Hi, my name is David. Im 17 years old, and will be shipped out to MCRD San Diego, Cali, in about 4 months. I was wondering if anyone could help me find a decent work out program, that will help me get physically fit for the marine corps. I want to get more muscle mass, but it seems kinda hard since it wont help me much in the corps. My younger brother is currently in boot camp for juveniles, and well hes stronger then me. I need some help to get has strong has i possibly can yet not reduce endurance. I know its kinda hard since yall dont know my specs, but my 1 rep max in flat bench pressing is 185 yet i can only do 30- 35 push ups flat. I cant squat, im really weak lower body. Is their a good routine anyone know of that can help me make big gains in order to go into the marine corps(and even before that be stronger then my little brother(a since of pride if you may)). I am completly dedicated to working out, and would do anything necessary to get stronger(and look it to). Maybe this is to much info, but well im trying my best.
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work out preparation for usmc boot camp
- Thread starter redonemeth
- Start date
David, it's pretty hard to give you a definitive program without meeting with you, doing some tests, having a chat etc. But let's give it a try anyway.
I'm not too familiar with boot camp requirements but I think I'm safe to assume you're gonna need solid, all-round fitness. Four months is enough time to get a sound base for any further training you're likely to do in the corps.
First thing I'd suggest is working on your core strength - use basic exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, sit-ups, SQUATS! and lunges. Perhaps get access to a Swiss ball and use it to develop your stabilser muscles (there are articles online).
Work your cardio! You'll definitely need your endurance peaking. Swimming is a very good low-impact cardio exercise. Running will definitely be worthwhile, I'm sure they torture you with long, weighted runs at boot camp.
As far as strength training goes, you can do some standard resistance work at your local gym. I'm not gonna prescribe any particular exercises. Make sure you work your entire body. If you use a three day split, this will give you heaps of time to work everything.
My suggestion is to work your core fitness, increase your endurance capabilities as a priority and slowly increase your strength with resistance training. Don't aim to get big, aim to get fit!
Lastly, there's a fitness program floating around in book form, it was written by a former SAS soldier. It details their fitness program, might be worth hunting up.
Good luck, Adam.
I'm not too familiar with boot camp requirements but I think I'm safe to assume you're gonna need solid, all-round fitness. Four months is enough time to get a sound base for any further training you're likely to do in the corps.
First thing I'd suggest is working on your core strength - use basic exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, sit-ups, SQUATS! and lunges. Perhaps get access to a Swiss ball and use it to develop your stabilser muscles (there are articles online).
Work your cardio! You'll definitely need your endurance peaking. Swimming is a very good low-impact cardio exercise. Running will definitely be worthwhile, I'm sure they torture you with long, weighted runs at boot camp.
As far as strength training goes, you can do some standard resistance work at your local gym. I'm not gonna prescribe any particular exercises. Make sure you work your entire body. If you use a three day split, this will give you heaps of time to work everything.
My suggestion is to work your core fitness, increase your endurance capabilities as a priority and slowly increase your strength with resistance training. Don't aim to get big, aim to get fit!
Lastly, there's a fitness program floating around in book form, it was written by a former SAS soldier. It details their fitness program, might be worth hunting up.
Good luck, Adam.
Focus on a basic strength and conditioning program but keep in mind that the Marine Core will be looking at three activities with which they will test you and determine where you are:
3-mile run
Pull-ups
Sit-ups (they may have switched to crunches now, so do a search on this or talk to your recruiter)
I would focus on these three activities several times per week because the better you test out on these three activities, the more respect you will get from your instructors.I'm not sure what they are looking at for the sit-ups/crunches, but I think you will get a top score for an 18-minute 3-mile run and 20 dead-hang pull-ups.
For the run, start on a progressive program of increasing distance.Go to a local track and run one-mile repeats with 3 minute rest intervals between each mile.Run each mile at a fast pace and as the weeks go by, gradually reduce your rest times to the point that you are eventually eliminating the rest and running 3 miles continuous.
Also, you will be doing a lot of ruck marches, so work some of these into your routine.Go buy a top-loading navy seabag, fill it with about 50 pounds of sand (wrapped in several garbage bags to redcue the mess) and go for walks with it strapped on your back.You may want to alternate a day of running (where you focus on your 3-mile runs) with a day of ruck walking.I wouldn't go over 5 miles on these.You just want to get a feel for this.
Two additional activities I would encourage with the rucksack/sandbag.First, use it to exercise with.You can do traditional exercises like presses or curls as well as conditioning exercises like shouldering the bag repeatedly or doing lift and load drills onto a picnic table or the bed of a pick-up truck.When done for high reps, these types of drills build a lot of endurance and improve the strength of your core muscles quite a bit.Old time strongmen use to do sandbag lifting as a means to keep strong when they didn't have access to weights.Also, it will build a more applicable type of strength as opposed to traditional weight training because the stabilizer muslces come into play more when trying to lift a constantly shifting bag of sand.Give it a try and you will be surprised.
The other activity with the bag is to load mit up with all kinds of stuff; canteens, books, clothes, etc.Practice dumping it out and then recovering all the items and placing them back into your bag as quickly as possible.This is an activity your instructors love to do.Hint; when you are in boot and you recover all the items in your seabag before the instructor yells "Too slow!", don't just stand around.Help one of the guys next to you fill his seabag back up.Sounds stupid, but it will really impress the instructors because they are looking for teamwork.
For the pull-ups, do them atleast 3 times per week.Look into Pavel Tsatsouline's Grease the Groove technique.Look here:
Also, ladder training has helped me a great deal with pull-ups.Look here:http://www.cbass.com/Pavel'sLadders.htm
Do your pull-ups STRICT!If you aren't starting from a dead hang and pull until the bar touches below your collarbone.Any less, and it is good enough.I didn't really see any improvement in my lats or pull-up numbers until I really focused on the range of motion.I now pull until the bar touches at my nipples.
For your basic strength program, I would just focus on a handful of exercises.In the gym, I would follow a simple abbreviated strength routine.Something as basic as deadlifts and incline presses or squats and dips is all you really need.If you do too much work in the weight room, your other activities will suffer.Keep it short, simple and basic.No maxing out or forced reps.The old 5 sets of 5 reps system would be a good option.
In addition to all the above, get to like the push-up, because you will be doing lots of them.Especially when you make mistakes.So follow your weight work and/or your pull-ups with some push-ups and maybe some bodyweight squats.
Sorry about the long post.
3-mile run
Pull-ups
Sit-ups (they may have switched to crunches now, so do a search on this or talk to your recruiter)
I would focus on these three activities several times per week because the better you test out on these three activities, the more respect you will get from your instructors.I'm not sure what they are looking at for the sit-ups/crunches, but I think you will get a top score for an 18-minute 3-mile run and 20 dead-hang pull-ups.
For the run, start on a progressive program of increasing distance.Go to a local track and run one-mile repeats with 3 minute rest intervals between each mile.Run each mile at a fast pace and as the weeks go by, gradually reduce your rest times to the point that you are eventually eliminating the rest and running 3 miles continuous.
Also, you will be doing a lot of ruck marches, so work some of these into your routine.Go buy a top-loading navy seabag, fill it with about 50 pounds of sand (wrapped in several garbage bags to redcue the mess) and go for walks with it strapped on your back.You may want to alternate a day of running (where you focus on your 3-mile runs) with a day of ruck walking.I wouldn't go over 5 miles on these.You just want to get a feel for this.
Two additional activities I would encourage with the rucksack/sandbag.First, use it to exercise with.You can do traditional exercises like presses or curls as well as conditioning exercises like shouldering the bag repeatedly or doing lift and load drills onto a picnic table or the bed of a pick-up truck.When done for high reps, these types of drills build a lot of endurance and improve the strength of your core muscles quite a bit.Old time strongmen use to do sandbag lifting as a means to keep strong when they didn't have access to weights.Also, it will build a more applicable type of strength as opposed to traditional weight training because the stabilizer muslces come into play more when trying to lift a constantly shifting bag of sand.Give it a try and you will be surprised.
The other activity with the bag is to load mit up with all kinds of stuff; canteens, books, clothes, etc.Practice dumping it out and then recovering all the items and placing them back into your bag as quickly as possible.This is an activity your instructors love to do.Hint; when you are in boot and you recover all the items in your seabag before the instructor yells "Too slow!", don't just stand around.Help one of the guys next to you fill his seabag back up.Sounds stupid, but it will really impress the instructors because they are looking for teamwork.
For the pull-ups, do them atleast 3 times per week.Look into Pavel Tsatsouline's Grease the Groove technique.Look here:
Also, ladder training has helped me a great deal with pull-ups.Look here:http://www.cbass.com/Pavel'sLadders.htm
Do your pull-ups STRICT!If you aren't starting from a dead hang and pull until the bar touches below your collarbone.Any less, and it is good enough.I didn't really see any improvement in my lats or pull-up numbers until I really focused on the range of motion.I now pull until the bar touches at my nipples.
For your basic strength program, I would just focus on a handful of exercises.In the gym, I would follow a simple abbreviated strength routine.Something as basic as deadlifts and incline presses or squats and dips is all you really need.If you do too much work in the weight room, your other activities will suffer.Keep it short, simple and basic.No maxing out or forced reps.The old 5 sets of 5 reps system would be a good option.
In addition to all the above, get to like the push-up, because you will be doing lots of them.Especially when you make mistakes.So follow your weight work and/or your pull-ups with some push-ups and maybe some bodyweight squats.
Sorry about the long post.
wow, thats true thanks alot both of you. Ive been doing plenty of push ups, pulls ups, squats and lunges, and stuff of that sort. Well, im gonna take your advice and keep trying, but i guess its a bit to much to ask if theres a way i can work out all that endurance yet achieve a good bench of 275, if theres a way to do it i want to try, but if i have to sacrifice it oh well.Thanks alot.
Hey,
I would make most of your exercises focus on using your own weight. Bench maxes are fun and all but most athletes only max on rare occasions. Plus gaining 90 lbs for your max is not gonna help on endurance most likely.
I'd focus on doing lots of pushups, try doing 100 a day and increasing it if it gets easy. Same with situps, and the length of your runs. I'm not sure where you live but find some hills because I'm sure instructors will find grueling places for you to run and if you've never done hills before you might be seeing your lunch afterwards. Try to stay off concrete if possible, meaning find a nice dirt path or a proper track.
Pushups and situps done for endurance can be done everyday, my roommate and I based our whole freshman year on this and killed lots of kids in wrestling. The proper weightlifting came in handy later on as we moved up weightclasses. We also used to run 3-5 miles a day with maybe two days a week off. Maybe once a week we'd double up the run making it as long as 8 miles. You obviously wanna work up to this, try doing half the load for your first week and adding like a mile a week or 25 pushups a week until you find a nice area of intensity. A lot of people might argue that this is pushing yourself but they analyze according to the basics for an adult. At your age, you can probably adapt really fast. I'm 19 and I row 6 days a week and weight lift 5 days a week and make time for a beach run every few days. Most people think I'm crazy but I adapted to the workload.
Some other simple things you can incorporate are dips and pullups. If you can't do many pullups then after you've done your maximum amount of them, just hang. The amount of pullups you can do is dependant greatly on your grip strength and hanging will strengthen this. You can also buy one of those little grip things, I have a little one pound rubber ball of sand that I squeeze while doing my work. It's mindless and if you do it long enough, your arm will be sore the next day.
All this stuff is really simple and shouldn't cost you anything except maybe an extra pair of running shoes.
Another nice reference are Navy/Army/Air force workout books. They base all their workouts on basically the exercises above but with a few alterations to make it harder and focus on certain things.
PS After a few weeks of training, trying doing the pushups in the middle of your run. For example run 2 miles, find a nice spot and do 100-200 pushups and then finish your run. All the blood will leave your legs and make your upper body really heavy. The second half of your run will be really intense.
I always write too much.
I would make most of your exercises focus on using your own weight. Bench maxes are fun and all but most athletes only max on rare occasions. Plus gaining 90 lbs for your max is not gonna help on endurance most likely.
I'd focus on doing lots of pushups, try doing 100 a day and increasing it if it gets easy. Same with situps, and the length of your runs. I'm not sure where you live but find some hills because I'm sure instructors will find grueling places for you to run and if you've never done hills before you might be seeing your lunch afterwards. Try to stay off concrete if possible, meaning find a nice dirt path or a proper track.
Pushups and situps done for endurance can be done everyday, my roommate and I based our whole freshman year on this and killed lots of kids in wrestling. The proper weightlifting came in handy later on as we moved up weightclasses. We also used to run 3-5 miles a day with maybe two days a week off. Maybe once a week we'd double up the run making it as long as 8 miles. You obviously wanna work up to this, try doing half the load for your first week and adding like a mile a week or 25 pushups a week until you find a nice area of intensity. A lot of people might argue that this is pushing yourself but they analyze according to the basics for an adult. At your age, you can probably adapt really fast. I'm 19 and I row 6 days a week and weight lift 5 days a week and make time for a beach run every few days. Most people think I'm crazy but I adapted to the workload.
Some other simple things you can incorporate are dips and pullups. If you can't do many pullups then after you've done your maximum amount of them, just hang. The amount of pullups you can do is dependant greatly on your grip strength and hanging will strengthen this. You can also buy one of those little grip things, I have a little one pound rubber ball of sand that I squeeze while doing my work. It's mindless and if you do it long enough, your arm will be sore the next day.
All this stuff is really simple and shouldn't cost you anything except maybe an extra pair of running shoes.
Another nice reference are Navy/Army/Air force workout books. They base all their workouts on basically the exercises above but with a few alterations to make it harder and focus on certain things.
PS After a few weeks of training, trying doing the pushups in the middle of your run. For example run 2 miles, find a nice spot and do 100-200 pushups and then finish your run. All the blood will leave your legs and make your upper body really heavy. The second half of your run will be really intense.
I always write too much.
i was wondering, what if i did some weighted pull ups and push ups. If i could get used to that, then regular pull ups and push ups are nothing, plus i think id target a few of the main things for pft. Any ideas on this? Is there a weigh where i could make myself weigh alot more so that i can get used to the weight while doing regular exercises yet not gain mass.