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SOF Selection PT Preparation 4.19.2017

Shoulders and back day in the gym before heading off to the pool for a swim which is an event you can’t neglect. Get used to swimming in fatigues and boots as this is a pre-requisite for the Selection PT test.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, behind the neck (go as heavy as possible)

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Front Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Arnold Press

3 x 8 Shoulder Shrugs

300-meter swim in fatigues and boots

Stretch well after completion

SOF Selection PT Preparation 4.18.2017

Always a good day to for Leg Day at the gym, the lighter weight in the squats but higher reps helps with endurance. Weighted sled push builds up some explosion. Continue to prep for the UBRR.

Training:

3 x Pullups 10 reps

3 x Front Squat 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x Goblet Squats 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

4 x Sled push heavier weight

3 x 10 reps Dumbbell lunges

3 x 20 Side planks

3 x 25 Crunches

4-mile run

Stretch well after completion

USSOCOM Turns 30, Command’s Impact Continues to Grow

Thirty years ago, a small headquarters opened its doors for the first time. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) was originally formed out of the debacle of the failed Iranian hostage rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw in 1980.

From small beginnings in April 1987 at MacDill AFB, FL the Special Operations Command now encompasses 70,000 troops and a $10 billion-dollar budget. Special Operations Forces currently operate in over 100 countries being sent to all the hot spots in the world today.

Seeing the success of U.S. special operations, representatives from foreign militaries are traveling to Tampa to see how they can recreate such a powerful force. One that offers great bang for the buck — SOCom makes up just 2 percent of the U.S. defense budget.
The symbol of commando success is the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Yet every day, in ways unknown outside their secretive world, commando teams perform missions like building partner capacity and training foreign troops, hostage rescue attempts, humanitarian relief, tracking jihadi financing and coordinating efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction.
Unlike any other military combatant commands, SOCom has the authority to spend billions of dollars each year on equipment and services tailored for commandos — the SEALs, Army Delta Force, Green Berets and Rangers, and Air Force and Marine teams. To help speed things along, the command created SOFWerx, a research and development effort in Ybor City.
To help educate the force, SOCOm created the Joint Special Operations University, which opens a new building at MacDill next week.

Despite their many successes, the command is feeling the pinch of its own success. The force is being used so much that the operational tempo has become an issue. With so many deployments one of the former commanders worried that the force was “fraying around the edges.”

But the command will continue to expand its influence on 100 different stages in 100 different countries. The Special Operations forces of the US have the unique capability to synchronize US and Allied global counter-terrorism efforts, building allied forces capacity in the training and equipping of foreign forces, and to evolve as the situations change around the world.

To read the entire article from Tampa Bay Times, click here:

Photo courtesy DOD

SOF Selection PT Preparation 4.16.2017

Happy Easter. We hope everyone has a great day filled with family and happiness. A warm up of pushups and planks followed by a good ruck march with a 45-pound minimum to start the day right. Remember to stay hydrated throughout the ruck march and to ensure that you have at least two pairs of boots broken in for the course.

Training:

Warm up

2 x 20 Pushups

2 x 20 Side Planks

6-mile rucksack march over varied terrain. Try to keep your pace better than the standard. And mark your times in your workout log book.

Stretch well after completion

SOF Selection PT Preparation 4.15.2017

Shoulder and back exercises this morning in the gym before a 4-mile run to top things off. Mark down your time in your workout log book. If you have access to any ropes, you should start incorporating rope climbing into your workouts.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 10 Lat Pulldowns, rear

3 x 10 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Seated Bent-Over Delt Raise

3 x 10 Dumbbell Shoulder Press

3 x 10 Arnold Dumbbell Press

4-mile run

Stretch well after completion

SOF Selection PT Preparation 4.14.2017

Our favorite day of the week, Friday and Leg Day at the gym. The weighted Sled push helps build up power and speed. The lighter weight dumbbell squats build up endurance. Continue to prep for the UBRR.

Training:

3 x 10 Pullups

3 x Front Squat 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x Goblet Dumbbell Squats 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x 10 Barbell Squats

3 x Weighted sled push

30 x “V”ups

3-mile run

Stretch well after completion

British, Swiss Doctors Testing Doxycycline in Treating PTSD

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) is an acronym everyone is familiar with these days. As troops subjected to prolonged combat in multiple locations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere show the world the grim reminders the toll it takes on the human psyche.

It isn’t anything new, just the name has changed. In World War I, it was known as “shell shock”. In World War II and later its name changed to “combat fatigue”. What hasn’t changed is that is a debilitating disease that affects between seven to eight percent of all adults at one point in the lives. Among the veterans of the recent conflicts in the past decade, those numbers are nearly doubled.

Now doctors at the University College of London and the University of Zurich are trying to break ground in treating PTSD by using a very common antibiotic, doxycycline.

One of the head researchers, Dr. Domenik Bach said “Learning to fear threats is an important ability … helping us to avoid dangers. (But) over-prediction of threat can cause tremendous suffering and distress in anxiety disorders such as PTSD.”

The hope is that the doxycycline will block matrix enzymes, proteins that the brain uses to form memories, which may prove effective in blocking an overactive fear memory. It won’t erase them but suppress them.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that between 7–8% of the adult U.S. population will experience PTSD at some point in their lives, yet there are certain career sectors that possess a demonstrably increased incidence of PTSD among their practitioners. For example, data from the National Center for PTSD suggests that 11–20% of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom veterans will suffer from PTSD in a given year. Additionally, a recent report issued by the International Association of Fire Fighters states that 20% of firefighters and paramedics have PTSD.
While soldiers and first responders are but two—albeit sizeable—slices of society, they accurately demonstrate the extent to which stigma negatively affects the successful diagnosis of PTSD. Both are not only gritty professions whose members are routinely subjected to repeated psychological trauma, but are industries in which stoicism in the face of carnage has been effectively institutionalized.
In a recent episode of PBS NewsHour, retired Green Beret, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Rodriguez highlighted both the inherent barriers to PTSD diagnosis and the acute need for new diagnostic technologies. He stated, “At that time, I didn’t think I had it. Bought into the stigma. But if there was a tangible test, I think it would make it easier on the patients, but — because it will validate it. You know, like if someone has leukemia, no one ever says, you don’t have leukemia.”

It is thought that the testing for the researchers will take several more years before the treatments are ready for actual testing on soldiers returning from war. But the answers may be found in a simple solution in the guise of a common antibiotic.

To read the entire article from The Big Think, click here:

Photo courtesy DOD

Don’t Get Lost! Practical Exercise With Modified Resection

In our previous Land Navigation article, we talked about Resection, which is invaluable at finding your exact location if you’re unsure of where you are but can see and identify points in the distance.

As you’ll remember Resection is the method for finding your exact location on a map by determining the grid azimuth to at two or more well-defined locations that can be pinpointed on the map. For greater accuracy, the desired method of resection would be to use three or more well-defined locations.

We spoke about the three methods but I received an email from a prospective Special Operations candidate named Jim who was confused about what constituted a Modified Resection problem and how one would use this method effectively.

Good question Jim, here is a scenario that can and does frequently happen. You’re moving along on your azimuth through wooded but fairly flat terrain with few terrain features but enough foliage to keep you from seeing very far in the distance.

You cross a large linear terrain feature, a road, a creek bed or in my case for the purpose of our practical exercise today a railroad line. Now if you are close to your point, you could be to the left or the right of where you need to go. If you can see a point in the far distance, you can shoot an azimuth to it and pinpoint your exact location.

Now we’ll revisit the exact sequence for pinpointing your location using the modified resection method we spoke about the other day.

Modified Resection Method:

The modified method is the least preferred method but is useful in certain situations. If you’re not certain of your exact location but are located on a linear terrain feature such as a road, creek or similar body of water, this can pinpoint your position.

Orient the map using a compass and/or by terrain association.
Locate a point in the distance that can be easily identified on the ground and on the map.
Determine the magnetic azimuth from your location to the distant known point.
Convert the magnetic azimuth to a grid azimuth.
Convert the grid azimuth to a back azimuth, using the add or subtract 180 accordingly depending on the degrees.
Using a protractor, draw a line for the back azimuth on the map from the known position back toward your unknown position.

Your location is where the line on the map crosses the linear feature. Determine the grid coordinates to the desired accuracy, for our purposes an eight-digit grid coordinate.

For our video demonstration, practical exercise, we were moving along our azimuth and came across a railroad track. Just barely visible in the far distance is a wind turbine that sits high upon a hilltop. Once we are able to locate the wind turbine on the map, we take an azimuth, using our compass, and determine the grid azimuth.

Then we draw a back azimuth using the “more than 180 degrees subtract 180 or less than 180 degrees add 180” rule and draw a line on our map. Where the line intersects the railroad line is our exact location.

If this were close to our point during a Land Navigation course, this would be a prime attack point as you’d have a very good place to search for the point. However, if you’re still far from your point, it is a great place to check your exact location and ensure that you’re heading on the correct azimuth.

Check out the short video and see how it works out. Thanks for the question Jim and if anyone else has any more questions, feel free to email me [email protected] or at my Twitter account @SteveB7SFG

Photo courtesy of DOD

SOF Selection PT Preparation 4.13.2017

UBRR training day followed by a ruck march. Are you keeping a log of your times on your runs and rucks? And with the warmer weather upon us, you should be paying much stricter attention to hydration during the rucks.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 20 pushups

3 x 20 sit ups

3 x 20 crunches

3 x 20 dips or until muscle failure

3 x 20 side planks

4-mile rucksack march (45-pound minimum) over varied terrain, note your time

Stretch well after completion

Rucking Through Varied Terrain, Maintaining the Pace Tips

We’ve been revisiting some of the posts we’ve made earlier and are getting out and doing refresher exercises, getting some land navigation and other tasks in. This one will deal with everyone is SF’s favorite pastime …Rucking.

Everyone has their own tips of the trade and the vast majority of them are good. The main thing is that you have to find what works best for you. What I’m doing here is just giving you the benefits of my own experiences and hopefully, they’ll work for you. They did for me.

I recently got an email from Sean T. who asked a good question about rucksack marching and specifically in how the load was packed. He wrote, “I’ve read numerous articles about how the load of your rucksack should be distributed over your hips. I’m having issue [sic] with rubbing on my hips and low back pain. Is it because I’ve packed the weight too low?”

I take it from Sean’s message that he took the “distribute the weight over the hips” bit to mean that he was packing his load down low. No, and it is a common mistake among beginners and people carrying heavy rucks for the first time.

Your weight should be packed up high between the shoulder blades. If your ruck has radio pouch up high, that is where the sandbag or weight plates belongs. I prefer sandbags because it will mold to your pack and back and doesn’t have any sharp edges that can rub you on a ruck.

The guys over at GoRUCK sell some nice molded plates that will do the trick and they take all the guess work out of it. But like I said, I prefer the sand routine but use whatever works for you. In the video below, I have a 45-pound bag in my small ruck that I use for short hikes that we take with us.

We covered boots at length in our earlier article. I have several broken in pairs that I take on hikes depending upon the conditions. For the purposes of this exercise, I wore my heavier duty Merrell Sawtooth boots. We had a bunch of rain that dropped over an inch overnight and it was still misting out there on the day we did the video. Later we got another inch plus. The trail was muddy, very deep in places and the Sawtooth’s deeper tread pattern was probably a bit better for that day.

Water and staying hydrated is very important even on a day where it is a bit raw out and is raining on you. You’ll still sweat and dehydration is a killer. On this particular day, although it was raining a bit, we still drank constantly, keeping the hydration level up.

The trail we used is a closed loop so it was up-down with very little flat terrain involved. When rucking it is best to lean forward and getting the arm swing going from side to side rather than a typical running type swing back and forth.

When it comes to increasing speed, I don’t recommend that you run with a rucksack on your back while in training. They’ll be times in your selection course or the qualification course that you’ll have to make up time or want to pick your pace, especially on the downhill slopes. At those times, you’re going to have to do what you must, but for training purposes don’t do it. Learn to increase your speed without running. Running with a ruck will hurt your knees and back…take it from the guy with two arthritic knees.

I like to lengthen my stride on the downhill slopes, some guys will tell you the exact opposite. Again, find out what works for you and stick to it. But the bottom line is, don’t resort to running to increase your speed. You’re going to have to learn to ruck quickly without running sooner or later, and there’s no time like the present.

The standard is a 15-minute mile pace to pass the courses, you should be aiming to go lower than that. We were keeping a 14:30 pace on our practical exercise video, which means we’ll have to step it up as well. Back in the day, I used to maintain a 13-minute per mile pace which would bring myself in with around 20-25 minutes to spare on a 12-miler.

On one certification 20-miler at Ft. Bragg, our team maintained a 13-minute mile pace for the entire length of the course and that was with two 7-8 minute breaks built in to change socks and catch a breather. Of course, since the movement wasn’t considered tactical and was mapped out along a road, our communications supervisor strapped a boom box atop his rucksack and we rocked to AC-DC and Metallica. Much better than the sound of boots scuffling for 20 miles. We ended up with the best time in the battalion that night…the staff when learning of the music…were not amused. Always look for an edge, right?

If anyone else has any questions, feel free to send them along to [email protected] and I’ll be glad to answer them and we may use it in our next video.

Photo courtesy of US Army