We can eat with a spoon, but for a soldier, anything he does is not as simple as bringing the spoon close to his mouth. He has to run for miles, swim for miles, get bricks smashed on his back and dig through the swamp to unearth his food!
Following are some of the military training exercises from around the world that have the potential to break down the strongest of your gym chap!
1. Taking a bullet in the chest – Russia
This particular exercise is an important part of Russian specialized confidence training. The motive is to prepare the soldiers to react quickly should they get shot on the battlefield. During the training, some of them get injured, while some others take the bullet in their vest. Regardless of how they take it, it is all about opening counter fire in a jiffy despite getting hurt.
2. Tightrope walking over burning logs – Belarus
Belarus (a landlocked country in Eastern Europe) is also referred to as the last dictatorship of Europe. I guess the picture makes this easy to believe!
One particular training of theirs involves walking the tightrope over burning logs. It would have been a simpler task if it weren’t for the ammunitions being fired at their feet from below.
And this is not all! Imagine building blocks set on fire and then someone commands you to give the blocks a header and break through them; seems like a nightmare doesn’t it? However, for the soldiers of Belarus, it is indeed a reality.
These are just a few of the many fatal exercises the soldiers of Belarus are made to do. And these are performed with a sole aim to gain the ministry’s elite “Red Beret” tag.
3. Soldiers are forced to indulge in a snow fight, shirtless. – South Korea and China
South Korea likes the concept of ‘cold war’ a bit too much I suppose. Over 200 soldiers from the South Korea’s finest special forces travel to an ice-laden region of Pyeongchang, where the temperature goes down to a staggering -30-degree celsius. And it is here where they bring out their aggressive side a bit too extravagantly.
They run a marathon, they wrestle, they do gymnastics. And as if this was not enough, they also throw snowballs on each other. Because you know, throwing snow on the already numb body in a freezer of an environment, is always fun!
South Korean soldiers aren’t the only ones facing the snow with heat in their hearts. China does it too. At sub-zero temperature on the Russian border, they go crazy too, albeit less aggressively than South Koreans. Carrying their swords, they crawl through the snow, half-naked!
4. Â Drownproofing- US Navy
The soldiers, with their lungs, fully inflated, float in a nearly vertical posture. Using hands and legs to exert a downward pressure, they keep their mouths above the water surface to inhale deeply before dropping back in a relaxed float again. The same process is repeated 5-10 times. Now this is still fairly simple.
The real test starts once the soldiers master the art of drownproofing. With feet tied at the ankles and hands tied behind their backs, soldiers jump into a 9 ft deep pool and,
- They bounce,
- They float in a near-vertical position,
- They swim till the shallow end and turn back up but without touching the bottom end of the pool,
- They again travel down and do somersault (both forward and backward) underwater,
And finally,
They grab the mask sitting on the pool floor with their teeth and swim back up!
5. Cinder blocks are hammered on their stomachs- Russia
One notable aspect of Spetsnaz Special Forces training is of pain management training.
- Their commanding officers lodge full force punches in the chest of soldiers and soldiers are supposed to take those punches without a flinch.
- The soldiers get burning cinderblocks smashed on their stomachs with a sledgehammer.
- With a hatchet in hand, they flip over a barbed wire fence and aim to hit the target with the hatchet.
Here’s where heroes are born out of fire and rocks!
6. “Hell Week” – Philippine Navy Seal
During the last week of Navy Seal training, they are made to go sleepless for an entire week and are allowed only an hour of rest each day. And while they struggle to keep their eyes wide open,
- They exercise rigorously,
- Perform target shooting,
- Run for 6 miles, and
- Swim for 18 miles.
And what takes it to whole other level is the fact that soldiers are required to stay drunk while performing these tasks!
7. Drinking Cobra Blood- US Marine
US Marines in the jungles of Thailand undergo survival training for 11 days. While it is a good idea to become robust by learning how to survive in the wild, the survival tactics they learn will definitely leave you astonished.
The soldiers,
- Drink cobra blood,
- Eat scorpions,
- Behead chickens with their teeth alone!
What is more shocking is that these brutal acts are, in fact, a reality!
8. Surf conditioning- Navy Seal
The soldiers are commanded to link arms and lie down on their backs on the beach in such a way that their heads stay partially submerged in the cold ocean water. And as if freezing the brain was not enough, they are made to shout at the top of their lungs while the noisy waves come crashing over their heads.
9. Crawl over pointy rocks and corals- Taiwan Marines
The final stage of the 9 week long training period of the Amphibious Training Program in Zuoying, southern Taiwan, is called the “Road to Heaven”. And the path to their heaven is painful beyond your imagination. In addition to the many rigorous exercises, the soldiers are made to crawl along a 50 metre long path, filled with rocks and corals with jagged edges.
While it may seem as though the soldiers are tortured, the ultimate aim of such seemingly horrendous training sessions is to create a class of superheroes that despite getting hit in the most severe of ways, hold the strength to knock down the perpetrators.