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How to knock time off your PRT run time

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Okay, I'm a bit ashamed of this, but I failed my pre-OCS PRT run last week despite being able to nearly max pushups and not having any trouble with situps, either. Combination of lack of training with feeling like shit. But, with the help of the running program the coordinator gave me + some of my own tweaks, I brought my time down over a minute in a week. A lot of these exercises are supposedly stuff we'll do at OCS, so he told me to practice now. I'll get to run through it once more before OCS, hopefully with similar results. I'm going to share it here so anyone else with trouble running can benefit from it (apparently there were many like me in my district). And if you're just starting to get into shape for the military, this isn't a bad way to start, either.

First things first: If you're diet isn't good, now's the time to fix it. The biggest thing: NO CAFFEINE. No coffee/soda at OCS, so you might as well get yourself off it now. Other than that, just avoid generally high fat foods and anything that might inhibit you from working out the next day (ie don't drink yourself under the table).

The routine (you can do these days in any order that fits your schedule):

*it goes without saying to properly stretch before and after every workout day
**I threw biking in there as a way to build leg strength and get a decent cardio workout on days that I wasn't running. You don't have to go nuts on the biking, but you should be building up a bit of a sweat. You can do any similar low-impact workout you like instead.

Monday:
Back/bicep weight workout
bike 5 miles

Tuesday:
"PRT practice day"
0.5 mi warmup jog
Repeat the following at 1:00, 45 sec, 30 sec, and 15 sec
-Max situps
-Max pushups
-30 sec rest
1.5 mi run on a track or pathway, as fast as you can do it

Wed:
Chest/Tricep weight workout
bike 5 miles

Thurs:

leg lift workout (do these all in succession once or twice without stopping, increase reps if too easy)
-10 butterfly kicks, 4 count to a rep
-10 scissor motion with legs (forgot the name), 4 count to a rep
-10 leg lifts, 4 count to a rep
-20 reps of circle leg motions - 10 inward, 10 outward.

shoulder PT workout - all exercises except last done with arms extended, repeat all exercises in succession once without stopping
-extend arms away from side of torso, 10 4-count reps of circles forward followed by 10 4-count reps backward
-extend arms in front of torso, 10 4-count reps of circles inward, 10 4-count reps outward
-extend arms above head, 10 4-count reps of circles inward, 10 4-count reps outward
-Follow this with "POWs" -- basically, pretend you are doing dumbell shoulder press. 10 4-count reps.

40 minute jog (should be 3-4 miles). Basically, just put on an mp3 player and jog around town for 40 minutes.

Friday:
Shoulder/legs weight workout (I don't like doing legs because of all the running, so that's up to you)
5 mi on bike

Saturday:
"Deck of Cards"
-Grab a deck of cards, assign an exercise to each suit. For example: hearts = pushups, diamonds = diamond pushups, spades = situps, clubs = butterfly kicks. Modify to whatever you like. What you do is take the deck, shuffle it. Turn the card over, and do the exercise of the suit with the amount of reps on the face of the card. Eg: 8 of diamonds = 8 diamond pushups. Aces = 15 reps, jokers = 25 reps. Do the deck as quickly as possible, but above all else GET THROUGH THE DECK. If you need to take a 5 minute rest toward the end before you do another set, then take a 5 minute rest.

Run: Track workout. Sprint 1/4 mile at goal pace, 1/8 mile walk. Do sprints up to 2 miles or until you physically cannot reach anywhere near your goal pace. Your first sprint should be your lowest. Eg, if you want to run a 1:45 lap pace, you should run 1:48, then 1:46, 1:44, etc.

Sunday:
-3 mile run as fast as you can.
 

nzachman

Yeah, well. The Dude abides.
Good post, I will have to try some of those exercises out! I especially like going through the deck of cards. Hold your head high and kick ass on your next PRT!

Good Luck

Nick
 

jt71582

How do you fly a Clipper?
pilot
Contributor
Thanks so much for this! I'm going to give it a shot. I'll let you know how it goes.
 

usmarinemike

Solidly part of the 42%.
pilot
Contributor
That's pretty cool...Tough routine to maintain without a high degree of self motivation. Just sticking to it counts as the big success. Then the fitness will take care of itself.

No coffee is a bit of a stretch though. ;)
 

The_Commodore

Pavement sucks
Good stuff, the deck of cards thing sounds fun.

And the leg scissoring exercise listed after the butterfly kicks are called "Hello Dollys."
 

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
Thanks guys...I already did kick ass on my next PRT, so I'm headed to OCS very soon. This workout definitely got me there, so I decided to share it.

None of these workout days should take more than 1.5 hours to complete, btw. I know it looks long and complicated, but it's really not.

Yea, staying motivated does get tough, but then I just think about the fact that I really want my butter bars :). About the caffeine: not making excuses, but I used to live off diet coke and decided to stop 2 days before the PRT I failed, since I was advised by a former military friend to get off caffeine. It may have been a contributing factor to my feeling like shit that morning. So whether it contributed or not, it's not something one wants to happen at OCS.
 

AT84

New Member
The deck of cards workout is great, used to do it with a buddy of mine when the weight room was packed(Pretty often.) Luckily we had access to wide open mezz, so plenty of room to do it. Great post.
 

Rasczak

Marine
I like the deck of cards too.
Personally, I use,
spades = pullups
hearts=pushups
diamonds=burpees
clubs = crunches
jokers = 1 mile run.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Shouldn't you take a day off to let you body rest? That has been a common theme from all the stuff I have heard/been told about excercising.
 

Cams1215

New Member
IMO, one day of full rest is a positive thing. You can however consider days that are not focusing on the muscle group trained the day before as a day of rest. Say you do a chest work out on Monday, Tuesday is a leg or back day, then Tuesday would technically count as a day of rest for the chest and you could hit it hard again on wednesday.
 

Spekkio

He bowls overhand.
IMO, one day of full rest is a positive thing. You can however consider days that are not focusing on the muscle group trained the day before as a day of rest. Say you do a chest work out on Monday, Tuesday is a leg or back day, then Tuesday would technically count as a day of rest for the chest and you could hit it hard again on wednesday.
Exactly. If you really need to rest your legs in this workout, just don't bike on one of the days. To be honest, though, I don't consider biking all that tough, and I did it in a way that wasn't all-out crazy. In all other aspects, I scheduled the workout to vary the muscle groups I was working so that you get rest but keep working out.

It's not like they give you a day to just lounge around at OCS.
 

BACONATOR

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Exactly. If you really need to rest your legs in this workout, just don't bike on one of the days. To be honest, though, I don't consider biking all that tough, and I did it in a way that wasn't all-out crazy. In all other aspects, I scheduled the workout to vary the muscle groups I was working so that you get rest but keep working out.

It's not like they give you a day to just lounge around at OCS.

Not necessarily "lounge" around, but sundays you do not PT and your DI does not bother you at all (90% of the sundays you're there you won't even see your DI on sunday). You NEED this day to heal otherwise more people would break. The PT schedule at OCS is probably very carefully designed to ensure that most candidates can break their bodies all week and heal enough to keep going. On sundays, eat whatever they have at church and sleep at church because it is the ONLY time you have to relax outside of liberty or candio phase.
 
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