Stew Smith Fitness News

In the tactical professions, fitness can be the difference between life and death and we will be older for a longer period of time than we were younger. Learning how to progress into those decades smartly with added longevity training - typically in the form of active recovery days and mobility days is going to increase your abilities and decrease your pain. The following series is a new programming focused on an often neglected age group of active duty and retired veterans of the tactical professions who need to rebuild and take their fitness to the next level in order...

Army Ranger / Special Forces Programming The training pipeline to become a member of the Airborne Infantry Units, 75 Regiment as an Army Ranger, or Army Special Forces are challenges that require many months or even years of preparation prior to and while serving in the Army. You may ask, “What do you mean by pipeline?” A training pipeline is a set course you will take to go from Recruit to Soldier to Ranger or any other MOS in the Army.  Here is what you need to do and understand if you want to join the Army and become a...

Never Give Up!  I did not know there was a National Never Give Up Day! Sounds like a good a day as any to explain the term - NEVER GIVE UP.  When you use the term “never give up” to someone who is not native to the English language, they ask interesting questions to please explain what is meant by “never giving up.” You quickly realize “give” and “up” together make little sense so you quickly resort to a simpler expression such as “never surrender” or the more popular “never quit”. But this is not just a new term from...

Hard workouts are obviously relative to the person as someone’s warmup may actually be another person’s full workout.  So, landmark workouts for people’s birthdays (like my 50th this year), holiday challenges (Murph), Hero Workouts, or racing events should be created for the fitness levels of those doing it.  If you happen to join a group for the first time on a day that there is a landmark workout, you may want pull back and go at your own level of fitness if you are not used to the volume in the routine. Whether it is repetitions, weight, mileage, or just...

When you look at many of the reasons people share about not training regularly, you will see that most typically “do not have enough time in their day” especially when working long hours, commuting an additional hour or more, and other family commitments in the evening. It is true, none of us have time to train, but as with eating, sleeping, brushing teeth, and other daily activities, we have to make time.  Here are some ways to fit fitness into your day as well as better ways to get specifics versus too general in your fitness training: 1 – Make...