Part II- SWAT Tryouts and SOF Selections: Key Factors to Success
Strength Training- How Often
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Key Takeaway
There is often confusion on how much strength training plays a role in SWAT or SOF selection selection success. Some “tactical” trainers say if you bench, squat, and deadlift certain loads you’re on your way to success. Others say strength training is useless. Like most things we need to find a middle ground.
This article is going to discuss how often one should strength train when preparing for these events.
How Often to Strength Train And Why
Strength training is a huge part of the We Go Home Human Performance Daily Team Training Program, our SWAT Selection program, and our generic Special Operations Program. How much we strength train depends on the phase of each program and the goals we are looking for in that snapshot in time.
If you’re preparing for a specific event and you’re several months out, then I would argue (and program) 2-3 true strength training days a week. They’re total body with maybe an “upper” or “lower” focus then followed by accessory.
We do this because we are so far outside of the window of the event and we can take the time to build generic capacities that will help you at these events. Being stronger will help with most things, however the key is we also do plenty of conditioning during these more generic blocks and use modalities/methods that do not interfere with your strength training.
As the event get closer, we dial back our strength training to maintenance levels as we increase our “sport specific” work. Here are the same two sample weeks from last article from our Special Operations Program:
Week 1:
Week 9:
As you can see we are still doing big lifts but we’re moving more towards movement under load as the focus.
Residual Training Effects
Another concept people don’t understand is that strength adaptations take longer to build but will stick around about a month before declining as seen below:
The chart above is on page 52 of Coach Cal Dietz’s Book, Triphasic Training. Coach Dietz just wrapped up training the U.S. Women’s Hockey team after they took home the Gold Medal during the 2026 Winter Olympics. In short…he is a pretty smart dude.
As stated in the book research has shown this is generally how long different residual training effects will last. If this is the case for most people, why not spend time building strength for longer periods (if time permits) and then if need be hit the last two capacities hard for the last part of the training program. This doesn’t mean you need to totally neglect the other capacities during other parts of the program, it just means you should emphasize one over the other in targeted blocks before moving on to the next…like we do in our programming.
If you take the time to build strength you’re not only going to have an easier time excelling on high rep body weight tests but if done properly you’ll have raised your work capacity and overall foundation. Meaning that when you add in high rep body weight work or “smoker” sessions you’ll be layering on local muscular endurance adaptations on top of the strength you’ve built. The latter fades faster and really only needs to be trained for 2-3 weeks before it basically peaks as shown above.
Don’t fight your physiology.
Closing
There was a time where people thought strength training made you slow, bulky, sore, less athletic, etc… have times changed. Every sport now strength trains in some capacity.
Are athletes all powerlifting or bodybuilding? Of course not. This is just another capacity that needs to be trained in an intelligent manner that builds on itself; as long as you keep the overall goal in mind before you walk into the gym and even get near a weight.
This article just explored the frequency one may choose to train this capacity. Future article will explain how strong you “need” to be.
If you need help with any of this our We Go Home Human Performance Team Training is on the TrainHeroic App. You can also find our SWAT Selection, and generic Special Operations Program. Everything goes right to the app on your phone and lets you track your progress. I am also just a message away on there if you need assistance with equipment or exercise substitutions.
Questions? Reach out or comment below.
References:
Dietz, C., & Peterson, B. (2012). Triphasic training: A systematic approach to elite speed and explosive strength performance. Bye Dietz Sport Enterprise.
Daily programming with We Go Home LLC on the TrainHeroic App!