Tag: Body composition

Operator Fitness Standards

Special forces soldiers are fascinating. The levels of strength, conditioning, and resilience required to perform at the highest levels of the military are impressive. Operators have to be fast and agile in close quarters battle and carry large loads over long distances with little sleep. But how fit do you have to be to make it through selection?

The US Navy Seals tracked 2,208 candidates through three years of Hell Week to identify the physical standards of those that successfully passed BUD/S. The study found that the best candidates and those less likely to be dropped for medical reasons were fast runners and swimmers with high levels of lower body power. These high endurance applicants are more resistant to fatigue, less injury-prone, and less likely to make technical errors when tired. The lower body power allowed soldiers to handle the rugged terrain during selection better.

The events with the most significant impact on completing BUD/S were the three and four-mile run, the 300-yard shuttle run, and the 1,000m swim with fins. The one-rep max deadlift score showed the most negligible effect on success.

The paper provides future applicants with the best and worst passing scores on each Naval Special Warfare Human Performance Assessment (SEAL PRT) test and Naval Special Warefare Preparatory (NSW Prep) School Exit Test.

EXERCISESBEST SCORESMART GOALSWORST SCORE
Standing Long Jump111 Inches90 Inches or more72 Inches
25lb Pull-up20 Reps13-15 Reps5 Reps
Body Weight Bench24 Reps10-14 Reps1 Reps
Deadlift 1 Rep Max2.33 x Bodyweight1.75 x Bodyweight1.5 x Bodyweight
5-10-5 Agility4.35 Seconds4.4 – 4.8 Seconds5.45 Seconds
300yd Shuttle Run56.0 Seconds60 Seconds or less67.7 Seconds
3-Mile Run15:33 Minutes18-19 Minutes22:37 Minutes
800-Meter Swim with Fins11:28 Minutes12-14 Minutes15:46 Minutes
1K-Swim with Fins14:10 Minutes17 Minutes or less19:11 Minutes
Push-up119 Reps90-99 Reps70 Reps
Sit-up109 Reps80-89 Reps61 Reps
Pull-up30 Reps19-21 Reps10 Reps
4-Mile Run21:48 Minutes27 Minutes or less30:00 Minutes
Fitness test scores of successful BUD/S candidates

A separate study of 1500 students from BUD/S classes found that ‘The leanest students completed Hell Week at a higher rate than students with more body fat.’ A body fat percentage in the range of 10-15% is recommended to improve performance and reduce the risk of injury.

How fit do you have to be to make it through BUD/S?

  1. Be able to run 3-miles in less than 19 minutes and 4-miles in less than 27 minutes.
  2. Perform a 300-yard shuttle run in less than 60 seconds
  3. Swim 1000m with fins quicker than 17 minutes
  4. Be tall and lean with a body fat percentage between 10-15%

The Charles Poliquin carb test, Dave Brailsford, and what you really want from training

Chances are you eat too many carbs. I know I do. The late great Charles Poliquin had a test for males that want to be healthy; if you are above 10% body fat or can’t see each of your abs, you should be on a low carb diet. Most of the time, eating meat and vegetables, and using clean carbs to fuel and recover from intense training sessions. Once you are lean, you can then add more carbs, such as fruits.

Dave Brailsford, the mastermind behind the British Cycling and Team Sky’s takeover of cycling, did a recent interview talking about his current training. His recent riding focuses on maintaining muscle mass and strength and managing fat levels. He does this by eating low carb and high protein, restricting eating to between 11 am and 8 pm, and low intensity, high torque rides. The low-intensity rides and low carb intake aims to burn fat rather than glycogen for fuel. The low carb diet involves cutting out grains, bread, pasta, rice, and sugar.

At Team Sky and now Ineos, riders have adopted a carb cycling approach, eating low carb on low-intensity days and using carbs selectively pre and post high-intensity rides. The low carb days includes riding on coffee and protein or fully fasted for the first 1.5 to 2 hours of low to moderate intensity. Protein intake is kept at around the same level on both low and high carb days. Dr. Morton, the teams, published details of the approach in a research paper in which he sets the intensity level needing carbs as 85% of v02max.

A year ago, I bought some scales that measure weight, calculates BMI, and estimates your body fat based on a scan. I was 88kg and far above my health BMI of 25. My first target was to get below 83kg to be in the healthy BMI range. The next step was to deadlift 1.5x bodyweight and do ten strict pull-ups taken from the book Fat loss happens on Mondays. My focus then moved to become a faster distance runner.

With my current challenge of getting to a 4 Watts per kilo FTP in mind and reading the Dave Brailsford article has led me to think about what I want from my training. The easiest route would be to focus on losing weight rather than increasing power. If I lived in the mountains or were a competitive cyclist, this would make sense. If I am honest though, I want to be strong, powerful, and look good naked, so focusing on power makes more sense. 

Body composition goals

  • If you want a blunt starting point, aim to get your BMI into the healthy range.
  • If you can measure body fat, a better approach is to get under 13%.
  • If you don’t care about these measures, aim for 1.5x deadlift and ten strict pull-ups. The deadlifts will require you to be strong, and you will need to be lean for the pull-ups.