Worried

[sanandreasfreak]

hey there,

I did a practice CFA, and am very worried with my results.
I got:
-BB 71 ft
-pullups 5
-shuttle 9.2 sec
-situps 81
-pushups 30
-mile 7.30

Altough I have a couple months left, I am slightly worried, and wanted to ask you guys for any techniques and tips there are to improve.

Thanks,
Louis

 

[Demosthenes]

You definately need to work on push ups and pull ups, if those scores dont improve I do not believe you will pass. Mile time could also use some work. Everything else looks alright though.

 

[Tachyon]

Practice, practice practice

There is NO substitute for practice. Do push ups every chance you get thru the day, do sit ups and pull ups every chance you get. Start keeping a record and PUSH yourself! Practice your running, doing sprints in with your mile or 2 mile runs. RUN alot and push yourself, you WILL improve!

 

[rksUSNA2013]

Don't forget to hit the gym. Try to find a weight that you fail around 6-10 reps and do 2-3 sets on each exercise. Important exercises include bench press (wide and narrow grip), dumbell press (incline and decline), tricep extensions, military press/skull crushers, rows, and pulldowns.

Squats, deadlift, cleans, and snatch will help improve your shuttle run time. I would advise you to ask a coach or trainer about these exercises if you've never done them. It's pretty easy to hurt yourself with improper form.

Mix this with sprints (200-800 meters) and long distance (3+ miles) running, and PT made up of bodyweight exercises. Don't just stick with one form either. Try to mix it up. (e.g. for pushups try wide, narrow, clapping, diamond, and anything else you can think of)

I like to lift heavy 3 times a week immediately followed by sprints. Do PT and longer distance runs 3 times a week. 1 day a week is a rest day.

Work hard and stick with it and you should see a lot of improvement.

 

[kp13]

Get one of the Pull up bars that you can put in a door frame and max out every time you walk in or out of your room. It increased my pull ups by 7.

 

[ibman377]

Hope this helps (adding on to whats been said)...

All of the other advice is solid... just adding in what I know.

I second buying the pull up bar in the doorway. They're not too expensive and they do a lot of good. If you get better at pull ups you def. might see improvements in other places as well. I went from like 5 to 12 pullups in a few weeks. Every night before I went to bed, I would always knock out three sets of between 5 and 10 with about 2 minute breaks in between. make sure your fingers are facing away from you and you go all the way down. By waiting a few seconds before going up, it makes it harder (aka. better).

Running- get up in the morning or in the afternoon and do a solid 30-45 minute run. vary the distances. one day do a 30 minute, then the next build up to 45 to an hour. do that for a few days and then run 30 again. its about endurance that your trying to build not always strength.

bball throw- practice and try to find the "sweet spot". vary the way that you extend your arm and when leaning back to throw. i went from 50 something to 81 just by practicing. if you want the superman throw (120ish) im not the one to talk to about that.

sprint- good. better than mine by a few milliseconds

push ups- do the excercises with weights explained a few posts before.

situps- reps and reps and reps. three sets of 50 a night or a day.

Good luck. you'll be fine if you work at it. oh and remember not to test yourself on just one event at a time. factor in how tired you're gonna be after the previous excercises. do a practice test each or everyother week to "teach" your body what it'll be going through when the real one comes along. you'll improve.

 

[LineInTheSand]

Do it all in the heat as well to get acclimated. This can be applied to all of the academies (I imagine USAFA is hard to do this for, with the elevation difference).