Workouts

mitch292

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5-Year Member
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Dec 30, 2007
Messages
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Hello,

I have been working out to up my fitness for the physical test for USMA. I have been running 2 miles 5 times per week and been doing a lot of sit-ups and push-ups. I have also been working with some weights can anyone suggest any exercises or anything else to do that will help me.

Thanks,
Mitch
 
Running sounds pretty good, try to increase your running as you run longer, build up some stamina. How many pushups/situps do you do in one set? What kind of weight work are you doing?
 
I am usually doing a set of 20 push ups or more and i usually try to do 2 sets but I am trying to increase that number. I do 2 sets of 50 sit ups and as for my lifting it is basically what the football players do at my high school because they hold lifting after school but alot of non football players go so in that I mean things like cleans, bench press, leg press, and many others like that.
 
pull ups, pull ups, pull ups and more pull ups
 
Also practice the basketball throw -- it can be difficult to figure out the best method for performing.
 
I would suggest mixing up your running. It’s a one mile run, so try to do a lot of track type workouts, like running 400m sprints at a 1:1 interval (rest for as long as it took you to run the 400m). Distance is good, but don’t worry about the 2 mile until after the CFA.

For pushups, try pyramids. Try to get to 10. Do 1 pushup, then 2, then 3, up to 10, then back down. Rest in the leaning rest position for a couple of seconds in between each set. Also, find out how many you can do in two minutes, and do sets of half that number. Say you did 60, do sets of 30. Eventually, try to do sets of half as many as you want to do for the test, so if you want to do 70, work up to the point where you can do 3+ sets of 35. Make sure your form is good, even if that means doing less pushups. Don’t cheat yourself, because even if it doesn’t hurt you on the CFA, you don’t want to get into that bad habit because you must have perfect form for the APFT.

For pullups, just do as many as you can, but get someone to spot you and help lift you once you can’t do any more by yourself. That’s where the real improvement happens.

Both the shuttle run and basketball throw are as much about technique as fitness. The key to the shuttle run is quick turns. For the basketball throw, it’s all about finding the right trajectory so that you get maximum distance. You don’t want to “laser” it, but launching it like a mortar isn’t going to get it very far either. I played baseball in high school but found this event very difficult. Understand that your hand can’t touch the ground in front of you until the ball has hit the ground, but try to lean back and throw yourself forward as you rotate your shoulder.

I see that you will apply for the class of 2014, so you have a ton of time to increase your fitness. Stay consistent with your workouts and you will be fine. Good luck!:thumb:
 
Here are some things I do for weights you may want to consider:

Legs
-Squats
-Leg Curls
-Leg Press
-Leg Extensions
-Lunges

Back/Shoulders
-Hammer Strenght Rows(It's a machine thing)
-Truck Drivers(Take a plate, start low like 10 and twist it left to right for 30 seconds like you were using a steering wheel)
-Lat Pull Downs
-Dumbel Shrugs
-Straight Bar Shrugs

Misc(Not really misc, but I forget most of the names)
-Bench Press
-Inclined Bench
-Tricep Kickbacks
-Skull Crushers
-Dead Lift

I'm forgetting the names to a few things at the moment, good luck. I'm a hopeful for 2014 as well.

Right now I'm not running all too often, but what is a good idea is to sprint the straightaways on a track and jog the corners and just repeat that.

As of right now I'm doing 3 sets of 75 sit ups and 3 sets of 30 pushups, good luck!
 
Before USMA, I was considering the Marine Corps. They gave me a 4 year offer at the early board, and I was actually running 5Ks everyday at around a 21 minute pace.
 
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