5 Challenging Military Workouts To Boost Strength & Endurance

Cardio Challenge

This military workout is all about improving your cardiovascular fitness levels, ultimately helping to boost stamina and endurance. For this military fitness exercise, you’ll need a skipping rope and plenty of space (if you have garden/ green space available to you this is perfect). This is a really simple exercise that combines only two elements (burpees and skipping), however, it’s a tough military workout that certainly tests you physically. 

In order to complete this workout, you’ll need to do 20 burpees followed by 100 jumps using the skipping rope and repeat the pattern. It’s up to you how many sets you choose to do but if you’re after a really challenging workout then we recommend doing 10 sets of burpees and 10 of jumping. 

British Army AMRAP Workout

AMRAP stands for ‘As Many Reps As Possible’ and this really sets the tone for this challenging military workout.  Designed to burn fat and build functional muscle strength, an AMRAP workout is supposed to push you to your limits. Taking roughly 30 minutes to complete this military workout includes:

- Rowing: 500m as fast as possible
Box jumps: 25 reps
- Wall-balls: 50 reps of 9kg at 10 ft
- Slam-balls: 50 reps
- Thrusters: 25 reps at 40kg
Box push: 50m

To adjust the difficulty, simply change the number of reps you are doing and the heaviness of the weights you are using.

Endurance Swimming

Most military training programs require proficiency in swimming and this is one reason it’s an important part of many military workouts. It’s also really effective in building strength and endurance without putting too much pressure on your joints. 

To challenge yourself in the pool combine swimming sprints with treading water; 100-200m fast swimming (any stroke) followed by 1 minute of treading water and repeat as you feel able to. If you have the right facilities, you can also combine poolside bodyweight exercises with your swim. An effective swim routine will look something like this:

- Fast swimming - 100m
- Push-ups - 10-20 reps
- Sit-ups or plank pose - 20 reps/1 minute 
- Repeat

It goes without saying that safety is paramount, so you should only attempt challenging military workouts in the pool if you are a confident swimmer and have a lifeguard present.

Rucking & Running

We mentioned rucking in our list of military exercises for beginners and that’s because it’s such a versatile activity that can be easily adjusted to suit different fitness levels. Rucking involves walking, jogging or running with a weighted backpack on, and if carried out correctly can be a highly efficient, challenging military workout. 

Before you start rucking or (tabbing) make sure you have the correct rucksack and footwear - this is really important for preventing injury. For your first few ‘rucks’, start out with a distance between 2-4 miles and a weight of 15-25lbs. Each week you can increase the distance by 1-2 miles and/ or the weight by 5-10lbs.  Alternating between rucking and running is a fantastic way to quickly improve your overall strength and endurance. Whilst running is largely focused on improving cardiovascular fitness, rucking combines both cardio and strength training which is why it is such a challenging military workout. 

PT Pyramid Training

Pyramid training uses an upwards then downwards sequence in weight, reps or sets. Pyramid training is one of the toughest military workouts on our list and is a real test of strength and stamina. Pyramid training can be done in different forms which may include:

- Ascending Pyramid  (increase weight and decrease reps for each set)
Descending Pyramid (decrease weight and increase reps for each set)
​- Triangle Pyramid (do both ascending and descending pyramids)

Exercise sets can be calisthenic e.g sit-ups, push up or you can incorporate weights for exercises such as barbell deadlifts and weighted pull-ups.