How Can I Prepare For SFAS?

We seem to have three categories of guys frequenting this sub and asking the same questions. Category one is active duty guys looking to confirm or deny a specific training detail or nuance. Two is older civilian guys who must feel the window of opportunity is closing (these are the guys that usually include lots of inconsequential credentials). And then three is young guys in high school who need guidance but have no idea what to ask so they just ask everything. My DMs are filled with these guys.

I thought it might be helpful (and timesaving) to create a post that covers a bunch of the most often asked questions. We can then just point guys here instead of re-tilling the same soil.

SFAS measures three primary domains…physical, cognitive, and interpersonal. The specific tests, events, assessments, and venues don’t really matter, and I would caution anyone from trying to ‘game the system’ too much. If you prepare for one specific thing and it turns out that they don’t do that specific thing, then you’re likely to get thrown off your game. So, I’ll try to be as specific as possible without over-focusing.

Younger Guys

If you’re still in high school, you should concentrate on being in high school. Get good grades, make lots of friends, play sports, and have fun. We make good Green Berets from good Soldiers, we make good Soldiers from good citizens, and we make good citizens from good people. You must be a good person first so just work on being a good person.

Get good grades, not because you need good grades to get selected, but because we want smart people who can read and write. It shows a level of discipline, and it demonstrates a willingness to follow the rules. The modern American education system is designed to create moderately intelligent people who can become reliable workers into our industrial base. You should augment that by reading…I’ll cover Reading Lists later. Be intellectually curious. Learn to ask good questions. Be a critical thinker. Learn a little bit about a lot. Learn DIY skills. Learn to cook. Learn a language. Learn to sew. Learn to clean. Life skills.

Make lots of friends. There is no requirement to be an extrovert or socialite, but ~85% of those selected are extroverts. You need to learn to communicate effectively…both receive and transmit. Learn to give and take instructions. Learn to bust balls and have your balls busted. Learn how to carry a conversation and learn how to be quiet and really listen. Learn conflict management and how to be managed when you’re being a prick. Have real life friends. Playing video games is fine, but go touch grass more often. Nobody wants to hang out with a weirdo, or a hard-ass, or a simp.

Play sports, especially team sports. This will help you build a good foundation of athleticism. It will also help you learn to take instruction, often critical and direct instruction. Coaches want performance and can have a unique way of telling you. Learn to be coached. Playing sports help you build social skills, too. It doesn’t really matter what sports you choose, but you might consider a contact sport like football because you should learn how to take a hit and be bullied. And how to hit and bully people. You might consider a combat sport like wrestling or jiu-jitsu. You aren’t likely to score a melee kill in real life (although it has happened), but you will get fit in a unique way, callous your mind and body, and cauliflower ears send an inimitable warning that you might be dangerous. You are years away from your pushups, pullups, run, or ruck times making any real difference. So don’t worry about them. Be stronger than the fastest runner and faster than the strongest lifter.

Have fun. Be a kid. You can’t go to SFAS until you’re 21 for a reason. You have your whole life ahead of you and deciding to be a Green Beret is a huge commitment. It is also far more likely that you will fail than you will succeed. That’s just the reality. 70% of Americans can’t serve in the military. 70% of those who serve aren’t eligible for SF. 65% of those who attend SFAS will not make it. If you have your whole identity and future built around this entire endeavor, then you run the very real risk of an imminent emotional crash. So, get your license, do kid things, and make mistakes. Don’t catch a felony but understanding risks and learning to navigate tenuous situations is a good skill. Good judgement comes from experience; experience often comes from bad judgment.

When you get closer to joining you should reach out to a recruiter. Don’t put too much stock in your uncle’s friend who knows a guy, or your buddy who plays lots of CoD, or a random dude on Reddit. Understand that recruiters have a job…to recruit. So, they are going to sell you the best possible story and minimize all of the negatives. They have quotas to fill and bosses to answer to. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. If you aren’t getting good answers, you can always call the SORB main office at 910-432-1818. The choice between National Guard or Active Duty is entirely up to you as is the choice between 18X or a longer path. Nobody can make those decisions for you. It all depends on your individual goals, circumstances, and desired end state.

Active Duty Guys

I’ll say active duty, but I really mean in-service. Guard, reserve, sister-service, prior service, whatever. This group seems to be the hardest to manage. You guys know just enough to think that you know it all, but most of what you know is hearsay. You all seem to have retained counsel through a licensed barracks lawyer, and your barrister failed selection. And you are just proud enough to not take real constructive criticism to heart. Can’t tell me nothin’, can’t show me nothin’. Your selection rates are likely an indicator of this condition. Read slowly and take notes.

Let’s start with the big stuff…the CGs Unwaiverables. We learned, and relearned, that there are some things that simply aren’t compatible with Special Forces. In a world of endless ETPs there are three things that will bar you from the beret. You can’t have any felony, any DUI, or any domestic violence. If it’s in your record, then you did it. The circumstances aren’t important. If it isn’t in your record, then you didn’t do it. Let sleeping dogs lie. I would add that any security clearance revocation is likely to keep you out as well.

Your prior MOS, rank, branch, assignments, or deployments don’t matter. Yes, you are a product of those things, but the cadre don’t know (or care) about them. There is one standard at SFAS and only your performance matters. I’ve seen scrolled beasts quit and slick sleeve loggies get selected. Don’t make the excuse that you aren’t X or you don’t have your Y keep you from dropping a packet. Likewise, don’t think that because you are Z that you will get a pass. The only thing that matters is your performance.

So, what exact physical performance do I need to be successful? You can find endless articles and social media posts from fitness gurus touting their system and their subscription service for coaching. I’m preparing a separate research project that compares the different products available (if you’ve got one that you’d like to add to the list please send it my way). I think the official SFAS guide is just fine. I might add a bit more rucking and some Olympic lifts. But I would offer you this benchmark to meet before you go to selection. 1) Be injury free; you will not have the luxury of recovery between events and unlike your real-world position, you don’t get to pick and chose when you can take a break or skip an event. 2) Be able to do 100 pushups or 75 hand-release pushups, be able to do 10 dead-hang pullups, and be able to do a 12:30 two-mile run. Be able to do 12-13 minutes miles rucks with 50 pounds pretty much indefinitely. 3) Be able to bench press your body weight, squat 1.5 x your bodyweight, and deadlift 2 x your body weight. If you had to choose, I’d pick endurance over strength. But be strong. Be stronger than the fastest runner and faster than the strongest lifter (yeah, I know I keep saying this…maybe there is a reason why). Team week is endless squats and deadlifts with a good sprinkling of overhead press.

Rucking is the most important performance measure. Every important decision that you make at selection is made with a ruck on your back. Read those MTI articles in the link. Get very comfortable in this domain. Master your gear and master your feet. I’m not a fitness coach and I have no particular credentialed expertise, a fact that I often cite, but guys keep asking me about a rucking program that I would recommend. So here it is, without any guarantee of its efficacy other than I’ve had a couple dozen guys say that they used it and it worked well for them. It worked well for me.

I call it the 5x5. I prefer multiple short duration, higher intensity rucks over longer rucks. I think the more fatigued you get the more likely you are to get injured (see my three milestones above). The 5x5 is a 5 mile ruck, 100 squats with ruck, a 5 mile run, and 100 bodyweight squats. Change into running shoes after the ruck squats but stay in uniform. Aim for 35-55 pounds and 12-13 minute miles rucking and 6-7 minute miles running. Full range of motion on the squats. Do this 2-3 times a week and maybe substitute a longer slower solo ruck once a month.

The 5x5 will crush you early on. Your legs will feel like lead and you’ll likely be slower than you want. Listen to your body. Rest when you need to. Push where you can. But I’ve seen this program get you tree trunk legs, rock solid core, shoulders and back, and build massive aerobic capacity. Each workout is only two hours long and guys regularly report dropping minutes from miles in a month. The short duration also lends itself to the testing methodology described in the prep your feet post linked above.

Everybody Else

This group seems to often focus on two key aspects…telling us what you do and asking if you can do things while still serving. Your civilian accomplishments don’t really mean anything. Your degrees, your licenses, your titles, and your collegiate athletic endeavors don’t really mean much. They are an important part of your past and might give you valuable experience, but in and of themselves they don’t mean much. It actually seems weird that many of you seem to include them in your dialogue. It won’t make a difference with your recruitment (even if your recruiter tells you it does), your peers will think its awkward if you keep reminding them, and the cadre certainly won’t care. Only your performance matters.

Because of your experiences many of you come into the process with a little baggage…or hardware. Unlike the CGs Unwaiverables there seems to be an endless option of ETPs (Exceptions to Policy) for all sorts of medical hardware, conditions, and limitations. About the only thing that I’ve seen never get a waiver is a heart condition or a TBI. Everything else is a matter of ‘it depends’…it depends on your specific condition, how diligent your recruiter is, and the exigencies of your medical screener. Your best bet is to just find a recruiter that you can trust and give him what he needs to put your packet together completely. This is true for young guys trying to navigate the ADD meds limitations to old guys trying to figure out how many screws they need to have removed. You can check out Medical Fitness Standards for some good specifics, but you only get to yes if you put in your packet. Nobody can really predict how it will go so there really isn’t much value in querying randos. Submit your packet. Shoot your shot.

There is no real age limitation (I’ve seen guys in their late 40s at SFAS…not successfully, but they were there), but the odds of success decrease significantly the longer you wait. Males likely hit their peak fitness in their mid-30s, but SFAS is unique in that there is almost no time for recovery. I’ve seen teams go hard for 20 hours, get 30 minutes rest, then right back on your ruck for another 20 hours. You don’t control your rest, your nutrition, and your load management. Older guys just don’t adapt well. So don’t wait too long. For some of you older guys you might realize that this ship has sailed. No big deal, everyone serves in their own capacity. You might be interested in this post about some civilian equivalent SOF training opportunities.

Reading Lists

Let’s talk about the Reading Lists. I’m not sure what it is about Reading Lists but this seems to be a topic of endless discussion and seems impossible to research within the sub. There are so many reading lists already published. The USSOCOM Commander maintains a list. So does the USASOC Commander. Even the JSOC commander publishes a list . They do this almost every year and you can easily find it with a little google-fu. Just search “USASOC Commanders reading list 2022” and off you go down the rabbit hole. It seems like most of the prominent SOF social media types have a list and it seems like we beat this horse every few weeks right on this sub. The crossover of the lists is pretty exhaustive. There are enough lists to keep you in letters for years. If you really want a reading MY reading list then check out SUAR. Stop asking and start reading. I consider this horse dead. Well beaten. I’m much more interested in you doing some writing…

That’s right, I said writing. If you’re an avid reader you probably have a metric shit ton of ideas constantly flowing through your head. You want to make sense of these ideas so you read more stuff. You get more ideas you struggle to make sense of. You read more. Rinse and repeat. You would be better served doing a little writing.

Writing forces you to organize your thinking. It makes you put your thoughts on paper, where those thoughts must be reckoned with. You can actually see what you think. You can debate the logic and the evidence and the merit. You can be judged. That’s right…you can be judged. I think this is one of the inherent reasons most folks don’t write. They’re afraid of being judged. SFAS is a three week long comprehensive judging process.

If you sat down and penned some obtuse thoughts about, say…”How do I prepare for SFAS?”…people might judge you. If you fucked it up they might laugh at you. If you were inaccurate you might get corrected. If you were truthful you might get exposed. Imagine putting that on the internet and allowing anonymous trolls to pepper you with insults about fucking your wife, or kicking your ass, or calling you an Air Force guy (please note that the weirdos who do that stuff always delete their posts and often delete their entire accounts as soon as they work out how retarded they sound). Hell, half of the posts just asking questions get deleted because guys are so afraid of getting judged.

But you should write your thoughts down. Make sense of what you read, and put it to good use. How are you going to apply it? What is the next step? What could it mean if you combine it with this other thing you read? Check your notes? Cross reference. Make sense. Write it down. You don’t have to share it with anyone, but if you aren’t writing then you probably aren’t making sense.

I’ll add to this the need for journaling. I’m not talking about your Hello Kitty diary. I’m talking about performance journaling. You can ease into it with just keeping track of your workouts. That’s manly, right? I can’t tell you how many guys DM me asking for advice but can’t provide any real data to get started. If you want to get better I need to know where you are or we’re gonna stay lost.

Keep track of your workouts, then add in your nutrition data. How much water you drank. How much sleep you got. How do you feel. Not, your feelings…but how do you feel. You did X workout with these times/weights/reps and you ate this and drank that and slept this. Now how do you feel. Are you getting faster, stronger, better? What if you adjusted this food or slept more or whatever. If you’re not writing it down then how are you keeping track of all of this data? Are you serious about your performance or not?

If you keep a training log of your diet and exercise, add in some thoughts about some stuff you read, and add a to do list…you’d be performance journaling. And just like that you could organize your thinking. You could plan your growth. You could maximize your gains. You would get smarter and more formidable. But you’d rather ask Jocko about his gi, or listen to another podcast about other guys doing shit that you wish you could do, or spend another afternoon setting up your larping kit instead of going to the range.

Which brings us back to Reddit. Nobody owes me any fealty. But I’m begging you. I’m fucking pleading with you…please spend a few minutes doing a little research before you post a question. You have access to hundreds of Subject Matter Experts on this sub. Guys that are on teams right now, guys that just got selected, guys that are going to selection. Team leaders, team sergeants, juniors, seniors, you name it. If you’re shooting your shot with reading lists, sock choices, and “wHy diD yOu gO sF?!?” then you’re missing the mark.

So that’s that. I’m probably forgetting a bunch of stuff but I can always add another part. Because I wrote this all down…