VFT situps

Kemp7

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5-Year Member
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Oct 28, 2008
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Whats the deal with the VFT?

Its all straight forward except for the situps. This part confuses the hell out of me. The situp is supposed to be performed with your knees bent at a 90 degree angle and your feet must touch the ground while your hand are interlocked behind your head.

I may be doing them wrong but most of the time my feet cant stay flat on the ground if my knees are bent at a 90 degree angle while laying down. I also thought that when you interlock your fingers behind your head, you run a high risk of neck injury.

For the USMC pft, I had to do 100 situps in 2 min, very similar to the VFT, and I completeted 100 situps in 1:30 min.

Can anyone tell me if I doing these wrong?

Thanx
 
Whats the deal with the VFT?

Its all straight forward except for the situps. This part confuses the hell out of me. The situp is supposed to be performed with your knees bent at a 90 degree angle and your feet must touch the ground while your hand are interlocked behind your head.

I may be doing them wrong but most of the time my feet cant stay flat on the ground if my knees are bent at a 90 degree angle while laying down. I also thought that when you interlock your fingers behind your head, you run a high risk of neck injury.

For the USMC pft, I had to do 100 situps in 2 min, very similar to the VFT, and I completeted 100 situps in 1:30 min.

Can anyone tell me if I doing these wrong?

Thanx
It's different than the USMC PFT in that the Marines are doing an abdominal crunch now rather than a sit up. This is the same situp as on the Army PFT. I would not worry so much about the actual angle (note the standard says approximately 90 degrees) as I would keeping your feet on the ground (and someone will be holding them down by your ankles) while keeping your fingers interlaced behind your head. Fast is better than slow as you found taking the USMC test- what will make it tough if you are not used to doing so is keeping your fingers interlaced- every time your fingers come apart behind your head and fail to touch that is supposed to be discounted so you need to practise this- (a note of caution- your own physical fitness program should not be limited to practicing the PFT events because the PFT is just a handy snap shot of your fitness and not the sole determiner of whether you are good shape- just don't go into a PT test and doing the events for the first time when you are graded!) If you are going to VMI- hopefully you will go to STP in July (I would highly recommend this) where you will take a diagnostic VPFT on the first day and then spend the next month trying to improve your score so you will have plenty of opportunity to improve as a freebee before you show up to take it for record and if it it's a minor technique you will knock that right off. .

Good luck - if you did 100 USMC crunches in 1:30 you will do fine- just a little different technique. I haven't really looked but I'm certain that there will be a video somewhere- perhaps military .com ? of the correct US Army PFT situp procedures if you are still a little confused. http://www.vmi.edu/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=14987
 
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Whats the deal with the VFT?

Its all straight forward except for the situps. This part confuses the hell out of me. The situp is supposed to be performed with your knees bent at a 90 degree angle and your feet must touch the ground while your hand are interlocked behind your head.

I may be doing them wrong but most of the time my feet cant stay flat on the ground if my knees are bent at a 90 degree angle while laying down. I also thought that when you interlock your fingers behind your head, you run a high risk of neck injury.

For the USMC pft, I had to do 100 situps in 2 min, very similar to the VFT, and I completeted 100 situps in 1:30 min.

Can anyone tell me if I doing these wrong?

Thanx

you'll do them even faster if you push your head downward when you go down. it may feel a little wierd at first, but you won't hurt yourself since youll be reversing just as your head touches the ground for the next situp and you save a lot of time compared to just dropping your head down with gravity. if you want to try this method, use a pillow first until you can master reversing just as your head touches the ground. with this technique, i can sometimes get up to almost 120. also, the only way to do so many is if your feet don't move at all. make sure the other person hold you very tightly. if your feet can lift up a bit, youll lose at least 20.

i came in thinking the vft would be hard since i couldn't do any pullups at all, but i found that with all the pushing on the stoops, and the pullup bars in front of the girls bathrooms, i'm up to at least 5 now and with a spotter, sometimes up to even 10.
 
thanks to both of you, I focused more on keeping my hands interlaced and tried moving my head. I slammed my head a few times on the floor but i think im gettint the hang of it.
 
I slammed my head a few times on the floor but i think im gettint the hang of it.

definitely use a pillow or a pad until you get the hang of it. that would be ridiculous to get a concussion just to increase your situps by 20. also, you notice its harder to reverse as your abs get tired. so you have to give yourself a smaller and smaller push as you go along. my goal is to get to the point where i can push down almost all the way for every situp. i bet i can hit 130 or more when i get there.

also, i recommended this to you since you are up to a 100 already. obviously ur able to do them during the entire time. you just are running out of time. so tricks liek pushing your head down will help a lot. but if anyone is reading this who is stuck at only 60 or 70, then yu should just work on endurance and stamina. i dont recommend this pushing head down trick for anyone who cant situp during the entire test. its sortof an advanced technique. it actually makes your abs even more tired since you are using ur muscles to both go down and up and not only going up

(situps are sortof my specialty :shake:)
 
yea ive been workin on the situps all week and i finally nailed 95 in 2 min today, the neck trick really helped. i just need to practice it more
 
do you have any hints on how to improve your 1.5 mile time?? Rite now mine is around 10 to 10 and a half min. and i want to bring it down to atleast a 9 by summer.
 
do you have any hints on how to improve your 1.5 mile time?? Rite now mine is around 10 to 10 and a half min. and i want to bring it down to atleast a 9 by summer.

my opinion is that improving your 5k time is much more important in preparing for vmi than ur 1.5mi time. its because vmi just requires so much endurance and stamina from a rat. if ur 5k time sucks, i'll be honest, youre going to have a tougher time. a side benefit is that improving your 5k time will also improve your 1.5mi time.

the key to improving any long distance running time is putting in the miles. build up slowly to being able to run every day or almost every day consistently. try to run 10mi at a time on sundays. any cross country program you find on the internet should be fine. when you get yourself to the point when you can't run any faster and your legs feel like lead, you have to go for some interval training or somethign like that to teach ur muscles to go faster.

before doing a lot of running though, make sure your shoes exactly fit right for you and find out if you pronate.
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-240-319-327-7727-0,00.html
a good running shoe is critical to not getting injured. so many rats get stress fractures during the ratline, probably from poorly fit shoes or from not ramping ur training up slowly enough. be sure to build up real slowly from whatever level you are running at now to a good cross country training program of running (if you decide to do that).

a good way to build up your base in running slowly might be to do the first 17 weeks of something like this
http://www.navy-prt.com/trainingrun.html
which gently gets you from 8mi/wk to 25mi/wk.
then to run 27mi/wk in wks 18&19, 29mi/wk in 20/21, 31 in 22/23, 33 in 24/25 and then to start this program in wk 26
http://www.halhigdon.com/crosscountry/cross.htm
then by the time hellweek 2009 comes, youll be in awesome running condition, and im sure your 1.5mi time will be down at least a full min. btw, if you are running more than 8mi/wk now, then u should just start further into the progam. u should be honest with yourself though. just because u know you can run 20mi in a week without a prob doesn't mean u should start there. if you did, youd just endup injuring yourself and screwing up your progress.

if this is your senior yr, you might also consider trying out for ur highschool's outdoor track team in the spring. u know u wont be studying much in the spring anyways (haha) so outdoor trakc might be just the sort of thing to help get you into shape and push u do do some regular running everyday.

running is such a difficult thing to get right and really push ur limits on because of the possibility of serious injuries. i know. i captained my highschool xc team and lettered in xc. spangler, the xc coach at vmi kept trying to get me to join the vmi xc team (i'd wanted to during the summer) but i decided the ratline was just too hard and i was going to just melt down, so i didn't join. but i still know a few things about runnig.
 
kemp, something that isn't even in the vft which will really help u as a rat at vmi is getting good at pushups. as rats we do so many pushups, sometimes its rediculous. as punishment, i've been forced to do 160 or so at a time until my arms didnt go the next day. they will push you until your arms are just dying, and if touch the ground they won't count them or if you stop, they will make u go faster. the cadre can only make you do 80 per stoop, but sometimes, they just get so furious they will make u push and push and push... way more than 80.

so learn how to do them properly (straight back, knifeedge hands pointed forward, head up, break the plane going down). there are probably youtube vids showing u the rightway for these.

do them every day and with good form and improve everydya and life at vmi in the ratline will be a (tiny) bit easier

just remember though, nothign can really prepare you for the ratline. i know that now. boy do i. and nothign can keep u in the ratline for sure, unless your parents bar the door when you leave for vmi lol :shake: i just pray myself i make it through the rest of my ratline since weve already been told its going to get a lot harder and harder as breakout approaches.
 
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Kemp- I would differ with some of the previous post : you can prepare yourself pretty well for the Rat line. Be in very good physical condition would be a start- especially running and upper body strength including- as VMINROTCHOPEFUL suggested - lots of pushups.
The next thing that you can do to prepare yourself mentally by understanding that the entire point of the Ratline is to rattle you, teach you to determine what is important and what is fluff and to prioritize accordingly and to deliver under pressure. Since you want to be a Marine Officer, I think that those goals will be familiar to everyone who has ever worn the Globe & Anchor. VMI is the most physically demanding college in the country -but it is absolutely an achievable challenge and like most things if you approach it with a sense of humor, personal pride, a positive attitude, and learn to roll with the punches, you will succeed just like the >75% of the men and women who have matriculated over the last 170 years and be well prepared to be a leader in your chosen field.
 
bruno is probably right since he knows the whole vmi thing. but i was just speaking from my perspective from in middle of the ratline not knowing if i'll make it or if i'll be one of those who never come back in january. i'm sure there are going to be some since there were even some leaving before thanksgiving. although i prepared as well as i could, even ran about 300 miles over the summer and attended stp, i found the psychological side of the ratline something i didn't expect although i did expect it. i mean, i thought i knew what it was like. i even saw a bunch of movies about stuff like this. but until you have it in your face LOL, you can't really know what its like. a friend of mine from stp quit on the 2nd day of hellweek. she must have been prepared physically, and i'm sure she could have told you about what they were going to do to us, but i'm sure that she and others that quit during hellweek were just overwhelmed with it all. so they prepared, but maybe not enough. that's all i'm saying. how do you really know you've prepared enough until you actually make it through? i think i've prepared enough, which is why i think i'll be breaking out wiht the rest of my company in 2 months, but i've certainly thought about quitting, i've even gone by myself to the tunnel leading to kilbourne hall just to be myself and think. maybe a bad sign. and there are others that have done more than think. they've quit. a very good friend of mine just quit a few days ago. it almsot made me cry, because he's helped me a lot. he had a "bad day" (i won't get more specific then that since i don't think i should be giving away all of vmi's secrets) and just suddenly quit. i stopped by his room and his roommates weren't talking. i couldn't believe it. he had stood it all until that day. i guess all those weeks of the ratline had prepared him, but just not enough for that very next day when he quit. so my opinion now is just that you can prepare really well for the physical side of the ratline, but it's really hard to prepare for the psychological side of it where you are under stress and pressure 18 hours a day for everyday except when you are actually in class and on sundays (if you go to church). sometimes people just buckle under all that stress. if sometimes you don't go to your room, put your head down on the table and just ask yourself "why", then you are just superhuman LOL. :shake:

anyways, this is not to say i don't think it will be worth it. no one would stick around if they didn't think it was going to be worth it. probably a lot that quit just finally decided for themselves it wasn't worth it. but those of us still in the ratline probably are all here because we think vmi will give us something we can't find elsewhere.

something really inspirational happened on the bus from newmarket battlefield on the day we rats took the cadet oath. we were all so tired, and some of us were falling asleep on the bus. but the cadre kept us up. finally, one asked, do you know why we don't sleep on the bus? of course, none of us knew. and he told us. "it's because your friends are at other schools partying and probably still sleeping in right now (it was a weekend) but you came here to VMI looking for something else." and then all of us were awed at ourselves and no one slept any more. :cool: sorry, i can't really say it with the same words that were so inspirational. but it's for that reason that i think those of us still here are trying to hang in there.
 
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