The Best Special Operations Workout Program

In this article I will share how to build the best special operations workout, so read carefully and take notes.

I have coached nearly 100 athletes for various SOF careers including Air Force Pararescue, Green Berets, and Army Rangers. Some came to me as physical studs, and others came to me overweight and running a 10-minute mile. And I can tell you that while the training will look very different for these two candidates – the principles to achieve the top level of fitness needed to get selected are the same.

Introduction

While you may read stories stating the military struggles to find recruits. There is no shortage of highly motivated, highly fit, young people seeking special operations careers; in fact, new candidates are bigger, faster, and stronger than ever. 

For this reason, it is not enough to just be mentally tough. To get selected at BUD/S, RASP, SFAS, or A&S you need to be great. 

Top 4 Steps To Get Selected

1. Exceed the standards

To have the best chance of success, you must exceed the standards. I like to see military candidates shipping with at least a 37 minute 5 mile, 13min pace 12 mi ruck, and comfortably hitting all of the calisthenics standards

2. Get strong

Every selection course has its own variation of fixed-weight contraptions you need to move from point A to point B. Whether it’s an 80lb rucksack, logs, or boats. The weight is the same whether you’re 120lbs or 180lbs. And being stronger will make those tasks easier.

For that reason, I like to see candidates have at least a 135lb OHP, 275lb squat, and 365lb deadlift.

3. Destroy Your Weaknesses

If you’re coming from a cross-country background, building strength needs to be a priority. If you’re coming from a powerlifting or football background – you need to be hitting the track and doing non-impact cardio on your off days.

Excellence in one aspect of fitness does not make up for deficiencies in others

There is no forgiveness for being unfit.

4. Avoid Injury Training For The Military

I hear from so many candidates who ask how to improve their 2-mile run when they have shin splints, or how they can ship next week despite debilitating IT band syndrome. The truth is that health is everything.

If you’re broken on day 1 of selection, that injury will be exposed and only get worse. So if you’re injured, get healthy again.

And if you are healthy, stay healthy. It’s easier to progress when healthy than to recover and restart after an injury.

3 Training Principles For Special Operations

Now, that you have your top four priorities in check. Let’s outline the three training principles you need to employ to build sustainable progress.

1. Consistency

Without consistency, you won’t make progress. There is no way around it. Training does not need to be your whole life, but it does have to be part of your lifestyle and something you do 5 – 6 days per week.

2. Effort

There are a lot of people searching for the magic program or training technique to hit the evasive 6-minute mile or 80 push-ups. Oftentimes, it’s not the program that is wrong – you simply may not be training hard enough. Really evaluate the effort your putting into your training – if the plan calls for a max effort run, are you genuinely training at max effort?

As a coach, I modulate training intensity across the week, so early in the week, my athletes have their high-intensity, high-effort sessions. Those training days are HARD. The latter half of the week is lower intensity, by design. 

I am clear with my athletes that the hard days are HARD, and they should enjoy the lower intensity on their easy days. A trap I see some of my athletes falling into is pushing it way too hard on their low-intensity days, and then they fail to perform on their high-intensity days.

Make sure every workout you do has a purpose, and execute your effort according to the training plan

3. Journal + Communicate

The idea of journaling as a fitness principle is one you may be surprised by. My athletes log workout comments on every workout – what sets, reps, and weights they did, along with other commentary. At the end of the week, they log what went well, what didn’t go well, and their level of recovery and readiness for the next week. When you combine all of this with heart rate data from runs and rucks along with their workouts, it tells a story about an athlete’s training

While this is a tool I use as a coach to plan future workouts, it’s equally beneficial to the athlete to see what they’ve accomplished and how far they have come. Or if they aren’t making progress, we can pinpoint where we’re going wrong and how to get back on track.

I share this with you because as an athlete (especially if you’re self-coaching), you need to be able to view your training through the lens of an unbiased third party, track what you’re doing, and ensure your marking progress. Journaling is a great way to do this.

How To Train for Special Operations

With that out of the way, what should your training look like at each stage of your journey to joining special operations?

6+ months out from Selection

6 months or more out from selection, you should focus on improving your general strength and endurance. It’s during this time, you should put extra focus on your weaknesses, and build adaptions that will benefit you later on – specifically building your aerobic base and max strength.

This far out from selection, it is not necessary to frequently test your timed rucks, runs, or even calisthenics. Remember, there’s a difference between testing your performance and building yourself up to improve your performance.

Focus on quality run workouts, build your strength slowly, and for those who are swimming – learn swimming and water confidence techniques. This will lay the groundwork for you to exceed the standards. 

Here is a sample training week:

3 – 6 months out From Selection

At 3 – 6 months out, we’re still a ways away from selection, but it’s time to get more focused on selection-style training. Up to this point, the bread and butter of training has been powerlifting style along with accessory exercises to tackle weaknesses, running several days per week, and a ruck every once in a while.

But now, we begin to add more focused work – weighted calisthenic circuits, farmer carries, timed bar hangs, lunges, and rucking weekly or every other week as part of the routine.

We’ll also begin sprinkling in more goal-pace 2-mile and 5-mile run training to ensure we’re on track to comfortably exceed the standard.

2 – 3 Months Out From Selection

By the time an athlete is 2 – 3 months out leaving for your special operation selection, the foundational training is already complete. He’s developed his aerobic base, he’s built his max strength, and now it is time to begin peaking for selection.

My athletes will continue with the big lifts to maintain or even build strength if they’ve just started working with me, but now the focus is on lifting to stay healthy and strong while improving our 5-mile, 2-mile, and introducing some selection-specific work capacity sessions.

8 Weeks Out From Selection

At 8 weeks out, we’ll drop lifting to maintenance levels to a maximum of three times per week, transition most of our running volume to goal pace 5 mile running, along with rucking once or twice per week depending on the athlete’s needs, and include a few selection specific workouts per week.

2 Weeks Out

In the final 2 weeks to selection, we’ll drop volume by about ½ while maintaining intensity to allow the body to recover.

The Best Special Operations Workout Plans

Now that we’ve gone over what your training should look like for a candidate who is well-rounded and performs equally well in terms of strength and endurance, I want to share with you a strength-based template and an endurance-based template for training for special operations.

Strength Workout For Military Training

This strength-based template includes lifting four times per week, running twice per week, and rucking once per week. I recommend keeping the total number of sets and exercises relatively static from week-to-week, so that you can focus on adding more weight or more reps from session to session

Running And Rucking Workout Program For Special Operations

This endurance template for special operations training includes 2 days per week of full-body strength training, calisthenics once per week, running 3 times per week, and non-impact cardio and rucking once per week.

The goal is to slowly accumulate hours at a low-intensity pace. I recommend increasing total time running to no more than 20-30 minutes per week to avoid overuse injury. 

If you are genuinely aerobically deficient and have 6 or more months to train, I recommend building up and maintaining 5 to 6 hours of aerobic training per week for at least 3 months. Doing this will build a massive aerobic base, which takes time to develop, and you can then transition into selection performance.

But how would you transition this template to prepare you for your 2 or 5 mile timed runs? You can replace the Monday run session with 2mi goal pace running and the Wednesday session with 5 mile goal pace running.

This will result in significant run-time improvement.

Conclusion

Between parts 1 through 3 and this video, you have everything you need to get selected. Your next step is to create your plan, or choose one I outlined in this article and get to work. Don’t wait.

For those of you who want to take the guesswork out of training and are interested in personalized 1 on 1 coaching, I do take on a select number of athletes based on my availability. If you’re interested, thoroughly fill out the form, and I’ll see if you’re a good fit.

If you enjoyed this article, I know you will like How To Run a Faster 5 Mile (Step-By-Step).