I to have to admit I was extremely skeptical about following one of your programs. When I first looked at it and saw 1000 weighted step-ups a day before a 10 mile ruck I almost changed it. However, I swallowed my pride and told myself to try it first. So I did, and I feel incredibly strong on my long rucks. I have always taken pride in planning my own fitness plans. I was always good about setting a goal and working hard to achieve it. As I look back now as a fifty-six year old man achieving my physical goals hasn’t always been a positive aspect in my life. In the Marines always pushed my self to score a perfect 300 on PFT’s. In my my 30s and 40’s I was always focused on running certain time, or lifting certain amount. All these physical goals took a toll on my body and personal life. I have had more knee surgeries than I can count, and by the time I was 50 I had a full knee replacement. The feeling realizing my physical way of life had to change was very depressing at first, but now I see it as a blessing. I just focus on what I can and not what I shouldn’t do now. I want thank you for this program, it has been just what I need physically and mentally. I can’t wait to start another one after completing this one. Keep up the good work.
Military
UBBR
“Just wanted to give my thoughts and opinions on your UBRR prep.
First test scores:
Age 30 BW 220
Bench 175 20
Pushups 53
Situps 40
Pullups 17
Dips 27
Rope pass
Kipp up 10 (grip)
4×25m sprint 21sec
5mile ruck 62min
Score 1,215
Finale score:
Age 30 BW 222
Bench 225 25
Pushup 63
Situps 43
Pullups 22
Dips 33
Rope pass
Kipp up 13
4x25m 18sec
5min ruck 55 min easy (very hot 90°)
Score 1,408
I made some modifications (dread of any program author.) I increased the bench to BW in training and in testing (225.) Also dropped the shuttle sprint training to 50m or 2x25m I found that I was pacing myself with the full 100m and that my time decreased in my second test (week 3) by going shorter I stayed very explosive and pushed harder. I feel it helped.
Limiting factor of my situps was speed of movement I can do high 70’s in 2min. I tried moving fast in training but little change on test day. Grip was my limiting factor on the Kipp ups I started incorporating dead hangs for 10sec after my work sets during the rounds, but only for the last two weeks of the program. I feel if I had done this early it may have helped much more.
The ruck was easy and I paced do to the temperature. Body felt fine and I recovered well from day to day. Obviously I made improvements overall to my score. You gentleman have a good day and keep up the good work.”
HUMILITY
“Wicked kudos on the Humility program. I just finished it (okay, I finished it over a month ago and I’m mostly through Big 24 now, but still), and I gotta say you couldn’t have picked a better name for it.
Some background – I’m a 27 year old male, 6’0” 195 lbs, never been more than an average athlete, but with a decent amount of hands-on experience with fitness in and out of the gym. Prior to Humility I’d been doing a lot of traditional heavy lifting exercises in the gym, and I hadn’t done any serious cardio since finishing a GORUCK Heavy in May 2015. I looked at the Humility plan and figured, “Hey, what’s the worst it could be. Just body weight stuff and light dumbbells and maybe some running.”
I’m an idiot. The program didn’t make me any less of an idiot, but it did harden me up and grant me a little, er, humility. The running was a little rough at the start, but Tuesdays were my worst days b far. Usually I’d be totally burned up before I finished the quadzilla-Scotty Bob-pullups sets, thanks to the burpee sets that preceded them. The other days weren’t much better – seven miles was the most I’d run all at once in a long, long time, for instance, and it only went up from there. But I’ll be damned if I’m a quitter.
Overall, I ended up seeing substantial improvement on just about everything, with the exception of the pullups (max: 20 to max: 21 after 7 weeks, a whopping 5% increase), which I admittedly kind of slacked off on. Won’t do that again, I promise. The biggest benefit was the hardening that came from punishing my body, and I mean really challenging it, outside the sterile air-conditioned increasingly soccer-mom-populated environment of the gym. Humility did to me what I haven’t been able to do to myself for some time now, and for that I thank you fine people at MTI.
Big 24 is no joke, either, but I’m missing the daily ass-kicking that Humility gave me so I’m moving on to Fortitude after I’m done here in a week or so. Thanks again and Kudos on the good work.”
RANGER SCHOOL
“Just graduated from Ranger school today. I just want to tell you that following your planning was something that settled me up for success.
I just med recicle Darby because one level 2 ankle sprain but I was able to recover in 2 weeks and be back on the game going straight through the end.
Awesome plans and insight.
RLTW”
RUCK BASED SELECTION TRAINING PLAN
“Just finished SFAS, and I can’t thank MTI enough for the prep plan and all of your hard work (lab rats included!) I was selected and can confidently say your ruck based selection prep was a HUGE part of that. Now that selection is finished, I still have airborne and waiting on Q course dates. I’m looking at 6-8 month window until the Q. Thanks for everything you guys rock!”
GRATITUDE
“As a follow up, I completed the long biathlon and used Gratitude as my training base. A few deviations to tailor it more towards this event and my weaknesses: 1) All runs were done with 27 # (plate carrier and hydration pack) 2) My Long runs were longer than prescribed, longest being 14 miles (I’m accustomed to running with weight so wasn’t concerned about the extra stress) 3) During the last 2-3 weeks I integrated rifle/pistol dry practice into the grinds since that mimicks shooting done in a biathlon.
Loved the program, less physically intense than Humility but perhaps mentally harder, i.e., knowing you have to do 45 minutes of KB swings and 75m shuttles can wear on your mind.
Little scared going into this event because I won it last year but trained heavily on running. This time I didn’t run near as much. No problem on race day, felt strong throughout and shot very consistent, 1 of only a few competitors that cleared all 14 stages. Did a negative split on the 2nd ½ and outran the 2nd place competitor by 21 minutes and took 1st place again.
Next up is a Kentucky 10k biathlon, I’ve chosen SWAT H&K to prepare for it. Will keep you posted.
Thanks for all you do.”
HUMILITY
“I finished up Humility recently and I have to say it was a pretty spectacular program. Other than wearing the vest for the hand-release push ups and the pull ups as you recommended, the only change I made was that I started doing the long runs at the end of the week at a moderate pace instead of an easy one. It felt better.
I went from a 14:05 2-mile to a (hilly) 12:39. The final 10-mile run I averaged 7:29min/mi. The fall weather helped. I saw improvement across the board on my bodyweight exercises, to include increasing the 25lb pull ups from 13 to 15 reps by the end of the program. I now understand the hardening effect described in the overview, too. Reading through many of the MTI programs could be intimidating at first, now virtually everything seems very doable or like something I could adapt to.
While I still think Military On-Ramp was a good build up into it, I think Humility is the program to really get people rolling. I’d recommend it to anyone fit enough to make it through the first week.”
RUCK BASED SELECTION TRAINING PLAN
“I just recently returned from SFAS this weekend and wanted to reach back out to MTI to say thanks for the quality training program and for making the coaches so accessible throughout the process. I’m happy to report that I was selected and felt great throughout the course. I was able to continue performing long into the course when so many of my peers began to deteriorate. I’m taking a week off and then getting right back after it in preparation for the Q Course. The grip training, heavy rucks, and run/ruck intervals were the key pieces that I believe made me overall successful. Again, thanks to you and the MTI crew for pointing us in the right direction and making our goals obtainable.”
PIRATE PACKET
“I’m an Army EOD tech. I first encountered your training programs when a Navy Chief, one of my instructors in EOD school decided to take over or PT program. He put us through some hellish PT sessions but at the end of it he had whipped us into pretty great shape. I asked him where he got his inspiration for the sessions he bestowed on us and he directed me to you fine gentlemen. I love your programming, I use it prescribed and as inspiration for my own programming new ways to approach exercises and fitness as a whole. Bottom line, the point of this email is to just say thanks for the great resources! “
RUCK BASED SELECTION TRAINING PLAN
“Completed your Ruck Based Selection Program in the weeks leading up to my SFAS date earlier this month. I definitely felt prepared for everything that was thrown at me during the course and was luckily ‘Selected’ to top it off. Just wanted to say thanks for the knowledge and work that is poured into your programs. Without them I don’t know how well I would have done.”