Today marks the 234th Birthday of the United States Marine Corps.  This Band of Brothers is known for battlefield prowess and physical readiness at all times. As a former Marine, I have fond memories of Physical Fitness Testing. In honor of the Marines, I thought I’d share with you  how Marines are tested.  If you are up to the challenge you can  see how you measure up to The Few, The Proud, The Marines.

The Basic PFT: The Marine Corps Fitness Benchmark

The “PFT” or Physical Fitness Test is the benchmark by which Marines are tested for physical preparedness. Marines are not only measured to be physically capable but it also is factored in with academics for promotions. This test is comprised of three components: a three mile run, a maximum set of dead hang pullups and a 2 minute timed set of maximum crunches. The order in which these are done is completely random, though I’ve always done them pullups first, situps second and the run last. This works well for keeping your energy levels up for all three events.

Standards for the Pullups:

Top position of the pullup

This is a dead hang pullup, meaning you can’t use any momentum like a kipping pullup or butterfly pullup. All the way up chin over the bar and all the way down to straight elbows at the bottom. You complete as many pullups as you can without letting go and dropping off the bar. If you drop, you are done with the pullup test.

The goal is a maximum of 20 pullups for a perfect score. Each pullup is worth 5 points for 100 total.

Women testing standards are different. The “Flexed Arm Hang” is performed which is a static hold at the top position of the pullup. A maximum time of 70 seconds is a top score.

Standards for the Crunches:

Start out lying flat on your back, knees bent. Someone can hold your feet or not, its up to you. Cross your arms over your chest and keep them in contact with your chest/ribcage as you crunch up and touch your thighs with your arms. Return to the bottom, shoulder blades touching the ground.  Repeat as many complete crunches as you can in a 2 minute time period, note your count for score. Each crunch counts as 1 point for a maximum of 100 points.

Three Mile Run Time

This was my least favorite. As a matter of fact, I really didn’t look forward to the run but this is necessary to test endurance that is so vital to military readiness.  This test is pretty simple, run 3 miles as fast as possible.  Men can get a top score of 18:00, women 21:00.

Not all Scoring is Equal

The scoring is scaled for age. Top scores vary by age and gender. Perfect run time scores are faster for younger Marines and adjusted higher for older Marines.

Here is the Official Marine Corps Bulletin outlining the PFT. You can see the table showing the score breakdowns on Appendix G.

If you would like to run a PFT and see how you measure up, be sure to use the guidelines I gave you above. Keep track of your results and you can plug them in to this online calculator to get your Marine PFT Score.

There you have it! This is the  test that every United States Marine must do. See how you measure up. Its a great workout to do a  PFT, check your score and then train to improve and beat your score every few weeks.

Feel free to share your comments and scores in the comment section!

Happy Birthday Marines. Semper Fidelis!

I’m a fan of Olympic style lifts. I love how technical they are and the challenge of learning them. The payoff is an awesome workout, a lot of core strength and increased coordination and overall power. One of the easiest to learn that will give you those big benefits is The Push Press.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The push press is the explosive cousin to a standing shoulder press or Military Press. At first glance you may think that someone is just using too much weight but this exercise is quite technical and needs to be done safely and correctly to avoid injury. This exercise is an integral part of some of the grueling Crossfit workouts and once you learn them, I think you’ll love them as much as I do.

How to do a Push Press

You start in a standing position with the bar at collar bone height supported in your hands (some will have the bar cradled on the front of their shoulders).  You do a 1/4 squat that dips fast and then explodes to full hip extension (almost a jump), as you begin to finish the leg drive you are focusing on pressing the bar up (like a shoulder press).

Once the bar gets past your forehead you bring your chin slightly forward so your body is completely underneath the bar and lock the bar out completly overhead. Notice that all joints from the floor to the wrists are completely in line, with the weight locked out overhead.

The biggest mistake you can make at this point is to look up, or keep your head back. This happens if you are used to doing a barbell shoulder press or  military press.

Benefits of the Push Press

This exercise would be considered a full body exercise. You’ll burn a ton of calories. Once you’ve done them a few times, you’ll understand what I mean. Your legs are essential in getting the bar up overhead. Its not a strict upper body press, its an explosive leg drive with your upper body continuing the momentum up to a locked overhead position. You’ll find your legs get a great workout, your upper body too, but more importantly your core gets an awesome workout as  you need your core to be strong to hold the bar overhead.

Start light on these. Practice your form first. Be sure you are dipping, reversing and exploding with your legs. Not slowly either. Check your form in the mirror or have someone watch you  from the side to make sure you are locking out fully and everything is in line.

To take your workout to the next level, use the Push Press. It’s a challenge to learn but once you get good at it, you’ll burn calories, have a stronger core and build some explosive full body power…all while having fun in the gym! Who could ask for much more?

Kettlebells have made their way into mainstream fitness in a big way lately. Gyms are starting to have classes, they are popping up in local parks at “boot camps” and now its time to bring this ugly little weight into your workouts too! The fundamental exercise of the kettlebell is the swing. I want to show you how to do kettlebell swings and then explain some details on the form and also why you would use them in your workout.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The basic form for Kettlebell Swings:

So in the video above you’ll notice that this is an explosive exercise. Kettlebell swings are explosive…but safe. You are using your glutes and hamstrings or more simply your “hips”  do most of the work. You swing the kettlebell between your legs with a nice tight lower back and bend at the hips with some bend at the knees.

Note: I was bending a bit low, more into a squat.  I’m by no means perfect in my form, but feel my form is tight even though I go a bit lower. Just a preference of mine, I allow the kettlebell to swing a little lower and further between my legs. True kettlebell purists will swing it very high up between the legs almost to the point where the weight hits their behinds.  As the weight gets heavier, it is more necessary to do this.

The focus should be on pushing the hips or butt back on the swing back and then standing up tall, squeezing the glutes and driving the hips forward to swing the kettlebell up. You should feel a slight stretch or “loading” of the hamstrings. This ensures that the work is being done by your hamstrings and glutes and not a jumping quad exercise. Keep your eyes forward and don’t look down, this will keep your chest more upright and your back from rounding.

The arms are relaxed and letting it swing naturally. Grip is strong. Keep in mind, this is not a squat and lift but more of a hip drive and allow the kettlebell to swing its natural course. You want to keep the movement fluid and in time with gravity. Don’t force the kettlebell up or slow it down too much.

Side note: There are some variations of the swing, like anything. Crossfit tends to swing the kettlebell all the way up overhead. Thats their modification. Some discussion back and forth between kettlebell purists and Crossfitters as led to some interesting debates. I say use the exercise as you see fit for your particular goal. If you are being safe and keeping the basics of the form correct, modify away.

Why use a kettlebell swing in your workout?

Ok, I’ll hit the hot button for you ladies..and some guys. You’ll have “buns of steel!”

All cheesiness aside, this is a great exercise for working your glutes and hamstrings, conditioning your low back and core.  This exercise is a great overall endurance and fat burning exercise too. Since you are constantly moving and your whole body is involved its a great calorie burner, perfect for interval training and used A LOT in Crossfit type training.

Some ideas to incorporate the kettlebell swing into your workout:

• Do kettlebell swings for time. (20,30,60 seconds)
• Do high reps. (20-50+) They go fast so you’ll be surprised how many you can do with good form
• Add them in to keep your heart rate up. Great for interval training!
• Use them as a warmup. Since they are using your whole body and get the heart rate up, lighter swings make a great general warmup and also a more specific warmup for deadlifts, squats etc.

So thats the basics of a kettlebell swing with some variations and ideas of how other people are using kettlebells in their workouts to mix things up and take things to a new level. Add these into your workout for a great conditioning exercise and a fun way to break out of the box and take your workout to the next level!

I recommend Ader Kettlebells

Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What is Core Strength?

Your “core” is your body’s center. To put it simple it is the stabilizing muscles that make up your midsection. Its made up of inner and outer abdominal stabilizing muscles as well as some supporting torso muscles as well. For simplicity: Abs and low back to put it in a nutshell.

Why do we need it?

Any and all movements you may do in life rely on your core in one way or another. Everything from throwing a baseball to getting out of bed has your core involved. Without a stabilized and strong core you would basically be a walking (or lying down) noodle. So its very important to keep your core strong and stable to not only perform better in life but to avoid injury as well.

How do we train our core?

There are two basic things we need to think of when we train the core. Stabilizing and movement. Stabilizing is the body’s ability to hold the spine in a certain position, movement is the body’s ability to twist, flex or extend the spine. Both are very important as we use both stabilizing and movement daily. We need to be able to stabilize your spine to pick up that box from the floor or to stand for extended periods of time.  We need to twist, flex or extend the spine to move about in a 3 dimenensional world. We don’t walk around like robots…so we need our torso’s to rotate.

So with that said, we need to focus on exercises that challenge the core in both stability and movement.

Enter The Plank: Your Core Stabilizing Dynamo!

The Plank is basically an exercise where you stabilize your spine in a four point position on the floor. You want to focus on keeping a nice neutral spine, meaning no excessive rounding or arching of the back. You also need to focus on keeping your abs contracted (but still able to breathe) and drawn in (visualize pulling your naval towards your spine).

Work on doing The Plank for time as you want to build muscle control and endurance. Stabilizers need stamina.

In the video above you’ll see Nine variations of The Plank taking you from a very basic beginner plank to some very advanced versions that will really force you to control your core and keep it stable.

Here are the Nine Variations of the Plank:

1. Basic 4 point Plank on the floor (elbows and toes)
2. Basic Plank with 1 leg up (alternate legs)
3. Basic Plank with 1 leg up/1 arm up (use opposite arm and leg)
4. Unstable Plank with elbows on the ball
5. Unstable Plank Elbows on the Ball with 1 leg  up
6. Unstable Plank Hands on the Ball
7. Unstable Plank Hands on the Ball with 1 leg up
8. Pushup Position Plank with 2 Feet on the ball
9. Pushup Position Plank with 1 foot on the ball

Moving from more stable to less stable forces you to really control your core and keep your abdominals and low back under control. You want to get good at one exercise and move up to the next progression only when you feel you have the more basic ones mastered. Do these movements for time, start out at 20 seconds working up to 60 seconds. These can make good warmups or cool down exercises.

Getting good at the Plank is building a great basic functional foundation for strong abs and a strong core. Have fun with these, come up with other variations, add in light weights even! The sky is the limit!

Remember: keep those abs tight and drawn in!

Click here to view the embedded video.

From out of Kettlebells…

I was first introduced to this upper body exercise via the kettlebell community. I was watching a video of a small, fit young woman demonstrating the row. She was using 5lb kettlebells, so of course my ego started doing the math. How much could I do? At first glance, I thought it was kindof easy after all the weights looked so light and I knew I could row alot more than 5 lbs. I didn’t realize it was an entire upper body workout as well as a core/abdominal beast!

My first attempts with this were dismal. Or so I thought. I was sweating bullets with 10lb dumbells! I could barely get to 10 reps! I was losing all core stability, my hips were dropping and my arms were ready to give out. That’ll teach me to neglect my core.  I was mortified, humbled and excited all at the same time.  I like a good challenge. I hope you do too!

So I introduce to you…The Renegade Row!

Basically you are in a pushup position, feet fairly wide, hands on either dumbbells or kettlebells. The goal is to keep the body as level and stable as possible while rowing up one dumbbell, bringing it back down and then rowing with the other hand.

All the same rules apply as any other rowing motion you would do. You are pulling from the back, trying to squeeze the shoulder blade back behind you. If you don’t feel like you are doing this, reduce the weight until you have it under control. This isn’t an ego exercise, its a core exercise. If your core is weak, you’ll know because your body will twist as soon as you pick up the weight.

The benefits of this upper body giant:

• Increased shoulder stability to help bulletproof your rotator cuffs
• Abdominal and low back strength and endurance
• Directly can help you with stamina to hold a pushup position, no more sagging hips

If you are having trouble with using weight and keeping your body stable, start small. just practice holding a pushup position and doing a rowing motion. You’ll  be ready to start working with light weights in no time.

Let me know what you think!

Sometimes I take myself through some pretty grueling things, just because I “promised” I’d try it. I do that alot. I make a deal with myself to do a workout or grueling circuit and about half way through start questioning my sanity.  So, the other day I got to thinking about my timed rep workout post and decided to put together an entire workout based on that.

Anyone who thinks you need to be in the gym for over an hour has never tried this. Anyone who thinks they need heavy weights all the time, has never tried this.

So here it is; five exercises, three sets each for a grand total of fifteen minutes of solid exercise effort. (Rest between sets not included)

Here is the upper body workout:

1. Pullups
2. Dips
3. Situps
4. Pushups
5. Dumbbell Shoulder Press (light to moderate weight)

All are done for 1 minute as straight through as possible. Rest if you need to only slightly so you can do a couple more reps.

This round is pretty complete for your upper body, no isolation work as these exercises tend to tax all the muscle groups of the upper body. Chest, Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, Abs are all in there. This will give you the ultimate in carry over too!

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Also coming soon…The Lower Body Version!

Ready to take your pushups to the next level?

Pushups are the classic upper body test of strength. They have been around for what seems like forever. The Armed Forces all use them as a means of testing your conditioning and upper body strength. But to be honest, sometimes pushups are boring.

Here are three ways to take this classic exercise and make it fun again, challenging to your coordination and also build up your core!

Variation #1: Medicine Ball Pushup

A pushup with one hand on a medicine ball: by placing one hand on the ball, you give your core a workout by being assymetrical. Both hands have equal pressure on them.

Variation #2: Alternating Medicine Ball Pushup

Now we are moving the ball back and forth from hand to hand. You not only get assymetrical core work but also transitional. What this means is your core is challenged by uneven weight but also by moving. One other thing that this helps is shoulder/rotator cuff stability. Build up on these and you will have some strong shoulders, endurance in your core and some extra strength to boot.

Variation #3: Plyometric Medicine Ball Pushup

The ball now stays stationary and you explosively push and switch hands over the medicine ball. These require some concentration so you don’t miss the ball, so be careful at first.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have fun with these. Work up your skill and by the time you get to the plyometric pushups, you’ll be surprised how the rest of your workout has improved.

Let me know what you think of these. Too easy? Let me know…I’ll give you something much worse better.

What is Carry Over?

Here is a little exercise terminology that sometimes confuses people so I thought I’d clear it up.

Carry over is how one exercise or skill can help you get better at another one. Improvement in one area “carries over” to something else. Often times a skill or exercise is lacking due to a muscle imbalance or weakness. By finding this weakness and working on it specifically we can not only get that muscle stronger but also the other exercise or skill.

Example: A person has trouble sitting “back” in a squat probably due to weak hamstrings and glutes. Targeted exercises to increase hamstring and glute strength will CARRY OVER and help that person do better squats.

So in this case by building stronger hamstrings and glutes, means you could have less low back strain. Better balance between the strength of your quadriceps (front of the thigh) and hamstring (back of the thigh) resulting in less knee pain, more knee stability. Sounds like a recipe for a healthy “win-win.”

You’ll see this commonly in physical therapy. The exercises are very targeted and repetitive. They are designed to get the body working as a unit, overcome muscle imbalance and make motions more natural. When the body works in unison, with each muscle doing its share there are less imbalanced joints, less chance for injury and better physical fitness and you can perform at your peak.

Carry over is huge in performance sports too. Olympic lifting, Powerlifting, sprinters, track and field, football, martial artists etc. Wherever there is a weakness in the lift or movement, there is an exercise to get past that and help the movement get stronger.

Everything we will do here at BreakoutWorkout.com is designed to have tremendous carry over. I don’t believe in fluff exercises, only your increase athletic ability in mind. Training your body to be strong from all angles will make you a better athlete, help you avoid injury and keep you healthy for the long term.

Training fast or training slow?

The age old question, do I do my reps slow and controlled or fast and explosive? There have been “slow” programs from the superslow training principles with advocated 10+ second reps to the faster explosive programs of Olympic lifting and plyometrics. So which one is right? I say a little of both.

You see, a muscle only works 2 ways, on or off. If you watch someone lifting quite heavy, it may seem that the muscle is not being explosive but believe me…it is. Its just that the weight is heavy enough to stifle the explosion.

Example: throw a tennis ball as hard as you can, then get in a pool of water and try to throw it underwater. You may use the same force, but the resistance is higher and your arm moves slower.

May the Force be with you!

Ah yes, FORCE. Good old Newton and his discoveries. Force can easily be  summed up as a push or pull that can cause an object with mass to change its velocity. Force is directly proportional to mass and/or acceleration. (cue Revenge of the Nerds Soundtrack)

Force and its relation to weight lifting

Two things are involved in creating more force. Mass (weight in this case) and acceleration (speed). Lets take two examples to see why fast and slow traing are both effective:

We have a very heavy weight, the bar will probably move slowly because it is difficult to lift…thus a high amount of force, right?

Right.

We have a light weight but we move it as fast as we can, is there less force because the weight is lighter?

Nope, still high force!

A muscle basically sees the same thing! A heavy weight, slow (but maximum effort) speed repetition or lighter weight, fast explosive speed repetition are virtually the same in producing force.

What does this mean for how you should train?

For someone looking to develop strength and athleticism, there should be a mix of both heavier lifts and lighter explosive lifts. Adding in fast explosive training will actually help your strength in heavier lifts. This is called “carryover.”

Note: fast or explosive lifts are only explosive on the concentric or positive phase, the negative/eccentric or lowering phase should be controlled.

Should everyone do this?

Yes, everyone from an elite powerlifter to a weekend runner will benefit from varying fast and slow training but with a word of caution: perfect form should still be used. You want to make sure your joints are in the correct positions when you apply high force to them. Too many times, I see form sacrificed for speed, which is just a recipe for injury.

How to build up to it?

Start slow. Perfect your form for whatever exercise it is. Build up speed and keep your reps low. You’d be surprised how light, explosive reps can tire you out. This is not the place for doing 10 reps or your form will turn to crap. Start with sets of 3-5 and doing 3-5 reps. By the end of that you’ll have done 9-25 very explosive, productive reps.

How to do it?

Some possible exercises that work well with slow (heavy) and fast (lighter) reps:

Squats/Squat Jumps
Bench Press/Pushup
Deadlifts/Kettlebell Swings
Lat Pulldowns/Explosive Pullups (oh yeah! Coming soon!)

Give these a try in your workouts, you’ll see that alternating from heavy to light, slow to fast can make a huge difference. In about a week or so, I’ll have a video up showing one way to do this with your upper body. Stay tuned!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rep Counters! Cover your ears!

So if I were to ask 10 people who exercise, how they know they are making progress, the majority of them would say “more weight or more reps.” While this is commonly true, I want to introduce a new technique you can add in that is bound to up my “hate mail.” I say this with all seriousness…are you ready for the secret?

Timed Reps!

Thats right these are, to put it lightly, very hard! I’d say I have a love hate relationship with them but they are effective. The principle is simple. You do an exercise…for time. Sounds simple right?

A typical set “for reps” takes under 30 seconds for many its around 20 sec. Imagine that you now  have to lift for 60 seconds straight! Its not for the faint of heart. Its 2-3 times longer than what you are used to. There is no rushing to finish…its all timed. Now we’re talking intensity!

So here is how you do timed reps:

1. Take a exercise/weight that is moderate, something you know you can control.
2. Begin the exercise, start the clock (60 sec is good to start with).
3. Keep the reps under control, don’t rush! (the clock doesn’t move any faster if you do)
4. Try to keep moving as much as you can, if you need to rest, only rest as long as it takes to do a couple more.
5. Try to keep going until the time is up.

If you get through it on the first set without much struggle, up the weight just a little, the next sets will catch up with you pretty quickly.

Some benefits of this type of training:

• You increase your work capacity tremendously, by building endurance strength.
• It will force you to “dig deep” and keep going which is essential for breaking plateaus.
• These are great for interval type training.

Some great exercises to try this with: bench press, squats, shoulder presses, seated cable rows,  abdominal work. Basically any exercise that is a compound (not so much isolation) exercise.

This should give you something to love/hate for a while. You can be sure you’ll find them tough, but you’ll make more progress in the gym and feel like you’ve had a great workout in the process.

Give them a try and let me know what you think!