted to make it through the hypertrophy program, but the rep/set scheme was a little much for me at the time, planning on knocking it out in the near future.

Rob,

Wanted to drop you a quick note to thank you for all you do for our community. I’ve been following your stuff off and on since 2010 and in my humble opinion it is the best stuff out there as far as special operations physical training goes. A couple of reflections I wanted to share with you and your team to let you know we appreciate what you do.

One of the things I love most about your training is the stoic, quiet professional, blue collar way you and the lab rats go about your business. I love the photos. Things I notice as a professional: No shirtless poster boy show boats with cool, high socks or head bands with their Fran time plastered on it. When I came back into the fold this past time to your programming, it involved me parting ways with my old Crossfit gym on less than great terms. All over a damn double under. The conversation went something like this, coach: “You know you are really going to have to concentrate on some of the Crossfit skills like the Double Under if you ever want to graduate to being an elite level athlete.” My reply to the walking advertisement of a coach covered in Crossfit merchandised flair, “I have never done a Double Under in a tactical situation, not once…….When is the last time you did a 10K offset with 100 LBS of gear on your back, with no sleep, and less than ideal food?” My point is this, I firmly believe you deliver on your advertisement of tailored operator sport specific training. And you do it in a humble, workman-like way. No flash, no flair, just ordinary guys training in extraordinary ways and doing extraordinary things.

Your ability to recognize the burden of constant fitness is much appreciated. You acknowledge that the guys using your training are usually working extremely hard on the other finer points of killing. I don’t have time to get 12 hours of sleep a night, eat strict paleo zone 100% of the time, or get 3 WODs in a day. There are weeks where this job in and of itself is PT and a break is needed. The key is peaking at the right time for the right events and your specific trainups allow guys to do that while maintaining their base using your operator sessions.

You and the lab rats’ humble honesty is much appreciated. You put yourselves out there, post your times, stats and numbers, and reflect on the pains and pleasures of training. For type A personalities, striving to beat the experts is always an incentive and you post the numbers for guys to gauge where they are and it serves as a means of shared hardship over digital means. We appreciate it.

Really loving the new endurance cycles. As a meat head ex football player, the gym has always been my first love. Endurance is something I needed to work on and you have made me do it. I am anxious to see how it will transition to the strength and work capacity efforts and anticipate it helping both while still improving endurance over the long term.

I’ve went too long already, thanks again Coach.

Rob, Just wanted to take some time to say thank you for all you have done.  I started following your programming in 2008 while deployed.  Since that time I have used your APFT plan to more then max the APFT on multiple occasions, I used your Ruckselection plan to get selected, while in the q course I got a stress fracture and used your one leg program to come off the injury stronger and faster, and I have recently used your run improvement plan to help me get better.  During all this I continued to follow the operator sessions and they have made me into a more stronger and more durable athlete.  So thank you for what you do and please continue evolving your training!

Wanted to share some kudos and pictures with you. Last week my unit did a Competition for the TACPs currently deployed in Kuwait. I had the fortunate opportunity to run the 3 day event. I wanted to pass along our PT testing we did. Day one I started everyone with Operator Ugly, slightly modified due to equipment and time constraints (details below), the next morning they had to do a 6 mile ruck @ 55#, the final morning they had to conduct the Air Force PT test and pass. Everyone enjoyed Operator Ugly. Like I said before I had to slightly modify it for a couple of reasons: (1) we didn’t have Sand Bags so I substituted with 62# kettlebells, which I found to be equally difficult on the core and legs but some added upper body while holding the KB to the chest. (2) due to time constraints, space available and heat I removed the 3 mile run. (3) each event had to be worth a total maximum of 100 points. So I put caps on the exercises: Bench, Squat and Deadlift were worth 1pt/rep max of 15pts; Sprints were worth 1/2pt/length max of 20pts; pull ups were worth 1pt/rep max of 15; Kettlebell Get Ups were worth 1/2pt/rep max of 20pts. Nobody was able to get 100% on the test, there was a 97 & 96 though. My operators averaged a 79%.

We all just wanted to send you our thanks for the awesome PT session! There is a group of us here that have been doing the operator sessions for the past 5 months of our 9 month deployment. We plan to conduct the full Op Ugly before we depart back home. Please find some attached pictures of the 82 EASOS TACPs doing Operator Ugly last week Wednesday 31 July 2013 (pictures will be broken up over several e-mails do to size)

Thanks for the sessions!