Getting to know a Navy SEAL (1)

Well guys...We are finally starting it.

A journey into the life and mind of a man who has gone through the toughest military training there is, a man who can tell you what "being fit" really means, because where he has been trained, where he worked, what he has done, there is no place for error, no place for training which is only boosting your ego...

Who is he, what has he done, what does it take to get there?


Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy our view into a no-bullshit-world of fitness!




HH: Who are you and what are you currently doing?

SGPT: I am an average guy who is on a life long journey to improve myself. My name is Brad McLeod and I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I work in a physically demanding job as an environmental consultant so I have to hike a lot and weather the Southern heat and rain. I work part time as a CrossFit trainer and help athletes improve themselves both physically and mentally. I train athletes both on my website http://www.sealgrinderpt.com/ and at local parks in the Atlanta area.

HH: What are the SEALs

SGPT: SEAL stands for SEa, Air, Land and are the U.S. Navy’s Special Warfare unit. These are guys that have to be ready for anything at anytime.



HH: How does one become a SEAL, what test have to be passed?

SGPT: The process to become a SEAL is very rigorous and very few guys actually make it to serve on a SEAL Team.

The first step is to be selected to Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training (BUD/S). You have to pass a written test similar to a college entrance exam, a full body physical examinations from a Doctor with no problems and then pass a physical test (PST) of swimming 500 yards in a side stroke, max pushups in 2 minutes, max situps in 2 minutes and then max dead-hang pull-ups to failure and then a 1.5 mile run in long pants and boots. The pull-ups are what fails many athletes. When I took the test only 2 out of 10 passed in that session.

From there you go on to be classed up in BUD/S which is 6 months long of intense work load. We started our class with approximately 135 candidates. The first 8 weeks you concentrate on working together as a team and do tons of cold water swimming, running, PT, obstacle course and classroom sessions. This is all really intensified during Hell Week. Team work is key in Hell Week. During this week you go without any sleep and are driven to your outer point of failure through surf torture, boat drills, log PT, and non-stop exercise and team drills. Many athletes quit in the first few weeks but drop like flies during Hell Week.

When I went through the Diving portion was the second phase. Of course you learn all about diving with open circuit (SCUBA) and closed circuit (no bubbles) rigs. You do a ton of underwater swimming and classroom and continue hard PT. During that time I failed a math test and was disqualified and sent to a Navy ship for a year before I could return to start all over again at BUD/S.

The third phase (at the time I went through) was land warfare. You learn how to navigate long range over the land, shoot weapons, explosives and how to blow things up underwater. It was really fun but still very hard with lots of PT and rigorous work and long days. By the time we graduated from BUD/S we had only 16 guys and started with 135.

From there you go to Army jump school at Ft. Benning, Georgia and then on to a SEAL Team where you serve 6 months and have to go through another rigorous workup. At that time it was called SEAL Tactical Training (STT) and you went through with your platoon. You learn more land navigation, more demolition and you shoot weapons till your ears ring and shoulders and hands hurt. The days are very long but you learn a ton. After over a year of training you are then awarded your Navy SEAL Trident which for me was a big honor.



HH: What made you come back after the failed math test and a year in the fleet? What was your motivation to get back and do it all over again?

SGPT: It was a major goal of mine to make it through BUD/S and to the SEAL Teams. So when I was kicked out of training for failing a math test I was mentally crushed. I have never felt so low.

I remember an Instructor saying that "If you quit now, you will quit on everything hard the rest of your life". That phrase stuck with me as I did not want to be a quitter. Once i got done feeling sorry for myself i resolved to come backer stronger and smarter than ever. I started working out like a mad-man on the ship i was transferred to. I read many books and ran long distance when i got into port. I transformed myself into a new and better person. My motivation was that i don't like to lose or be second place. I wanted to win and finish the drill.



HH: When you were with the teams, what did a typical day of training look like?

SGPT: I used to ride my bike in to work in the morning so would get a few miles in to warm up. Then we would all have our morning PT workout which was all bodyweight exercises similar to that found on http://www.sealgrinderpt.com/.
After the PT we would go for at least a 3 mile run or some days we would go swim or do a nearby obstacle course. The O course where I was stationed was lower so you could really go through fast. I loved that O course. Once a week we would go on a longer 10 mile run from a park in Virginia Beach down to another destination on the beach.
During the day we would have something different every day. We could be rappelling off a building or out of a helicopter. We would shoot weapons often and learn more explosives. We would dive or work in the boats and have drills. Every day was something new and interesting so you never got bored. Always fresh.
During lunch I would go lift weights in the weight room and sometimes I would go and do laps on the tall rope climb. After work I would bike back home, so in all would have a pretty physically demanding day with both the physical workouts and skills to learn.



Well guys, that´s it for the first part.
Stay tuned for the next part when we will hear Brads´ experiences with exercise- selection, programming, recovery and how he put it all together at http://www.sealgrinderpt.com/.



Train hard and be true to yourself guys!
All the best,
Harry

Wintertraining

Making single events, which help your development (whatever you are working on), into habits is one way to success.
One thing I can´t do very often but definetly regularly is attending one of Dominik Feischls´ seminars or training-camps. (http://naturtraining.blogspot.com/)

I attended this years "Wintertraining" yesterday and looking back, looking by a blister on my hand(a new low-count considering past events!), several sore muscles in my upper body and a desperate need for sleep to regenerate, I consider it another great experience!


We started the day at 1100 at a gymnasium with Joint Mobility and several warm- up- drills like balancing on the small side of benches while throwing medicine balls at each other, jumping drills on and off the benches,...

The first real training part for my group(Dominiks no-bulls*hit-training, being both strengthening and fun, is attracting more and more people from different countries, so we had to split up into two working groups this time) started with a set of timed rope climbs, static holds, stop- and- go- drills (on the rope),... Well, my forearms were kinda pumped after that. Good thing I knew it was only the start of our workout- day, otherwise I would have been tempted to quit. ;-)
(It´s always a love- hate- relationship with Charly, the second coach beside Dominik, since he turned something aweful like losing part of a leg into a advantage over guys half his age: he started working pullups, all kind of handwalking, etc like a madman and developed into a human being even a chimp wouldn´t challenge on the bar! And since he loves what he is doing we do a lot of all his favourites and to us normal people it just hurts!! But we still love it. ;-D )


The next part was box jumps.
Easy, right.
Well...yeah. Exept we ran in circles, jumped one after another for like 5-10min without rest, steadily increasing the height up to 1,3 meters. I don´t do those very often, I managed to keep up, it did not really hurt but in a strange way those repeated explosive accelerations wear you down...Nice!

We continued with another set on the ropes, this time with more static hang-time and another round of handwalking at fixed ladders which had a slight incline.
So basically after they wore our hands, arms, our whole upper bodies down they made us do the same thing again. Only harder. How can one not love these guys?!

We did a short circuit training with lunges, static rope hangs, elephant walks with pushups, jumping squats, knee- raises and feet- elevated- hands- on- plastic- balls- pushups(2 rounds, 30sec on/15sec off) before finishing our indoor- part with a 5min obstacle course which included backward handwalking, some tumbling, sideway- handwalking, handwalking on bars, balancing over benches,jumping over different obstacles.
I was breathing heavy after this one! :-D


It was about 1300 when we changed into our outdoor- clothes(basically I think everyone added one additional layer of clothing) and made our way to the famous Naturtrainings- center in Thomasroith.

After some mobility- work for our shoulders(we needed that one) we started several team- games.
While one team had to flip a 180kg tire all the way around a soccer field and at the same time carry a smaller tractor tire around the same field Farmer- style, all walking in snow(~ 15cm), the other team had to complete a static hang challenge with a total count of the hung minutes.
Of course we switched and every team had to complete every event.
Since Dominik and Charly were timing us the whole thing developed into a competition between teams.
It was a fair fight. ;-)

Short hill sprints in slippery snow, stone-speed-dragging(stones weighing around 35-40kg I think), partner carries, resistance- sprints(weighted, against a partner,..), even shrugs with a heavy tire for time were integrated into the competition.


After all that fun we went for a 5km hike into snow-covered hills, climbed icy tracks and made our way through fields covered with knee- deep- snow.
After that we called it a day.



There are several things one notices when participating in such events:

-work on your upper body endurance
Because you never know how many additional pushups you have to do, how long you have to crawl over some field, how long you have to hold on to something, be it a bar, a rock, or something you are carrying somewhere.

-do your conditioning
I know it sucks when you have to train so hard you almost puke a lung but if you gas out too soon you will not have any mental capeabilities left for important tasks.

-work on your mindset
With some of the static holds or team challenges it was really tough because there was not much strength left after some of the dynamic pulls, etc. If you have got a happy place, a relaxing thought you can hold on so much longer, perform the next repetitions easier and keep a clear head towards everything else happening around you.
Keep calm, breath.

-competition adds a new dimension to training
Normally I´m a loner. I work out alone, I motivate myself, I plan my training myself...
Being in a team, pulling the same direction as other people can give you that extra burst needed to get another step further out of the comfort zone. You push harder, pull faster and finish stronger.
So now and then, add some people, add some competition to your training.


Some thing which made me very happy:
It was a hell of a day, I was tired, I had my share of blisters...
But:(!)
After we finished I felt like: "WHAT?! I could, I want to run, lift, throw for another 5 hours!" And I still had the potential to do so, my mind was fresh...That was new to me.
It feels good to sense progression in your life, in ones training.





Train hard and enjoy every moment!
All the best,
Harry

Getting to know a U.S. Navy SEAL

Imagine this with me:

Imagine attacking installations, persons, gathering information, all that in hostile territory, thousands of kilometers away from home.

Imagine surviving off the land while being hunted by hundred of enemy soldiers.

Imagine doing things like diving(not the cosy i-learned-it-during-two-days-at-the-holiday-resort-kind of diving), skydiving, climbing mountains in the most aweful of conditions, combat shooting, marching with backpacks up to 60kg, things a normal person would consider crazy and maybe(!) a once-a-lifetime-adventure.

Imagine being shot several times with you guts literally hanging out of your belly(just remeber the last minor injury or even major injury and how much it hurt...how much you were still able to do...) and still being able to move, shoot and, most importantly, still able to think and take care of the man next to you.

Imagine all that.


The truth is: you can´t. Do not worry, I can neither.
Why?
Well...Such intensities, such energetic situation have to be felt.
One has to dive into such situations and still has to be able to act.


When goverments choose people for such requisitions they have to be very careful. Who will stand even a chance? Who will crack too soon? Who will never quit? Who can keep making decisions when all odds are against him?


Who can deal with a situation in which there are two options: succeed or get killed/torured/...


To me, matter is only a supplement, an expression of the mind. And those warriors are the top of the food chain when we are talking about mental toughness, mental capeability.

I have a tremendous opportunity I can share with you, to get into the mind of a former U.S. Navy SEAL, ask questions and learn and he has agreed to publish his answers on my Blog.

How do these guys train, how they keep a physical and mental edge for missions impossible to imagine for 99% of the population...
What has he learned from years in the teams, trial and error (only without room for error).
Who has he been before he entered the teams, how it changed him and what he took with him?
What are the key elements in his mental game which allowed him to keep going during the most intense selection process known in the military?


All this we will try to find out.

I hope you are looking forward to this as much as I do!

Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry

Me, a mountain and a failed challenge

I want to start this entry with a quote:

„What is your job?” “Success.” – “And what are your qualifications?” “Failures.”
(Scott Sonnon)


It is just awesome having friends you can trust. Really trust.
Because trust leads to exchange of information. Through information you get to know a person. To an extent where you can assess borderline experiences/experiments beforehand, therefore modifiy them and reap the most benefits.


A few weeks ago a very close friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go on a mountain hike with him. We would take on the highest mountain in Austria, the Großglockner, 3798m high.
I was exited but the 3-4 day-long tour proofed too much for my holliday- schedule. "Well...", he said, "There is this one thing I always wanted to do...Get up and down in 24h. Are you in?".
Just a small information on the side...I never climbed a mountain. Ever. There are some bigger hills around Linz and Graz where I have been seen at the top but I never had any experience with a real mountain. You know, with a backpack, gas coocker, ropes, snow shoes, stuff like that...
I´m not into climbing that much either...

Now that you have this information about me you can guess what my answer was: "Hell yeah! I´m in!!".

Now, before you label me as crazy: Mathew and I are two of one kind. We like to get to know ourselfes, exploring where the phony exterior ends and where the real person, the very essence, this beautiful bright, energetic ocean of light is beginning. Through experiences the useless outer shell gradually gets, well, sometimes picked, sometimes torn, sometimes blown away.
Still: being save, being able to come back the next day, taking care of the man/friend next to you is important. Therefore is honesty.


We arrived at the bottom of the mountain at around 1400, after a car drive which lasted several hours and the previous night having been quite short since I was pretty nervous.
We started with a briefing of landmarks, the planned route. While changing into our gear we talked with some of the other climbers. Guys who have done stuff like this for years. When asked we told them we where about to start our trip up, leaving the guys suprised because it was about to get dark. Words like "crazy","hardcore" and "oh boy" were uttered. They silenced when being told 50% of this crazy group had never seen the top of a mountain or much of the bottom either.

We geared up, put our snowshoes on and started going up.
Most of the time we could move quite fast. If I brought one thing to the tour it was my level of fitnes.(nothing fancy as you know but no average-joe anymore either)

We ascended and after the first part which felt like a stroll in a snow- white park due to the terrain I stumbled about my main lesson from this event: I´m getting quite good at completing challenges I set for myself.
When confronted with a situation dictated by external factors, circumstances I still have much work to do.
But one thing I learned(especially when reading lots and lots of special forces soldiers, Seals,...) was quite valuable: one step at a time.


Very soon, not too far up the mountain we took a break, had a cup of tea and started to talk.
We both realized we had a bad feeling about the whole situation, about a further ascend.
Fact was, I wasn´t sure I could make it up there.
Fact was, my friend wasn´t sure he had enough capacities to take care of himself and me if something would go wrong.

At this very moment we realized something very beautiful: we really had left our egos in the cars, maybe even at home and only took ourselves and a backpack of honesty with us up the mountain. So we turned our back to the mountain and started descending.

Do not get me wrong, we failed. We set out to do a challenging task and failed. That´s it.

But this time we did not have the capacities to make it. Our at least not the capacities to deal with the consequences.
We will be back there, with more potential, both physically and mentally, and I´ll take a picture for you when I´m standing on the top of the Austrian mountain world. ;-)


Train hard and enjoy every step!
All the best,
Harry

What it takes

I met some strong guys during my short training career.
Strong meaning both physical as well as mental strength.
One can not develop one without the other.


Guys who pushed themselves through workouts who would blow an average person right off the bench, the field, the track, platform, out of the building, garage, cellar,...
Workouts fot time, reps, sets, both.
I did some things ordinary people consider crazy. Well...


One can push oneself beyond many limitations, discover new aspects during the process, right after it or even when months have passed.


Imagine loading a bar onto your shoulders with your bodyweight and go for 30+ squats...

Imagine loading the bar with 2 times your bodyweight...

Imagine sprinting 400m, all out, only to get to a station where you need to perform 10 Clean & Press with a 40kg stone. Then repeat the process several times.

Imagine running a marathon...


People close to me, friends, family, sometimes ask me "Why are you doing this to yourself? "
"Because through my workouts I develop my mind.", is usually my answer.
One person asked me once "And what happens when you are too old to do such workouts? What will you do then? Then you cannot do such things anymore..."
I thought about tis question and answered "Hoepfully when I´m at this point I wil not depend upon physical exercise as my only tool to develop my mind."
To me(!!) exercise is the best tool. Period.
To others it may be painting, singing, religion, yoga, feeding animals at the zoo, taking care of their parents/loved one/friends/...,working at an office...

To me, mental strength is the most important thing because all the physical things can be taken away from you very quickly and very easy.
When all that is left: Who will you be then.


People like my push themselves in their training, just for the sake of pushing oneself.

Still...There is one thing in common when you are training in such a way:
You can always quit. "Stop...Right know...I do not have it in me today...I´ll come back stronger the next time."
It´s ok, right?

One question haunts my thoughts, training physically, being a martial artist for several years: What if I have no choice?


What if you are in a live-or-die-situation? Two ways: forget the flight, fight or die.
Many people in history, in this very moment go through tremendous terrors due to slavery, torture, prosecution...Some will survive, some will not.


How will one react if put against a wall, left with no more than the two options? Who will fight till the end, who will give in to the illusive easy way out?

Who will be able to face any situation any fight till his end?
Who will never take the easy way out?
Who can be put against the wall and still think clearly?

Thos are questions which keep me up at night, make me do crazy things, write these blog-posts...


Now I have recieved an astonishing opportunity to ask someone who knows.
I´ll keep you posted...


Train hard and enjoy every moment!
All the best,
Harry

Still alive

I have not been posting for some time.
Do not worry... I´m still improving, learning, watching, listening and recording.
Just not putting it out into the world via this medium.


So, a sign to prove I´m alive:




An improvement to my last attempt in October.
Not too much but I´m satisfied nevertheless. 4 reps more each arm with that weight is good for me, especially since I did not use kettlebells much since october.


Train hard and enjoy each moment!
All the best,
Harry

Lessons from skydiving (7) - Take one step at a time

Every one who has aquired his driving license heard this one example from his/her teacher:

While driving at night you might stumble across a deer standing on the street.
Even though it recognizes your headlights, understands they pose a threat to its life it will not move. Blinking lights will not change the fact that it does not move.
It is caught in-between two things:
escaping to the right and escaping to the left.
Unable to decide what to do it remains standing still and will eventually end up on my BBQ.


One of my favourite sayings goes someting like this:

"In any given situation you can do three things: the best thing would be doing the right thing, the second best choice would be doing the wrong thing. The worst thing to do would be nothing."

Still, only one thing a time. If you would try to do the best and the worst you would end up having done nothing at all.


A few months ago I was at the hospital at around 9pm. This time not because I had hurt myself but because I had night services at the department of pediatrics.

We (me and a colleague of mine) where talking with the doctor in charge, discussing the last patient, treatments,... And as always students would recieve some advices for their future in the medical field.
One of the most important advices I recieved that night from a nurse. She said:

"If you are ever in charge of the walk-in clinic, please, finish one patient after another. Even if there are nurses, other doctors pressuring you to do something else, keep calm and finish your work.
Last week we had a doctor who just had finished medical school and was doing his first night shift. He got so carried away with trying to treat 3 patients at once to save time, after one hour there were still the same three patients in there and an uncounted number of patients was already or still waiting..."


I experienced the same thing while falling with 200km/h towards the earth this summer...
As I mentioned in a previous post I had some problems when starting to skydive. I still have but back then lying still while falling was problem enough.
Even though I had my trainer with me, giving me signals, my mind was racing with thoughts like
"Is my head back?" (He is giving me the signal to make my legs longer so I start to extend them more...)
"How do I get my pelvis down more?" (Again the legs- longer signal...)
"What´s the next step in the program" (Still the legs- longer and somehow he is looking pissed..Why, I´m doing all I can...)
"How high up am I?"...

So instead of just fixing one problem at a time I multi-tasked several ones and ended up doing not much the right way.
I´m not sure if it is because men can not multi- task or because it´s just my problem but nothing got better, only worse and I was lucky to pass that level.

The making of an elite warrior, SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, Nightstalkers, you-name-them, they get one principle taught from the beginning: One evolution at a time.(this line in particular was taken from the BUDs- Phase of SEAL- training)


Set priorities and then do one thing, 100%, give it all you got until you are done, then do the next thing.


Or like they say in the Zen- Buddhism: Plunge yourself in the moment, immerse yourself completly. Be the moment.


Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry