Preparing Physically for SAS Selection: What I Trained

Build an aerobic base for weeks before adding any weight, get hill-fit before you get load-fit, then add bergen weight gradually and late. Test feet, boots and food on every long session. The published standards are a floor to beat in training, not a target to scrape on the day.

Get the standards from the Army, then beat them

Required tests and times are published by the Army and change. Get them from the official source, write them down, and train to comfortably exceed them. Arriving able to just pass on a good day means failing on a bad one, and every day on selection is a bad one.

Aerobic base comes first

Everything I have done in endurance — a marathon off three miles a week, four marathons in four weeks, twenty-seven hours on my feet in Madeira — came from the same boring input: consistent, mostly easy mileage for months. If an hour of easy running is hard right now, that is the whole project for the next eight weeks.

Hills before weight

Running fit and hill-fit under load are different sports. Build hours on hills before kilograms in the bag. Almost every injury I have watched someone pick up came from loading a bergen heavily in week one.

Feet, kit and food

The people who dropped out around me were rarely the least fit. They were blistered, chafed, underfed or dehydrated. Every long session is a chance to test boots, socks, layers and food. Nothing should be new on the day.

Train the part nobody trains

Long days are decided in the hours where there is no reason to continue. You train that by finishing sessions you wanted to quit — deliberately, alone, in bad weather.

A note on accuracy

Entry criteria, standards and selection dates are set by the Army and change over time. Take anything current from the Army's own UK Special Forces Reserve pages; take everything below as one applicant's experience.

Preparing physically for SAS selection