TacticalBarbell.com

I've just finished my first six week cycle of Operator.

BP/FS/WPU (Deadlifts on day 3 instead of WPU.)

Really enjoyed it and have had great results.
Not interested in 1 rep max etc. Just function and overall strength.

Now what to do next?

I'm currently serving, I am a recce soldier (recon for my friends across the pond.)

Due to injury I've only been back in fully good to deploy for a short time so building myself back up still.

My tabbing(rucking) needs work as I'm working toward more 'special' testing.

I'd like to keep doing Operator as I love it but should I keep the same cycle or change it up? Maybe BS/OP/WPU for example?

Lastly for those military guys out there, any advice or experience on getting to a high level of fitness, rucking, hills etc coming from injury? Any suggestions on what I should be doing?

Thanks in advance.

Nice job with the Operator cycle. If it went well, why change? I’d recommend running the same cycle at least a few more times. I don’t blame you for not wanting to max. You can just add 10 pounds to your squat max and 5 pounds to your upper body lift maxes, and then recompute your Operator percentages for each week.

As for the military selection and fitness questions, do you have the TB conditioning book? That’s a good place to start. In the meantime, a helpful way to look at things the way an athlete would, is treat deployments like your “in season” and time at home as your “off season”. As soon as you return from deployment run a cycle of base building and then get back into running Operator cycles. If you want to be a special ops soldier, running the “Green” conditioning protocol from the book is probably the way to go. In practical terms this probably means rucking once a week and running 2-3 times. Try to fill in the gaps not covered by unit PT.

There is a sticky on selection prep at the top of the page by Joseph Wales. He is spot on with his advice. When you get within a couple of months from selection you should stop lifting and focus on body weight exercises, running and rucking. You don’t have to kill yourself rucking; you just want to get really comfortable with that thing on your back a lot. Don’t neglect cross country rucking either.

Good luck man.

Have you done basebuilding? Controlled, intentional basebuilding (by the book, SE first) did wonders for me when I was banged up and needed to rebuild. After that, use the correct tools. Operator isn't the way to selection/rucking shape. Search around in the posts here and you will find what you need.

That assumes you are are injury free. Fix injuries first.