How to Prepare for AROTC

Patriot95

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Sep 29, 2012
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I'm a junior in high school and I'm 100% sure I want to join Army ROTC in college and hopefully get an ROTC scholarship too. I physically want to be prepared for it before I join, so what should I do? I'm pretty sure I am fine on the running part because I run cross country and track. However, I need to work on my strength. Should I lift weights or just focus on push ups, pull ups and sit ups because that's part of the pt test? Thanks.
 
For your own physical health do various push ups (inclined, dumb-bell lift etc) and lift weights. I have never trained for sit ups, if you lift weights properly you should be able to build up your core easily.

Do a search there are a few threads on physical preparation before ROTC.
 
For your own physical health do various push ups (inclined, dumb-bell lift etc) and lift weights. I have never trained for sit ups, if you lift weights properly you should be able to build up your core easily.

Do a search there are a few threads on physical preparation before ROTC.

Where you will find the most problem with your soldiers is in their ability to do situps at a good pace which allows an optimal score. Many people can do 80 situps. Few can do the 80 in 2 minutes.

A trick we have used to good avail is to have soldiers train do situps with their butt as close to their heels as possible, which takes a lot of the hip and quad recruitment out of the equation. When they get to a PT test and do the situp with the knees bent at 90 degrees, most are amazed at the stamina they've gained by building up their core muscles and then finding they have "extra help" from their legs.
 
Where you will find the most problem with your soldiers is in their ability to do situps at a good pace which allows an optimal score. Many people can do 80 situps. Few can do the 80 in 2 minutes.

A trick we have used to good avail is to have soldiers train do situps with their butt as close to their heels as possible, which takes a lot of the hip and quad recruitment out of the equation. When they get to a PT test and do the situp with the knees bent at 90 degrees, most are amazed at the stamina they've gained by building up their core muscles and then finding they have "extra help" from their legs.

I never thought of doing that, but from a physiological stance it makes sense. The same goes for push ups, by using surgical bands as resistance and switching up wide/close arm/incline so when the PT test comes around regular push ups should be cake.
 
I never thought of doing that, but from a physiological stance it makes sense. The same goes for push ups, by using surgical bands as resistance and switching up wide/close arm/incline so when the PT test comes around regular push ups should be cake.

When I was the battle captain, I used to have my 15Ps do situps during their shift using a bench. They had to place their butt on the end of the bench and their feet on the bench with a buddy holding them. That meant when they'd go down, they were doing a situp suspended in the air, with no ground to lay on. They'd do as many situps as they could with no ground under their back, stopping themselves at parallel and coming back up. Simple workout but very effective when APFT time came around.
 
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