Introduction, (civilian)

42L5V · Post by **42L5V** » July 21st, 2007, 8:11 pm

Welcome, David. I hope this site is a valuable resource for you and your son.

RTO · Post by **RTO** » July 21st, 2007, 8:44 pm

Welcome to the site. No avatar? No problem. Drop and give me 20

Thanks for your interest in your sons career and helping him get where he wants to be. It seems you may have a Warrior on your hands!

WoW. Tough break. It seems like he is taking the long/hard route to Ranger Bn. S'ok.....builds character! :D

Earthpig · Post by **Earthpig** » July 22nd, 2007, 7:23 am

Welcome, and good luck to your son.

RLTW
EP

Ranger Bill · Post by **Ranger Bill** » July 22nd, 2007, 1:21 pm

Welcome and congratulations for your son's enlistment. Condolences on his injury and I hope he fully recovers quickly.

bmf175 · Post by **bmf175** » July 23rd, 2007, 6:18 pm

Back pack with 25 pounds? You must not like him very much

If you want to tread water have him enetr the pool (with no weight) and have him tread water with his hands out of the water while keeping the water level below his ears. This is a graded (or should I say pass/fail event) in SCUBA school.

In between bouts of treading water have him swim up and down the pool with a wet brick in one hand that weighs about 10 pounds. Practice the breast stroke or side stroke with this weight in one arm (yes it is ok to swtich the weight from one arm to the other).

But to answer your question treading water doesnt do much for your cardio. If you have a gym he frequents then he can do the arm cycle as this has shown improvements in VO2.

bmf175 · Post by **bmf175** » July 23rd, 2007, 6:21 pm

Correction if you do anything with resistance for a long period of time you will improve your cardio but keep in mind there is such a thing as relative VO2. Which means runners will have higher VO2 while running but not as great a VO2 on a bicycle, so it is dependent on the exercise being performed.

Rangerguru · Post by **Rangerguru** » July 23rd, 2007, 6:41 pm

Welcome to the site Cardog, as far as pool pt goes, go out and pick him up some level III body armor with a couple of extra plates and have him swim laps with that on.

(ok, don't do that, unless he really thinks he can swim with about 50 extra pounds on)

bmf175 · Post by **bmf175** » July 24th, 2007, 6:42 am

If I remember correctly it was 5 minutes. When I say wet brick I am refering to a dumby weight that you can find at some scuba diving stores. It looks exactly like a brick but it has a black rubber coating around it. The purpose of the brick is to simulate the weight of a rifle.

You could get a dive belt with rubber coated weights in 3 pound increments and he can put it on while treading water. but while swimming he will still need to have the weight in his hand.

In RIP he will have to swim with a rubber weapon and full dress BDUs (ACUs nowdays) boots and LCE (if I remember correctly).

Theres going to be little you can do to prevent the loss of physical gains while in the healing process. In about 2-3 weeks of being stationary a lot of those benefits from endurance training are lost. But the good news is that once he starts back up he will not have to train as long as he did previously to get back to the level he was at.

I would say the priority is to allow his foot to heal properly, because if this becomes a chronic issue it could keep him from getting into Regiment. The last week before he has to get back to Basic Training put him on a cycle ergometer (stationary bike) and have him go to town on that.

If you have any other qustions regarding PT feel free to start a thread in the "about army physical training" forum.

bmf175 · Post by **bmf175** » July 24th, 2007, 7:01 am

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f66/b ... ggraph.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f66/b ... ggraph.jpg
http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f66/b ... ggraph.jpg

Here is a little graph I rememebered having that shows the time of training/detraining. Then the time of detraining, notice that it only takes one week to lose the endurance training benefits but it takes four weeks to get back to that level as oppossed to taking the orginal 6 weeks.

bmf175 · Post by **bmf175** » July 24th, 2007, 7:05 am

Edit originally 5 weeks.

But if you notice you are not 100% back into shape for about 4 weeks but after two weeks of retraining you are already in the same ballpark. So the most important thing to take from this is good recovery is key because the gains will take place faster than it originally did.

Rico · Post by **Rico** » July 31st, 2007, 6:02 pm

This is excellent stuff bmf, excellent.