SEAL SWCC PHYSICAL TRAINING GUIDE

By: Naval Special Warfare
Posted: March 4, 2020

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1. PDF  SEAL SWCC Physical Training Guide

Related content:

1. SEAL SWCC Physical Training Guide exercise videos
2. SEAL SWCC Combat Sidestroke Guide
3. BUD/S or Alpha Phase training videos
4. SEAL PST Calculator
5. SEAL Officer PST Calculator
6. SWCC PST Calculator

The SEAL SWCC Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Physical Training Guide (PTG) provides information about the type of training required to properly prepare for the rigors of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) or Alpha Phase. Each week of progressively harder workouts in the PTG is designed to help you develop the strength and endurance to withstand the rigors of training.

The PTG is designed to assist anyone who wants to improve their fitness in order to take and pass the NSW Physical Screening Test (PST) and succeed at BUD/S or Alpha Phase.

The PTG offers a 26 week training template that will help a person with average fitness train effectively and minimize the risk of injury. The training template can be modified to suit your individual needs. If you want, you can extend the 26 week training template indefinitely.

PRACTICING FOR A REAL PST

If you're preparing for the PST, you should occasionally do a practice or mock PST. Simulate actual PST conditions as much as possible, including recovery periods between events and strict standards of performance. Fine-tune your nutrition and warm-up strategies. Optimize your pacing to get the overall best results. You might use results to adjust your training paces and reps for run, swim, and push-sit-pull workouts. Do not practice too often. Every 4-6 weeks should be sufficient.

You want to give your body a chance to adapt to training before you test, and you don't want to disrupt your normal training schedule too often. Choose a day for a mock PST and determine how to modify your other workouts for the week. There's no perfect way to do this but one suggestion is to do the mock PST on a day you normally do your Long Interval (LI) workout for running or swimming. You might shorten your workouts the day before (e.g., Long Slow Distance (LSD)) so you're not too tired. Tapering improves performance but different people respond best to different tapers, so that is something else to figure out as you practice. After several weeks of training and a couple of mock PST's you should have a pretty good idea of where you're at, what you need to work on most, and how ready you are for an actual PST.

QUALIFYING NSW PREP PST STANDARDS - FOR A SEAL OR SWCC CONTRACT

GENERAL TRAINING GUIDLINES

Key points to training:

1. Keep it simple
2. Use proper technique (get coaching from qualified sources if necessary)
3. Develop the whole body, especially the parts known to be vulnerable to injury

Your workouts should be:

1. Planned, structured, organized
2. Balanced and well-rounded
3. Applied gradually and consistently
4. Specific to the demands of BUD/S or Alpha Phase

Most of your cardiovascular exercise should focus on running and swimming. Resistance training targeting the whole body should be performed to develop the optimal muscular strength and endurance to resist injury and succeed at BUD/S or Alpha Phase. Specific emphasis on push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups will be necessary to achieve the required standards for the PST. Cross-training such as cycling, rowing, or hiking will complement and supplement your basic training. Work to achieve balanced fitness, with the optimal combination of endurance, strength, mobility, and flexibility. Work to improve your unsatisfactory qualities, and don’t just focus on the things you're good at.

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

Running:

1. Try to do interval training on a measured course, such as a running track. If that is not possible, find a location with a firm, flat surface without traffic that is safe for fast running.
2. Try to do LSD running on a variety of different surfaces or terrains: flat, hilly, firm, and soft – pavement, trails, grass, beaches, even snow.
3. Don’t worry about wearing boots when running. If you do run in boots, run only a couple miles a week.

Swimming:

1. A pool is desirable for interval training.
2. Take every safety precaution if you train in open water (lake or ocean)
3. Mix free style swimming into your workouts in addition to the Combat Sidestroke (CSS). This will increase intensity and promote fitness that will translate to faster CSS swimming. Perform as much as one third of your training using free style, mixed into interval and LSD workouts.
4. Be careful if you include swimming with fins as part of your training. Make sure your ankles are strong and flexible first. About 1000 yards per week with fins is sufficient.

Cross Training:

1. You can supplement your run and swim training with cross-training using other cardiovascular activities. Appropriate activities use large muscles and can be performed rhythmically and continuously. Examples include (but are not limited to) cycling, rowing, stair stepping, elliptical machines, and hiking.
2. Use cross-training activities to help build your conditioning base without over-training (since you don’t want to ramp up your running or swimming volume too quickly). Use cross-training to inject a little variety into your routine.
3. When necessary, substitute cross-training for running or swimming. This might happen if you have a minor injury, there is bad weather, or your regular training facility is not available.

HOW TO WARM-UP, PRACTICE ACTIVE RECOVERY, AND COOL-DOWN

The warm-up

Every workout should begin with a warm-up. Even for LSD workouts, where the intensity will be moderate, you should spend several minutes specifically preparing to improve the quality of the workout. Include some dynamic stretching, some easy jogging or swimming, and even some bursts of speed. For Interval sessions, your warm-up should be long and thorough. Your total warm-up distance may be as great as the total distance you cover during the work intervals (2-4 miles for running and 800-1600 yards for swimming). Include dynamic stretching, drills, easy jogging or swimming, and several high-intensity bursts of speed that last 30 seconds or longer.

Practicing active recovery

For Interval training, the time spent between work intervals must include active recovery. Spend at least half the recovery time jogging/walking briskly or swimming easily. This will maintain blood flow to the muscles, deliver oxygen and nutrients and remove waste, allowing you to perform at higher intensity during the work periods.

How to cool-down

After your workout, include a cool-down period. This means a few minutes of easy jogging or swimming after LSD sessions, and more extended work to gradually return to baseline after an intense interval session. For cool-down, you may choose to do a cross-training activity like cycling instead of running or swimming.

Depending on how much you do, your total distance of warm-up, active recovery, and cool-down for all workouts may be 1/3 to 1/2 of your total training distance so it is important to give these aspects proper consideration and perform them with as much attention to detail as the actual workouts. The Weekly Running and Swimming Tables below provide a sample of how your total run and swim distances (all workouts) might gradually increase over several weeks, with total workout distances as well as additional distance that might come from WU, AR, and CD.

STRENGTH TRAINING

Success in BUD/S or BCS requires a certain amount of strength (though strength does has less effect on success than running or swimming ability). Strength is necessary to perform demanding evolution's during the selection pipeline as well as remain resistant to injury. Developing an effective strength program involves targeting the whole body (upper, core, lower); maintaining balance across opposing muscle groups (push-pull); and targeting muscles known to affect injury risk (including rotator cuff, hamstrings, and torso rotators). Many different programs and methods have been used to improve strength.

Follow these basic recommendations:

Keeping in mind the specific needs of BUD/S or Alpha Phase, and the necessity of emphasizing running and swimming during preparation:

1. Use different forms of resistance, including body weight, free weights, and machines
2. Select exercises that target the whole body (upper, core, lower); that create movement in all three planes; that balance opposing muscles (push-pull)
3. Perform movements in a controlled manner through a full Range of Motion (ROM) using proper technique; emphasize negative (eccentric) contractions

It is not necessary to perform multiple sets of each exercise to realize significant gains in strength. One set to momentary muscle failure is generally sufficient. This also leaves time for more exercises to target the whole body. The weight and number of repetitions is not critical, as long as momentary muscle failure is reached. This means completing as many reps as possible with proper form. When you become too fatigued to do another repetition without sacrificing technique, put the weight down. Generally choose a weight you can lift 8-12 times with proper form before failure. On different days for different exercises, choose heavier weight so you finish in fewer reps (4-6), or lighter weight so you finish with more reps (15 or even 20). Changing the weight and reps periodically will increase overall strength under different conditions. Over time, you will be able to lift a given weight for more reps. Here is a hypothetical example of how you might perform an exercise such as the overhead dumbbell press over several workouts: 8x45lbs, 10x40lbs, 6x50lbs, 9x45lbs, 11x40lbs, 7x50lbs, etc. Your actual numbers may vary from this example but in general you do more reps with lighter weights (or fewer reps with heavier weights) as you work towards momentary muscle failure.

During a workout, move from one exercise to the next efficiently. Recover as necessary, but don’t waste time. By the same token, don’t race. Perform each exercise with the best technique possible. Do the exercises in any order, but alternate between pushing and pulling.

Mix up the order for different workouts on different days. Choose different variations (different forms of resistance) for the same basic movement on different days for different workouts (such as machine chest press one day and dumbbell press another). A whole-body workout should be completed in an hour or less. The entire body can be trained in a single session 2-3x per week, or different regions (upper, core, lower) can be trained separately on different days depending on the time you have or if you want to coordinate strength training with running or swimming. It is possible to do strength training daily as long as each region/muscle group gets 2-3 days of recovery between sessions. Train each region no less than 1x and no more than 3x per week, with the exception of Core. Core exercises such as planks, side plank, and bridge can and should be performed more frequently (4-6x per week).

Training the whole body in one session or by different regions on different days will provide similar results, so the choice is yours depending on what fits your schedule best. There are advantages and disadvantages to strength training before or after a running or swimming workout, so once again do whatever fits your schedule best.

Candidates have asked what will be the effect of combining heavy weights for exercises like bench press or lat pull-downs with many sets of push-ups and pull-ups. Will this cause over-training? This should not be a problem if the basic recommendations for limiting strength training (weight lifting) to twice per week and calisthenics numbers are kept within the suggested ranges.

Important things to remember when creating a strength workout:

1. Choose exercises for the upper body, trunk, and lower body
2. Choose exercises that create movement in all three planes
3. Choose exercises that create balance (push-pull; right-left; front-back)
4. Movements should be controlled through a full Range of Motion using proper technique
5. Emphasize negative (eccentric) contractions
6. Use multiple variations of each basic movement (e.g., outward push, downward pull)
7. For the trunk, use a variety of static as well as dynamic exercises
8. Be sure to include exercises for the vulnerable or underdeveloped areas
9. Mix up the order of exercises (but alternate push-pull)

Problem areas that are often weak and underdeveloped, and should be targeted to avoid injury:

1. Rotator cuff
2. Mid/lower traps
3. Rhomboids
4. Posterior and medial glutes
5. Hamstrings
6. Tibialis anterior
7. Torso rotators

Body movement categories:

The movement category tables below provide the basic movement categories for the upper body, trunk, and lower body with examples of exercises using body weight or other forms of resistance (such as dumbbells).

UPPER BODY EXERCISES

TRUNK EXERCISES