Most Paths To Military Fitness Have Already Been Tried

Recently, Mark Rippetoe put out a video about baseline strength for military.

The testing itself isn't bad, although in the real world no one is likely to need to pick up a bar. Sandbags would better mimic real world activity a soldier may find himself dealing with. But you can see Rippetoe naturally assumes more weight on the person means better overall performance. He suggests someone 165lb would benefit from bulking up to 200lb.

Take a look at the height and weight pdf here. That's from Visintin Success Solutions, one of the guys I heard Carl Lanore interview about military fitness. It turns out there are still enough guys out there in the military with the testosterone necessary to actually go get huge in the gym, and then go out in the field, and learn the hard way that bigger is not always better.

As an example, I am 6'3, and that chart tells me I my max weight should be 198lb. This is piddling for bros. Sure, if you are just guarding an embassy, or you can drive your humvee to a location and then not have to sprint more than fifty meters- maybe getting huge is helpful. You'll look good anyway. Maybe scare the enemy into behaving themselves.

But I notice on the occasions when I go out for long walks, my shoulders start to get sore- kind like maybe my arms are too heavy. Imagine having to walk the whole day- several days perhaps- like some of these special forces units have to do. Every bit of extra bulk becomes an issue.

And in the military at large, the bulk are the bureaucrats. We have desk jockeys who are likely as not to take Rippetoe's advice, and do well for it, since they won't be walking much farther than the trek from the parking lot to the office. We have a massive logistics/administrative scene, where women and weak men can easily manage to get into leadership positions, and this the largest problem in the military.

I think the military would have solved fitness by now if the warriors were actually in charge. I am going to link to one of Carl's interviews here- Training for Special Ops. These interviews are worth digging out of that website, even though search currently seems to be quite hellish, because they know what they are talking about.

Update: I found a podcast specifically on body composition with regard to military.