Well we are into 2016 now, I’d better write down my fitness goals for the year before we get too far in! I’ll post a followup near the end of the year. There are a couple of all-round fitness standards I have come across on the Internet, both from the American military, the first is the entry test for Ranger School:

• 49 pressups
• 59 sit-ups
• 6 chin ups† ✓
• Run 2 miles in 15 minutes
• Run 5 miles in 40 minutes

And the other is the Navy SEAL PST:

• Swim 500 yards‡ in 12½ minutes
• 50 pressups
• 50 sit-ups
• 10 pull ups†
• Run 1½ miles in 10½ minutes

Obviously I’m never going to attend either, but they’re not bad benchmarks for a 40-year-old geezer such as myself. I’ll do them individually too rather than as a single event, and those are the minimum scores, I gather that real candidates do far better, but if I reach all of them by the end of the year I’ll be happy. There are other standards of course, but these I can train for and measure myself against easily with what I have on hand, no special facilities required, just the local gym/pool and the park.

What’s this got to do with diving? Well I haul a lot of heavy gear around, and fitness improves SAC and tilts the odds of deco in your favour, so it’s all helpful. And I don’t want to start a third blog 🙂

† Underhand vs overhand grip in Rangers vs SEALs
‡ I’ll do metres, the local pool is 25m