(Part 2) Top products from r/navyseals

Bro there is an abundance of resources for information on the officer route:

Current as of May of this year

Couple years old, but still pretty good

Trimhopp went to SOAS and was offered an officer slot a while ago. Dig through this thread and his comments for some insight. He's not active on the sub anymore but I'm sure he'd be willing to answer questions. He's chill.

Breaking BUD/S: Nothing in here we haven't heard, but the author lays out the process pretty well. I'm sure some things have changed since the book came out, but it's a good resource.

u/77dude has a son who went through BUD/S as an officer. Maybe he would also be willing to answer questions. But inform yourself first OP so you don't have to ask anything you can Google. (Not being an asshole, just encouraging the "ask three before you ask me" rule I learned growing up)

Yeah, all due respect Laesyvan, but I've heard and read the direct opposite. All the guys I've known in group have said that SOPC/SFPC does a terrific job of preparing X Rays for SFAS, and they tend to fair a lot better than their reg army counterparts on average during selection...check out Chosen Warrior by Dick Couch. He echoes that sentiment. Plus X rays aren't really hated for their background, if a guy works hard and gets after it, he'll be respected (or at least that's what I've been told).

None the less, if you're really interested in becoming an Officer /u/TheRadSpaceman then all of this is moot anyway. You'll apply to SFAS as either a first LT or Captain, and will have to spend a few years in the regular army before applying - not unless you apply for RASP 2.

Anyone here read "Worth Dying For?" I was just browsing Amazon, it seems like it actually raises some good questions, the author definitely uses his SEAL title to promote the book but it doesn't seem like it's centered around his experience specifically as a SEAL. If nobody here has read it I'll pick it up and tell you guys what I think.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Worth-Dying-Navy-Seals-Nation/dp/1501124110/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51CIKnsE3SL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL480_SR318%2C480_&psc=1&refRID=SACSCYYCEZSGP4FA4P3X

Seems like a good read, starting to read it, not really of a fan of the guy because he created the hoax situation back in '13 (esquire article). But overall, I guess he is a solid dude.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1501145037/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HX9MAWDF50VQ1TKMZES8

Can anyone recommend any books on sports psychology and/or mental toughness?

I've read [The New Toughness Training for Sports] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452269989/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687442&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0452267951&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=03YQDQ3ZCVQGYH1BXDTC) and would recommend it

Here ya are,

Strength Training- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1537666932/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522260076&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=tactical+barbell&dpPl=1&dpID=41ONX0yWthL&ref=plSrch

Conditioning- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1537710443/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1522260076&sr=8-2

Read the conditioning one first, that has the first 8 week program.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Water-Never-Cold-Demolition/dp/1574882759
-check this out if you're interested in the WWII frog men.
Also another book, "More Than Scuttlebutt" by the same author.

For insight, I recommend you give this a read.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Finishing-School-Earning-Trident/dp/0609810464

Read it

Pure as the driven snow.

https://www.amazon.com/Level-Zero-Heroes-Operations-Afghanistan/dp/1250030404

http://www.amazon.com/Trident-Forging-Reforging-Navy-Leader/dp/0062208322

Haven't read this book since high school, but I think it might touch on some of what he's talking about:

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-Society/dp/0316040932

Answered. Locked. Next time put it in the white board.

Also: https://www.amazon.com/Excel-Dummies-Greg-Harvey/dp/1568840500/ref=asc_df_1568840500/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312118197030&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12479728693602340104&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9030454&hvtargid=pla-569161040559&psc=1

Sure thing sorry it took so long. Big question, long response:

 

The biggest thing is look at the movement principles. Page 55: Supple Leopard Bracing strategy advises squeezing your butt to brace your core, I don't see how someone does this the way he describes without flexing your lumbar spine into a posterior pelvic tilt, which brings you out of neutral and weight (ex. Barbell back squat) would just compress the lower back.

 

In addition he advises standing and maintaining a braced position by squeezing the glutes and contracting the core when resting to stay in good posture. Advice like this directly leads to overuse injuries and chronic pain. This ignores the cores internal mechanics of stability (Transverse Abdominal / TvA, Internal + External Obliques, Multifidi and Pelvic Floor). Bracing as he describes (able to take a punch) would over recruit the Rectus Abdominis / 6 pack muscle which is kind of like supporting your core with a hollow shell and no internal support.

 

People with bad posture and chronic tension issues (like endurance athletes and lifters) won't magically learn good posture by doing this, they'll just teach themselves to squeeze more and create more tension (tension in their over used muscles pulling them out of good posture and tension in their Glutes and core to bring them back into "good posture". Dysfunctions like sports hernias and lower back pain will be more likely to occur if someone with bad posture or bad movement tries to muscle their way through to good posture. They'll just grip down and brace harder, setting themselves up for pain. I'd attribute this type of subconscious strategy to my own abdominal hernia and lumbar herniation.

 

An efficient bracing strategy would be as instructed by Diane Lee (author of [The Pelvic Girdle] (https://www.amazon.com/Pelvic-Girdle-integration-clinical-expertise/dp/0443069638)).

Her article [Training Deep Core Muscles] (http://dianelee.ca/article-training-deep-core-muscles.php) elaborates you should be able to let go of your glutes (relax your legs) stabilize your core with light pelvic floor and TvA activation. "Imagine a line that connects the inside of your two pelvic bones (front of hips). Think about connecting, or drawing the muscle, along this line as if closing two book covers.
Contract your pelvic floor by drawing the muscles from behind your pubic bone to your tail bone and the left and right sides of your pelvic floor together and then like a draw string bag, gently draw the entire pelvic floor up."

 

In addition MobilityWod's Diagrammatic breathing Page 87 only covers one element, belly breathing. When someone inhales they should be able to breath into their belly, chest (rib cage goes wide) and lower back. This ensures that the spine stays neutral with no rib cage flare for the entire breath cycle and allows for natural core stability (previously mentioned TvA and Pelvic Floor activation) throughout the whole breathing cycle.

If someone doesn't have lower back breathing they will flare their ribcage and pelvis into Anterior Pelvic Tilt (Spine stuck in extension) every time they breath.

 

A efficient breathing strategy is detailed here [3-D Breathing] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmZwM0-U5yo) with Dr. Evan Osar. He authored [Corrective Exercise solutions to Common Hip and Shoulder Dysfunctions] (https://www.amazon.com/Corrective-Exercise-Solutions-Shoulder-Dysfunction/dp/1905367260) which elaborates on this.

 

Let me know if I can elaborate more. This research took me several years to figure out from scratch (I actually had to become a corrective exercise / movement specialist), but I went from pain every day to training pain free. The way I see it we can't be layman in terms of exercise knowledge as our prospective career depends on it, If i'm going to be training shooting mechanics I have to learn breathing and movement mechanics, especially if i want to get through selection with the minimum of long term injury. I had previously posted a reading list with other fitness resources that might be useful.

Text wall rant about a TG doing something stupid and silly that dishonors the teams inbound. Hey, it is the off topic section.

I read this book, The Terminal List by Jack Carr, a retired SEAL who mentions it really prominently in marketing the book. He tries to use the Trident to build its brand, in other words.

I thought the premise sounded ridiculous but that it might be kind of fun to read. Instead it just pissed me off. Basically, it's a masturbation fantasy by a Trump supporter about murdering Hillary Clinton. The main villain is Secretary Lorraine Hartley (take out an R and A and it's a perfect anagram for 'Hillary Clinton'); to make it extra clear she's described as a liberal cabinet secretary who is the next prospective POTUS, as having began her political career as an activist before being captured by the system, and as having a husband with white hair she isn't close to who has a widely-known habit of infidelity that the American public nonetheless forgives him for because of his charm and charisma, which is said to exceed hers. Anyways, Lorraine is testing preemptive anti-PTSD medication with dangerous side effects on a random SEAL platoon as guinea pigs at the behest of a Pharma donor she is in bed with. A satisfactory reason for why they couldn't just, you know, use guinea pigs never really becomes apparent, although Carr tries lamely to answer that a couple times. We are assured that those in the know stand to make billions (I mean really, selling bad PTSD medication? That's the lamest conspiracy motivation I ever heard; there's maybe a couple million in that tops, which given that Clinton makes 400k a speech is a couple days worth of money to her). It gives them all brain tumors, so Clinton Hartley reaches out to the Taliban and organizes an ambush that kills all but a few of them, then has the rest killed by New Jalisco Cartel hitmen and corrupt NCIS agents, who also murder the whole family of the main character, Lieutenant Commander James Reece, who commanded this platoon that was otherwise wiped out. He survives, so she taps into a secret U.S. government program that radicalizes Muslims who believe they are really serving ISIS and deploys one of those sleeper agents against him, with the aid of a drone she puts up to track him on American soil. No one appears to notice or question that this breaks the law and is incredibly odd. Anyways, Reece survives that attack, too. He also has a brain tumor from the meds that will eventually kill him as far as he knows. Now having been transformed into a man with Nothing Left to Lose(TM), he has to kill everyone with a ton of weapons he stole from a SEAL armory. This includes Bill and Hillary the Hartleys, the cartel hitmen, the bigwigs in that Pharma company, the ranking SEAL admiral who is also an ally of hers, a JAG officer assisting him, and SoCal's highest ranking moderate muslim imam, who of course is really an ISIS operative that Lorraine organized the ambush by the Taliban through. Lorraine tries a few more wildly implausible ways of stopping him, like deploying a SEAL platoon on U.S. soil to kill him (no one really presses back very hard or resigns when it is repeatedly pointed out that this violates a huge number of laws; the issue that an incredible number of people now are in on the conspiracy, from the SEALs to that drone pilot and crew to everybody else listed is also not really addressed). Finally, Reece succeeds in killing everybody with weapons ranging from sniper rifles to truck bombs and coerced suicide bombers (whose family he is holding hostage; Carr assures us this is OK because he would never really hurt them, it's just a bluff) and flees the country. Reece shows all the evidence to a ballsy female reporter, who writes a muckraking piece that every single major media outlet turns down to Lorraine reaching out through the deep state to stop its publication. The Drudge Report finally courageously runs it (yes, the actual Drudge Report, not an analogous publication in the book's universe), and the elites reject it roundly as "fake news." Lorraine also uses the specter of Reece to try and paint him as a deranged domestic terrorist to make a broader point about how white men are the real terrorist threat and to push a domestic surveillance measure and a gun control act that outlaws private ownership. The media gleefully plays along by reporting that Reece is using a fully auto AK with a "fully automatic assault clip" he bought without a background check or something like that. Like I say, it's partisan red meat, a caricature of the world according to an extreme Trump supporter.

Ok, I can see why people might be asking at this point why any of this matters and heading to the downvote button. The reason why it pissed me off so much is two-fold. The first is that writing assassination fantasies about real people and selling them to those who dislike that person is obviously not cool. I'm not a Hillary fan, but you can't kill everybody who is unethical and/or disagrees with you. Carr is way outside of his lane on that one, especially given that this isn't exactly in line with the idea of respect for civilian control of the military and the authority of country's lawful leaders as granted by the Constitution. You know, the thing he swore an oath to. The second is that it wasn't enough for Carr to do that, he just had to abuse the SEALs' rep and prestige to try and sell it. Beyond the main character and his prominently displayed bio, he stuffed it with as many references to the Teams as he possibly could. This is blatant abuse of a revered and widely-regarded institution to try and do something very destructive that makes the problem of toxic partisanship much worse and helps further divide America while sending an implicit message that politicking with bullets instead of ballots is OK. I have a very big problem with that message. Making it worse is the fact that Jack Carr is not the only one who's doing this. Carl Higbie is advocating for creating a national Muslim database based on the Japanese internment camps as precedent, guys like Larry Bailey, Ben Smith, and others have gotten on the "Obummer is a secret Muslim who was born in Kenya" bandwagon, and Ryan Zinke keeps doing stuff like this while wearing a Trident lapel pin, which just sums up the whole problem. These guys can't just be clowns unto themselves, they're reflecting their light back onto their units as intensely as they can.

It's pretty clear that this a cultural problem specific to the SEALs, because I don't see members from many other units acting like this. It really needs to stop, because it's going to be really, really bad for the country if people start seeing the Teams as being pro-one candidate or another and if racists and conspiratards can wrap themselves in the Trident.