What Failing out of BUD/S and doing Hell Week 2 Times Taught Me – Navy SEAL Workouts and Fitness

It’s no secret that I wasn’t the ideal BUD/S candidate going in… I was out of shape. I was using some bodybuilding training program with hand drawn photos of dumbbell curls and lat pull downs… Total mess.

This isn’t a uncommon mistake. Many candidates fall into the trap of training the wrong way for BUD/s. It’s not surprising, the way the fitness industry markets to people, it’s easy to see why.

Functional Fitness for BUD/s Navy SEAL Selection and other Special Forces selection is very specific. You must train core to extremity. With proper strength movements, mixed in with rucking, PT and conditioning specific to the goal.

Ironically, while I struggled, it wasn’t the physical part that blew me up. It was the mental part. I was so fatigued, so blown out, I failed a really basic dive tables test… My brain just couldn’t wrap itself around the process. I was mentally defeated. I got rolled…

Back in the day if you got rolled like I did, they kicked you out to the Big Navy. This means sitting on some ship in the middle of nowhere with a lot of time to think. That’s just what I did. I drilled down on my failure. Brain FOG! From what? Lack of physical prep. I spent that whole year on that ship using the limited tools I had available and trained my ASS OFF!! Of course, I now knew that it wasn’t dumbbell curls and bodybuilding that I needed. I needed PT, Strength, Power and Endurance.

2nd time through BUD/S I passed, 6 months later. I was pinned. BOOM!

From all of this, my goal was to create the smartest, most planned out 1 year training system ever.