Unnecessary Prep?

[Jnorton017]

Hey so, I have always wondered if doing some of these designed workouts for candidates entering directly to a selection or schoolhouse (that usually state do the workout until 3 days or a week before the selection or school starts) are somewhat unnecessary if your are brand new to the military and having to go through basic still. Now with that being said I understand why guys would probably want to prove to themselves that they can perform some of the tasks they will be asked to do ex: 50m underwaters, clearing a snorkel/mask etc. The question being do I need to put my body through some grueling ruck or some other type of workout that can potentially cause unnecessary wear and tear on your body (if theres one common thing I've read its there will be plenty of wear and tear in military training) when I am going to lose some of the conditioning from doing the exercise in the 6 weeks (Air Force basic in my case) and sometimes longer for other branches that I won't be doing that activity in basic. For me specially I am going for TACP, so I'm not asking if I need to ruck or not because I know I need to get my body accustomed to doing so, but do I need to be doing a 10 mile heavy weight ruck each week if I'm basically not going to be rucking for the next 6 weeks or longer. Especially because some of these selections will have prep courses for guys brand new to the military to complete before selection to get them acclimated (I believe I specifically read this true about SFAS). My question essentially is I know I need to be getting used to doing some of the stuff I will be later on in training but with basic coming first where do you think you draw the line in effective preparation and unnecessary workload on your body that won't effect you by the time you get to what you were preparing for. I know this info will be helpful to me and others to maybe avoid over training leading to injuries once they finally get to selection.

 

[Devildoc]

If a schoolhouse or a prep course has you do something, you need to do it. There is a reason why. There is a difference between training and overtraining. While it is foolish to go from the couch to a marathon or a 12, 15-mile ruck, you do need to do 3 miles...then 5...so on, and so on. If you are seriously prepping for SOF, basic will be a big set-back, and all the miles and work you do beforehand will be a huge boon when you are on the other side. If you do a training plan as written, while it won't guarantee you will be injury-free, they are generally written in a way to build-in rest and recover to prevent overtraining.

 

[Jnorton017]

If a schoolhouse or a prep course has you do something, you need to do it. There is a reason why. There is a difference between training and overtraining. While it is foolish to go from the couch to a marathon or a 12, 15-mile ruck, you do need to do 3 miles...then 5...so on, and so on. If you are seriously prepping for SOF, basic will be a big set-back, and all the miles and work you do beforehand will be a huge boon when you are on the other side. If you do a training plan as written, while it won't guarantee you will be injury-free, they are generally written in a way to build-in rest and recover to prevent overtraining.

Appreciate the input. I have been using this mountain tactical institute which is awesome, but some of the overviews say its meant to be done leading right up to selection or whatever it is.

 

[Cookie_]

To piggyback off of @Devildoc; you need to have a good fitness base to begin with, before you start any sort of SOF pt plan.

Real world example from my drill last weekend; two of my guys wanna do SFRE in January. One guy scored a 289 on his PT test, and the other dude a 197. That dude who scored low needs to do a lot more PT before he'd be able to effectively do some SF prep workouts.
For example, the attached image is the second day of our SFRE workout plan. It's a bit intense.

 

[Jnorton017]

I understand, it was tough for me to word it I like the real example and a shot of what the workout looks like. I am not looking to just prepare for basic training fitness more so whether or not to avoid those above and beyond type workouts where I wouldn't get as much of a benefit from doing those as I'd be going through basic first as I would going directly into the schoolhouse. I think @Devildoc put it pretty well and pointed out that these plans that aren't designed to kill you physically especially being planned for your body being prepared for the selection or schoolhouse.

 

[AWP]

1. The worst thing you can do is to do it incorrectly.
2. Maybe this is mental, but I felt like I had some "muscle memory" even after years of inactivity. I started rucking a few times a week after a 15 year break and was surprised at how natural it felt even if my muscles hated me.
3. Don't overtrain. We see a couple of guys a year on this forum who have overtrained, injured themselves, and couldn't go to their respective A&S process.
4. Take care of your feet.