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Thread: Thank you from a Future Soldier

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Posts
    65

    Default Thank you from a Future Soldier

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    Coach,

    I recently joined the US Army as a Special Forces recruit and I want to thank you for providing me with the path to pass their "tests" while focusing on strength not endurance. I had my 1,1, and 1 physical assessment (1 minute pushups, 1 minute situps, 1 mile) last Friday and my results took me by surprise. A quick aside about me: I am 27 years old, 6'2 218lbs, and like many others on this board, wished I found Starting Strength much earlier in my life. Ever since I came across the 2nd edition last August I have immersed myself in every book you have written, SS training camps - Steve Hill is the man - and was fortunate enough to attend a Brooklyn seminar with my younger brother last September. Since the seminar my squat has gone from 235x5 to 365x5, my bench from 225 to 277.5x5, and my deadlift from 315x5 to 405x5. This was achieved working a restaurant lifestyle, which is to say 90 hour workweeks are not utopian training conditions.

    Back to the test for a moment: I found out about the assessment a week before I had to take it and immediately I was concerned about fixing my run time in a week. I have never been a good "long distance" runner and the fact that I considered 1 mile long distance at this point should give you a pretty good idea of my running expertise. I read Major. Ryan Long's piece, "Why does the Army want me weak?" - mandatory reading for all soldiers if you ask me - along with every forum question posed to you about military programming (some of us do use the search function). I rounded out the great information I found on the Starting Strength website with the shit found on the rest of the internet including the TRX training program, Xfit, and P90x (joking on the last one, but seriously why do they all have x's in their names?).

    I settled on using Maj. Long's protocol and broke it down into 3 days: 1st day: Test day, 2nd and 3rd day: intervals. I get home from work at about 1:00 am and set out for my first 2 mile "test run." You know the run is going to suck when your mp3 player dies after the first two steps of the run and I'm pretty confident I woke up every man, woman, child, and dog in the neighborhood as I slammed the pavement using my expert running techniques. If Nicholas Romanov was nearby he likely would have had the same reaction as Dr. Allen Grant and Ian Malcolm watching the raptors get fed in Jurassic Park. Needless to say, I went into the test 4 days later fully expecting an 8 minute mile time.

    Truthfully, I didn't come close to 8 minutes on the final test... I ran a 6:50. On top of that I did 50 pushups and 45 situps in 60 seconds. I never trained for pushups or situps outside of using the Tabata method Major Long advocated on the days I ran. Coach, I'm basically writing this post to tell you what you already know: you are 100% dead on about strength and how it relates to endurance. And moving forward, I am going to be a model test subject for the Starting Strength program to show how it can benefit the training of future soldiers. Thank you again for all of the hard work and information you provide on a daily basis and I will definitely keep you updated as I move through many more tests in the future on my journey to earn a Green Beret.

    Regards,
    Lou

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,559

    Default

    Lou, I have absolutely no doubt that if a man can work his way into the Green Berets, you will be there. No doubt at all, because I know what you can do.

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