IST Improvement
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Thread: IST Improvement

  1. #1

    IST Improvement

    My fellow poolees, I come to you in dire need of advice and answers. I am aware of other threads regarding the IST/PFT, but I come asking questions of a much more personal nature. Majority of the posts I've seen regarding physical improvement have been made by poolees whom already do fairly well on the IST but seek perfection. What about those of us who aren't that in shape, those of us who may actually fear the thought of ending up in PCP?

    Over a year ago I started dropping weight so that I could meet the standards that the Marine Corps has set, and I had to lose nearly 60 pounds to get there. My priorities over that time were to lose the weight, then meet the fitness standards because I was aware of the +6 month wait for just about all new poolees to ship to boot camp. In fact, my recruiter estimated that I probably wouldn't ship until March/April, but, as it turns out, the Corps had different plans for me and will be sending me to MCRD Parris Island on October 11th, 2010.

    Three months ago I could barely hold myself up for the flexed-arm hang, but now can get away with 35 seconds (definitely needs improvement, but it is the least of my worries, at the moment). I can also do nearly 55 quality crunches in the 2 minutes I am allotted, but what I am most concerned about is my running. I have never been an athlete, and running has almost always been my Achilles heel, because, simply put, I am rather slow and do not have a lot of endurance. It takes nearly maximum effort for me to complete a mile in 10 minutes and I refuse to end up on the Island meeting only the minimum standards.

    So, now, I ask you; with only 95 days, is an 8-minute (or sub 8-minute) mile achievable? Is a sub 13:30 1.5 mile achievable? I need to improve my endurance running at that pace, and I can use any and all help. One more question, and this is more of a personal goal, would it be possible, for a female whom cannot complete 1-rep of a pull-up, to attain 2-5 pull-ups within this same time frame?

    I welcome any advice to improve all aspects of my IST, and any other poolees whom seek physical improvement before boot camp should feel free to take advantage of this thread as well. It would be nice to know I'm not the only one out there who is going through this.


    Thank you for everything. You've all been a great inspiration to me.


  2. #2
    To improve your run time, you will just need to run everday. Do alot of hill sprints and just run long distances, keep going until your legs will no longer work. I've lost 50lbs in the DEP just by running everyday. I started out with zero pull ups, 57 crunches in two minutes and over a 14 minute run time. I enlisted March 2nd, and now I can do 130+ sit ups, 8 pull ups and I can run a 9:30 mile and a half.


  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by the802 View Post
    To improve your run time, you will just need to run everday. Do alot of hill sprints and just run long distances, keep going until your legs will no longer work. I've lost 50lbs in the DEP just by running everyday. I started out with zero pull ups, 57 crunches in two minutes and over a 14 minute run time. I enlisted March 2nd, and now I can do 130+ sit ups, 8 pull ups and I can run a 9:30 mile and a half.
    That is motivating! Thank you, 802, and best of luck to you in earning that Title.


  4. #4
    Use your time wisely, I am starting to envy some people with more time left then me... you don't want to be stuck there at 32 days like I am right now and wanting more time to do something (I need one more referral). I would do the "tv workout" as much as possible and make games out of everything you do. Have you ever heard of "pee (censored lol) ups"? (You do pushups every time you go to the bathroom) Well basically you do that for everything.

    Say I swear, that's 20 push ups. Say I die in a video game like call of duty, that's 5 push ups each time. Like someone I can't remember said to me, "If you do this, you'll either get smart or strong".

    Also value each meal you put into your stomach, say you put in something below 100 calories... do like 20 crunches or something... where as something over 100 but less then 300 do like 50. Anything over 300, you owe yourself 75 crunches.

    I lost about 27 pounds doing this, which I didn't actually want to lose that much cause now im little, but ohhh well haha.


  5. #5
    The best way to increase endurance for your run time is sprints. The major cause of muscle fatigue during exercise is a depletion of potassium on a cellular level, which causes a build-up of lactic acid (which in turn causes the wierd rubber-leg feeling. This is also why eating something like a banana that is high in potassium will help with muscle cramps).
    When you rapidly contract muscles (like during sprints) you deplete them of potassium roughly twice as fast. After a while the fast muscle contractions themselves will increase the ability to produce natural potassium more quickly and efficiently.

    I usually alternate between sprints one day and a light jog the next day to avoid injury, as sprinting does put more of a burden on muscles.
    On the sprinting days I do 10-12 30 meter sprints with as short a recovery time as possible.
    This has drastically helped my run time. It's also more convenient because it doesn't take as long as those three mile runs.

    Good luck. The three months you have until shipping is enough as long as you use the time wisely, like Yonkers said.


  6. #6
    Thank you both. I'll keep in mind all the advice you have shared with me, and I will definitely put these things into practice. I will keep you guys up to date as best I can with my progress, and then I guess we'll see where I should go from there.




  7. #7
    You should be able to improve your scores on everything in 3 months with no problem at all. Just try and run every day or every other day. Do like they said above and alternate between sprinting and jogging. I suggest also doing a max set of crunches and push ups every other day. Alternate between crunches and girl push ups (knees on ground, push up) each day. Run in the morning and do you crunches/push ups at night.

    Good luck!


  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by the802 View Post
    To improve your run time, you will just need to run everday. Do alot of hill sprints and just run long distances, keep going until your legs will no longer work. I've lost 50lbs in the DEP just by running everyday. I started out with zero pull ups, 57 crunches in two minutes and over a 14 minute run time. I enlisted March 2nd, and now I can do 130+ sit ups, 8 pull ups and I can run a 9:30 mile and a half.
    Yeah, thats exactly the same boat I was in.

    I always considered running my achilles heel aswell rough hands. I've been in the DEP for like, 7 months or something ridiculously long like that, and I struggled with running the entire time.

    What I did to finally get my run down (and the time still sucks, but it improves by atleast 15 seconds a week, i've gotten it down to 11:58). Is

    1: WATCH what you eat and drink. Running is a battle fought outside when you're running, but it really is won in the kitchen. When I started drinking nothing but water, cutting down on the greasy junk food, my run time dropped by literally a minute in a day. Caffeine and greasy food will dehydrate you. Try to get in the habit of drinking water instead of soda, Dont be stupid like me and just drink water the day before an IST for 7 months lol. It really makes a huge difference

    2. Run everyday. What I do, is Monday / Wednesday / Friday, run an IST mile and a half. I plan on doing this until I get atleast 11:00 to 11:30 on the run. Then increase the run to 2 miles. Then, on Tuesday / Thursday / Saturday, run up hills "until your legs dont work" as the802 put it in a different thread.

    3. DONT QUIT while you are PTing. You have to push yourself to get results. You have about the same amount of time in the DEP remaining as me (I leave a week earlier), and I can tell you first hand, I can GUARANTEE you, that if you drink water, eat fruit instead of junk food, and if you push yourself, you CAN get a good time on the IST. All it requires is you put in the work. Make a game PTing, buy a stop watch and try and beat your time every time you run.

    This time last month, I couldn't even complete a mile and a half without walking a little bit. (My first IST was like, 16 minutes on the mile and a half). and when it comes to running, I know that if I can do it, you can too.


  9. #9
    So.... I just got back from doing an IST with my Recruiting Station, and you won't believe this but I ran the 1.5-mile in 13:35! I guess under all that pressure and trying to keep up with the guys gave me the will to just dig deep. It's funny though, I could only crank out 22 crunches when I can usually do about 45-50 good quality crunches. My flexed-arm hang was worse (by about 4 seconds) than when I did it the first time for my recruiter, but the bar was a bit higher than it had been.

    Anyway, I'm super motivated, and I now know that I can get to where I need to be by the time I ship to Parris Island - trying to keep up with the guys will definitely get me there.



    Thank you all so much for all of your help and support. I only hope that I can give back to the poolees and Marines who have been so helpful.


  10. #10
    My situps drop pretty drastically if I dont give my abs a couple of days to rest prior to taking an IST/PFT.


  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by jburke1983 View Post
    My situps drop pretty drastically if I dont give my abs a couple of days to rest prior to taking an IST/PFT.
    I'm not sure why, but at 22 I was at failure and could not pull my body up anymore. I'll just do some more ab workouts and see where I go from there.


  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Rough Hands View Post
    I'm not sure why, but at 22 I was at failure and could not pull my body up anymore. I'll just do some more ab workouts and see where I go from there.
    Everyone has their bad days. You seem really motivated and that's 90% of the battle right there. Keep working at it


  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Rough Hands View Post
    I'm not sure why, but at 22 I was at failure and could not pull my body up anymore. I'll just do some more ab workouts and see where I go from there.
    Are you doing full sit ups?


  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Mledford View Post
    Are you doing full sit ups?
    I was doing the elbow to thigh crunches, and I may have been focusing too much on quality versus quantity. It just seemed really off today.


  15. #15
    Hmm, well if you ran first and did your flexed arm hang and crunches then that might have effected it. When we run our IST, we normally do Pull ups and crunches first, then run.


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