Poseidon — JB's Garage Gym

POSEIDON

Mission: The program is designed to prepare an individual for the follow on training after MAC as well as MAC itself. Focusing on maximizing increases in strength, power, work capacity and overall ability to move under or deal with load, this creates a more versatile military athlete. There will be 1 swim a week at least, as both of these schools require a copious amount of time in the water. Along with the focus swimming, there will be a strong emphasis on both work capacity and local muscular endurance in the lower body and (hamstrings, quads, hips) upper body (shoulder joint associated muscles).

Stew Smith defines work capacity as

The ability to keep moving (and lifting / carrying objects) at a steady pace for a long period of time. If you are discussing work capacity in the fitness arena, you may define it as the ability to recover quickly and use multiple muscle groups requiring your cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and central nervous system to work together efficiently for a particular time. In physics, Work is defined as Force times Distance (W = F x d) and is measured in Newton-Meters (Nm).”

Work capacity is the main focus of this program. Throughout Neptune we built you an engine, and the overarching goal of POSEIDON is to learn how to carry that engine. For accessory work, there will be a mix of stability, strongman, metcon and local muscular endurance workouts. Local muscular endurance have the highest correlation to success in rucking and running, especially in unforgiving terrains such as sand, mountains and woodland.

“Vital for load bearing tasks”

As for our application, we are attempting to make you stronger and more efficient. On a biological scale, that means making your muscles, bones ligaments adapt to larger loads and more stress. Secondarily, we want to improve the efficiency in the use of oxygen in your body. If we can build more cardiovascular endurance then you can go farther, if we build more cardiovascular power then you can go harder, if we build more muscle you have more resources to use, if we build more strength and power then you can go faster with a heavier load; if we combine these, then you become the most well rounded athletic version of yourself.

On top of this, we are going to mix energy systems. The reality is that in the military, fire or emergency medical world, you will have to rely on endurance, power, strength, and work capacity to accomplish a wide variety of tasks. For example energy systems used to carry an injured individual in all three realms is extremely similar, but variation can exist in the specific tasks associated before and after such. For an EMS worker, they may have to deal with lowering heart rate and controlling breathing after rushing with a kit to a scene, then deal with lowering heart rate and focusing again after securing a patient. For the fire community, you may have to drag heavy hoses, crack seized fire hydrants or bust down doors, all while carrying an oxygen system and wearing heavy gear, before even getting to a patient. On the military side, there is a high probability that you will have already moved a long distance, had to do some sort of sprint or move to cover and then had to move gear. Though the task of moving an individual may be the same, the tasks associated with are infinitely variable and can use any energy system. By training power, strength, endurance, hypertrophy, metabolic conditioning and teaching things like heart rate control through breathing work, the ability of the athlete to accomplish real world tasks increases.

The gym is not the measurement. If you are able to hit or exceed all prescribed standards, but you’re failing to get your certifications done in EMS, you’re struggling to act on the scene in firefighting or you can’t function in the field in the military, you’re having issues. The gym is a syndicate to promote success in your job, not an answer on how to be successful in it. If you want to be in the Army, you better get time under a ruck and learn how to sleep on the ground. If you want to do EMS, you’ve got to figure out how to be calm and effective under stress so you can save lives. If you’re going to be a firefighter, you’ve got to climb stairs and increase your breathing efficiency. This correlation to realities of your work is implicit, but sometimes easily forgot. I think that we are all liable to some degree to the personal monologue of “I know it isn’t relevant to my training goals, but I really want to hit that (Deadlift, Time, Squat, Snatch, etc.)”, which is fine. If you aren’t chasing some rabbits now and then, you’re going to get bored. By the same degree, if you want to go to BUDs/CDQC in the next year and you’re picking olympic lifting over time in the pool where you struggle, there’s an issue. Be the proprietor of your own success and find a balance in the dichotomy of want vs. need.

JBGym Absolute Power-To-Weight Ratio Standards