Marines have to do 3 miles in 18 minutes

Runningart2004 wrote:

Alan

I can see the relevance of everything but crunches. The number you can do/how quickly doesn't seem like it would really have any strength applications.

Crunches or Situps test muscular endurance, not strength. As far as strength goes...some bodybuilders train their abs in the same way they train any other bodypart. They add weight. The more complex issue here is what is really being stressed when doing a full sit-up? Your powerful hip flexors are involved as well as your typical abdominal muscles. So if you add resistance, doing cable crunches, or add a mechanical disadvantage so the relative resistance is raised (decline situps) you will have increased the strength of the muscles that allow you to do situps. Situps and crunches is also a speed exercise because typically the 2 minute window is not a problem. Typically you could easily continue pass two minutes the problem is the number of reps you can do two minutes so you must work on the speed. Since speed and strength are somewhat related it makes sense that working on the strength of these muscles (abs/hip flexors) will improve speed. Also, simply working on speed coupled with endurance is a good way to train to do situps. Such a routine would be sets of 30s. The goal is 30 situps in 30 seconds. Repeat for desired number of sets.

While we are talking about military pt...

My company has around 130 soldiers. That's 4 platoons, HQ, and Maintenance. Too my knowledge only around 5 can max the 2 mile run portion of the APFT. That's a sub 13:00 or thereabouts depending on age.

The average two mile run score for males on the APFT is 77 points....just over 15:00 for a 22 year old.

I'll see if I can find the average for the Marine PFT. The minimum is a 28:00 3 mile for males 17-26.

Alan

There is a race out here near Boston called the Marine Corps Honor Run 5K. There were hundreds and hundreds of Marines present and three guys in the entire race were under a 6 minute pace. I remember being fairly shocked at how unfit these guys were.

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/10/ma/May8_Boston_set1.shtml

Thanks. In my 20's I was a 140-lb marathoner who could barely do a pullup or deadlift my track shorts after taking a dvmp.

derp wrote:

Damn good for a 50 yo...any age really.

crap wrote:

Being able to do 20 pull ups and run 3 miles in 18 minutes requires being skinny or else being in incredibly good physical condition. most of the guys talking about 20 pull ups and 18 minute 3 miles being easy are probably very skinny and cant squat or deadlift 300 pounds, something many marines are able to do even though they cant bust out miles in the 5-6 minute range

It's really not that hard. Take a college distance runner, bulk them up 30 pounds through weight training, and they'll still be able to run 18 minutes for 3 miles very easily. 20 pull-ups is like 50 push-ups, something that most people (who aren't too skinny or too fat) can get to with a bit of training. And the progress you see there is really quick.

The main impediment to most people is the running aspect, especially at typical marine weights. It's largely genetic, especially as most marines will tend to be more on the bulky/fast-twitch side than enduance-based. But among the competitive running population, we can put on the weight necessary to bulk up and do the lifts (be it 20, 30, or 40 pounds) and still comfortably knock out the run portion.

For the vast majority of the population, 6:00 pace for any distance be it 2 miles or 3 miles is blazing. Again this is Letsrun undervaluing 6:00 pace.

Any decent distance runner would have no problem with maxing the Army or Marine fitness test given enough training to get a bit stronger.

I could take a month off and not run a step and still max the run.

So what do you want a medal for it?

I dont think there ia a fat american in any special forces who can even run 1 mile in 7:31.

70 pushups in 60 seconds, must have been with a arched back and quite a cheating style.

Most so called yankee soliders are obese and trigger happy.

How many casualties of friendly fire has been vicitms of an american hillbilly solider?

What you guys are missing is the basic math that is involved in a PFT. The key is to get to 285 points. Once you hit this mark you max out with an overall 5.0 rating. The highest you can get. If you max out the test with a 300, you still get a 5.0. The trick was to max out the the pull-ups and the sit-ups (crunches)then all you needed to run is 19:29. That's very easy to get to with minimal running.

cam0103 wrote:

What you guys are missing is the basic math that is involved in a PFT. The key is to get to 285 points. Once you hit this mark you max out with an overall 5.0 rating. The highest you can get. If you max out the test with a 300, you still get a 5.0. The trick was to max out the the pull-ups and the sit-ups (crunches)then all you needed to run is 19:29. That's very easy to get to with minimal running.

Yeah, but I know how these things go. Buddy 1 and Buddy 2 max out pushups and pullups hitting the same numbers. You don't think Buddy 1 and Buddy 2 are going to duke it out over 3 miles? You don't think they're going to be called out for sandbagging by their peers? If I'm doing an APFT I'm not just going to stop at max on my pushups and situps, I'm going to go for as many as possible. It's pretty heartless to not give your all.

Alan

USAF_run wrote:

The pushups and pullups are not hard once you train for them.

To max the Air Force PT Test, an 18-24 year old male needs to do:

62 pushups in 1 minute

55 situps in 1 minute

<9:36 in the 1.5 mile run

My last test I scored:

79 pushups in 1 minute

69 situps in 1 minute

7:31 1.5 mile run

You test in that order, 1 min pushups...3 minute break....1 min situps....3 minute break....1.5 mile run

I'm 23 years old 2Lt. 6'2, 170 lbs, ex-runner. I would wager that no more than 10 people Air Force wide have a better overall score than me (in field training they gave you 1 extra point for every pushup and situp you did over the max, and gave you 1 extra point for every 5 seconds you beat the max run time by)

thanks for sharing with us how great you are. It really sucks being me

correction 100 crunches in 4 minutes.... i think you can do in less because i did 70 somthing in 2 minutes soo more round 3 ... then again im only 15 so it might b easier for me and i mean no disrespect cause i plan on going into the marines straight outa highscool.

Strange that this thread pops up just as my son returned from Marine boot camp. The running portion of the PFT at the end of boot camp is harder than you would expect, because no one is training to run distance during the three months of boot camp.

My Marine son ran 18:30 even though as a senior in high school two years ago he ran 4:19 and 15:30ish for the 3 mile. As a freshman in hs, he broke 18.

My son who is currently a freshman ran a hair under 18 in the fall. Even my hs daughter this year ran faster than his 18:30.

Spending two weeks learning to shoot, marching around for drill, getting IT'd for something you or a member of your unit did, and not getting enough time to eat or sleep for almost the entire three months do not prepare someone to run a decent distance time.

BRG/253 wrote:

Guess what guys, I know this is going to come as a huge shock to most of you, but distance running ability isn't very important in combat.

Tell that to Forrest Gump.

I just want to see all the HS XC runners who can run <18 try their hand at a 20 mile forced march with a 70 pound ruck.

Hitting the max times really is not very difficult. In fact, I think it might even be easier to take a good runner such as many of you folks likely reading this. I could get a guy to max the muscular endurance portion of the USMC PFT simply by focusing on pull-ups and modified situps for 20-30 minutes x 3 sessions per week. A person likely wouldn't have to even cut much if any from their run training to fit this in.

I have a friend who is a SEAL, mid-30s. He and I were talking once and he made a comment about how if a person is needing to run at sub-6 min/mi pace then something is ridiculously F'd up and you have bigger worries at that point. Another friend of mine is in his early 50's and still in Army SF, a mountain of a man too, with a gut that resembles a powerlifters stomach, and by no coincidence either. Guaranteed that he would have trouble running at an 8 min/mi pace. But when he is fully jocked up and carrying his full combat load of 100+ lbs he would leave probably about all of us that ever come on this forum eating his dust.

It is a matter of specificity as mentioned in previous posts. If a person can max a PFT, unless he is a freak of nature it usually means that person has put in time to specifically work on those events, time which is not all that specific to combat related fitness. Nothing wrong at all with the pull-up training though, that would stay. But I'd rather a guy be putting in a good deal of more time with strength training and strongman type of work.

The good thing is that the USMC has a more "sport" specific evaluation with their Combat Fitness Test.

It's funny, all of you can talk about how this and that about marines and what they do. Honestly stop talking and start doing. You can sit here all day and type, but you have no will to go sign up and do what they do. You would understand if you were a Grunt and not a PoG and still theirs PoGs that understand. "Get up, Step up, or Shut up. Civilian Bag Nasty's."

nope wrote:

I don't think you could

Scotty Doesnt know wrote in 2009:

The instructors kept talking about one guy who ran in the 14:30's about a year and a half ago. Still trying to figure out who that was...

Had to be Kenny Cormier.

Was wondering when someone would mention his name.

My CO in OCS was then Colonel Johnston who went on to be Gen. Schwarkoff's (sp?) chief of staff during Operation Desert Shield/Storm....he would do the entire PFT in 18 minutes. I ran a 15:45 and there were 8 guys ahead of me. Most of the guys were runners...most young Marines are. I was fortunate that I was prior enlisted and my buddies covered for me at work while I trained in Gitmo for OCS. The last PFT at OCS I ran in 16 something and got chewed out for dogging it! Every day was a picnic, every meal a feast!