Becoming the Optimal Special Warfare Candidate
EPISODE 15
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ARE YOU WONDERING WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING BEFORE YOU JOIN AF SPECIAL WARFARE? YOU’VE COME TO THE RIGHT PODCAST.
Welcome back to the Team Room, here with the OnesReady squad. On this episode the team talks about what you shoud, and should not be doing while prepping for the pipeline.
INTRO
You're listening to the Ones Ready podcast, a team of Air Force Special Operators forged in combat with over 70 years of combined operational experience as well as a decade of selection instructor experience. If you're tired of settling and you want to do something you truly believe in, you're in the right place. Now here's your host, PJ team leader, former INDOC instructor, supervisor, entrepreneur and physician assistant student, Brian Silva.
HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE PIPELINE
Brian (00:00:28):
What's happening everybody? Brian Silva here for the Ones Ready podcast. Thanks again for joining us today. We have an awesome episode ready for you guys. I would like to thank Jared, Aaron, and Trent for coming in and we welcome you guys all to the team room, so we're going to talk about something that we get tons and tons of questions on every single day and we literally just got one right before we, we're about to shoot this episode, so we're going to talk about what you should be doing before you join in order to make yourself prepared for selection. We're going to be talking about college. What kind of exercises you're going to be doing, what you should do with your family if you have family or planning for a family, and then what you should do as far as having a job. Because most of you guys out there in the workforce and you have all these things going on circulate into your head and you don't know how to juggle them. So we're going to talk about that. So let's go on and get into this thing. Like I said, we're going to talk about this stuff because not only did we get a lot of questions, but these are the questions that kind of ran through our mind as we were preparing for selection. So I know we all had multiple jobs. We were trying to balance like how do we go to the gym if you're, you know, working at whatever job and then you have to go to the gym at night or you have to, the pool's closed or whatever. How do we do that? And then what do you tell your family? How did you, how is your family going to react? Because you know, telling your family that you want to go jump out of planes for a living. Most of you guys, your moms are not going to be like, Oh, that sounds awesome. Go ahead, enjoy it.
Aaron (00:01:49):
Camping trips…
Brian (00:02:07):
Tamales and engaged parenting
GET INTO SOME LOW-LEVEL TROUBLE
Aaron (00:03:09):
So I, the only other social media I have, so I obviously have the Instagram account and I engage here on the podcast, but the only other social media that I engage in is I'm an administrator on a SOF website. You would not believe how many times I have answered this question.
English lesson.
Go live your life. Get good grades. Have fun. Basically the Mom speech from the Sandlot.
Brian (00:05:50):
Wasn’t thinking about the military during high school. Asks Peaches about sports.
HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS
Peaches (00:06:27):
Get your metabolic conditioning up, but try to avoid serious injuries.
Football players tend to show up with pre-existing injuries.
Aaron (00:07:54):
Wrestling and jiu jitsu for mindset and discipline.
Brian (00:08:34):
Do something competitive. Wrestlers and surfers.
Running is important.
Trent (00:09:56):
Soccer and rock climbing for aerobic conditioning and body awareness.
Aaron (00:10:41):
Sometimes team guys are not so good at sports involving balls.
Brian (00:11:12):
So you guys have any other examples of kind of job-related because I get, you know, we get questions all the time. Like Trent was saying, the rock climbing thing. Like should I be really good at rock climbing right now? Should I go to a course where I'm, you know, mountaineering before I show up or the whatever kind of thing. So how do you guys feel about that?
Aaron Peaches and Trent all talk about how it’s important to do something you enjoy and experience life.
COLLEGE FIRST OR NAH
Brian (00:12:56):
So I think we hit it hard on that. Let's go to the college aspect of things. A big question that everyone always asked, you know, should I do the college first and then go in or should I do it while I'm in there? That kind of thing. So peach, I'm going to ask you directly, I know you have college and you're very intelligent. You're very smart, smarter, yeah. Very smart. How have you found college helpful when your duties as a CCT?
Peaches (00:13:39):
Degree hasn’t directly led to increased job performance.
Learn your way around Microsoft Word and Excel. Being able to write effectively is important.
Aaron (00:15:34):
TED talks. Webinars. All good things.
PARAMEDIC TRAINING OR NAH
Brian (00:15:49):
All right Aaron. So what do you think about a person? Because a lot of guys that are coming in and they always ask, should I go to paramedic school right now or should I wait until I get into the pipeline? So what would you say to those guys specifically?
Aaron (00:16:04):
Short answer, no.
Brian (00:18:48):
Get selected first. Don’t unnecessarily extend your pipeline.
RECOMMENDED TRAINING OR NAH
Trent (00:20:11):
Be careful about creating training habits that may inhibit your ability to complete tasks the way they are completed in SW training.
Aaron (00:21:41):
Part of the evaluation of a student is seeing how they react to new information. No need to lean forward.
Brian (00:22:45):
Be present in the moment instead of trying to forecast so much.
Indigenous dance theory discussion…
Brian (00:24:10):
Yeah. And you're not wrong. I do that in my off time. So anyway, I got out of college because I felt like it wasn't anything that I could really get into and I wasn't enjoying the time that I was doing. I was having over there, I felt like I wasn't going to progress. So for you guys out there where you guys in college or would you recommend guys finishing out college or how do you, how do you feel or a highly recommend they navigate that?
Peaches (00:24:36):
Don’t pay for a degree you don’t have a plan for.
Brian (00:25:16):
All right. So next question is for those guys that are, you know, in, in college or whatever they're paying, they're working a job. When do you recommend guys quit their job before they join?
Aaron (00:25:30):
Depends on your personal circumstances. Be smart.
Peaches (00:26:10):
They haven't had the opportunity to either, it's not like they're making a crazy amount of money either.
BALANCE
Brian (00:26:15):
Having a job and getting real world experience is important.
We don’t know your personal circumstances. Do what makes sense.
Brian (00:29:11):
So let's get into some more exercising topics and all these things that guys definitely have on their mind. So what kind of exercise routine, Aaron, were you doing kind of prior to joining and where do you recommend guys are at fitness level wise?
BEFORE AARON JOINED
Aaron (00:29:30):
Train for specificity.
I would swim three days a week. I would do underwaters and do you know, very bland drills. I wasn't killing myself doing body breathing every day. I wasn't killing myself on long fins and stuff.
I went into INDOC a little bit heavy so I had a little bit of extra body fat cause I knew that I was going to lose it.
I wasn't at grad standards because I knew because I trusted the process and I knew that they were going to get me there.
I didn't want to be on that line of overtraining.
I'd be focusing on what am I going to be evaluated on. And in assessment selection, it's stress tolerance under pressure, pull-ups, pushups, sit ups, swimming, running, rucking.
Brian (00:32:21):
Right now, there is not an exit standard or tests that you're going to be physically put through, like as far as charting these exact numbers.
But as far as the grad standards are concerned, I think that is a level that you can aim for.
The PAST test is okay right now. Like they lowered the numbers and I think that you should aim above that past test definitely.
So I'd say use the grad standards as kind of like, you know, you're what you're aiming for, you know, and if you hit a little bit below that and that's fine, like at least you're getting close and you have something to strive for before you get in.
Aaron (00:34:27):
Yeah, we've talked about it before, but the more physically fit you are, the easier it's going to be for you in those high stress scenarios where everybody else is like dying. If you're not in the fight that hard, you're going to be able to lead better. You're going to be able to answer questions better. You're going to be able to look like you're more calm in the moment. Those are all things that we look for at A&S. So your physical fitness directly correlates to your assessment and selection. It's just not tied to a number anymore. So the more physically fit you are, the easier you're going to be able to deal with stress.
Brian (00:34:56):
Personality based A&S.
Peaches (00:35:12):
A race car can only run for so long in the red and if you're at that peak performance, you're essentially in the red and you can't spend the pre-pipeline and into the pipeline in the "red" the entire time cause you're just going to burn out and you're going to injure yourself.
Aaron (00:35:58):
Factor SW Prep into the pipeline process.
Brian (00:36:17):
Spend some time with the people you care about before you join. Don’t show up smoked.
Crossfit…?
CROSSFIT
Peaches (00:37:32):
It’s a tool.
You have to supplement CrossFit and you're doing it. Keep doing it. That's great. But you're going to need to focus on no kidding pushups, strict pull-ups, actual sit-ups. You're going to have to ruck.
Aaron (00:38:57):
Make sure you spend time focusing on the exercises you know you’ll be evaluated on.
RUCKING
Brian (00:39:58):
Carefully practice rucking without injuring yourself. Need to build up to carrying weight.
Trent (00:41:28):
Learn how to balance your body to avoid injuries. Posterior chain work.
SWIMMING
Brian (00:43:15):
Quick tip about grip strength.
Aaron is the best swimmer ever. Give us advice.
Aaron (00:44:18):
The number one thing that you have to do, you have to be in the pool. You have to get in the water and swim.
Go to go to YouTube and Google, improve my swimming or go to total immersion.com and look at their swimming programs and they will give you video coaching.
You don't need to be a competitive swimmer, but you should at least be efficient.
There's no substitute for just getting in there and knocking out meters.
Brian (00:46:34):
Whenever people start, some of my programs, they're like, I can't do more than 25 meters at a time. And it's, I struggle even at that because I grabbed the wall every time. And you know, it's always the same thing. Like I understand that it sucks right now. It's like learning how to walk, ride a bike or do anything else. So, you know, I tell guys the biggest thing that you can do, even if we're not trying to make you guys do 50 meter underwater before you show up, that's ridiculous. You don't have to do that. And it's dangerous to be able to do that. Cause I've seen lots of people pass out doing it even after they've finished in doc or selection. So you have to really be careful with doing any of that kind of stuff. And I don't think it's necessary at all to do 50 meters before, but what I do think is necessary. Do the stroke, the keyhole stroke, that is something that you can really practice. Just like practicing your freestyle, being efficient with your stroke, getting your number down for strokes across the 25 meters, that is going to be huge. So do you guys have anything?
Peaches (00:48:18):
Get a safety buddy or lifeguard to monitor underwater work.
Aaron (00:49:08):
I would start at the wall and I maybe do like my first pull or my first two pulls tops and after that it was just nothing like I prioritized cardio. So, I prioritize being, having a high cardio metabolic rate, like being able to operate very, very high on a cardio threshold.
Peaches (00:50:19):
Yeah, there's going to be a few couple of them. But there's other ways, like if you're, and I think this is not just for the, this could go into training partners. I know Brian on how to beapj.com you have the Cone Connect, but then there's also you know, you can, if you are already linked up with a recruiter and you, if you're linked up with a recruiter, you need to get linked up with a special operations recruiter and then they can bring you into a development session, which will help train as well.
Brian (00:51:10):
If they have that comradery straight out the gate, whenever you're in basic and going through prep and everything, you guys know each other and you've hung out with each other's families or whatever. It's just that extra buy in that everyone has and they get to have that full on teamwork from start to finish. Hopefully they all get to put on their berets together and you know, get that, that whole feeling of full circle like, you know, we started doing this, this workouts together and you know, doing that whole thing.
Peaches (00:52:40):
Well also somebody that you're training with might actually have a really good technique that you didn't even consider.
Aaron (00:53:04):
Yeah, right. Because just like Brian was saying, like you started from the bottom, but now you're here and if you have a team like you, you can say that the, you started from the bottom, but now the whole team is here.
LETTING THE FAM KNOW
Brian (00:53:40):
That is a huge thing, use people around you and then a train safe and underwater. Let's go into some of the family aspect for those guys that are planning, having a family or you know, breaking the news to your family kind of thing. It's, it's a little bit difficult, different and difficult to tell them that you're going to be doing this kind of stuff out there, jumping out of planes, being shot at or whatever, calling in bombs. That's something that your mom probably doesn't want to picture you doing for the most part. So, Trent, I'm going to go to you first. You know, what would you say to people that, are you going to talk to their parents about this and how would you approach it?
Trent (00:54:15):
Claim ignorance.
Aaron (00:54:55):
Nick Cage reference.
Trent (00:55:09):
Adopted limited communication strategy.
Aaron (00:56:32):
Life advice…
Peaches (00:57:23):
Peaches went too limited with comms one time. Great story.
Spoke to his parents almost everyday when he first joined.
It’s person dependent.
Brian (00:58:49):
Open comms with family.
Let them know how you’re doing.
Keep things solid on the home front.
Brian (01:00:18):
So any last shots on anything that you would do to kind of maintain the family bonds? Make sure that everything's good back at home? I think the biggest thing is communication and making sure that they know you care for the most part. And then if you're breaking it to your family, you know, you have to have that open conversation too. Cause I know there, I get a lot of messages that are like, Hey, how do I break into my family whenever I tell them that I'm going to join and do this kind of stuff? And the honest answer that I can give is you have to just tell them that this is something that's important to you and that you're, you want to do it and you're going to do it, but you want them to support you, you know, and whatever you're going to do.
Peaches (01:00:59):
And there's a good chance they already know that, Hey, this is what you want to do. If you, if you were like probably us. That's all you talked about. It was pretty apparent. And that transparency and honesty I think is, is key.
Aaron (01:01:15):
I'll be the unpopular one. Yeah. This is an unpopular opinion, I'm sure. But this has to be a team decision. Like if you go to your spouse your significant other or your kids, whatever you have, and you talk through it and it's like, Hey, we're a w we're not going to be able to do this thing, man. That might be the answer. Like you really have to talk about it because then you're making a choice. Like you have to, in the end, you have to do what's right for your family. Your family is always going to be there. You can spend 30 years in this job, guess what? You're going to get out and your family is still going to be your family.
Trent (01:01:45):
Or they won't be depending on how you deal with it.
Brian (01:01:48):
What I was talking about was with your parents. That's a little bit different. You're going to have to guide your, you know, based on whatever you both decide how you want her to be there with you whenever you're, I would say just don't change it too much. If you're like, if you talk to your parents every day, say you've already moved out of the house or whatever, and you talk to them every day, try to keep up as much communication as possible. But like so like, you know, again, we're not you. Like I only talked to my parents like once a month maybe, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but just don't be like that person that talks to them every day and ask for advice and then you join the Air Force and you're in the pipeline and then all of a sudden you just go dark for two years. That's going to cause concern.
WRAP UP
Brian (01:02:41):
Yeah. All right. I think that's a good place to end up. So we appreciate you guys listening to the podcast and we're going to go into some of this stuff. Again, just recap all of the stuff that you should kind of get from this episode. Again, we talked about what you should do while you're in high school, what you should do about college and exercising and the family. So with high school specifically, some of the things that we recommended was you know, you should try and join like a team sport. You should do some kind of impact like running kind of sport. Be careful with injuries and football. Take care of yourself, make sure you're not busted up before you show up to the pipeline and make sure you're ready to go. And then also be around the people that are like minded that are going to be pushing you towards those goals that you have and pushing you to do that. As far as college is concerned, we recommend that we talked about you know, not going to paramedic school before you joined. You want to actually take advantage of what the military is offering you and make a shorter course. That way you're not in debt when you show up and you don't have to worry about that. But if you do have a college or if you do have paramedic license, then you're current and you can go through the pipeline. You don't have to take it while you are in the pipeline as a PJ. For you guys that are out there doing other sports and doing other things yes, definitely enjoy the things that you're going to do. If you enjoy climbing mountains and you enjoy rock climbing or hiking or whatever, do those things, but don't do it specifically because you want to be. You want to show up everyone else that's on the team whenever it comes to mountaineering phase or whenever it comes to the rock climbing or whatever. Don't do it for those reasons. Do it because you enjoy doing it and enjoy those activities. Live in the moment and do everything that you can to gain experience. Go have fun with your friends. Go on road trips and enjoy your life before you show up. Enjoy the freedom. Not to say that you won't have freedom once you're in the military, cause you still will have time to do other things. But you know, live your life and be your own person and enjoy that stuff. As far as when a person should to quit their job, we talked about, you know, work within your means and if you have time to do, you know, quit your job two months out and you can focus on your family, focus on working out and being prepared. Then do that. If you don't have those means that you need to work up until the day that you leave, just like Aaron was talking about, then you work up until the day that you leave and you prepare yourself that way. The main thing is balancing your time and balancing all your efforts on what is most to you. Do you, if you need money, then work to get money and then work out afterwards and do that kind of thing. As far as exercising, we talked about what a person should be doing before they joined. You know, you can check out any of my workout programs, beapj.com. You can also, you know, do CrossFit is a huge thing that we talked about. Working with a team, lifting weights showing that work ethic to all the people that are working out around you. That is huge, but it's not the only Avenue. It's not a sole way to get ready for the pipeline. You need to do some adjunctive type of workouts, whether it's, you know, running six mile cross country. You have to be prepared for those kinds of things and include swimming. Of course, that's a huge thing that you're going to be doing while you're in the pipeline. And in addition to that, we talked about training in a group and how you should be able to do that. We talked about with the Cone Connect to beapj.com other avenues on Reddit, Instagram and you want to just be around those people and compare yourself so you're not working out within your own little bubble there. And lastly we talked about family, how you should break the news and how you should kind of talk to your family. Open communication and transparency is the key to any of this stuff as you're talking to your family. So talk to them and be on the same page as much as possible. Don't try and keep it a secret and you know the next thing I know they talked to you two months later and you're downrange or whatever. So be open and be transparent about that kind of stuff. So I want to thank you guys again. You guys have any last parting shots then I want to thank you guys again for listening to the podcast. You guys can reach out anytime we started this thing because it's an organic way that we can talk to you guys and update week by week and we can give you guys a news and the knowledge that you need to know in order to be ready for the selection. If you guys ever need anything from us, you can hit us up on Instagram, you can email us, we're always there for you guys. We're trying to build a team and make sure that you guys, all lessons that we have from our previous experience is passed on to you. And we make the career fields that we were you know, lucky enough to be a part of, better than we ever had it and you know, give you guys the tools needed. So again, thank you guys for listening and we will see you guys on the next episode. So go out there and earn each breath later.
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TLDR: TRAIN SMART. ENJOY LIFE BEFORE YOU JOIN. COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR LOVED ONES IS IMPORTANT.
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