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Physical Preparation
What’s everyone doing to prepare physically to be a military pilot? Word on the street is that pulling 9 Gs isn’t exactly a walk in the park!
My main areas of focus are building muscle size/strength to be able to withstand the forces we’ll need to endure and building the cardiovascular strength and endurance to sustain it for entire sorties.
I really hate running, so I’ve been focusing on rowing lately and have really enjoyed that. Once my schedule relaxes a bit in a few weeks, I’m going to get back into lifting weights again as well.
What are you guys doing to get in shape to be effective warfighters?
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9 Replies
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I was actually fortunate enough to get some aerobatic time and some experience with Gs. I found myself using my core more than most other muscles, and my face oddly enough. If you don’t like running like you said then rowing is good, swimming is even better. Building endurance is best but I’ve found myself trying to tackle every angle I can with what’s available.
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That’s awesome, I can’t wait to get to do some aerobatic flying! That makes a lot of sense about your core, I should make sure to hit that hard as well.
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It takes practice like everything does. Fitness is important but it’s hard to explain it; it’s a very different kind of pressure than anything that’s even close to comparable.
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I personally don’t mind running, however the area I live in right now is a bit high in crime and there is nowhere I feel comfortable running, however, I like to drive outside the city limits and ruck in the woods when my wife just hikes normally along with me, you can burn 3000 calories in a workout this way, it’s moderate cardio, and it’s good strength training for everything but your arms, and it’s a nice break from civilization. If you’re carrying over 50lbs I can assure you your heart rate will stay very high and it is good for your core.
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I’m curious as someone who has high metabolism and struggles to gain and maintain weight and muscle. How do I go about this and most importantly what’s a good diet I should keep and what should it consist of?
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Quite simply, you need to eat more calories then you burn. To put on muscle, you should eat roughly 1g of protien per pound of body weight. I’d even aim for 1-1.5g. Foods that are high in protien are chicken, shrimp, eggs, turkey, steak, and a few others. You can track your calories with the MyFitnessPal app.
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I stay active in the weight room, but wasn’t super on top of the running so my way of getting into that was to sign up for a half marathon. I knew if I was signed up, I would be forced to train and start running… Within a couple weeks running 3 miles from the worst thing in the world to just kind of a warm up. Having that go to work for is definitely helpful to me as opposed to just an opening at a goal of “getting better.”
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I think the biggest thing is finding something that you can maintain through UPT (if you haven’t gone yet). I’m currently at pilot training, and I have maybe 3 hours total (Monday-Friday) so I have to make my fitness time count.
Flying the T-6 isn’t too intensive, as we only pull around 4 G’s. However, it’s important to have strong legs and a good cardio base.
In order to hit all aspects of fitness, I’ve been doing HIIT style kettlebell training. This allows me to get in and out of the gym within an hour, including warmup and cool down. It’s not too intense, doesn’t take energy away from my studies, and it also provides a nice stress release from the struggle of training.
If running is your thing, then stick with running. If lifting weights is your thing, then do that. Just pick some sort of physical conditioning to keep you in shape and provide a mental release from training.
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I spoke with a Raptor instructor the other night and he said the best way he could describe pulling G’s is doing a leg press with the heaviest weight you can while having your friend stand on your chest.
He said it is moreso lower body strength.
CrossFit is one of the best regimes to succeed in this regard.
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