10 Best Physical Fitness Workouts for Indian Army Aspirants
With their selfless dedication and extraordinary commitment, the Indian Army Forces face tremendous challenges to protect their nation from external threats. If you are inspired by them and aspire to join the Indian Army, then prepare yourself for the National Defence Academy exams.
The Indian Army Selection Board selects its candidates through a demanding physical fitness test that includes a wide range of well structured physical tasks. These tests judge the physical capabilities of the aspirants and their readiness for withstanding the challenges of the defence academy.
Following are some best physical fitness workouts that can help you to deliver best performance in the fitness test for the defence forces.
Preparing for Indian Army Physical Fitness test
The Indian Army Physical Fitness test is a demanding and challenging fitness assessment that requires a candidate to be in their best physical form.
Let’s explore 10 best physical fitness workouts for Indian Army aspirants that will help you to excel in your upcoming Indian Army Physical fitness test.
1. Mountain Climbers
Mountain climbers is a full body exercise that works on both lower and upper body strengthening. This workout enhances several muscles such as, core, hamstrings, quads, triceps and shoulders. Inclusion of this workout in daily fitness routine prepares you to enhance your stamina and endurance required to achieve an optimal physical fitness.
2. Running
Running is one of the vital physical activities and an essential component of the Indian Army physical fitness test. For instance, candidates are required to run for 1.6 kilometres within specified time. Therefore, by practising Running daily, candidates should work on glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, quadriceps, calves, core and upper body and enhance their stamina, speed, and endurance. Candidates can start with shorter distance runs and with time, increase the covered distance and speed of running.
3. Tempo Runs
Tempo Run is a speed enhancing workout that involves running at a sustained pace for 20 minutes to an hour. This routine helps in improving the running pace and adapting one’s legs and lungs to run at a faster pace without experiencing early fatigue. Practising tempo runs prepares the candidate to endure high levels of discomfort and sustain their running performance for a longer time.
4. Fartlek Training
Fartlek training is a type of interval training that involves continuously changing your running speed throughout a workout; i.e. transition between jogging and sprint. Fartlek runs adapt the body to run at various paces without experiencing discomfort and conditions the body to run faster even at longer distances. Additionally, it enhances your cardiovascular fitness, improves endurance, mental strength, flexibility, and race tactics on the track.
5. Hill Sprints
Hill Sprints are a dynamic strength training exercise that engages your core muscles and focuses on the running movement, resulting in increasing endurance and stamina. It also enhances muscle strength and conditions the body to carry tasks like climbing or carrying heavy loads. It engages the core, shoulders, arms and lower body muscles. Hill sprints help in directing more force or power to the ground, improving the ability to quickly move and adjust the pace. Moreover, by enhancing fast twitch muscle fibres, hill sprints enhance strength, power, and functional capacities of the muscles.
6. Crunches
Crunches are a core exercise designed to target your abdominal muscles and obliques. They help in strengthening your core and improve body balance without any equipment. Crunches improve your posture which ultimately strengthens the core, prevents back pain, muscles injuries and supports your spine. There are different variations of crunches that can be easily learnt such as reverse crunches, bicycle crunches, bird dog crunch and many others.
7. Pushups
Push ups are a form of compound exercise or callisthenics that mainly targets the upper body muscles namely, shoulders, triceps, pectoral muscles, back, arms, core and chest. They are strength building exercises that build muscles, tone the overall body, increase strength, stamina as well as enable core and lower body conditioning. Push ups do not require any gym dependency, and so they can be done anytime, anywhere right at your convenient place.
8. Pull ups
A pull-up is an upper body exercise that includes hanging and lifting oneself with the help of a pull up bar. It is a type of strength building workout that mainly targets your upper body muscles namely, strengthening back, hands, forearms and grip strength. It improves your posture by keeping your body erect, neutral and upright. It also releases the stiffness especially around shoulder and neck areas which ultimately helps in toning the body and burn calories.
9. High Jump
High jump training is essential for the Indian Army selection process. It improves overall physical fitness, agility, strength and power which is essential for tasks that require quick, powerful movements. High Jump engages and extends knees, hips, ankles and utilises muscles such as core, calves, abdominals, hamstrings, quadriceps and glutes; thus imparting strength. It is important to record the speed and height of your high jumps to track your performance.
With the help of an Army Fitness App you can now easily track the long jump progress with your performance metrics. Additionally, it offers progress tracking, workout analytics, and personalised recommendations that are helpful to enhance your performance.
10. Tricep dips
Tricep dips are a bodyweight exercise that effectively improve your upper body strength and build muscles of upper back, biceps, shoulders, chest and triceps. This workout prepares you to gain the endurance required to perform the challenging tasks of the Army such as lifting, crawling and hanging. It also improves your shoulder stability and core stability. Different variations of this exercise targets the major muscle groups of your arms, shoulders, triceps, pectoral muscles and chest thereby benefiting them respectively.
Conclusion
Including these ten dynamic exercises in your daily fitness regimen will not only help you excel in the Indian Army physical fitness test but will also prepare you for similar future endeavours. With the ultimate guidance and training regime, you need to stay focused and be consistent. Always remember that physical fitness is an integral part and a fundamental component of an Indian Army Physical Fitness fitness regime.