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My thoughts on this stamina stuff in view of 18Xers and guys shipping to Basic kinda thing...feedback desired.

Working stamina (i.e. developing high rep ability) is all good but I have always felt there is a better way...

To butcher the concept...the stronger and more powerful (speed) you are... in let's say Bench Press and Weighted Pull-up and to a lesser degree Weighted Sit-ups (even Body weight squats if you like)...the less your 'stamina' system is taxed and therefore the more reps you can do before you reach the limit of you current stamina fitness level in that particular movement.

I guess you could say that mixing Limit Strength / Power training AND stamina training is attacking the High Rep APFT goal from a different angle.

This might be a good point for an analogy...you're driving a four wheeled drive and you have it in 2 wheel drive mode...you're only achieving so much in two wheeled mode so you flick it into Four wheeled mode....what happens....?

Just working stamina is like living in two wheeled mode, why not flip into 4 wheel drive...work your Strength / Power as well?

Some benefits...

1) More Sustainable
You can ramp up Stamina significantly in as little as 6 weeks (even 2 weeks with Mega sets volume stuff), just look at what Basic Training can achieve, however the issue is you lose upwards of 40% of your stamina in as little as 6 wks of no training and maintenance requires at least a 10min rep once per week to maintain if not more.

Limit Strength on the other hand, you only lose 10% over 6 weeks of no training and really only need to do one 20min 5 x 5 sets (kinda thing) every 6 weeks to maintain, perhaps a little more often then that - like every 4 wks (different horses for different courses).

I have worked with a number of guys who are very weak limit strength wise*, especially in their pull-ups, and really struggle to pick up their SU-PU-PLU over the maxs of 80-80-20 no mater how much stamina volume they do.
(Preferably 100-100-20 or there abouts - I was one of these guys in regards to PLUs)

2) Return on investment
Another benefit here is the law of diminishing returns.
Let's say you are weak* in one of these limit strength areas...let's say it's PUs...To get 100 strict PUs you are really having to get to 95% of your Stamina genetic potential to achieve this (cos you're weak) and the closer you get to your GP the harder you have to work and more training resource you have to expend to see gains.

Where as you are no where near your GP in Limit Strength, specifically Bench Press (or Weighted Dip or Military Press for that mater)...you're gonna see quicker (and more sustainable) gains with less effort if you work on your Limit Strength / Power AND Stamina.

Depending on where your Limit Strength is at I would consider holding off on this high volume Stamina stuff and focus more on your Limit Strength and Power (Blitz) with a lesser focus on Stamina until 6-8 wks out from shipping to basic or the next 6 monthly APFT kinda thing. At around 6-8 wks out start some of this volume stuff.

I can currently maintain my scores at around 60 with pretty much no stamina work simply because I am now stronger then I was. Ramping up to 100 isn't such a big leap and doesn't take nearly as much effort.

Thoughts welcome

S

*By weak I'm talking about...
Bench Press - 1 rep maximum - less then 75% Body Weight
Strict Weighted Pull-up - 1 rep maximum - less then 25% of body weight hanging from feet or chain around waist