BUD/S Preparation USN (12 week program)

Everything here is built around water and lungs.

This is the one program in the line with no ruck and no land navigation, and that is deliberate. BUD/S does not test whether you can carry weight overland. It tests whether you can swim, run, and keep working while your body argues about oxygen. So the twelve weeks are built around swimming, breath hold, running and barbell strength — in that order of emphasis.

The engine behind it

You test once, the workbook does the rest. Enter a lift for weight and reps and it estimates your one-rep max, sets a training max from it, and calculates every prescribed weight for all twelve weeks as a percentage of that number, rounded to the nearest 5 lb so it matches the plates on the bar. Enter a timed run and it builds your full pace table — Zone 2 endurance through anaerobic capacity, from 200 m out to marathon distance — plus treadmill speed and grade conversions. Nothing is generic. Every number on the page is yours.

The swim works the same way. Your 500 yard combat sidestroke time converts to a predicted 500 m time and generates a complete swim pace table from 50 m out to 1.2 miles, across every training zone.

What is inside

• Real swim programming, not just swim testing. Structured combat sidestroke and freestyle interval sets with target times and prescribed rest — 10 × 50 m, 6 × 100 m, 5 × 200 m — building to continuous 500 m and 800 m efforts. Ten pre-built swim workouts with warmup, main set and cooldown.
• A complete breath-hold system. Four protocol types — general and specific CO2 tables, general and specific O2 tables — all auto-generated from a single max static hold. CO2 tables hold the breath-hold constant while recovery shrinks; O2 tables hold recovery constant while the breath-hold climbs. Later weeks replace timed recovery with breath counts to simulate a real surface interval.
• Breath-hold safety built into the prescription: dryland only, never within thirty minutes of a workout or swim, and if you insist on doing it in water, a safety in position to pull you out.
• A five-day week pairing barbell work, running and swimming, with a breath-hold session attached to four of the five days.
• The four-lift barbell core — squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press — on the same percentage-driven progression as the rest of the line, with a max-effort week that recalculates your maxes.
• The standards on the page: 500 yd combat sidestroke under 10:30, 70+ pushups in two minutes, 10+ pullups, 60+ situps, 4-mile in shoes and pants under 30:00, 3:00+ breath hold, 1.5-mile under 10:30.
• A video library that includes combat sidestroke and freestyle technique alongside every barbell lift.

Hybrid Strength Index. The workbook scores you on RLP's own metric — deadlift strength divided by mile pace — and benchmarks it against the field: special operations 70+, infantry, firefighters and MMA 60+, police 50+, climbers and triathletes 40–50, runners 30+. One number that tells you whether you are strong, fast, or actually both.

Who this is for

BUD/S contracts and candidates preparing for the PST and beyond, plus anyone in a Navy special warfare pipeline who needs swim speed, lung tolerance and barbell strength moving at the same time.

Specifications

• Format: Excel workbook (.xlsx), auto-calculating. Printable.
• Length: 12 weeks · three 4-week phases · 5 days per week
• Tabs: program · Run Table · Swim Table · Breath Hold Daily Workouts · How To Video Links
• Equipment: barbell and rack, pullup bar, dip station, pool access, and a track or measured route
• Delivery: instant digital download

This is a training tool, not medical advice. Breath-hold training carries real risk — never perform it in water without direct supervision. Clear hard training with your physician if you have any reason to.