First post on MFAT so greetings to all. I am set to graduate from Uni in july and all being well I should hopefully begin the military gap year with 4 Para in the summer. I was wondering if anyone can advise me on the best way to train between now and then, such as ideal running distances, specific circuit training and anything else which would benefit me most considering the length of time I have (3 - 4 months). If there's anyone lurking who did the MGY last year or is set to do it this year it'd be great to hear about your experiences and how you trained etc...
Many thanks, Mark.
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Phys for gap year with 4 Para
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marinewannabe
- Member
- Posts: 211
- Joined: Wed 24 Jan, 2007 5:48 pm
- Location: England
Currently training with 4 PARA mate.
First basic rule of training that we've been told is do time, not distance. So do a training session as 40-60 minutes (which includes a 10 minute warmup), and go faster / further / work harder during it, rather than focusing on a distance and trying to get it down.
Second rule is always keep moving - if you are doing circuits, don't rest inbetween exercises, jogging on the spot is the minumum required activity. Getting used to this now will help you in the early days.
Circuit training: you're looking at 30 minutes of every bodyweight exercise under the sun with sprints inbetween - also some battle PT such as carries, crawls, etc. Burpees, pressups, situps, and some static positions (the plank) are the most common things to practice.
Running: minimum tends to be 4 mile runs, almost always with plenty of changes of pace, fartlek sprinting, or a few hills to make things interesting. Ideally, you want to be comfortably running 6 minute miles for those 40-60 minutes, or you will start falling behind. If you can't do this yet (like me), work until you can.
Usually some things will be thrown in to mess you up: yesterday, for example, we did 2 miles steady, 1 mile uphill, then 20 minutes of continuous sprints & fireman carries up about 40m of a steep gulley, then another 1 mile run back. This hurt.
I would personally recommend doing at least 1 training session a week sprint work as well as the above, as I'm finding that a lot of Para PT involves best effort sprinting like bollocks from point to point, and a lot of the recruits are fecking fast; you need to get good at this to impress, compete, or even keep up.
Most important thing to remember is...
100% effort all the time - if you do this, even if you aren't up to scratch yet in ability, you will make the PTIs happy...and you do not want unhappy PTIs.
First basic rule of training that we've been told is do time, not distance. So do a training session as 40-60 minutes (which includes a 10 minute warmup), and go faster / further / work harder during it, rather than focusing on a distance and trying to get it down.
Second rule is always keep moving - if you are doing circuits, don't rest inbetween exercises, jogging on the spot is the minumum required activity. Getting used to this now will help you in the early days.
Circuit training: you're looking at 30 minutes of every bodyweight exercise under the sun with sprints inbetween - also some battle PT such as carries, crawls, etc. Burpees, pressups, situps, and some static positions (the plank) are the most common things to practice.
Running: minimum tends to be 4 mile runs, almost always with plenty of changes of pace, fartlek sprinting, or a few hills to make things interesting. Ideally, you want to be comfortably running 6 minute miles for those 40-60 minutes, or you will start falling behind. If you can't do this yet (like me), work until you can.
Usually some things will be thrown in to mess you up: yesterday, for example, we did 2 miles steady, 1 mile uphill, then 20 minutes of continuous sprints & fireman carries up about 40m of a steep gulley, then another 1 mile run back. This hurt.
I would personally recommend doing at least 1 training session a week sprint work as well as the above, as I'm finding that a lot of Para PT involves best effort sprinting like bollocks from point to point, and a lot of the recruits are fecking fast; you need to get good at this to impress, compete, or even keep up.
Most important thing to remember is...
100% effort all the time - if you do this, even if you aren't up to scratch yet in ability, you will make the PTIs happy...and you do not want unhappy PTIs.
Last edited by Sarastro on Sun 18 Mar, 2007 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
