![]() ![]() ![]() Stay in shape with this body-weight workout created by EXOS for the Navy. Should someone want to do those burpees or some high-knees, they’ll need to step into space that crew members on watch are using to move from one room to another. “You put the weight on the bar and two guys hold it-that’s your rack.” Mind you, this is an active work space. Even though there’s foot traffic in the room, “you can still do deadlifts and what we call buddy squats,” Shores says. The crew keeps its single weight bar under one of the torpedo racks, as well as its two sets of PowerBlocks, an improvement over the old plastic Bowflex weights that cracked too easily and rolled around and got in the way. The rack can be raised or lowered, but even at its highest point there still isn’t enough room for most people to do a burpee. That means most of the activity happens in a space about the size of a utility room under a torpedo rack. The only places where a six-foot person can stand upright are the passageways. Many workouts are conducted in the torpedo room, which isn’t really a room at all. To stay sane and fit, submariners must learn to adapt. During the few hours of downtime each day, you can either lie in the environs of your bunk watching movies or playing video games that you loaded onto your phone before deployment, or you can go to one of the larger spaces where people gather: the galley or work zones that double as lounges or gyms. Thirty people share two showers, two toilets, and two sinks. Sometimes there aren’t enough beds for everyone, so rookies must “hot rack,” or share two beds among three crew members working alternating shifts. Submariners sleep six to a room no bigger than a walk-in closet each side has three bunks, and there are just four inches of clearance between your face and the rack above. The sub is 370 feet long, about the length of a football field, and 34 feet across at its widest point. It’s not an environment conducive to training. There is virtually no personal space, and any large space has more than one purpose. But the men and women aboard the North Dakota, or any of the other 84 subs in the U. Aircraft carriers have gyms, and even basketball hoops that can be rolled out. Most Navy ships have large spaces-not to mention open decks-where sailors can break a sweat. Working out is complicated when you’re on deployment. And then he’s got to maintain the gym equipment, “which can be a hassle when you’ve got all those guys using one treadmill,” he says. He’s also there to ensure that crew members don’t lose their minds, a very real concern when you’re deployed on a pressurized tube of steel that may not surface for three months. He’s a gym rat who volunteered for the job, which required a recommendation from his commanding officer and a five-day training program.Īs command fitness leader, Shores is responsible for making sure everyone on the boat passes the semiannual Physical Readiness Test-a sequence of events that measures aerobic capacity, strength, and muscular endurance. ![]() He’s primarily a “nuke” who operates the reactor in the North Dakota’s engine room, but Shores also oversees the fitness of the 138-person crew, a “collateral duty” that he takes almost as seriously as his primary mission. “We have four torpedoes on board,” says Shores, a 29-year-old from North Carolina who has a square jaw to match his broad shoulders. ![]()
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