About Navy SEAL Basic Training

The Navy SEALs are a famed special forces outfit. Partly shrouded in secrecy, some consider them to be the toughest group of commandos in the world. It should not be surprising that the basic training for SEALs is long and grueling.

Signing Up

Candidates for SEAL training must have the following qualifications: be male; be no older than 28; be already serving in the U.S. Navy, Marines or Coast Guard; have a score of 110+ on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery; have either 20/20 vision or vision that can be corrected to 20/20; be a United States citizen.

Physical Fitness: The Minimum

The minimum standards for entering SEAL training are: completing a 500-yard swim in 12.5 minutes using either the breast or side stroke; 42+ push-ups in 2 minutes; 50+ push-ups in 2 minutes; 6+ pull-ups from a dead-hanging position; completing a 1.5-mile run in boots in 11.5 minutes.

Physical Fitness: What Is Actually Needed

These are considered desirable standards for a trainee: doing the 500 yard swim in 10 minutes; 79+ push-ups in 2 minutes; 79+ sit-ups in 2 minutes; 11+ pull-ups from the dead-hanging position; running 1.5 miles in boots in 10 minutes and 20 seconds.

Basic Underwater-Demolition Training: Indoctrination

Basic Underwater-Demolition SEAL Training (BUD/S) is the basic training for SEALs, and starts with Indoctrination. SEALs are divided into boat crews of several men, and run through grueling physical drills that are meant to wash them out of the program.

BUD/S: Hell Week

Indoctrination concludes with "Hell Week," or 132 hours of continuous drill. By the end of this, 70 to 80 percent of trainees have left either due to injury or Dismissal on Request.

BUD/S: Phyical Conditioning

After surviving Indoctrination, SEALs go on to a further 7 weeks of physical conditioning.

BUD/S: Dive and Combat Training

The next stage consists of 8 weeks of dive training, followed by 9 weeks of land combat training.

Resources

• U.S. Navy SEALs