For the Sport
The military is not a sport. Should we treat it as one?
Welcome to the Acid Gambit Substack! I greatly appreciate all of you who are currently subscribed. You drive me to work harder and produce high quality posts to improve our health, fitness, and mentality towards training. If you haven’t subscribed, join 1,524 smart, curious athletes on our journey to 10k subscribers:
Hello everybody and happy Tuesday! Today we are in week 3 of Hybrid Cohort 1. The first 2 weeks were fantastic and many pumps have already been had with more to come.
Today’s post is dedicated to the origins of Acid Gambit. If you haven’t already read it, check out What is AG. Some of you have mentioned that I’ve strayed from what this account started as (not in a bad way) - a humble military fitness account. But I think it’s more than that, and natural evolutions of how I train and what I enjoy writing about are normal and to be expected. Obviously I could continue to post content purely about military focused training - but as I get farther from the military and military-specific content (I’m still active for the foreseeable future) I recognize the carryover between specific military fitness focused content and broad spectrum fitness content focused on peaking as an athlete. At the end of the day, if you’re a freak athlete and tie in just a small amount of specificity towards your specific military needs you will be far and above your peers.
The fundamentals are all that matters. If you just did push ups, sit ups, and 2 mile runs where would you be physically? Maybe you would perform well on the old Army PT test, but incredibly behind when it comes to overall fitness - for both the military and life. That’s why a lot of what I post about now is not necessarily tailored to the military, but has massive application to the military, as well as other careers with similar optempos like LEOs, contractors, etc.
As a result, we’re going to touch on an interesting topic someone brought up in my DMs recently. We know that too much specificity - basically only doing push ups, sit-ups, and 2 milers, will be detrimental to well-rounded fitness. But also only focusing on the fundamentals will leave you slightly lacking for job specific fitness. We need a blend. And that’s where the ‘sport’ aspect comes into play.
As members of the military, our days as ‘athletes’ are long gone. Almost by definition we are generalists. Have a no-notice ACFT this week? No problem. Going to run the Army 10-miler in the middle of a lift cycle? No problem. Going into JRTC even though you’re getting shredded for the summer? No problem. Little notice is not an excuse for poor performance. We generally know when things are going to happen. And even when we don’t, we know how and what we’re going to be tested on. So regardless of what you do in the military, there are actually a grand total of ZERO excuses for not performing in the top 10th percentile anywhere you go.
So what is an athlete? A quick search returns “a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.” A sport is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”
Very clearly we now see that our sports days are behind us. The military is not a sport. It is not for the enjoyment of others (depending on how you view the elderly on Capitol Hill). But it does require both physical exertion and skill to be successful. Although it is not a sport, we should treat it as such because to be successful requires a blend of general and specific training in our domains. Rather than view ourselves as athletes, we are professionals. Both seem to be cliches, profession being a big buzz word the Army likes to throw around. But it’s true. And if you take your personal and unit success seriously you will treat it as such. And part of that profession is a level of physical proficiency that allows you to perform in the top 10th percentile whether you have notice or not for any event coming up.
All of that to say - what should our training look like? The 10 Principles is a good start and perhaps one of my favorite collections I’ve ever read. Training for the sport that’s not really a sport is actually incredibly simple and takes years to develop the base that will provide success everywhere you go (simple not easy). These are fundamentals I talk about all of the time. Building a strength and aerobic base combined with a bit of specificity all over a long period of time. That ‘long period of time’ depends on what you’re starting with. Some come into the military with a massive base and only need to blend in some ACFT/selection specific prep work like rucking, rope climbs, etc.
These additions will be easy for you because you’re already an athlete. Your work capacity allows you to train for weeks on end, recovering quickly for the next day to train again.
But, if you are not coming from a solid base, this is where we return to the fundamentals. Not being able to max the hand release push ups on the ACFT indicates a glaring weakness in your training - and it is NOT for lack of push ups. Similarly, the power throw is another example where poor performance is not due to a lack of specificity. Although specificity will get you over the edge, the real problem is in your base. With push ups, it’s a general weakness of the chest and shoulders, with a lacking in muscular endurance of the same muscle groups. With the ball throw, your problem is not that you can’t throw a ball (maybe it is) but your lack of explosiveness. You probably never had to power clean in your life and never developed a smooth ability to exert force with a triple extension (simultaneous extension of the hips, knees, and ankles). All of this leads us back to your base and actually relates to my previous article that compares Medicine 2.0 to Medicine 3.0. 3.0 differs by being preventative, in advance to the glaring problems that lead to the 3 biggest causes of death in the U.S. 3.0 attacks problems from the base whereas Medicine 2.0 simply treats the symptoms. You can try treating the symptoms of a terrible power throw by throwing more balls. OR. You can start from the base - where you are truly lacking.
The bottom line: don’t suck and be an athlete. These simple words are what have driven me for largely the last 10 years. I can’t explain why I’m competitive and hate to lose (even yesterday outside my gym there was a plank competition - my only question was how long to beat everyone - 5 minutes was all it took). ALL THE TIME I receive questions about how to stick with something and this is my LEAST favorite question. The person is essentially asking for motivation, which even I lack. Today seems to be a bingo card of cliches but you don’t need motivation, you need discipline and consistency. Being able to be consistent comes from keeping the training in the beginning light enough that you can recover and do it again the next day. This essentially removes all the limiting factors to continue training. Instead of dreading the next day you know the next workout will be light and easy. Over time the difficulty and strain will improve, but your resolve and performance will also improve. The discipline part is just your ability to prioritize your profession over whatever else is on your mind. Perhaps you feel tired, drained from working. Guess what buttercup? So does everyone else (not me because I am AN ATHLETE). Next excuse. You can probably waste more mental energy on coming up with one or you can ignore the silly floating thoughts, shut that part of your brain off and walk in the gym. At this point I don’t even think about reasons not to do something. The only thought present is the existential dread of not doing the thing for the day.
I know no matter what I will feel far worse for not doing the work needed than from sucking it up and doing it. This isn’t intended to motivate you or change your mind. For some people they are too far gone (but not the AG community of course). No amount of information will change that because we already know exactly what we need to do or can very easily access the information to do the thing. The real problem is the procrastination by learning more things that won’t actually get you to be consistent in the first place. Anyway. Be a professional, don’t suck, and be an athlete. Start building your base if you haven’t already, blend in a bit of specificity and there is nothing that can stop you on a long enough time horizon.
Cheers ✌️
DISCLAIMER
This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Please consult a medical professional before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol.