In this 10‑minute, no‑equipment home workout, the instructor frames the session around Jocko Willink’s motto “discipline equals freedom” and uses it as a motivational backbone. He explains that the routine is designed to mimic the physical components of the United States military entry tests—push‑up, sit‑up, run, deadlift, and pull‑up—by selecting bodyweight movements that approximate each test: reverse snow angels for the back (deadlift), single‑leg hamstring bends for the legs, hand‑raise push‑ups for the push‑up test, leg raises for the hanging‑leg‑raise component, and a run‑drop interval to simulate the beep (or burpee) test. The workout follows a 30‑seconds‑on, 30‑seconds‑off interval structure, repeating each exercise twice, with brief rests. Throughout, the instructor provides detailed technique cues, balance tips, and progression ideas (e.g., increasing interval length, adding sets, or extending to 1‑minute blocks) to build toward the actual test standards. He also emphasizes adaptability for lockdown conditions, offering alternatives when equipment is unavailable, and repeatedly ties the physical effort back to the philosophical theme that disciplined training creates the freedom to achieve personal goals.
Chapters
Day 21, Reps For Honor. Welcome back. Now today we have a US military inspired workout. Now this is something that you could do warming up for— I did some research, been listening to Jocko Willink lately. I'm not sure if you've heard of him. If you haven't, you should really check out his podcast and his other creations. Long story short, I really loved his motto, discipline equals freedom. That is the theme of today's workout. And so I was like, if you don't know him, he is an ex-Navy SEAL. And so I was researching US I'm like, what's the, what's the entry to the US military? And I found out there's a push-up test, a sit-up test, a run test, a deadlift test, a pull-up test. So, there's a fair few tests there. Now, we don't have access to all of the equipment that they would use for that, but we can use this 10-minute session as like a warm-up as for that. And even if you're not going for the, for the US military entry test, you can use this as just a great full-body workout with no equipment needed. So with that being said, let's get started. Discipline equals freedom. Today we have, we're starting off with the reverse snow angel. So this is to mimic the back. So the deadlift exercise uses a lot of the back and the hamstrings. So the first two are to mimic that because we don't have access, of course, this is recorded at a time during coronavirus, locked inside. We're gonna use the reverse snow angel for the back, the hamstring bends to, single leg hamstring bends to replicate the use of the legs in a deadlift. Then we have hand raise push-ups. That's the type of push-up apparently that they use in the US military entry test. Correct me if I'm wrong in the comments here. Then we'll do leg raise to mimic, there's another one where you gotta hang from a bar and raise your legs up. We don't have a bar, but we can use the ground. And then we're gonna do run drop to mimic the burpee test. If you're not sure what the burpee test is, or the, sorry, the beep test. If you're not sure what that is, check it out because it's a whole lot of fun. Hear the beep, Make sure you run before you hear the next one. All right, 10 minutes on the clock. We've got 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Let's get started. Starting your timer. The first one is a reverse snow angel. So down, down on your stomach. We're gonna go arms extended and then pretend as if you're making a snow angel. Come back up. Just going back and forth. Now it's important to, when you go back here, Just really squeeze your back. As I said, this one is trying to mimic the deadlift exercise as best we can with just our body weight and not, not a deadlift bar. Rest. One more. Of course, it would be more ideal if we had an actual deadlift bar, but Since we're trapped in home and the gyms are closed, we don't have access to a deadlift bar. You might at home. I'm just doing this one as if you only had your body weight and your bedroom floor. Next, we got a hamstring bend single leg. We're going to start this first round because we're doing 2 rounds with the left leg. So here we're going right arm forward, left leg on the ground, and then touch your toes, back up. So extend the right leg backwards, touch your left foot with your left hand, right leg, right arm extended, then we go back in. It really helps if you're focusing on a— something in front of you. This is going to be great for the balance, great for hamstrings. Rest. Let's hold it back, all the way back. You got to really focus on your balance there. We'll do one more even though the clock's telling us to rest. Now, I did read there somewhere that the push-up test, it's as many as you can do in 2 minutes. And I think the, you get, there's a point system and you get 100 points, I think, if you can do 77 in 2 minutes. So, that's pretty well going if you can do that. So, but this time we're only gonna go for 30 seconds. We're doing hand raise push-ups. It's a modified push-up. So, you come here. You go down and then you got to raise your hands off the ground, up. So imagine this is— this 30 seconds is like training for being able to do these. If you can do 77 of these in 2 minutes, you get the maximum score possible. So a progression would be to practice doing as many as you can like we're doing now in 30 seconds And then do as many as you can in a minute, then maybe as many as you can in 90 seconds, and then slowly build up over time. So then when it comes time to take that entrance exam and you had to do the 2 minutes, the other one is doing sit-ups for 2 minutes, as many as you can do, and the other one is how fast you can run a 2-mile run. So all these things are playing into it, the way that you build up, you're not gonna jump into it straight away. You start in small building blocks and then go up from there. Exercise. We're going to do the leg raise to mimic the legs to bar. So here, going back flat on the ground, just going to raise our legs up, point toes, boom, out like that. So I believe in the document that I read, you have to hold onto a pull-up bar and raise your legs up like this. But since we don't have access to a pull-up bar, you might at home, we're just going to use the ground and we use gravity. Nice and slow, we'll do a couple more. Excellent. Popping up. And so now this last one is the run drop. I'll just mark this off. Now the run drop, we're just going to run in place fast as we can, and then we'll drop randomly to the ground and we have to get up. It's to mimic the beep test. So the beep test is like running from one position to the other. Exercise. And touching. But we don't have a beep space, we don't have a beep test going, so we're just going to run fast as you can, drop to the ground, up, back and run. Running on the spot. When are we gonna drop? Now. Up. Running. Pump those arms. Drop. That's it. Run. Keep it up. Run. One more. Drop. Beautiful. See, we did that for 30 seconds. Now, in the BEEP test, it's usually, there's no end to the test. You just go as long as you can. But one of the ways, again, to progress towards that would be to practice something like that. Same with the 2-mile run. We could definitely do that outside in my country at the moment, 'cause we're still allowed outdoors. But if you're in an area where you're not allowed outside, running on the spot's the next best thing. So we have The reverse snow angel once again. Come back on the ground, squeeze. That's it, really focus on stretching out and then squeezing back. Very nice. Rest. Couple more. We started a bit late. One more. Wonderful. So again, that one's to try and mimic the deadlift as best we can. Of course, we'll never be able to fully mimic it properly with just body weight because deadlift requires external weight, but we're making the most of what we, what we have. Discipline equals freedom. We have the discipline to train, we have the freedom to be able to use our bodies in the way that we want to. So now we have hamstring bends with the right leg this time. So we're going to go left leg back, right, left, left arm forward. Touch the right leg, touch the right toes with the right arm, right hand. There we go. I've got a little, uh, little speckle of dirt that I'm looking at, really focusing on my balance here. This is actually a fun one to, to try and keep balanced. So important. Let's go forward. Oh, lost balance. One more. There we go. That's a great one. I mean, if you did 3 sets of that, that could be an extension if you wanted. We're only going for 10 minutes today just to get some movement in. But if you want an extension, try 3 sets of 10 reps of that. Hand raise push-ups. Let's go. Sit down, push up, back down, hands off. Up, down, hands off. Up, down, hands off. As many as you can in 30 seconds. I love this one. The down on the ground resets all your momentum, so you really have to push when you get up. One more. That's a really fun one. So as always, that is a progression towards— if you can, your goal could be, say for example, you test yourself for 30 seconds. And you, the first time you did maybe 10 in 30 seconds. The next time you do it, you might try to get 12 in 30 seconds. Eventually build up, you try to get 30 in 1 minute and then go from there. Exercise. Now we have leg raises. Come back down to the ground, put our legs here. Now if you can't do them straight like I am here, your alternative is to just bend your knees. And then extend them. But I'm going to do them straight here, nice and controlled, out, sucking that belly button into your spine. Rest. Beautiful, couple more. Excellent. Oh, we're up to the last exercise already. There we go. And a lot of people, I think, could see the message, don't understand. When I first heard it, I didn't understand it. Discipline equals freedom. Because discipline seems like the opposite of freedom. But when you think about it, if you do discipline, it's what enables you to build a skill. And skill— we're running on the spot now— and skill is what allows you to connect your ideas to something real. Drop! Oh yeah! Let's run! Skill! Get the discipline to build a skill, you have the freedom to use that skill. Drop! Let's keep running! Let's go! We might go for the full minute this time. Drop! Yeah! Keep going! We'll take up all the rest. So then we'll have a full minute of running. Drop. Skill is what allows you to connect heaven, your ideas, with earth, something you can use with your hands, something tangible. Keep it going. Drop. That's it. Let's go. Keep running. One more drop. Look at that, 10 minutes. Great workout, you spent 10 minutes 7 seconds exercising. Look at that, you're awesome, 5 stars, thank you very much. And so that was just a quick 10-minute session. Look at that, if you've been following along, your heart rate should definitely be, be raised. You should be building a little bit of a sweat. As I said at the start, it's only just a, uh, a progression type workout towards the actual entry test. And even if you're not going for the US Military entry test, this is a great workout just to do at any time. Full body reverse snow angel for the back, uh, single leg hamstring bends for the legs, hand raise push-ups— that's incredible for the, the chest, shoulders, and triceps. We did the leg raise, which will get your core, and then we did the run and drop, which is for the cardio. And a progression for this would be to do each one we did for a minute each over 10 minutes, and then the next stage would be to, to double what we did. So whole thing, 20 minutes, you do each exercise 4 times, working up to that total time of 2 minutes. But remember, discipline equals freedom. If you want the freedom To be able to live the life you want, you need the discipline to be able to build that. Anyway, thanks for checking in. Stay safe and, uh, don't forget to wash your hands and keep moving. See you tomorrow.
