"Recovery and Maintenance," We hear these terms often in just about every area of our lives:  from improving your fitness and athletic performance and handling stressful professions to maintaining your health with a strong immune system.  Typically, most people in the military / law enforcement fitness and health genre ask about how to get stronger for Fitness Tests while working long ...

How many of you have taken a physical fitness test (PFT) and did not score as well as you have in the past during your own workouts? Often by the end of a PFT, you will be fatigued and the last cardio test will be slower than normal workouts scores. Here is an email I received that I think we all ...

This week’s email strikes home on a daily basis as we all age and try to do the things we did in our teens and early twenties. Here is an Eight Step explanation of what to do and what NOT to do to keep on going strong. *Stew - I am 41 years old and still try to hang with the ...

Sleep... How important is it to those who exercise often as well as to those who do not? Scientists have been studying sleep patterns for decades, so there is plenty of research on the importance of sleep in our daily lives. Sleep also affects performance in between workouts during high intensity training programs like military and law enforcement training. I guess ...

Here is an email I get often from people seeking to improve calisthenics scores in PT tests. Either they ask to do pull-ups, pushups, dips, etc every day or how to mix them into a weight lifting program. Here is what I recommend: Hi Stew - I really enjoy weightlifting three times a week. I was wondering if I can do ...

Stew Smith CSCS, former Navy SEAL Joins Forces with PoliceLink.com as fitness adviser / writer. I am pleased to start writing a fitness column for PoliceLink.com that will enable me to communicate with law officers on a regular basis, but also, I hope to assist our Heroes of Tomorrow and today with maintaining their fitness level and career longevity. It is ...

Every now and then I get a question that requires extra effort to answer. This question required every bit of experience I had to answer. If you are on the fence or how or where to serve your country, please read. Stew I am debating where to serve? Firefighting EMT, Police SWAT, or Military Special Ops. I know you write about ...

After spending more than a decade helping people become members of Special Operations units in every branch of the military and SWAT Teams in federal / state / local law enforcement agencies, I have seen a few common denominators that spell success, or graduation. Ask "did you think about quitting" to any member of a Special Operations unit in the military ...

This series of emails comes from a police officer / instructor who understands the importance of recovery, but has a hard time fitting it into his training plan. We all need to actively pursue a recovery period in our high tempo training cycle, otherwise we will break down, burn out, and likely get injured over time. Here is his email. Stew, ...

This week I received an email from an officer who writes: Every time I take the PFT, I ace the PT part but my run is much worse than if I ran first. Does the PT take that much out of me that I cannot run my normal pace had I not done the PT first? As with any test, you ...

When to eat and what to eat are constant questions that affect your fitness performance, weight loss / gain goals, as well as overall health.  I was recently challenged with a question by email that asked, "What should I eat/drink before, during, and after my workout?  My goal is to perform better in my running, swimming, PT test and following spec ...

When to eat and what to eat are constant questions that affect your fitness and health goals as well as your weight loss desires.   I was recently asked a question by email that asked, "What should I eat/drink before, during, and after my workout?  I am 40 years old and my goal is to look better and be healthier. I need ...

Breathing – of course it is important in everything we do. From athletic performance, shooting, and relaxing, we all have had to control our breathing in some fashion. But did you know that you can speed up and slow down your central nervous system by learning some breathing techniques? Did you know you can fail a running test one day and ...

I typically group men and women into the same workouts, especially if they are applying for positions in the military, law enforcement, and fire fighting careers. My personal opinion is that women can perform on a men’s standard (they do not have to, but can) with a little extra work and proper training. I have experienced this personally throughout my years ...

Most people who email me are pretty motivated but need guidance on how to get to a new level of fitness and health. From the unfit seeking to getting healthy and lose weight to the athlete seeking to change from a sport workout routine to a military workout routine to better prepare for the different challenges that the military provides, I ...

Here is a great question from a sailor seeking to better his PFT run time and has gathered extra information about training with heart rate monitor training. _How much emphasis should I put on target heart rate while training for the PRT run? The Navy PRT web page says the target heart rate for my age group (25 years) is 117-146bpm, ...

Do you really not have enough time in your day to exercise? Too many times people say, “I need to exercise but I do not have enough time in the day.” Or, when they do have the time they only have the energy to lie down and watch TV. Whether you are on travel working late hours or at home dealing ...

Often I receive emails from military and law enforcement personnel concerning how fair a fitness test is and does it accurately measure someone’s fitness level. For instance, here is an email from one police officer who is seeking candidates for his department’s SWAT Team: _*I am about to open up tryouts for a few SWAT Team positions and am trying to ...

The email that prompted this week’s article was from a young man contemplating on joining the police force, yet he is not quite sure to go local, state, or federal law enforcement. Arriving fit is his plan, but “how fit do you need to be a police officer”? Here is his question: What is the overall physical fitness level of the ...

Calisthenics, or bodyweight exercises, originated thousands of years ago in ancient Greece and have been a major component of fitness in athletics, military, law enforcement, and daily fitness for home workouts without equipment. Here is a request from a Perfect push-up customer seeking to do more exercises without having to go to a gym. A note from a reader: I need ...