Stewart is one of my favorite fitness experts – his programs are hard.

Hard to complete that’s for sure and its because the end objective is passing special operations selection. Well perhaps thats the preliminary objective. Anyway I got his new book & it is recommended to periodize this program with his other Navy Seal Training book.

Together these two programs WILL make you physically invincible – but its highly unlikely you will fully hack either.

Stew is a great trainer & this program has very strong parallels with the SAS prep program I posted a link to in my ruck marching post.

5 star program as with most of Stewart Smiths stuff.

I finally tried my digital camera for making videos. Nothing fancy but I will make some better ones.

Here I am doing helicopters with 16 & 40 KG’s and some cleans with the 90 pounder.

Neuromass is a new book from Dragondoor by Jon Bruney.

This is the guy thats pulls trucks with the grip master – John Brookfield.
Its a great training manual and is nearly 300 pages long.

Basically his training program is broken down into 3 main types of training. The last being Isometric.

The dynamic exercises include bodyweight and kettlebells. Many exercises are chosen for increased difficulty.

His two mentors or models in the book appear to be mainly John Brookfield and Alexander Zass.

They (dragondoor) are also marketing a couple of new isometric gadgets in connection with the book. One is a T-Pipe device for pushups. I went to the plumbing store to get parts to make some but instead got a couple of Ballcocks which will work even better for grip stress.

Here are a couple of good links for isometric info:

Isometric Training

Isometric Gear

…and info on Zass

I give the book a 5 star –> one of Dragondoor’s better offerings & most of their stuff is good

First up you need a good program & the best I have found is a military special forces operator training program.

SAS program

OK that program is about as intense as you want to get training by yourself. Remember in the military you have medical support – no kidding.

Second if you want some inspiration read about this guy that is an ex delta force operative & at 63 still does regular ruck runs…

ruck running

Thats impressive and I was delighted to see he recommends the excellent POSE running techniques

Pose running video:

Here I am wearing the 40 lb vest over the 60 lb vest

100 lbs quite comfortable initially but it gets the heart rate up very quickly. I only trained for 20 minutes doing hill walking outside but I will build up the times in coming months. Basically it feels little worse that the 40 or 60 initially but things change fast.

Special forces train with 100 lb rucks often including shuffle runs and workouts lasting hours.

Weight this heavy is not used all the time though.

My heaviest kettlebell at present is an 88 pounder

It has an extra large & thick handle which is great

Not the one I went to the store to buy unfortunately. The one I wanted does smoothies with pulp too. I could probably still swap it but wont bother.

I ended up with a sunbeam top of the line juicer with a 5 year warrantee for $300 nz.

I cant wait – just had the idea this week to score a juicer & I’m getting it tomorrow

I’m gunna get a Breville – will update in a day or two…

I have had a couple of workouts wearing the vest at 60 lbs now. First was a 60 minute hike & it was just fine.

Today I did some kettlebell work in the vest. 90lb swings and rows with a single KB and 120 lb racks with two KB’s in addition to the 60lb vest.

It was fine for most of the exercises and only became a nuisance when I tried to press overhead. I wont use this vest for presses or pull ups. For all else its excellent. I also has adjustable length – long or short and fully adjustable shoulder and neck girth – a great vest.

Here are the pics…

I actually got my MIR vest some two years ago when they had a sale. Living in New Zealand the shipping cost with the steel was over $1000 so obviously I bought it without for only $70 or so. But unfortunately the only local solution for the 140 lbs of weight involved me cutting & epoxying a lot of rebar.

So it sat in its box for a whole two years while I sweated it out. Finally I had $300 on hand for the rebar and was about to score when I recalled a local fitness supplier elitefitness was recently selling weight vests with steel blocks. I decided to see if these would fit my MIR vest & if so would they sell me 46 blocks.

Well it turned out their blocks are a teeny bit lighter – 46 blocks are 100 lbs not 140 but I scored immediately for $180.

Amazingly I now have a 100lb brand new weight vest for less that it would have cost retail in the USA – I’m very happy.

The MIR is very comfortable and snug. My first session was a one hour hike with 60lbs – I’m used to 40 from my old vest.

It started great but by the end I only just made it home – the home leg is up a steep hill & I was huffing & puffing – then I had an hours nap.

Here are a couple of places telling you how to assemble the vest:

MIR Instructions

Below is the link that saved my butt – would never have figured it out otherwise…

Best Instructions for MIR vest

Finally some videos from youtube & then my personal pictures…

Here’s Me.

Here’s the vest.

I look like an Australian Commando.