Most people don't realize the enormous amounts of energy required by SEAL and Force Recon types of operations.
Strength counts almost for nothing.
The ability to put in long hours of activity, cover great distances and function around and in cold water matter most.
For those with SEAL aspirations, a half hour of stretching, pull-ups, push-ups, followed by a daily three-mile run and a two-mile open-water swim will do.
However, most people don't have SEAL aspirations; rather they want to wear their body like a costume, for the same reason we choose a car to drive.
Cars ought to provide nothing more than transportation.
Nonetheless, we lust after cars that will go 180 miles per hour and SUV's that have the appearance of ability to go off road, accross the great deserts, through the jungles and over the mountains.
We do this to impress other people, convince ourselves of our own personal worth, and to maintain our illusions of power, safety and control.
If a person wants to wear a wrestler's body as a costume, he can put in three or four hours a day, six days a week, and possibly sustain this for six years before injuries make it imossible to continue.
In the real world, cardio-vascular fitness and healthy movement mean everything.
Run at a comfortable pace 20 minutes a day, three days a week.
Swim laps for 20 minutes twice a week.
Learn to play handball (not raquetball) and play twice a week (hard to find players anymore, start a club).
Study Tai Chi or purchase some Feldenkrais tapes and use them.
Study judo and Brazilian JuJitsu twice a week.
Hang a speed bag and a heavy bag in the garage (for those who have no garage, I have a method for hanging a heavy bag in the house that will not transmit sound to the rest of the building - contact me).
Learn to skip rope.
Buy a door frame pull-up bar from a wrestler's supply house and do pull-ups three days a week.
Use the floor for push-ups and sit-ups three days a week.
Learn to walk on the hands until one can walk around for a few minutes upside-down, and then do it regularly (Archie Moore, the greatest fighter in history, trained by walking on his hands).
Treat the body with respect, as one would a friend, and do not cause it injury.
The body desires and appreciates wholesome exercise; it loathes pain and punishment.
If we push our body too hard, it will respond to exercise with anxiety, and we will find ourselves not doing our workouts.
Do no more than 80% of maximum during exercise.
With consistency, the maximum, and the 80% of maximum, will increase dramatically.
Schedule out the week on Sunday evening.
Put it on paper.
Make appointments with yourself and keep them, just as one would an appointment with the doctor.
Then go kick some SEAL butt.
Buncha sailors, for Pete's sake.
Real men join the Marines and go Recon.
