The Navy SEAL Physical Fitness Guide

While it doesn't serve as a traditional textbook with 500+ pages and an extensive bibliographic stew, it does have uniquely qualified and credentialed authors contributing key chapters throughout, making this a terrific reference guide and course builder for any new instructor or instructor looking for new direction.

I have two criticisms, minor and not enough to reduce the star ratings.

One, there should be at least two more pages of material in the estimation of VO2(max) for trainees. What is written can be figured out, but it can be re-written for clarity, and given two more pages, it can be broken down a little more to see the numbers transform.

Two, the typesetting is terrific for handouts, but the layout breaks across page boundaries in weird places. This is, after all, printed matter bound for publication and distribution to the public as a book. It should be laid out like a training manual with better formatting and page breaks, and given a keyword index at the back of the book.

In all, this is a very helpful guide for PE instructors of all kinds. While its basis is primarily for training SEAL teams, there is wide appeal to any athlete looking for a disciplined, scientific approach to realizing one's full potential.


Intro to exercise physiology + Customization tool   December 20, 2002
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

This book provides a practical, user-friendly introduction to exercise physiology. The author provides tables and formulas to help the reader calculate how much, how far, and how often to work out. Also included are basic exercise physiology principles to help readers understand the how and the why.

There's a lot of useful general information, though the book also contains specialized stuff not relevant to civilians (like training for extreme combat conditions, or how to customize training for different mission profiles.)

If this had been my first and only SEAL fitness book, I would've been disappointed and bored. But after watching SEAL fitness videos, reading the other books, and trying the PT exercises, merely doing was no longer enough and I wanted to understand more.

In particular, I wanted to go beyond the standard "beginning - intermediate - advanced" classifications. I wanted to find out how to really customize the exercise routines for my own needs. I also wanted to discover how to set personalized goals. Deuster's book provides the answers and the quantitative tools to boot. Combine this book with Deuster's other book on nutrution, and you have a complete customization tool.

My only gripe -- Deuster's suggested PT routines seem too tame. In the interest of preventing injuries, she builds in so much stretching that the exercise tempo gets slowed way down. Other than that, I found this a very useful book.


Very Good Overview   June 27, 2002
 18 out of 20 found this review helpful

First off this book is not a "how to" manual with carefully laid out programs. It does have some suggestions on how to build up running distance but don't expect much more. What you can look forward to is a great basic reference for exercises and related inuries and their treatment. Very basic. If you read it carefully you'll find valuable information and it will point you in the right direction in terms of specialized training (basics of plyometrics, weight training, importance of stretching etc), but you'll need to get some other books on these subjects to fill in the gaps. This is not something for a complete beginner.

If you are new to working out consider Stew Smiths'Maximum Fitness or The Complete Guide to Navy SEAL Fitness, you will not be disappointed, both excellent books. From beginner to advanced you can't go wrong, you will have to adapt the plans in the books to your own level though. In response to those who may say the workouts are too difficult or take too much time; what did you expect from guys who operate at the level of elite athletes and are paid to keep themselves in top condition? Like I said, adapt to your own level and strive to improve!

Actually I bought The Navy Seal Workout by Mark DeLisle way before I ever came across these other books and consider it OK but not great. It's a thin book padded with pictures but DeLisles' pyramiding scheme for chin ups is excellent and it has good upper body workout plans but no lower body(leg)workouts.

After working out for many years I considered myself in good shape in terms of strength and endurance, these books proved how wrong I was.