Programming for Rucking

[Elle]

My husband (now 35) has been a cyclist since college, and in the last year got into rucking.
He signed up for a 48 hour Go Ruck challenge in 11 weeks. It consists of lugging a ~50 pound ruck around some snowy woods for 2 days straight, along with the occasional weighted PT like push-ups, pull ups, log and sandbag carries. Don’t ask me why this is an appealing use of a weekend to him.

As an endurance cardio junkie, he’s never had much patience for strength training. However, he has realized how important strength is for rucking, so he is on board to give it a real try over the next 11 weeks.

I’ve seen the “for athletes” programming in the grey book, but that’s more intermediate focused and I think he qualifies as a true novice. I don’t think he’s ever squatted over 200 or deadlifted over 300, but could probably get close. He has a moderately physically demanding job as well. I tried coaching him through NLP when he first got into rucking, but the rucking rendered him completely incapable of recovering in time for the next session and he was missing lifts by week 3 (eating 185g protein and 2800 calories at 6’1 185lbs).

Do you have a recommendations for modifying Starting Strength to let him keep up his rucking volume? To “train” for past events, he’d ruck about an hour a day, with a longer 4+ hour ruck 1-2 times a week. I’m wondering if we can make some sacrifice there, since he’s got great cardio conditioning already and just needs to avoid backsliding. The actual “rucking practice” seems to be more about keeping his shoulders and joints accustomed to the weight than about improving his cardio. Maybe HIIT or cycling will have less recovery impact?

[Mark Rippetoe]

If you modify SS, it's not SS anymore. It doesn't sound like he's terribly interested in doing this, and I suggest that if you want to stay in his esteem that you leave him alone and let him get destroyed by the ruck. There will be a bigger stronger guy there that will kill everybody else, and maybe he can learn about it that way.

[Elle]

Fair enough. We have learned the hard way several times that it’s generally not good for a marriage to coach your significant other, especially a reluctant one.
The thing is, he *did* just do an event where a big strong guy killed everyone else, and that’s what motivated him to really try to put on strength before the next event. However, it sounds like 11 weeks might just not be enough time to make an appreciable difference in strength and then switch focus to getting the cardio back up to where it needs to be.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Eleven weeks is plenty of time to get significantly stronger on the novice program, and the strength obtained more than makes up for any loss in conditioning (which returns almost immediately anyway). But if he was going to listen to you, he already would have.

It is unfortunate that the people who need this the most are often the least accessible to our wonderful ideas. But we have to learn this, so as to preserve relationships that are important.

[Jason Donaldson]

It is unfortunate that the people who need this the most are often the least accessible to our wonderful ideas. But we have to learn this, so as to preserve relationships that are important.

That's not concise enough to make a good t-shirt, sadly, but it's definitely gone onto the list I keep of useful sayings. Thank you, sir.

[zklimczak]

Fair enough. We have learned the hard way several times that it’s generally not good for a marriage to coach your significant other, especially a reluctant one.
The thing is, he *did* just do an event where a big strong guy killed everyone else, and that’s what motivated him to really try to put on strength before the next event. However, it sounds like 11 weeks might just not be enough time to make an appreciable difference in strength and then switch focus to getting the cardio back up to where it needs to be.

Elle - having been involved in that world previously (i.e. The GoRuck world), I can understand your husband's desire to want to attempt to find something to give him "dat edge." However, Rip has made mention of this and it needs to be conveyed to your husband as well: he can't serve two masters. He's either going to have to commit to strictly rucking, throwing in some occasional barbell training and getting the same results he's getting now, with an occasional PR. OR he's going to have to commit to Barbell training for a sufficient time to build a strength base and then (slowly) incorporating Rucking as a conditioning component on top of this. But part of that is: he's got to be interested in actually trying. If the "big guy" you mentioned in your post was Chad Malone (previous finisher of GoRuck Selection), yes, Chad was a beast; and guess what Chad did for a period? Barbell training (for strength).

In any case, Rip's advice stands. I'll add one caveat: put it to him that he's going to have to pick one and stay with it. "Never half-ass two things; whole ass one thing" - Ron Swanson. Cheers.

[NicholasAstro]

Former ruck enthusiast. Training makes rucking much easier.

In 2020 when I weighted 140lbs and had never deadlifted, I would ruck with 35lbs over 3-4 miles. It made me sore, I broke a sweat, plus I got tan. All that happened was I got better at walking with a strange gait from the weight of the backpack.

Now, I’m 200lbs and my Friday intensity day deadlift PR was 475. I did a ruck last month and carried 60lbs over 7 miles and all it did was fuck my knees up.

Training makes rucking easier, rucking will probably make training harder. If he does SS as it’s prescribed he will be able to carry more weight, longer distances.

[david strecker]

Building muscle mass will contribute greatly to "ruck performance". The data behind this is pigeon holed away in the backwaters of spec ops units that use "rucking" as an assessment event. Squats and deadlifts contribute greatly to "ruck" performance. Along with tough feet and a tough mind. As a veteran who put many miles on my body "rucking".....I cannot stop but ridicule those that want to do this activity as the price to pay is heavy long term with Knee and hip joint pain. Rucking on cement and asphalt is hard on the body.......

[Elle]

So, husband ended up agreeing to do one month of true NLP programming and then reassess. Except, he kept his daily lunch rucks which are 30 minutes of speed walking with 50lbs.

His first test was 50lb weighted step ups, max in 30 minutes. That went from 380 to 420, while his average heart rate during the test went from 181 to 172.

His second test was a 5 mile run, which he shaved 7 minutes off of compared to August (so to be fair, some of the improvements are from before NLP).

Anyway, he is quite happy with these results and plans to continue until closer to event day. However, the poor guy really, really hates barbell training. Swearing floats up from the basement for the entire duration of his lifts, lol.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Poor guy. We'll get to assess his commitment to this rucking shit by the way he trains under the bar.