Product Description

The Offical United States Navy Seal Workout. Fully Illustrated Navy Seals Fitness Program. 150 Pages. Galaxy Army Navy Item#1421. (Military Media & Gifts. Military Manuals & Books.)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #327316 in Apparel & Accessories
• Brand: Galaxy Army Navy

Customer Reviews

Pick up your swim fins and run with me!
I got this book as a companion piece to Flach's book on Marine Corps fitness. The author Andrew Flach is a fitness expert, joined by a well-known freelance photographer, Peter Field Peck. This book is part of the Five Star Fitness Series that looks at the kinds of workouts of all the branches of the military. My father was in the military, as are many close friends, and I have always admired their fitness achievements - thus it makes sense I might opt for a military-inspired fitness programme.

This book is not simply a workout book. It is an introduction to the Navy SEALs. There is more to SEAL fitness than just doing push-ups and beach/swimming workouts. When you are in BUD/S training, the mind is shaped as much as the body. To help with this history and mindset, the authors consulted (according to the credits) officers from the Pentagon and the Navy Special Warfare Centre in California.

In addition to the workouts listed here, there are pictures and essay snapshots of what potential SEALs actually endure in training. This book also gives some basic history of the SEALs, and what it takes to be one. The very first page asks the reader - can you swim 500 yards in 12.5 minutes, do 42 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, eight pull-ups, and then run 1.5 miles in 11.5 minutes? If so, you've just passed the bare minimum entrance requirements for the SEALs. This is tough stuff!

The heart of the book discusses the various exercises that are used in the SEAL training. Many of these are common to other workout programmes, but some are unique. This includes stretches, upper-body, pull-ups and dips (as a separate item), running and swimming, lower body, and abdominal training. Pull-ups are listed as a separate section for good reason - while the push-up is considered the 'classic' military exercise, in fact the pull-up is more strenuous, and more determinative of one's ability to really pull one's own weight. This includes many variations of the pull-up, including the 'cliffhangers', a special side-oriented pull-up strongly identified with SEAL training.

There is a section on the 'O' course, the obstacle course. It is unlikely that any particular reader will have access to an obstacle course like those at SEAL training, but looking at this, one gets the sense of the toughness of the training, and there are various parts of the course that can be somewhat duplicated in 'the real world'.

The book has a section on nutrition (as every fitness book seems incomplete without at least a gloss of this topic), and is rather more full than other nutrition sections I've seen in earlier books in this series. Do be careful not to follow this guide for caloric intake if not doing the workouts - adding thousands of calories to the intake without spending them on exercise will not help fitness at all

There are listing for prep workout programmes for those getting ready for SEAL traning, and then a five level listing of full-body workouts under the 'official' SEAL section. These are in fact developed by the authors and their consultants - SEAL training, like much of military training, is constantly evolving, and some of it is classified, and some requires equipment civilians and/or individuals are not likely to have. So, allowances must be made for this.

The photographs are utilitarian and useful - black and white, not glossy and colourful; the point here is the exercise, not the subject exercising. This is a tough programme, but one that will yield results, given dedication and discipline.