Army Combat Fitness Test 1K Meter Swim

Hi Maintain! Are you a first time swimmer, or do you have any experience in the water? Also, how long do you have until you will attempt the Test? At a straight pace you have 2.5 minutes or 150 seconds to complete each 100m.

Wow...1000 meters!?!?!? In the Navy the alternative to the 1.5 mile run is a 500yd/450m swim. What are the other alternatives to the run? As a former fitness test coordinator in the Navy, what I would suggest is that if you're not a swimmer to consider one of the other alternatives. I once had a couple of young guys who were generally in pretty good shape. They were weight room rats, jogged a bit, and always chose to do the 1.5 mile run for their semi-annual test. And, they always passed scoring well above average. Then one test cycle they came to me and said they were going to do the 500yd swim. I advised against it because although they were in good physical shape...they were not swimmers. They could swim leisurely, but they were far from the kind of swimming it takes to get through a 500 yard swim in even an easy 12:00 minutes max time for their age group. They thought they could 'muscle their way through it.' Well, after just one lap of the pool it was clear that they were NOT going to finish within the maximum time allowed and fail miserably. It was the last day of the testing cycle and consequently they got put on remedial fitness training for six months. Dan

The Army Combat Fitness Test consisting of six events will be official for all Soldiers in October. Soldiers who are limited from performing the 2 mile run due to a documented medical condition may perform one of three alternate cardio events in lieu of the 2 mile run. One of the alternate cardio events is a 1,000 meter swim in 25 minutes. The swim would be performed 10 minutes after the 3 rep maximum deadlift and the sprint, drag, carry event. What do you recommend as a training and conditioning program for the 1K meter swim? More info on the swim event here https://youtu.be/C22lSycp21g Thanks for your service! Are you just trying to pass, or are you trying to get a 100 on the cardio portion of the PT test? If you are trying to just pass, I think just getting in the water when you can will be immensely helpful. Try to get your DPS better and better (count your strokes, you want a lower number). Watch videos on proper technique. If there is a Masters program near you, I would see if there is any way you can swim with them some. If you can't, but there a club, see if the coach would be willing to work with you privately. Anecdotal, I had been just doing lap swims for a few months when I tried my first mile, which I did in 28 minutes. So the bar isn't that high. But it does take time. MOst beneficial thing for you would be to work on technique. That DPS will be a very good guide, IMHO, for measuring how that is doing. If you can't joina team, watch videos online. I like Gary Hall's "The Race CLub" stuff, he explains things well......well, for me, anyway, as I'm an engineer and think more tecnhically so his explanations make sense. Now, if you are striving to get a 100, that's a-whole-nother ball of wax. I'm going off of memory, but when I was 18, a 100 on the 2 mile run was 11:54. So if I extrapolate that out, that tells me that the 1000 meter swim is going to be notably faster than the run of the mill high school swimmers who aren't also year round swimmers (i was one of two guys on our Ranger Challenge team who could routinely run that fast, out of about 20 guys). For that, you will need to train wiht your heart rate a whole lot more elevated. One of my favorite main sets is 40 50's with a 20 second rest interval. I try to do it at a pace more in line with a 200 yard race, though the set was made for working on 500. My heart rate hits around 180 during that set. I'm not saying to do that set, I'm saying find a set that lets you train at an elevated heart rate for extended periods. There are a whole lot of people on here a lot smarter than me, so if other folks give you other advice, I'd look that way.

Civilian swim wear authorized. I wonder if full body tech suits count. As for preparing for 1k swim, if you’re already in shape but are unable to complete in under under 20 min (20-40 yr old), I think the best thing to do would be to become coached, take stroke development classes, and use video to review stroke.

If you are not a good swimmer then get a swim coach person the teach you otherwise you will be really surprised at what it takes to do the swim. Running comes at the age we start to walk, swimming comes in much later for most.

Since 1989 I have taken 31 annual fit tests for the af and afr. As someone who doesn’t run, is horrible at it, and who’s hips are starting to bug me, it would certainly be nice for me to swim instead.

Thanks Elaine Steve - are you a swimmer of any kind?would a sprinter count?

Steve - are you a swimmer of any kind?

Steve - are you a swimmer of any kind? Orca, have you read any of his 2,623 posts or 829 blog entries since 2009??? What he is saying is that he would like to be able to swim for his military fit test instead of run. ;)

Since 1989 I have taken 31 annual fit tests for the af and afr. As someone who doesn’t run, is horrible at it, and who’s hips are starting to bug me, it would certainly be nice for me to swim instead. I'm with you Steve. 26 years, 3 months, 14 days for me. My running always sucked. Now I only run when chased. Love my DD214. One assignment, very purple, back when we were doing that stupid bike test, I got tired of the other services giving me crap for our PT test. So I assigned myself to do all their PT tests. Ended up I had the fastest swim by 3-something minutes for the Navy's 500 yard swim. The senior chief tried to get my name on their unit board for fastest swim of the year but the CO refused since I was Air Force. ;)