If you have been in the military or are considering joining the military you have probably heard of functional training. Without a doubt, it is one of the toughest workout programs that you can participate in, but does that make it the best fit for those that currently serve or hope to serve as a member of the SEALs, Marines, or special operations forces? Keep reading to see what the latest research has to say.

This sounds like a fairly straight forward question. What type of training is best for military members? And like any simple question, I could give you a simple answer, but it wouldn’t be the most correct answer.

Just to give you a little background on myself. I served in the Marine Corps, attending several very challenging schools including: Officer Candidate School, Infantry Officer’s Course, and The Basic School. I’ve also served in the operational forces, and deployed to Afghanistan.

I say all that to point out that I have some relevant experience with difficult infantry style training. I’ve also been functional training around 2007, and I did use it to prepare for my training pipeline in the Marine Corps. Personally, I will tell you that it was a crucial element to my success. So that settles it right? Just do lift bro! Hold on there sport, it isn’t that simple.

The Purpose of Functional Fitness

Functional Fitness is, and always will be, a method of increasing one’s general physical fitness. A good athlete is one who is generally well conditioned, reasonably strong, and athletic. They are not good at any particular task, but are decent at a broad variety of tasks.

This broad, and general fitness, is great for most people most of the time, but military members often have very particular tasks that they must specialize in, to excel in their job. For these folks, being generally good is not enough, they must specialize, or they aren’t likely to survive very long on the battlefield. So it’s settled then, functional training is terrible for SEALs, and other special operations personnel right?

The true answer is that to be successful at any given task in life you need train for the specific requirements of that task, which means that some specialization will be required. For SEALs, Marines, and other special operations folks they must maintain a high degree of competence in things like ruck marching, swimming, and climbing. These are specialized tasks that a general fitness program will not cover. This brings us to our next topic. How to use functional fitness for military training correctly.

Integrating Functional Training and Military Training

The correct term for this type of functional training is called biasing your program. This is incredibly common, as it most efficiently allows you to increase your fitness in one or two specific areas, while maintaining your general fitness in other areas. Here are some examples of biased programming that I’ve created for you.

These programs focus on specific fitness traits that an athlete might need to work on. They are biased towards hypertrophy, strength, or conditioning. To excel in difficult military occupations you first need to understand the magnitude of the challenge you are facing. To do that we are going to look at some amazing research on SEAL candidates that attempted Hell Week during BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition School).

Fitness as Predictor of Hell Week Success

Researchers examined the success rate of SEAL candidates as they attempted to successfully navigate Hell Week, in BUDs. They examined the physical characteristics of over 2000 trainees, comparing their physical fitness scores, in order to determine what traits predicted successful completion of Hell Week.

Here’s a little primer on BUDs

Researchers had a huge variety of characteristics to examine, and through statistical analysis they were able to determine the percentage each test predicted successful completion of Hell Week. Here they are.

Source: www.sealswcc.com

It might surprise some of you to learn that running 3 miles in a fast time was the best predictor of successfully completing Hell Week. The next biggest predictors are the 800 meter swim, and standing long jump. You could summarize these findings by saying a strong cardiovascular system, and lower body power, are key to graduating this difficult evolution in training. There are some other interesting nuggets to look into here however.

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You’ll notice that deadlift had a very low predictive ability, but weighted pull ups and bodyweight bench are fairly predictive. This most likely indicates that you need strength, but only a certain amount. After that you are wasting your time and energy for very little return. This is very clearly spelled out in this chart.

This chart shows us that the vast majority of SEAL candidates are running their 3 mile in 20-21 minutes, which is a very good time. But, as you see run times decrease you start to see that they become less predictive. This is easily explained.

Skinny people are better at running extremely fast. Skinny people are also much more likely to become injured through long stressful events such as Hell Week. This is an example where over specialization would be a huge liability.

This leaves us with the conclusion that anyone attempting BUDS and Hell Week must be extremely fit in a broad range of fitness tasks, but must be especially proficient in running and swimming. This sounds a lot like a biased fitness program right?

Biasing Your Fitness Program for SEAL training

Functional Training is a great base for any physical fitness task, and like a pyramid, the larger your base, the higher the point on your pyramid. This means that we will include a wide variety of training in our program with special emphasis on tasks that we will be tested on. This requires an honest assessment of your current fitness level.

If you are strong dude, but you haven’t run a mile since grade school, then you are going to be doing much less lifting and a whole lot of running. If you area gazelle, but you cry every time you hold a barbell, then you are going to be spending a lot of time building general strength, and durability.

This is fairly straight forward. You need to shore up your weaknesses and bring them within the range where most successful candidates are. If you want all the exact figures, then I highly recommend reading the research article linked above.

Fitness Isn’t Enough

In this article we’ve seen a lot of information about fitness, lifting, and military training. To be honest that is only half of the picture, as grit and determination are most likely the key factors for overall success.

If you read our previous article, covering the traits that predict graduating Marine Corps Sniper School, then you will remember that the psychological personality trait “grit” had the biggest impact on graduation rates.

If you do decide to read the article above you will see a surprising pattern amongst SEAL candidates that failed Hell Week. Some of them actually had better physical fitness scores than those that passed.

Some of them were no doubt dropped due to injury, but the vast majority of these unsuccessful candidates dropped on request. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any way to instill grit into someone who doesn’t have it, but I can offer you a few helpful tips if you are attempting one of these difficult training pipelines.

Words of Wisdom

First, your physical fitness does affect your mental condition during these grueling phases of training. Your ability to meet the standard, carry your load, or help a teammate will be greatly improved if you are fitter.

More over, if you are extremely fit, a training evolution that might max out another candidate, might only be 80% for you. Anyone who has been in the gym can tell just how crucial that really is.

Lastly, don’t injure yourself in an obsessive attempt to get a little bit stronger, or put in a few more miles. You need to train gradually, adding in volume and intensity as you are able. Avoid injury in your training.

If you want to learn the specifics of functional fitness style training, and putting together your own program then check out this ebook.

Ultimately even if you fail your first attempt, I would encourage you to do some soul searching and determine if you really want this. If the answer is yes, then use your hard won knowledge, and improve yourself for the next training cycle. As a friend of mine says, “It’s hard to beat someone who won’t quit.”

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