Anyone have a CFA training routine?

TomB

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Feb 6, 2018
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Doea anyone have a good training routine in order to prepare for the CFA? I just would like it because I wish to max, or come close to maxing, the events for the CFA. I can max pull ups, nearly max push ups, get a good amount on sit ups, do a good basketball throw, do a 6-630 mile, and I get a 9.1 on the shuttle. Anyone have a good routine that I could follow? Thanks!
 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mi...ess/fitness-test-prep/service-academy-cfa/amp

Stew Smith is a USNA grad, former USNA staff officer, and now a fitness professional. He was on USNA staff at the same time I was; I watched him help a lot of mids.
Oh yes. He was a SEAL. Decent shape.
This might be worth a gander: https://www.military.com/military-fitness/fitness-test-prep/service-academy-cfa
Google is your friend. Took all of 30 seconds to find this.
I have already looked at that post and I do most of this stuff already as it is. Maybe I should start doing reps till failure with minimum breaks in between? 5-6 sets? Also, I am not a varsity sports athlete but I have 4.5 years of boxing experience and have sparred countless hours with professionals and other amateurs who are usually older than I am (college age and up). I would get a recommendation letter from my coach but he is from Brazil and does not speak or write very good English which is unfortunate in my situation, so maxing on the CFA is important for me.
 
Vary your individual workouts with full-out actual CFA run-through, per the timed sequencing. Where you feel fatigue or don’t come close to stats from individual element practice, will help you tailor your workouts.
 
Definitely do full CFA practice runthroughs regularly (once or even twice a week). Give yourself even shorter breaks than the real test, and really find where your limit is. I know for me, the mile run was absolutely brutal. I got an okay time (6:23), but felt like trash from start to finish. Get your body used to that rapid sequence of events, and your muscles will kick in on the actual test.
You've got good times/counts at this point; I would be happy if those were my final test scores. But yes, shoot for that max. Take note: your pushups especially will be way below your current PR, since they come last before the run. Work on those till you go significantly above max. Good luck! You've got this.
 
All of the above are great suggestions. I will offer this to you and others who wish to do well on the CFA, "just do it"! Whatever you plan is, just make sure you discipline yourself to follow through with it, even when you least feel like working. It is a simple test which by hard work can be mastered. The problem with many is the inability to motivate when circumstances aren't perfect. Make it happen multiple times each week. Some of the exercises are easy to do anytime; like push-ups, sit-ups, and pull- ups. Should do those every day, and a few times. My son's method was easy enough. He (with me as his spotter) went to the high school a couple times each week and we actually did the full timed CFA. It is actually a bear to do in the timed sequence if you are pushing yourself, but it works. That mile run is a lot harder after doing the other stuff.

Again, just do it!
 
Also, I am not a varsity sports athlete but I have 4.5 years of boxing experience and have sparred countless hours with professionals and other amateurs who are usually older than I am (college age and up). I would get a recommendation letter from my coach but he is from Brazil and does not speak or write very good English which is unfortunate in my situation, so maxing on the CFA is important for me.

There is no place for a "recommendation" from your Coach in the USNA application process. Your MOC may care for Nomination purposes, but USNA Admissions only looks for Math and English Teacher evaluations.

Alot of Candidates are overthinking the CFA. It's important, but only one aspect of the Application process. A great CFA will help if you application is otherwise competitive, but is unlikely to make up for other shortcomings in an application .
 
All of the above are great suggestions. I will offer this to you and others who wish to do well on the CFA, "just do it"! Whatever you plan is, just make sure you discipline yourself to follow through with it, even when you least feel like working. It is a simple test which by hard work can be mastered. The problem with many is the inability to motivate when circumstances aren't perfect. Make it happen multiple times each week. Some of the exercises are easy to do anytime; like push-ups, sit-ups, and pull- ups. Should do those every day, and a few times. My son's method was easy enough. He (with me as his spotter) went to the high school a couple times each week and we actually did the full timed CFA. It is actually a bear to do in the timed sequence if you are pushing yourself, but it works. That mile run is a lot harder after doing the other stuff.

Again, just do it!

+1 for DS! He does his sets of push ups and sit ups in the dugout between innings of his HS baseball games. He's gotten some friendly razzing from his teammates (DS observed that BB players are not always in the best physical shape).
 
Also, I am not a varsity sports athlete but I have 4.5 years of boxing experience and have sparred countless hours with professionals and other amateurs who are usually older than I am (college age and up). I would get a recommendation letter from my coach but he is from Brazil and does not speak or write very good English which is unfortunate in my situation, so maxing on the CFA is important for me.

There is no place for a "recommendation" from your Coach in the USNA application process. Your MOC may care for Nomination purposes, but USNA Admissions only looks for Math and English Teacher evaluations.

Alot of Candidates are overthinking the CFA. It's important, but only one aspect of the Application process. A great CFA will help if you application is otherwise competitive, but is unlikely to make up for other shortcomings in an application .
I meant like a varsity letter of some sort not necessarily a recommendation, that's my fault for using the wrong term. It’s kind of a bummer that USNA does not recruit for boxing and I just have a feeling that the admissions team won’t believe me when I say “I have 4.5 years of boxing experience” without any sort of letter from a coach.
 
I definitely agree with the others above about practicing a timed CFA regularly/weekly due to the loading fatigue that crushes the push-ups and mile run at the end. My DS can max out the push-ups and do the mile in ~6:00 minutes when he does these exercises fresh, but when he does a timed CFA practice his push-ups take a pounding, especially his spinal posture, due to the abdominal fatigue caused by the previous 95 sit-ups, and his mile run gets stretched out to ~7:00 minutes. The entire CFA takes only ~37 minutes (depending on your mile time). That's a quick, but very intense workout. If you did a timed practice CFA twice per week, and did additional focused work on the individual exercises in between the practice CFAs, I think you'd see big gains in a short time.
 
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