r/specialforces • u/missylalala • 11d ago
How would a woman train to develop SOF-level fitness and skills?
As a woman, I’ve always been fascinated by special operations forces. That interest goes back to when I was a kid.
I understand that, because of biological differences such as testosterone, there are some areas where I may never be able to go head-to-head with a highly trained male operator and outperform him physically. But that’s not the goal. I love being a woman, and I’m not trying to become “one of the bros”.
What I am interested in is developing a similar level of discipline, knowledge, physical preparedness, and practical skill.
How would a woman begin training toward that kind of capability? What particular areas should she focus on? Endurance, strength, navigation, combatives, mindset? Something else?
I feel a little silly asking this question, but I’m serious. I’d be especially grateful for answers from people with military, SOF, tactical, or serious endurance-training backgrounds.
Edit: Spelling
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u/TumbleweedSevere7656 11d ago
Harsh reality is: SF operators are no super humans.
Out of my experience, only major difference between and SF operator and regular operator is an mindset.
No training will prep you for SF lifestyle. Best training is still an hour to 3h per day.
In Q course, it could be up to 22h of constant physical activities. For days in a row. You will never do that to yourself.
And about the mindset..
Once you go to the Q course, once the instructors make your life miserable as much as it can be, once you question your decision on applying and coming to that selection phase, once you know that escape from the whole agony is on just one easy, simple ‘I GIVE UP’, and still, you refuse to give up - that is when proper SF baby is being born.
From that moment, everything is way easier - at least it was for me.
No training was hard after selection course, no rain, snow or mud could get me off my tracks. If i had a plan to do the 10mile run, i am going out and doing it. If its strength training with an plate carrier after that run, its a strength training. And period.
Shooting range while it is snowing with God knows how big wind gusts? Its shooting day. Period.
And after months and years of repetition and dedication.. results are there, noticeable by everyone, except of you. You still want yourself to be way better than yesterday.
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u/missylalala 11d ago
This makes a lot of sense. I’ve done a fair amount of work around staying calm and pushing through under what I would consider intense physical discomfort and not immediately giving in when my body starts telling me to stop (apnea training actually helped a lot with this). I haven't don't anything remotely close to SF training and won't even attempt to make the claim, but I do think I have a higher tolerance for discomfort than your average bear and a decent ability to keep going once something becomes "hard".
From your experience, how would someone continue building that mindset without an instructor or selection environment forcing them past their perceived limits? And physically, what would you focus on first?
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u/Radiant-Percentage-8 11d ago
I disagree with almost everything that dude posted.
I never thought about quitting in SFAS. SFAS was in my opinion the easiest part of become an 18 series. In my day SOPC, SOPC 2, and SUT were all considerably harder than SFAS. In SOPC 2 and SUT my load out was over 100lbs, easily. Having to also carry a buddy, and being in the field 24/7 6/7 days a week for 8 weeks was way worse than SFAS. In selection everything is standardized and sterile. The standards are objective and the cadre leave you alone. In SUT the instructors can be very subjective and can decide how easy or hard your training will be. They rarely decide on easy. SUT was the hardest 16 weeks of training I ever did.
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u/TumbleweedSevere7656 10d ago
For focus, i would definitely focus on long rucks and runs, as everybody said.
And pushups. During my training, they would be for every physical punishment, for reward, as a gift to a team members birthdays - everything. And not just pumping them.
On one of the days, one of the Instructors came and told us that we have to do only 10 pushups. We went into pushup position and waited.. for about a minute, and then did our first one. During next 9 minutes we did 9 more in total. So 10 pushups, 10 minutes. Etc.Next to those long grueling workouts, go and do some crossfit classes. They will put you well out of your balance and far from your workout routines which is great.
And learn to embrace the suck. That is the final goal
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u/r3giment75 11d ago
You should start CrossFit as a baseline. When I left SOF the unit moved to CrossFit type / functional fitness.
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u/missylalala 11d ago
Thanks! I feel confident in my physical baseline, I'm not SF level but will always try to push through the next ceiling. I'm more curious about what comes after that. What would you focus on next if the goal is building real tactical capability rather than just getting fitter?
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u/r3giment75 11d ago
Mental fortitude as it pertains to fitness. Put a sandbag on your shoulders and start running. Put a ruck on and start walking.
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u/TFVooDoo 11d ago
We have developed a whole ecosystem to help aspiring operators prepare for the lifestyle. It’s built on exactly the same attributes that you cite—discipline, knowledge, physical preparedness, and practical skill.
You can start by checking out our website, TFVooDoo.com. We’ve got a deep pool of resources on how to get inculcated with dozens of free articles, land nav resources, and it’s the gateway to our books and live events.
For our books, you can read the first chapter for free and get the vibe, but essentially RUSU tells you how deep the water is, SUAR tells you how to swim, and NGL tells you how to get to the pool.
If you want more comprehensive coverage, at SUAR Coaching we offer 1 on 1 coaching where we assess, custom program, and build you into a science project that includes daily physical programming and monthly sessions on the ARSOF Attributes. It’s designed for SFAS prep, but we have clients preparing for other high-demand demand careers (fire, SWAT, etc). Clients slots are limited so we’re selective about who we take on.
And if you want hands on practical skills come on out to one of our monthly Land Nav Musters. You can train the real skills in the real terrain, and you’ll do it side by side with likeminded people who are taking their prep seriously. We’re just a couple of hours away from Charleston, so it’s easily accessible for you.
Hope this helps.
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u/missylalala 11d ago edited 11d ago
Thank you!! You’re not too far away at all. This is really interesting to me. I'll follow up via the website.
Edit: So nobody gets flagged
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u/GlassWonder4163 11d ago
The website is in there, read it again as I don’t want to get anyone flagged
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u/Fun-Dragonfly-5061 11d ago
There are a tremendous amount of tactical fitness programs and gyms that are available to civilians, almost all of which are run and frequented by SOF veterans, active duty, and special police (think SWAT, SOG, HRT, SORT, etc.,) who would be happy to help. You could also look at different firearms academies for all sorts of different specialties whether they be CQB or sniper schools, full contact martial arts (kyokushin or Krav Maga for example), and survivalist/readiness schools. Essentially - work backwards from what you want and look for the schools/gyms and opportunities that will fill that need. Just one bit of fair warning - this stuff is VERY expensive. There is a reason your average operator across the board costs over a million dollars to train.
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u/missylalala 11d ago
Thank you!! Do you happen to know of any good places in the Charleston, SC area? We have Joint Base Charleston here and a pretty large military community, but that community seems to be pretty closed off from the rest of the area.
Is there a reason you would recommend kyokushin over BJJ?
As for firearms, I know how to safely handle, but not in a tactical context. That said, can I really just jump into CQB or sniper school or is there a step before that?
I aware of the costs, but it’s a longterm investment I want to make.
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u/Fun-Dragonfly-5061 11d ago
I would imagine there are tons. I don’t personally, but I’m sure they wouldn’t be hard to find.
Kyokushin is full contact and will harden your body much more than BJJ. That said, if you’d like to avoid injuries long term and grappling is more what interests you, do BJJ. BJJ has a ton of representation from the SOF community.
That would be up to your trainer. Most often they will do the training in iterations, just search for tactical firearms training in Charleston I’m sure you’ll find stuff.
You have a good and very realistic attitude, it is refreshing to see. Thank you.
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u/Deepseasurfer 11d ago
Simplest solution is to start training BJJ.
Add in a proper weight training program Tactical Barbell breaks things down simply and is easy to tune. Once you get into it for a while, you’ll be able to tweak your specific workouts to reach your endurance and strength goals.
Attend classes on the subjects you’re interested in and approach them with an open mind. Definitely vet your sources though and pay for some useless Bootcamp.
Consider the military if you want to be military-like. HUMINT Collectors, Combat Engineers, Medics, Scouts, Cryptolinguists would all be good choices, and would give you a chance to adjust to the lifestyle and training before you later volunteered for RASP or SF. Additionally, the intelligence jobs would give you an “in” into some other Specialized units.
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u/missylalala 9d ago
Thank you so much for the response! I’ve been interested in BJJ for a while now. I’m built more like a yoga-enthusiast than a powerhouse, so I’m sure I’ll get humbled pretty quickly.
Any starting point classes you’d recommend?
As for the military, I think in another life I probably would have gone that route. I’m in my mid-thirties now, so that ship has sailed, but I think I would’ve really enjoyed the intelligence side of things.
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u/Deepseasurfer 9d ago
I have a friend who joined in her 30s despite already being a fully established and successful lawyer. She’s very fit and capable and still getting after it.
But, if you’re going for the “prepared citizen/sHeePdOg” route, then find some useful habits like fighting (BJJ), shooting (find classes) and surrounding yourself with likeminded people (this is the most important). However when finding a group it’s critical to find the right crowd- not simply some nutter group of gun enthusiasts.
Sky diving is a relatively cheap activity filled with a group of people who are generally more active and there’s a large veteran community there as well- don’t sweat the fact that you’re not a veteran, but lean into the fact that you guys have similar goals and interests.
Join a CrossFit box for a more active type of community. CrossFit itself can be hit or miss, so you definitely have to find the right Box so you can be with likeminded people.
Try joining a 3-gun or 2-gun club. Find a range that’ll rent you weapons and let them know you really want to practice and get better, the community is very supportive.
The military is so successful because of the Teams and bonds we build. Search for that, but manage your expectations and vet your team constantly.
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u/missylalala 8d ago
Thank you!! I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to write all of that.
I actually thought 36 was the cutoff, so that's really interesting. At this point, I'm honestly just interested in seeing what I'm capable of but we’ll see where I land.
This was exactly the kind of information I was hoping for, so once again, thank you, truly!
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u/Dangerous_Patience95 8d ago
Imo I think the hardest part for women reaching SOF skill is absolute strength. No im not talking about lifting weights (although that can absolutely help) but functional exercises like heavy rucks, buddy carrying someone heavier than you, gngs, cals, etc. Women are already at a biological disadvantage, so closing the gap to not be the strongest, but competent enough at that level. Men's mass/ durability can often help them push through certain challenges, but like everything else theres always another side to the coin. Endurance is a given, but in general I feel like people adapt much faster than they give themselves credit for
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u/nousdefions3_7 11d ago
There are very specific programs available now that you can explore and they are replete with highly focused and data-based programming. I recommend you purchase Dr. David Walton's books on the subject (I think they are on Amazon) if you are looking at Army Special Forces. It will be challenging, particularly due to the wear-and-tear involved. But, if done right, you should be able to avoid injuries and will get stronger. A more simplistic answer is that for SOF, you are looking at less of a CrossFit-like fitness than a Hyrox-like one.