The Assessment

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SEALs getting it done in tough conditions

I am certainly not a Navy SEAL.  I have never been one and unfortunately, I think I am too old to ever become one now.  I have had the very good fortune to train with some of the Team Guys in SealFit Kokoro, my SealFit Level 1 certification, my Goruck Selection and a few other times.  Each time, I have learned alot and developed a deeper respect for these individuals. I will also say that I have had the good fortune to train with other Special Operators such as Rangers, Green Berets, MARSOC, Marines and others.  All of these guys have my ultimate respect.  They are highly trained, physically extraordinary, operate with extreme discipline and are always seeking excellence.  I have simply had more exposure to the SEALs through my reading and through SEALFIT.  All special operators are extraordinary and many have minimum standards that far exceed anything I am about to write about.  The assessment I am going to describe would be the absolute bare minimum that someone would have to have to show up to training and if you were barely meeting these standards, you better be ready for some serious pain.  The guys who make it far exceed most of the standards listed.

I am a 48 year old guy who has never been in the military.  I train regularly and use these standards to test myself and stay in relatively good condition.  With that being said, here is the Assessment.

SealFit has an Assessment which provides standards that we can strive for to excel at any task in air, land or water.  The standards are aggressive and paint a picture of a very fit person who would be extremely capable. 

Navy Seal, Josh Bridges is among the fittest humans on Earth

The real SEALs will far exceed these standards in most categories.  For those of us who are not SEALs, will never be a SEAL but respect the dedication, durability, and overall athletic standards to which these people are held (this describes me), this assessment provides some excellent goals to strive for. 

When completing this assessment, it requires planning and training.  It is certainly not something that I can do in a day.  Rather, I plan on fully completing the full Assessment by the end of September.  Even this is fairly aggressive with my travel schedule, however, I have invited my friends to do it with me.

The Assessment calls for max efforts in the major lifts to determine Functional Strength or the ability to do hard, heavy work (BW=bodyweight.  1.0=1x bodyweight, 1.5=1.5xbodyweight etc...)

Front Squat Men 1.5BW / Women 1.0BW

Deadlift Men 2.0BW / Women 1.5BW

Press Men 1.0BW / Women .75BW

Bench Press Men 1.5BW / Women 1.0BW

Squat Clean Men 1.25BW / Women 1.0BW

Clean & JerkMen 1.0BW / Women .75BW

then it tests Strength Stamina: Overcoming resistance repetitively with efficiency over time

BW Squat > 120 in 2 minutes All the way down on every rep

BW Push-up > 100 in 2 minutes Full range of motion

BW Pull-up > 20 in 2 minutes Full ROM / Kipping allowed

BW Sit-up > 100 in 2 minutes Full ROM / Abmat allowed

The next section is Functional Endurance: Developing functional LSD competencies in the water, air and land

Run 1.5 Miles in 9:00 minutes

Run 3.0 Miles in 20:00 minutes

Run 6.0 Miles in 45:00 minutes

Run 14 miles to completion

Ruck 26 Miles with 40# Ruck

Swim 500 Meters in 8:00 minutes

Swim 1 Mile in 35:00 minutes

Row 2,000 Meters in 7:45 minutes

Row 5,000 Meters in 20:00 minutes

And finally, they test Power and Speed: Overcoming resistance explosively

Row 500 Meters for time Target 1:30

Thrusters Max in 1 Minute (95#M/65#W) Target 30

Box Jumps Max in 1 Minute (20" box) Target 45

Run 400 Meters for time Target 1.25

Burpees Max in 1 Minute Target 15

 

Most of these can be completed during normal morning workouts, but things like the swims, 26 mile ruck, 14 mile run will have to be done on a Saturday or Sunday.  I fully expect that we may try some of these more than once, but I have set the end of Sept as the date that it will all be complete. 

I have sent an email to my group of regulars, but if you are reading this and want to complete this with us, shoot me an email at Permitfly4@aol.com and I can send you an Excel or Numbers file that will populate the goals based upon your bodyweight.

Here is my previous post on the Assessment

 

August 17, 2016

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Wednesday's have kind of become our longer running day

Today

Wim Hof Breathing - 3 rounds plus pushups.  94 today!

RRL Warmup

5 mile run

I ran in 39:33 which is about 4 minutes slower than my best on this exact course.  I took it a little easy in the beginning to test the calf injury and as it felt fine, I opened up a bit.  I feel like I can get this under 36 again in the near future.

 

August 15, 2016

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Great Monday Morning today!  First of all, it is my daughter's 13th birthday!  Congratulations Hanna

How does it get better than this?  A fish on, the Tetons in the background and a hug and a kiss from my favorite girl...all at the same time!

Instead of the Hanna workout, which is a favorite travel workout but requirespair of dumbells for each person doing it, we settled for this awesome one after we did Back Squats 5-5-5-5-5

This is a 2 man team workout.  I had Trey Joyner as my partner.  He stayed Rx throughout, but I had to drop the snatch to 135. 

Only one partner works at a time, except for the partner wall balls, which one partner throws to the wall, the other catches.

We finished in 15:05, not Rx.

Great morning and we had a good group of 17!

August 11, 2016

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5 am this morning
RRL Warm up
Wim Hof Breathing
then
33
33 Burpees
33 Thrusters @ 65 lbs
33 Pullups
Run 1 mile
x 3 rounds

I made this one up about 8-9 years ago. Very tough but still a favorite. I always think of Kim Ray when this one comes around. He looked at the board the first time we did this one and said "Wow, that will be tough" and turned his head. He wheeled around and said "Wait a minute...3 ROUNDS!"
Good times

Bravo

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Over the weekend, we lost Bravo to a tragic car accident.  Everyone is upset about the loss.  We are getting through it be by being grateful and thankful for the time that we had with him.  He was a funny dog that brought alot of joy to all those who knew him.

This morning was the toughest on me as he was simply absent during our morning ritual.  It was the same every morning.  I would get up and I could hear him stirring in his kennel.  He and Gus would patiently wait until I finished brushing my teeth and getting my clothes.  Then, I would let them him out and they would tumble down the stairs.

The two dogs would give the full yard an inspection and then start playing in the driveway.  They would greet each person as they arrived.

This morning, it was just me an d Gus.  Very sad. I miss you Bravo.

A group 12 strong did this one in his honor

Bravo

Run 1 Mile

Then

10 Pullups

10 pushups

10 hang cleans @ 115

10 Bar facing burpees

x 5 rounds

then

Run 1 Mile

For TIme

We all left our chalk out for Bravo.  He loved to eat chalk. 

We love you and miss you buddy.

July 29, 2016

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I got a package in the mail from Wade Priddy.  This is the coolest shirt we will have in the RRL.  It definitely comes from the furthest distance and will get a place of honor in the RRL.  We miss you Wade!

Another Hero workout this morning.

Sham

11 Deadlifts @ 1x bodyweight

Run 100 m

X 7 rounds for time

I finished in 7:54 and felt pretty good. 

Air Force Staff Sgt. David "Sham" Wieger, 28, of North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, a special agent for the Air Force of Special Investigations, Detachment 303, Travis Air Force Base, California, died Nov. 1, 2007, near Balad Air Base, Iraq, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device that struck his vehicle. Wieger is survived by his parents, Michael and Loreene; brother, Michael; sister-in-law, Brenda; and many aunts, uncles and cousins.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

July 28, 2016

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I was honored to be a guest on Jim Harshaw's podcast, Wrestling with Success yesterday.  This is an excellent podcast by a Division 1 All American wrestler and also a wrestling coach.  Jim has a message that I particularly like and that is that failure is essential to success.  We should embrace failure because it ultimately reveals the path to success. 

My career in fishing has had so many failures.  Fishing in itself is mostly failure when I think about it.  We cast and cast and cast with about a 90% failure rate only to make small adjustments that lead to success.  About 90% of the expensive lures we buy don't really work that well and lots of crazy ideas are tried with nothing but complete failure.  In a business sense, my partner and I have failed on our first attempts at lots of things over and over.  We make changes, alter our course and continue to try until we are successful.  We throw out the stuff that doesn't work, keep what is useful and continue to move towards improvement.

Wrestling taught me that you can really only fail when you stop trying or just roll over and get pinned.  Never quit...ever...Never get pinned, always continue to fight.  Pay attention to the failures, learn from them, and move on toward success.  As your path begins to lead to success, guess what... there will be more failures.  Rinse, repeat and complete the cycle again.

Jim and I discussed my career path, SealFit Kokoro Camp, daily rituals, and my workout group.  It was a great discussion that I really enjoyed.  When it is live, I will let you know.

We hit it hard at the garage this morning with a hero workout.

Riley

Run 1.5 miles

150 Burpees

Run 1.5 miles

Wear a 20 lb vest and get after it.  The burpees were more difficult than I thought they would be.  The vest was crushing my performance and I was only able to get in one set of 20.  I had to do sets of 10 the rest of the workout.  The good news for me is that my calf had no issues and I seem to be back to 100%.  Ill slowly add more miles and try to get my running back to where it was earlier in the summer.  40:24 with a 20 lb vest.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Riley G. Stephens, 39, of Tolar, Texas, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), died Sept. 28, 2012, in Wardak, Afghanistan, of wounds caused by enemy small-arms fire. Stephens is survived by his wife, Tiffany; three children, Austin, Morgan and Rylee Ann; parents, Michael and Joann; brother Ken; and a number of family members.

July 27, 2016

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Earlier this week I took my son, Hayden, to go fishing in Alabama.  We had an amazing time with a Graham Tayloe.  I enjoyed the trip so much that, not only will I go back, but I fully intend on trying to get together with Graham in the Florida Keys and turkey hunting in the SE. 

Graham was a pleasure to be with because he was so passionate about what he was doing.  I find it energizing to be around anyone, doing anything that has as much enthusiasm and passion as Graham had towards Striper fishing.  Here are some shots from the trip:

Back at the Garage, The guys did these workouts

Monday

Tuesday

And today we had some fun with this one:

1. Wim Hof Breathing = Pushups

2. RRL Warmup

3. Run 2 miles

4. Bear Complex @ 165 lbs/10 m Handstand Walk

Every Minute on the Minute (EMOM) for 8 minutes

5. Mobility work

Great week so far!  Get out there and hit it hard and accomplish some major things on the way to your goals this week.

 

Gratitude Practice

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Of all the things that I have brought into my daily life, purposeful gratitude has been one of the most powerful.  You can read about gratitude from countless coaches, spiritual leaders, motivational speakers, athletes and other successful people and how it has helped to keep them grounded and ultimately leads to their success.  This is not a new concept, certainly not my own and not original.  However, it is foreign to many people and overlooked even by some who understand and appreciate it when life gets really busy.  The one constant throughout literature, coaching, spiritual texts or actual practice is that it is extremely powerful and responsible for many people's success and happiness.

For me, gratitude is an underlying theme that I try to have in my day, every day.  If this is a new concept to you, living in gratitude is simply being thankful for what you have right now.  It is fine to set goals and have dreams and desires, but without being thankful for what you have right now, those dreams may never be realized.

The most simple gratitude practice is something that I try to do every morning.  When the alarm goes off, I swing my feet out of the bed and when the first one hits the floor, I say Thank and when the second hits the floor I say You.  So I walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth saying Thank You with every step.  This alone starts the day off with gratitude and I find it easier to remain grateful for everything through the day.

I have read many other people's description of their gratitude practice.  Many are similar to one another with a few variations.  I have taken a few things from each one and developed a deeper practice that we do at the RRL often, but we should do it more often.  I like doing this with the group, but I will also find 6-8 minutes in the day to practice this by myself.  Here is how I do it:

1. Find a place where you will not be disturbed and set a timer for the time you have set aside for this practice.  6-8 minutes will get the job done, 12-15 is awesome, 20-30 may be a little much at first.  I like setting a timer because you can let go of many of the thoughts about being late, losing track of time, or wonder about how long you have been in this state.  It may not be necessary for you, but it really helps me.

2. Sit or lay down comfortably

3. Start with your eyes open and get your breathing under control.  Go to a 5 count in-5 count out.  This rhythm should be comfortable.  As I am breathing, I think about filling my belly full of air at my belly button, then feeling my chest rise, filling my lungs and then ultimately filling up the entire chest cavity all the way to my collar bones and then letting it out feeling all those same parts falling effortlessly back to rest.  I go for about 5-10 cycles of this breathing through my nose as long as that is comfortable.

4. Check yourself for tension.  I find that if I scan my body from head to toe, feeling for tension, I will notice that I have it in my forehead, behind my ears, in my jaw,  and shoulders.  I allow those areas to relax and the tension released.  I open my hands and give my legs a gentle shake. 

5. Start with a small circle around your heart.  Think about how grateful you are for your heart and your health.  Stay there for a few seconds and think about how your heart is keeping you alive and healthy.

6. Move that circle out a little larger to include your physical body.  Be thankful for your health, the ability to move and exercise, grow stronger and anything else that comes to mind about why you are thankful for a healthy body.  If you are currently not where you want to be physically, have experienced an injury or are sick, be ultra thankful for your physical body, its ability to heal and the fact that you are on the road to recovery.  Stay positive.

7. Move that circle out a little larger, beyond your physical body and bring in the most important people in your life.  Maybe this is your wife and children, maybe mom and dad...whoever is closest to you, bring them into this circle and think of them.  Be grateful for each of these people.  Keep it small right now, maybe 5 people at the most.  Be thankful that those people are in your life.  See their face, visualize something that they do that makes you smile.  Be thankful for them. Be thankful for their health and happiness.

8. Once you have clearly seen the people in this circle, push it out larger to include the next level of individuals in your life.  This may be parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, mother in law, nieces, nephews...the next closest group of people.  See them clearly and be thankful for them even if it is brief.

9. Push the circle out again and include what you consider to be the next group of people closest to you in your life.  This could be your friends, work associates, business partners, a coach, a mentor, whoever that is for you.  See them clearly and be thankful for what they ave brought to your life.

10. Push out again to include opportunities.  Maybe this is your job, maybe it is the ability to provide for your family.  If you are not where you want to be in life, do not think about that.  Think only about what you are thankful for.  If your job is not what you currently want, be thankful for the fact that you have it.  Remain thankful for what you have. 

At this point, you are probably getting really close to the end of the time you have allowed for this practice.  If you find yourself thinking about other things, return to your thought that you were the most thankful for.  You can always return to your breath also.  Simply go to 5 count breath in, 5 count out.

I check my body for tension again and try to shake it away gently if I find any.  as I hear the alarm go off, I will lay there for a second and then slowly sit up, open my eyes and gently and quietly return to the world. 

I find that this practice is so incredibly good for maintaining a positive outlook through the day, slowing down and eliminating the feeling of being rushed, and most importantly puts me in a state of underlying gratitude.

It is almost like a computer that is running a program that is minimized.  You dont really see it when you look at the screen but it is running in the background.  It can be a positive program like this gratitude practice or a negative program like negative self talk, ungratefulness, jealously, resentment, or entitlement.  Negative thoughts lead to negative outcomes.  Positive thoughts attract more positive.

This practice is incredibly important to me and I try to do it every single day.  It is not always the same and yours may be completely different in the things that you are grateful for and think about during this time.  It really doesn't matter what you are thankful for, just that you are thankful and grateful consciously. 

This is powerful.  Do it every day for a month and I guarantee that you will see major changes in your life no matter where you are or where you want to be.

Let me know how it is going for you.

Good luck.

July 22, 2016

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Good fun this morning with a small group at the RRL

1. Wim Hof Breathing + Pushups

2. Pistols 6-6-6-6-6-6

3. Team Sled Race

We got out the sleds and loaded them with 45's.  We then chose 2 other exercises and hit a workout that looked like this:

While Partner 1 pushes the sled down and back in the driveway, Partner 2 completes 5 calories on the Assault Bike and Partner 3 completes 10 Vups.  Then, Partner 1 moves to Vups, Partner 2 moves to the sled and Partner 3 moves to Assault bike. 

We did this as an AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) for 15 minutes. 

This was a tough one, but a good way to ease into the weekend without being too sore but getting lots of exercise and movement.

 

July 21, 2016

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Great to be back in the garage this morning.  While I truly love waking up early and starting my day off in the dark, on the water, I also love waking up and starting my day off in the dark, ready to get after a workout.

I am fortunate to be able to live a life in balance and enjoy both of these activities.  The good thing is that they are not mutually exclusive.  When I start the day off before the sun comes up on the water, I almost always get my workout in.  If I fish later, I workout in the morning.

Today, I chose a good one to get back into the groove:

Weston

5 rounds for time of:

Row, 1000 m

Farmers Walk (Dumbbell), 45 lbs, 200 m

Waiter Walk (Right Arm), 45 lbs, 50 m

Waiter Walk (Left Arm), 45 lbs, 50 m

Use dumbbell for waiter walk.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Michael E. Weston, 37, assigned to the Kabul Country Office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was killed on October 29, 2009, when the helicopter he was in crashed in western Afghanistan. He is survived by his wife Cynthia Tidler, parents Judy Zarit and Steve Weston, and brother Thomas.

This was an outstanding forearm blaster.  Wow.  The farmer's walk went from mildly uncomfortable in rounds 1 and 2 to a serious mental grind.  Great workout.  41:23

July 17, 2016

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Woke up this morning at 5 and got ready to go fishing. 

We found snookzilla.  The biggest snook I have ever seen and then I saw one bigger...hooked it but lost it.

Here are some shots

We came in during the hottest part of the day because the fishing was slow.  I resisted the temptation to take a nap and went out to the hot parking lot and found a little shade.  Before I left my room, I thought about what workout I would do.  I started to waver then saw the deck of cards.  I grabbed it and knew that I would get something in today.

It looked like this

Spades=Kettlebell Swings

Clubs=Pushups

Diamonds= squats

Hearts=situps

My good friend, David McLeaf joined me.

Tomorrow, I hope we get a few more big gigantic dinosaur snook and another great workout