What are some exercises that I can do to prepare for the 10 weeks of physical training throughout Officers Candidate School? Having spoken to an O.S.O. I have learned that I will be required to do 20 pull ups in a row, 100 crunches within 2 minutes, and run three miles in 18 minutes, so I’ll start with exercises appropriate for them. What additional preparation should I undertake for physical training? In other words, what do the Marines expect of me?
Most importantly, what is a good way to slim down a flabby belly? Should I just eat less and run a whole lot? Thanks.
Three miles in eighteen minutes? Ouch. You sure about that? I am close to or there on everything else, but three in eighteen?
Other than that, try running in boots. Your stride is a little bit different to accomidate the greater support, so get used to it.
Other than that, no suggestions.
If you want to lose weight: do centuries on bicycles, self supported except for water. That will knock pounds and add muscle fast.
Make sure you’re acclimated to exercise in heat. Also to “reduced” meals - i.e. three squares, no snacks, no power bars; water, not Gatorade or whatever, that sort of thing.
Run. A LOT. But not in boots. You get to wear regular running shoes for the PFT, so train for that. I would try to run four miles instead of three for your training. Do 30 pullups instead of 20, and just as many situps as you can do for three minutes. The goal is to overcondition yourself. That way, when the test day comes, it’s all a piece of cake.
Other advice? Hydrate yourself as well as you can for the two days before the test. Drink as much water as your stomach will hold, and keep it full. Eat and drink lightly the day of the test, to keep as little weight in your system as possible. If I remember the order of the test, it’s pullups, situps, then the run. If your able to do the max in any of the categories, quit as soon as you have, then rest until the next part of the test. You’ll need the energy.
I’m not sure if they allow this, but there is a way to sort of cheat on the pullup part. It’s called “kipping”. To kip, you swing your legs forward (locked together straight) and thrust your hips back just a little at the same time as you pull with your arms. Done correctly, it gives a little boost each time.
By the way, the 20/100/18 minutes are just the numbers that give you maximum points on the PFT. The passing levels are a bit lower, so don’t get TOO discouraged if you don’t quite make any of them. I never could beat the 18 minute three mile…
Thanks for the advice…It’s good to be finally getting into shape. I’ve been doing pull ups, push ups, and chin ups until it feels like my arms are going to fall off, and enough crunches to make my belly sore as hell. So I think that I am well on my way to toning up, and will be able to pass the pull up and sit up requirements.
But, I am really intimidated by the running requirement: THREE MILES IN EIGHTEEN MINUTES! I realize that benchmark is for full credit, and that I could get by with a less than ideal time, BUT HOLY [expletive]! (I need to watch my language if I expect to be an officer ;)). To get that time requires full blown running, not any jogging at all! I guess what I’m asking for is advice on running.
- Is it better to run on a treadmill (I have one in my room) or outside?
- Since I have just started running, should I aim for distance or time, with the goal of achieving both eventually? Or should I just concentrate on one over the other?
- What’s a good starting pace? Should I foresake a jogging pace and run at top speed only?
- How do I keep from being bored? I usually quit running as a result of boredom, not from being tired. So this is where the discipline comes in?
Hey there. I too am looking forward to going to USMC PLC OCS next summer. Check out this site: http://www.asimba.com and go to the running arena.
Have you checked out the USMC OCS webpage? They have some information on what to expect as well.
Asimba will set you up with a whole training program for running. It will instruct you on when to rest, how much to run, how hard, and in how many weeks you expect to accomplish your goal. Seems the online coach is down right now…
I’ll post again when I get home with some real information.
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Don’t matter much, but I personally don’t like treadmills. Running is running though. However, on the treadmill, you have to stay at a steady pace so that could be a constraint as well as an asset.
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I run for time. I say to myself, “I’m gonna run hard for 30 minutes.” then I do it.
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Don’t run at top speed, just under. Make sure you can run for the total time though. NO WALKING! shuffling is ok if you’re dying and need a quickie break at the 15 min point. but NO WALKING!
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what I did was I got onto napster and downloaded a bunch of USMC running cadences and made a cassette tape to listen to while running. worked for me as it had a lot of motivation associated with it. I was thinking, “if they can do it, I sure as hell can too.”
Hope I helped, and don’t quit!
OORAH!
Ok I’m back. Check out these sites:
http://bell.mma.edu/~mmanrotc/marine/ocsphysprep.html
http://millennium.fortunecity.com/redwood/352/usmcpft.exe
http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/ocs/index.htm
and,
http://members.tripod.com/jdgrose115/
This is the best stuff that I found while surfing the web but not nearly as valuable as talking with someone who was actually been there.
Good luck.
Thanks Catdog. Good luck to you as well.
A couple more pieces of advice: (YMMV)
I’m in the navy, so we do things a bit differently, but the sit ups, at least, are the same. 100 in 2 minutes. I’ve found that resting for a few seconds throughout the evolution does wonders. I’ll do 20 quick ones, then rest a few seconds, then do another 20, and so on. Those moments of rest go a long toward flushing out some of the lactic acid building up in my muscles. Which lets me keep a pretty quick pace, which gives me more time to rest. I do the same thing for our push-up portion.
For the run, I’ve found I do better if I take a couple days off right before the test, so I’m fresh on test day. Probably not something for you if you’ve been running a lot.
Also, keep in mind that, as has been mentioned, these scores are purely for yourself and your peers (assuming you pass). In the navy, our lowest score in any category becomes our final score. So, I can ace the pushups and situps and screw up the run (just like I always do), and my final score will that of the run. So, since I know I’ll never max out the run, I aim for a Good or Excellent overall with the knowledge that all my fitrep says about it is “P/WS” or Passed Within Standards. No scores, no grades, no nothin’. Back in the day of the combined score, acing two of the three events would ensure you an Outstanding, but not any more.
Good luck!
Str8_Dope if you’re afraid of the running section, the first thing you ought to do is head out to your local track and try it out. 12 laps on the standard highschool track. I don’t know how old you are, or what kind of shape you’re in, but 3 sub-sixes was a nice easy loping pace for me when I was 18 (err…I did go to state in cross country though). Seriously, it isn’t as bad as you think. Knowledge is power - give it a try and see how bad it is for you. Once you know how far 3 miles really is, you’ll have a much better idea of how fast you can run it.
I spent almost 11 years in the Corps and quite honestly, the physical portion of your training will be the least of your worries. This isn’t to say that it won’t be grueling and seemingly endless, but what the Marines will expect of you - no, DEMAND of you is that you embrace the tradition and honor that IS the Marine Corps. If you have a little bit of flab, it will disappear. If you’re a scrawny bird-boy, you’ll bulk up. If you don’t do pull-ups, you will. If you can’t run, you will. It’s good that you’re trying to get prepared ahead of time, but it is POSITIVE ATTITUDE that will get you through this. If you get the brain aimed in the right direction, the body will follow.
That being said, I will go as far as to say that running endurance should be your focus during the initial stages of your pre-OCS workouts, working toward better times over progressively increasing distances. The DI’s are going to run you until you are ready to drop from exhaustion. Then they’ll make you run some more. And when someone can’t go any further (and there will always be that 10% who “can’t”) you can do other fun things like “bends & mothers”, “leglifts”, “mountainclimbers”, etc. They’re quite inventive in their selection of exercises that are good for getting you in the best shape while causing the most displeasure.
Just FYI, there are minimums for each of the events in the PFT. IIRC, 3 pull-ups, 40 sit-ups in 2 minutes, 28 minutes or less for the 3-mile run were the bare-bones requirements when I was on active duty. The bad news? If you do the minimums in each event you will FAIL the PFT because there is also a minimum POINT requirement. It is simpler just to convince yourself that you must do your level best to attain the maximum score for each event in the PFT. Then carry that attitude with you to the rifle range, pistol range, then on to your eventual command and into battle if necessary.
And LISTEN to your NCO’s and Staff NCO’s. Officers don’t know everything, but they ARE required to make decisions that they’ll be held accountable for. It never hurts to ask, “What do you think, Staff Sergeant?”
In case you’d like to get a feel for what honor and tradition you will be expected to uphold, read “Iwo Jima” by Bill D. Ross
Semper Fi
Maybe you should rent Full Metal Jacket?
Marc
This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Congrats on your decision:) Mobius summed it up very well. Best thing to do is just work on your endurance, as that will be more valuable through your pleasant excursion than speed. 28 minutes is the minimum and you can damn near walk that. Best run time I ever had was 20 minutes, and my average was 24. We had a lot of guys who were speedsters and could do 18 minutes easily, including one marathoner who ran it backwards in 18 once. But few of them had a good day when it came time to strap on a pack and go out on a good hump. Whether you want to or not, you’ll be in shape when it’s over. Best thing to do is make it as easy on yourself as possible, and physical endurance will give you mental endurance, which is the real key.
Q: As a lieutenant, you have a platoon of men, seven ten foot sections of flagpole, a bag of cement and 300 feet of rope. How do you erect the flagpole?
A: You say “Sergeant, get this flagpole up. Report to me when you are finished. You have 6 hours”.
Semper Gumby:) Have fun and best of luck to you! Also, you might want to check the used bookstores and ebay and see if you can find a copy of the Officer’s or NCO handbook. Good stuff you’ll need to know.
Thanks again for all the replies, people. And Mobius 74, I’ll work on developing a positive attitude alongside building my endurance.
You’re welcome. Anything else you’d like to know, just ask.
An officer’s attitude, and therefore the perception of him in the eyes of the men he leads, is his best tool. An officer who cannot instill a sense of espirit de corps in his Marines is doomed to failure. If you can gain the respect of those you are assigned to lead, they’ll follow you to hell and back. The first and foremost building block is your attitude - a Marine doesn’t lead from behind. In almost 11 years in the Corps, I served under only four of this rare breed - one CWO2, one 2dLt, one Capt, and one LtCol. Sure, I followed orders from all the others, but with those four it was something closer to blind devotion - “SSgt Mobius, take this feather and stop that enemy tank.” “Aye, aye, SIR!” (Limited direct exposure to officers of higher rank precludes me from categorizing them this way, but I will admit Commandants Wilson and Kelly were great “bosses” to work for).
Another leadership keys is consistancy. If you’re going to be of the spit 'n polish variety, you must live up to those standards yourself every waking moment. If you’re going to be of the hard-ass variety, you must be a logical and just hard-ass all the time. (“Yeah, the Skipper - he’s a real bastard, but he’s OUR bastard.”)
You CANNOT play favorites with your subordinates unless its when you play favorites with ALL of them. A true leader always will claim his troops are better than those of any other unit even if he and the rest of the world knows otherwise. Your pride will increase their pride. Praise for their hard work (even in failure) will also go a long way toward winning their trust and confidence in your leadership.
You must remember to always empathize with your troops. You must learn to see things from their perspective (the old “walk a mile in my shoes” thing) in order to understand them. Then you can use this understanding to motivate them. Any Marine officer can order something to be done by enlisted men and it will get done - the sign of a great leader is when those things are done without his constant supervision (an expansion of the Turbo Dog Theory). Remember that flagpole question? The answer Turbo Dog gave is correct, of course, but the difference in the quality of one officer’s flagpole and another’s will be determined mostly by what his troops think of the officer who gave the order. A shitbird officer will have a shitbird flagpole that wobbles badly in a slight breeze. A leader of men will be rewarded with a chrome-finished flagpole that will stand rock-steady through a hurricane. Your decisions don’t have to be based purely on the perspective of your troops, but it should be weighed as a factor in everything you do.
There’s a great deal more to becoming a leader than being shoved into the billet. If you think about what you’re doing, how you’re presenting yourself, and whether you’re giving your subordinates the respect they’ve earned, then you’ll be a fine Marine officer and life will be good. If not, your subordinates will let you know in one way or the other. (You might want to take a look in MPSIMS for the “The Pink Jeep, or how to seriously annoy a Colonel” thread for a good example of this - a story of mine posted by RalfCoder.)
And in case I’ve harped too long on what it means to be a leader and what it means to be a Marine, or in case the pink jeep wasn’t quite enough, here’s a touch of humor for you…
**Three sure warning signs that something BAD is about to happen:
A private says “We learned this in bootcamp!”
A staff sergeant says “Watch this shit!”**
A second lieutenant says “We learned this in OCS!”
Just thought I’d ‘bump’ this thread to see if anyone has heard any news of Str8_Dope, our soon-to-be USMC 2nd Lieutenant…
Kipping is no more. They took that away in mid 90’s
I guess it’s too late for advice, but I would have said it’s important to take a rest day or two a week from exercise. I’d also recommend interval running only once or twice a week and jogging the other days. That’s what Galloway says, anyway. So, Str8, how’d ya do?