Are you a PT failure? Read this.

Hello poolees. I'm making this thread to share my story of when I was in your shoes, since i've told it about 14148714 times.

My first IST I did 0 pull ups, 40 crunches, and I had an 18 minute mile and a half run.

What I did to overcome that? The most IMPORTANT thing is what you eat. Don't go stuff your face with a mcgriddle on your way to your pull function. Eat some rice, grilled chicken, fruit, pasta, salad. ALL of the time. You can't eat **** food all month then the day before your IST eat that and think you'll be fine.

Also, throw away the sodas. That was my #1 killer. I drank soda like a fiend. I replaced it with water, and voila, I left for boot camp running an 11 minute run.


You get as much as you put in. If you go for a run everyday, as far as you can go, and just add a little bit to it every day (For example, you run to the intersection of A street, then the next day you run past that to the gas station on the other side of the road)


As for pull ups, buy a pull up bar that you can put on your door to your room. What I did was EVERY time i left my room, i'd do a max set. You'll end up doing like, 100 pull ups in 1 day and you wont even realize you did that many.


Hope this helps you guys, have any questions feel free to message me or post here

Good post, Wilsontc11!
I was in the same boat, I enlisted on 1 pull up and couldn't pass the run to save my life. Like you said soda was a big thing. I stopped drinking it because I would rather have gone through the withdrawals in the comfort of my own home instead of at boot camp. I ended up passing the run and going to boot camp and did just fine. I also hung a pull up bar on my door and did them every time I went in and out... In fact I still do it! So any poolees having this issue, this is a very good thread to follow.

Lay off the wheat products and grains ,or eat then just one day a week They are directly related to belly fat. Also don't eat anything with high fructrose corn syrup.
They stop the hormone Leptin which tells the brain you're full causing you to eat more. Oh! and be sure to train hard.

This thread recalls a slop chute conversation I had with a young PFC and buddy in early 1963. His argument was that the next war the Marine Corps fought would be pushbutton, so there wouldn't be any need for physical training standards. He also went on to rant about PT tests being characteristic of the Marine Corps leadership's WWII mentality. It was one of those unforgettable conversations because two years later, his outfit was committed to combat action in southeast Asia where no amount of of PT could do any more than provide an approximation of what was needed in combat. The tendency of current DoD planners is to trivialize the levels of physical training and formulate "one size fits all" standards which ignore the reality of the extreme demands placed upon combat Marines, not just for hours, but frequently for days at a time.