prep test advice

[susiej01]

Any advice to help with the grip/weight portion? I know this tends to be a bit harder for females. Any thing I can do at the gym to help with this?

[CJR]

Hi Susiej01: I did a prep practice about one month ago for the first time. I'm female, 5,4 and over 40 yrs old. I did the pursuit/restraint in 3:12 seconds which is too slow. You need to achieve 2:42 seconds. I know it's the cardio I have to work on more than the strength (for me anyway).

You start by jogging around (stairs and wall -you do this twice) then you push handles to get the 70 pounds up. You need to keep the weights up and your elbows slightly bent and complete a half circle to the right (touch a wall) and to the left (touch a wall). It doesn't matter which way you start, but you have to keep your entire body forward while criss-crossing over to the wall six times in total. Do not drop the weight at the end. I found this one a little challenging, but got through it. Just need to do it quicker and not forget to touch the wall (I forgot once, and it added time)

Then you walk over to the grip. You need to depress buttons on each handle and then squeeze both handles together and release without dropping the weight at the end. I can't remembe if you do this once or twice. I think it's 70 pounds. If you have strong hands and arms, this one is easy.

Then you go back to the original machine and now you're going to "pull" the weight (70 pounds), lean back as though you are sitting on the edge of a bar stool or chair (use your legs more than your arms to stay back). Then you do the same half circle to the wall each side, six times in total. You don't criss cross over from side to side, you shimmy or take large parallel steps (I shimmied cause my legs are short, but I'm going to try longer strides next time).

Then you go back to the grip and depress and sqeeze. Then the biggy, you go over to the 150 pound dummy, hold it by the wrists and drag it backwards about 10 m, around a pilon, and back to its original position.

You do all of this while wearing a 9 pound waist belt. Your quads will likley burn. After a short rest you do the shuttle run.

I didn't get around to doing the shuttle run. But they say if you can job 2.5 km in 11 minutes, you'll be fine with the shuttle run.

Hope this helps. PM me if you want to discuss further.

[CJR]

Hi Susiej:

I realized after my long description that you weren't really asking about the details of what you have to do, but what you need to go at the gym. My apologies, but hope it helped anyway.

The three big areas to work in the gym are: bench pressing, butterfly, squats (lots of squats) and cardio (3 x week for 45-60 or 4-5 x per week for 30-45 minutes).