Physical Training in a Tier 1 Unit

Physical fitness in the past handful of years has been evolving towards the way of “functional fitness,” such as CrossFit and similar offshoots. The functional fitness evolution has spread like wildfire throughout the military , especially CrossFit, and particularly in special operations units. Advertisement

When I first got to the Rangers almost ten years ago, the physical training regime was running, running, get smoked (push-ups), running, running, and ruck marching thrown in there once in a while. A couple of years later, we adapted the RAW (Ranger Athlete Warrior) Program which incorporated some elements of functional fitness but still very different from the regimes we see today. We still spent every given minute running our asses off (as per unofficial Ranger SOP since ’7