How to Prepare for MARSOC Selection and the Marine Raider Course

Preparing for the Marine Special Operations Command’s (MARSOC) Assessment & Selection and the Marine Raider Course is one of the most demanding paths in the military. It typically takes 1.5+ years. The MARSOC training pipeline is built to test every aspect of your physical, mental, emotional, and interpersonal capabilities.

MARSOC Assessment and Selection Pipeline Overview

Some elements of this process are deliberately unpredictable. The structure and standards may shift between classes, and many events remain unknown until candidates face them firsthand. This unpredictability is intentional. MARSOC cadres evaluate more than fitness—they assess your ability to handle uncertainty, think under stress, and adapt quickly.

The training pipeline evaluates both individual capability and team performance. You could be a top athlete and technically sound, but if you can’t operate well within a group, your chances of completing the process drop significantly.

The pipeline involves two stages:

Purpose Behind the Assessment & Selection Phase

The initial A&S phase acts as a filter. Its goal is to remove those lacking the fundamental tools—physical toughness, mental resilience, or emotional stability—needed to thrive in high-stress, high-stakes environments.

While the Marine Raider Course continues to screen candidates, its primary focus is development. It provides structured training to mold qualified individuals into full-spectrum special operators.

Why Peer Feedback Matters in MARSOC Training

One of the most overlooked components of the pipeline is peer evaluation. Throughout training, your teammates will assess your performance, attitude, and professionalism. It’s not enough to be capable on paper—you must demonstrate that you can contribute positively to the team dynamic.

Even the strongest candidates physically can be dropped from the course if they prove toxic, selfish, or unreliable under pressure.

Overview of the MARSOC Fitness Standards During Assessment & Selection and MRC

To succeed in MARSOC Assessment & Selection (A&S) and the Marine Raider Course (MRC), you must meet—and ideally exceed—a series of demanding physical benchmarks. These tests aren’t theoretical. You’ll be required to hit these numbers on command and in less-than-ideal conditions: under stress, with minimal rest, and often while cold, wet, or hungry.

Think of these standards as gates. If you can’t meet them reliably, you won’t move forward.

MARSOC Physical Fitness Requirements

You should be able to achieve these numbers at any time, not just on test day:

• 3-mile run: Under 22:00

• 5-mile run: Sub-40:00 is a minimum; sub-35:00 is competitive

• Pullups: 20+ strict dead hang

• Plank hold: 3 minutes and 45 seconds or more

• 300m swim (breaststroke) in cammies and boots: Sub-12:00 minimum; sub-10:00 is competitive

Additional water-based and load-bearing tasks include:

• Tread water in full uniform (no boots): 11 minutes, followed by 4 minutes of flotation using your blouse or pants

• 2,000m fin swim (pushing a 45-lb ruck): 60 minutes (MRC phase)

• 8, 10, and 12-mile ruck marches (45+ lbs dry): Maintain a sub-12-minute-per-mile pace

• Ruck-ups: Be able to rise from the ground with a 100-pound ruck on your back

Why These Standards Matter

These aren’t arbitrary numbers. Each benchmark tests a capacity you’ll rely on as a Raider. Your ability to move efficiently with heavy loads, maintain body control under fatigue, and handle aquatic challenges reflects real operational demands.

A strong performance in these events signals not just physical fitness, but resilience and preparation. More importantly, it shows that you understand the seriousness of the process—and that you’ve trained like a professional.

Pro tip: Don’t aim for the minimum. At A&S, the standard is the baseline, not the goal.

MARSOC Assessment & Selection (A&S) Phases 

The MARSOC A&S phase lasts two months and consists of two distinct phases, divided into two distinct segments. This is where the real filter begins: where capable individuals are separated from those merely hoping to survive.

Both phases challenge you in different ways. Phase 1 is mostly about physical grit, while phase 2 takes a deeper look at your team dynamics, emotional resilience, and leadership under pressure.

Phase 1: Physical Testing

In the first phase, expect constant physical stress and minimal comfort. These aren’t your average workouts—they’re designed to break people who haven’t properly trained.

Here’s what Phase 1 typically includes:

• Daily physical beatdowns that push your limits

• All swimming events are performed in full cammies

• PT tests based on the demanding standards outlined in the previous section

It’s not enough to meet the standards—you must crush them. The instructors don’t just select those who survive. They’re looking for the top performers. You’re expected to stand out, not blend in.

And you’ll be operating in a stressful environment with little food, little sleep, and zero encouragement. Your ability to maintain physical output in this context is exactly what they’re testing.

Reminder: Predictability is stripped away in A&S. You must manage your stress response and perform well in a chaotic, unpredictable environment where nothing feels fair. In our book, we explain how SOF selection impacts your physical and emotional stress and how to train for it through tools like open-ended workouts.

Phase 2: Team & Individual Events

This second phase shifts the focus to evaluating who you are within a group. Are you a team player? Can you lead without being overbearing? Can you take direction under stress without ego?

In Phase 2, you’ll experience:

• Long, heavy, weighted movements—day after day

• Few short, intense sessions; endurance becomes key

• Team-based tasks and heavy carries that highlight cooperation over competition

By now, most remaining candidates can meet the physical demands. Yet, many will still wash out in this phase. More often than not, this comes down to preparation deficits, especially regarding rucking volume and team interaction. This is where you see who has put in the time building a foundation and who tried to cram for the test.

Here, your emotional intelligence, communication skills, and leadership style matter most. You’ll be evaluated on your ability to handle ambiguity, operate in a hierarchy, and contribute meaningfully without needing a spotlight. (If you’re in our app, our Leadership Development Course will help you with these things)

The cadre won’t explain exactly what they’re looking for—but they’ll know it when they see it.

What helps? Practicing social and emotional regulation under stress. If you can explain yourself clearly while fatigued and stay composed under scrutiny, you’re already ahead.

Marine Raider Course (MRC) Preparation and Phases

Once you pass A&S and are selected, you’ll typically get a break to rest and retrain before starting the Marine Raider Course (MRC)—a nine-month pipeline designed to turn candidates into fully capable MARSOC operators.

The course is divided into four distinct phases, each separated by a one-week transition period. Each phase builds a different set of skills critical to your success as a Raider.

Peer reviews are crucial throughout the course. If you can’t work well with your teammates, no amount of physical ability will save you. You’ll be dropped.

Marine Raider OPFIT Test (Operator Fitness Test) Explained

During MRC, you’ll take the OPFIT test twice—once near the beginning and again in phase 3 or 4. This means you must arrive at MRC fit and ready to perform, even when conditions aren’t ideal.

The OPFIT test spans five consecutive days and includes:

• 5-mile timed run: Sub-35:00 is competitive

• 500m breaststroke (slick/in shorts): 12:30 minimum; sub-10:00 is competitive

• 10-mile ruck: Sub-12 min/mile pace

• Double obstacle course run: Minimum time 5:30

• 3-rep max bench and deadlift: No specific standards, but data is tracked

Marine Raider Course Phases

Phase 0: Basic Skills

During this stage, you undergo medical and coms training, perform the OPFIT test, and complete a 2-week survival and evasion course (SERE). 

The daily PT sessions are designed to identify and eliminate the weakest physical performers. You’ll be performing a lot of ruck runs at fast clips. These are brutal, and you must be a proficient runner and used to moving under heavy loads to deal with the stressors of this phase while performing near the top of the class. We’ll discuss how to train for this later in this article. 

Phase 1: Small Unit Tactics

During the first part of this phase, you’ll go through an amphibious training cycle for 2 weeks. During this time, you’ll perform 2,000m swims in fins while pushing a 45-pound ruck on a near-daily basis. You must be proficient in the water and have put in your time building up your endurance with finning to survive without injury. 

PT during this phase and throughout the rest of the course typically looks something like this:  

• Monday: Run/sprint workout
• Tues/Wed: Strength days 
• Thursday: Pool workout
• Friday: High-intensity beatdowns. You must ‘earn’ the weekend by performing at this event each week. 

PT sessions are performed in addition to your daily coursework and other exercises. 

To wrap up this phase, you’ll do an 8-9-day patrol called Raider Spirit with heavy (80 pounds or more) rucks for very long distances and little sleep. This is the culmination of this phase, and you’ll be expected to apply everything you’ve learned over the previous weeks.

Phase 2: Direct Action (CQB)

To borrow a Rudyard Kipling quote used by the instructors at MRC, this is where strong wolves are made into strong packs. The goal is to turn high-performing individuals into cohesive units capable of executing complex missions under pressure.

This stage is not as physically demanding as phase 1, but it is very mentally challenging. You’ll spend a lot of time shooting and learning the nuances of CQB. 

CQB assesses many critical mental and emotional characteristics

High-stress training days will expose any weaknesses in:

• Weapons handling safety

• Communication under fire

• Tactical movement and spatial awareness

• Judgment and emotional/physiological regulation

There are many high-stress pass/fail scenarios, and you are expected to learn complex skills quickly and demonstrate effective decision-making. If you’re not good at managing your stress responses and implementing cognitive and emotional strategies to regulate yourself, you’ll burn out here and get dropped.

Additionally, you spend nearly all day, every day in full kit, which takes a toll. It’s another place where the quality of your training and the time you invested in movement quality and work capacity pays off. Just like phase 1, you’ll stick to the same general PT schedule on top of your other responsibilities.

Mental skills for managing prolonged, high-stress training phases

If you’re training in our app, this is where many of your daily mental skills practices come into play, alongside what you learned in our courses like sleep optimization, time management, and leadership development. 

For practical advice on CQB, such as the “silent, violent, silent” profile of an effective CQB shooter, listen to episode 95 of our podcast with Alex Fichtler, a former USN SEAL CQB Instructor.

Phase 3: Special Reconnaissance

At this point in the course, you’ll have passed the hardest physical and stress-related gates, and most people who will be dropped have been. You’ve proven you can hang physically and operate in high-stress situations, and now it’s time to focus on adding more skills to your arsenal to become a full operator.

Standards are still very high, and you must continue to perform physically and, most importantly, as a valuable team member. General trainability (the ability to learn) and social and emotional skills become increasingly important (again, this is where our Leadership Development course comes in handy). 

To wrap up this phase, you’ll do two separate patrol field exercises where you carry heavy packs for long distances. PT stays similar to how it has in the previous phases, and you may perform your second OPFIT screen during this phase or the next.

Phase 4: Irregular Warfare

At this stage, most of the physical and stress-related gates have already been passed. Those who remain have proven they can operate under extreme pressure and perform in demanding environments. Now, the focus shifts to building the advanced skill sets needed to operate as a fully capable Marine Raider.

Standards remain high. You must continue to perform physically and mentally, but now interpersonal skills and cognitive flexibility become even more important. You’re expected to work closely with a partner force and adapt quickly to new environments and cultural contexts.

Communication and emotional intelligence are essential. You won’t just operate with fellow Raiders—you’ll need to engage with people from diverse backgrounds and build working relationships under pressure. (Again, the Leadership Development Course in our app is very helpful here)

Your ability to relate, instruct, and lead will be constantly evaluated.

Training in this phase places a heavy emphasis on:

• Working with foreign internal defense and partner forces

• Rapid learning and application of new tactical frameworks

• Clear and culturally aware communication

• Emotional control and adaptability

This phase culminates in a complex, multi-day training exercise meant to implement all the skills you’ve learned up to this point.

By now, your instructors know who you are. This is where you show them that you’re not just physically ready—but that you have the mindset, social intelligence, and tactical awareness required of a Raider.

Graduation 

After completing the Marine Raider Course, you’ve earned more than just a title—you’ve become a critical asset to the Marine Special Operations Command.

Upon graduation, you’ll be officially designated as a Critical Skills Operator (CSO) and assigned to one of three Marine Special Operations Battalions. This marks the beginning of your operational career—but not the end of your learning curve.

You’ll be the new guy all over again. Even after earning your place, you must continually prove your value, integrate into your team, and adapt to real-world missions. Your training will continue, and the expectations will only rise.

Becoming a Raider is a milestone, not a finish line. Every mission, every decision, every day forward is an opportunity to uphold the legacy and standard of MARSOC.

How Long Should You Train for MARSOC A&S?

Preparing for MARSOC’s Assessment and Selection isn’t something you “try out” for on a whim. It’s a professional commitment—more like an elite job interview than a fitness challenge. The candidates who succeed treat it with the gravity and long-term planning it deserves.

Most of our successful clients train for at least 12 months, and some spend up to two years preparing. This isn’t because they’re out of shape—it’s because MARSOC selection is designed to push every aspect of performance: physical, emotional, mental, and social.

Your preparation time depends on several factors:

• Your current fitness level

• Your experience with endurance and strength training

• Your ability to handle uncertainty, fatigue, and emotional stress

• Your time availability and life responsibilities

Minimum standards should not be your goal. If you’re focused on simply “getting by,” you’re approaching the process with the wrong mindset. Those who pass—and thrive in MRC—aim to excel, not scrape through.

Think about it this way: if you wouldn’t hire someone who barely meets the job description, why should MARSOC select a candidate who barely clears the bar?

Selection is a Mirror

MARSOC Assessment and Selection doesn’t build you—it reveals you.

By the time you show up at A&S, your outcome has already been decided. It was determined over hundreds of early mornings, disciplined decisions, and lonely workouts. The reps you didn’t skip. The meals you didn’t blow. The uncomfortable habits you built day by day.

You’re not rising to the occasion when it matters most—you’re falling to the level of your preparation. That’s why this isn’t a proving ground. It’s a reflection of what you’ve already become.

What Selection Really Tests

Many approach A&S believing they’ll “rise to the occasion.” But the truth is that you fall to the level of your preparation.

You can’t fake traits like resilience, teamwork, or discipline. They either show up when it counts—or they don’t. And once the stress compounds, those who didn’t do the work are exposed quickly.

Selection doesn’t care how badly you want it. It doesn’t care about your intentions or potential. It only reveals what you’ve prepared yourself to be.

You Can’t Fake What You Didn’t Train

Every decision you make before A&S matters. Those who succeed make their choice long before stepping onto the course. They train consistently, stay disciplined when motivation fades, and don’t wait until the last few months to “get serious.”

Those who fail also make their choice in advance, by skipping hard days, avoiding self-assessment, and hoping that desire alone will be enough.

Ultimately, selection isn’t a proving ground. It’s a scoreboard.

When the cadre evaluates you, they’re not interested in your “potential.” They want to see what you can do right now, under load, without sleep, with no praise, and no room for excuses. They want to know: Have you trained for this, or are you just hoping to gut it out?

Physical Adaptations for MARSOC Assessment and Selection

Successfully completing MARSOC Assessment and Selection (A&S) requires more than raw strength or the ability to push through tough workouts. You must develop specific, long-term physiological adaptations that support sustained performance across various challenges—running, rucking, swimming, carrying heavy loads, and maintaining focus under stress.

These changes don’t happen quickly. They require consistent, progressive training over many months, if not years. A short burst of effort or a few weeks of intense workouts cannot replicate the structural adaptations needed to perform and recover at a high level.

A strong aerobic engine is a critical foundation.

This improves your ability to recover between efforts and sustain energy output during extended periods of physical stress. It also enhances your performance during lower-intensity, longer-duration events, such as long rucks or fin swims, which are common throughout the pipeline.

Equally important is relative strength.

This is your ability to move and control your body and load effectively. This impacts everything from ruck-ups to long-distance movements under load. You don’t need to be the strongest candidate in the gym, but you must be strong enough to move efficiently and avoid injury.

Work capacity is the third pillar.

This refers to your ability to complete high-volume workloads—repeated pushups, long swims, multiple rucks—while managing fatigue and staying functional for what’s next. MARSOC training isn’t just about peak performance; it’s about performance that lasts.

These three elements—aerobic capacity, relative strength, and work capacity—work together to create a resilient, adaptable athlete capable of enduring whatever selection throws at you.

If you’re preparing with only a few months to go and your baseline fitness isn’t already exceptional, it’s unlikely that you’ll build these systems to a competitive level in time. Even for well-conditioned athletes, a full year of focused training is often necessary to fine-tune the skills and capacities needed. Remember, you’re showing up to excel, not survive. Be a professional.

Effective Aerobic Training for Assessment and Selection

Aerobic training is the cornerstone of your physical preparation for MARSOC A&S and the Marine Raider Course (MRC). This type of training doesn’t just raise your top-end performance—it improves your overall capacity to work harder, longer, and with less fatigue.

A well-developed aerobic system allows you to do more with less effort. With better oxygen delivery and utilization, your body becomes more efficient at moving through high-demand tasks like running, rucking, and swimming. You can maintain a faster pace with a lower heart rate, recover more quickly between efforts, and delay the onset of fatigue during long training days.

This is achieved by creating structural adaptations in the body. Your heart increases in size and efficiency. Muscles develop denser capillary networks. Your mitochondria grow and multiply. All of this enables you to transport and use oxygen more effectively.

But here’s the challenge: these adaptations take time. Much like building a house, remodeling your cardiovascular system isn’t something that can be rushed. It demands long, steady work—week after week, month after month.

Two key elements are essential for aerobic development:

• Session Duration: Most aerobic gains come from longer workouts. These sessions often last over an hour (sometimes three or more) and teach your body to work efficiently over extended periods.

• Training Consistency: Sporadic training won’t deliver results. You need regular, progressive sessions that steadily accumulate over time.

This isn’t flashy, but it’s vital. Many athletes underperform or break down during selection not because they lack strength or toughness, but because their aerobic base isn’t deep enough. The difference between surviving and excelling often comes down to how well your body handles sustained effort.

Behavioral Characteristics in A&S and MRC

The intense physical tests of MARSOC selection serve a purpose beyond fitness screening. They expose your mindset, character, and ability to withstand adversity over time. The cadre isn’t just evaluating how fast you run or how much weight you carry—they’re observing how you behave under pressure, how you respond to setbacks, and whether you persist when motivation fades.

Candidates who demonstrate patience, self-discipline, and commitment tend to stand out. Those who chase results through short-term effort or overconfidence often fall short. Instructors are looking for individuals who consistently show up and put in the work, not just those who perform well on test day.

MARSOC operators must function as part of a team. As they say at MRC, the strength of the wolf is in the pack. That means communication, empathy, and emotional control are not optional. During team events, your ability to cooperate, lead, follow, and stay composed is under constant review. If you can’t adapt to social dynamics or work through friction, it won’t matter how fit you are—you won’t be selected.

These behavioral traits don’t magically appear at A&S. They’re cultivated during months of preparation, both in the gym and in life. Every training session is an opportunity to refine your discipline, focus, and ability to endure discomfort.

The MARSOC motto, “Always Faithful, Always Forward,” reflects this mindset. You are expected to hold yourself to high standards whether anyone is watching or not.

Strategy: Train for MRC, not just the physical standards at A&S

The most common failure points in assessment and selection are the 3—and 5-mile runs, 8—and 12-mile rucks, cadre-led ruck runs, and longer, heavier-loaded rucks for unknown distances.

Many candidates make the mistake of training only for the known, measurable events—like the 3- and 5-mile runs or the timed rucks. While it’s essential to pass these gates, they only mark the beginning. Selection isn’t just about isolated events; it’s about surviving and performing through weeks of sustained stress, fatigue, and unknown variables.

Passing the basic tests may get you in the door, but it won’t keep you there. MARSOC Assessment & Selection (A&S) and the Marine Raider Course (MRC) are designed to break down those who are underprepared. Repeated long movements with heavy rucks, grueling beatdowns, and back-to-back events will expose any weakness—physical or mental.

Training only for the minimum distances and times might get you through the first screen. But if you haven’t built the durability and capacity to handle back-to-back events and unpredictable stressors, you’re likely to break down or get dropped. We’ve seen it happen time and again: candidates who were fit on paper but couldn’t sustain performance under daily grind and load.

Effective preparation means building the base to thrive in selection, not just survive. That requires more than just hitting numbers—it demands resilience, adaptability, and readiness for sustained intensity.

Build an aerobic base of running and rucking independently 

A strong aerobic foundation is essential for success at MARSOC Assessment & Selection and the Marine Raider Course. But many candidates go wrong by combining running and rucking too soon. These are distinct skills and should be trained separately at first to develop a solid base before integrating them into combined events like ruck runs or cadre-led movements.

Selection includes everything from timed rucks at a 12-minute per mile pace, to unknown-distance ruck runs, to long movements under heavy load. To handle these without breaking down, you need to master both the speed of running and the efficiency of rucking—before layering them together.

Too many candidates rush into high-intensity events, thinking that more is better. But the real formula for success is this: develop first, then display. Build your base before testing it under stress. Without a strong foundation, performance suffers, and the risk of injury skyrockets.

The test is not the training

This is critical:

Develop a skill and then display it. 

Practice, then perform. 

Raise the floor, then push the ceiling. 

For running, aim to become proficient over short to moderate distances—3 miles in around 20 minutes is a solid benchmark. For rucking, build the ability to move efficiently with a 45-pound dry load at a sub-15-minute mile pace for 12 miles or more while keeping your heart rate in zone 2. The heart rate constraint is important – it’s not just about hitting that pace, it’s about hitting that pace relatively easily, with minimal impact to your recovery capacity. This is what gives you the foundation needed to really push the ceiling.

Once you’ve developed each skill on its own, you’ll be ready to combine them. That combination becomes your performance platform for assessment and selection. Without that foundation, you’re simply guessing and hoping—and that’s not a reliable strategy for one of the toughest pipelines in the military.

Tailoring Training to Individual Profiles

No two MARSOC candidates are the same, and that means a one-size-fits-all training program won’t cut it. (For more on this concept, read Average Fails Everyone.) Your preparation must align with your personal strengths, weaknesses, and experience. That’s the foundation of effective training and long-term success.

Selection tests a broad range of capabilities: strength, endurance, speed, resilience, emotional regulation, and teamwork. Most candidates excel in one or two areas but fall short in others.

Identifying your own limiting factors is step one.

For instance:

• You might be strong under a heavy ruck but struggle with sustained running.

• You could be a solid endurance athlete but lack explosive power or strength.

• Or maybe you move well under load, but your fast-run pace is barely faster than your long-distance pace.

Each of these profiles requires a different approach. The path to success remains the same, but the starting point varies for each individual. For more on individual characteristics of conditioning training, read Conditioning 101: A Guide for Special Operations Selection Training.

In the early stages—six months or more from selection—your program should reflect that diversity. Training might look very different between candidates. One may focus on building aerobic capacity, another on strength endurance. Over time, though, these diverse plans gradually converge as each person becomes a more well-rounded, resilient, and capable operator.

We recommend regularly assessing your performance across key categories: running, rucking, strength, swimming, work capacity, and recovery. Use these insights to adjust your program, emphasizing weaknesses while maintaining your strengths.

If you’re unsure where to begin, resources like “Conditioning 101: A Guide for Special Operations Selection Training” from Building the Elite provide a breakdown of these variables. Also, the Building the Elite app includes a full suite of tools for personalized assessments and adjustments based on real-time performance data.

When your training reflects your individual profile, progress is more consistent, injuries are less likely, and your chance of success rises dramatically.

Running Technique for MARSOC Selection Training

Running is one of the most visible components of MARSOC selection, but it’s often misunderstood. It’s not just about how far or how fast you can go—it’s about how efficiently you can move, especially under fatigue. That’s why running should be treated as a technical skill, not just a form of cardio.

Many candidates make the mistake of simply running more and harder in hopes of improvement. But poor technique leads to overuse injuries, inefficient movement patterns, and inconsistent progress. If your knees, shins, or hips always hurt during training, your form—not your fitness—is likely to blame.

Start by focusing on the mechanics: foot strike, posture, cadence, and arm movement. Small improvements here can lead to massive gains in endurance and injury prevention. When done right, your running becomes smoother, lighter, and more sustainable across all phases of training.

During A&S and MRC, you’ll need to consistently run 5 miles at around a 7:00 per mile pace to remain competitive. To do this, aerobic capacity must be paired with technical proficiency. More importantly, solid aerobic conditioning improves your ability to think clearly and recover quickly during selection events—not just run faster.

Zone 2 volume is the foundation of fast running

Interestingly, most of the aerobic development required for selection doesn’t come from high-speed running. Instead, we recommend clients focus their zone 2 (low intensity) aerobic training on rucking, especially early in the training cycle. This helps you to accumulate high levels of zone 2 training volume sustainably.

That said, running remains essential. Here’s how to prioritize it effectively:

• Train technique first: Ensure every run reinforces good habits. (For a step-by-step process for improving your running technique, you can go through our Running Technique Course in our training app.)

• Avoid chronic high intensity: Blend short, faster intervals with longer, slower runs.

• Build gradually: Increase weekly volume by no more than 10% to avoid overtraining.

• Balance with ruck training: Use rucking to build your aerobic capacity and get in training volume sustainably.

If you need guidance, Building the Elite provides an in-depth breakdown of proper running mechanics and how to incorporate them into your training. Their Running Programming for Special Operations Selection article is a valuable companion to your preparation.

With an efficient stride and a smart training plan, running becomes not just a test to pass but a skill that enhances resilience, cognitive performance, and overall readiness for MARSOC selection.

Ruck Training for MARSOC Assessment & Selection

Rucking is also underappreciated as a technical skill. Like running, our training app includes a course on improving rucking technique, and our training programs include lessons from that course. 

Unlike casual hiking, rucking in this context means moving quickly with heavy loads—sometimes for hours—over unpredictable terrain. It’s not just a test of endurance but of movement efficiency, resilience, and injury prevention.

Rucking comprises a significant portion of Assessment & Selection (A&S) and the Marine Raider Course (MRC). You’ll be judged not only on your speed but on your ability to carry heavy loads without breaking down physically or mentally.

To train effectively, treat rucking as a technical skill, just like running. This means learning proper gait mechanics, breathing techniques, and load distribution. Small adjustments, like how your pack sits on your hips or how you breathe under load, can mean the difference between finishing strong and falling apart.

Ruck weight progressions

In the early phases of your prep, rucking should form the base of your aerobic training. Start light—around 20–25 pounds—and build up to 45 pounds (dry weight). Only occasionally should you train with heavier loads, such as 80 pounds, to avoid injury.

As your prep progresses, incorporate longer sessions that mimic the demands of selection. These should include:

• Timed moderate-load rucks at sub-15:00 min/mile pace

• Zone 2 heart rate sessions for 2–3 hours to build aerobic capacity

• Heavy but short rucks to refine ruck-up and carrying techniques

• Open-ended events combining ruck, run, and calisthenics under fatigue

Avoid the temptation to ruck-run early on. It may feel faster, but it increases the load on your joints and leads to burnout or injury. Instead, walk fast and maintain a strong, consistent pace.

For more detailed instructions, read Rucking 101: A Guide for Special Operations Selection Training. It breaks down gait mechanics, progressive overload strategies, and recovery methods.

The more time you invest in proper ruck training, the more prepared you’ll be for the long days and heavier carries that define the MARSOC pipeline. Rucking isn’t just about getting from point A to B—it’s about doing so without becoming a liability to your team or your own body.

Strength Training for MARSOC Selection

MARSOC selection is not a powerlifting contest. Keep in mind the goal of strength training: to support everything you do in training and selection. A better deadlift only helps you to the extent that it helps you handle a loaded ruck, improve your work capacity, carry heavy stuff around, or avoid injury. 

In other words, don’t optimize the wrong thing. You need to be strong enough to handle the demands of selection and support your training, but fixating on becoming stronger than necessary involves inevitable tradeoffs. You only have so much time and recovery capacity, so unnecessary strength work can easily distract you from more important things. Nobody cares about your max squat if you can’t keep up on runs and rucks. 

The amount of strength training you need will depend on your physiological profile. We typically use one to three weekly strength sessions for clients depending on their limiting factors. 

Read here for a full breakdown of strength training and how to incorporate it into your program: Strength Training for Special Operations Selection Prep.

The Importance of Breathing in Selection Prep

Breathing is an easily overlooked yet integral part of everything you’ll do in prep training, during your SFET, and selection. Like running and rucking, we can see major benefits from learning to do it better, not just more. How we breathe doesn’t just affect how we move oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out of our lungs. Respiration directly influences how we move blood in and out of the heart via changes in thoracic pressure gradients. It’s also a key driver of posture, how we distribute tension throughout our body, and how we regulate our stress response. 

It’s crucial during Marine Raider selection prep training because it significantly affects how efficiently we move under load and how much tension and discomfort we accumulate while doing so. It can make the difference between a relentlessly locked-down lower back and steel cables for traps or manageable, minor discomfort after a long day. 

It also dramatically affects your ability to recover efficiently during and after beatdown sessions. If you can’t breathe effectively while continuing to work, you’ll slowly fall to pieces during these sessions, and the events that follow them—fatigue and stress responses compound, impacting your cognitive performance and decision-making. 

Read here for a full breakdown of breathing mechanics and how to incorporate them into your program: Breathing and Performance: Incorporating Breath Training into SOF Selection Prep.

Building Work Capacity

Pushups, pull-ups, weighted carries, planks, and other core movements, and other high-rep calisthenics such as burpees, squats, lunges, and whatever the instructors that year want to make you do are a part of the consistent beatdowns you’ll face in A&S and as part of your PT tests. While most of these events aren’t pass/fail moments, if you can’t handle the volume effectively, you will accumulate fatigue and eventually fail something that matters. For instance, if you go through a 30-minute beatdown full of lunges that smoke your legs, you may survive, but you’ll struggle on the unknown distance run immediately after, setting you off on a downward slope of subpar performance. 

Work capacity training should be incorporated into your program, anywhere from once to three times per week, depending on your personal limiting factors. 

Read here for a full breakdown of rucking training and how to incorporate it into your program: Building Work Capacity for Special Operations Prep.

Movement and Injury Prevention

What we do only matters as much as how well we do it. The training volumes required for selection prep and the rigors of selection itself mean that minor movement issues get magnified and can quickly become career-ending injuries. 

Movement work isn’t glamorous or the most fun way to chase dopamine, but it’s a crucial part of long-term training. Over the years, we’ve learned that it separates professionals from amateurs. The pros get it done because it’s part of their job. The amateurs put it off until it’s too late.  

In our app, we have a movement assessment tool that walks you through a series of drills to assess your individual movement characteristics, which then provides you with a series of drills based on your results that you can integrate into your daily routine so that you can move better, recover faster, and be less prone to injury. For more targeted issues like knees or shoulders, we’ve also got a Bulletproof Joints series that will help you assess your needs and identify the most effective drills to help you move and feel better. 

Learn more: Movement Capacity, Fidelity, Variability

Treading and Swimming Skills

MARSOC has a mix of different swim durations depending on the stage of selection you’re in. In A&S, you’ll need to be proficient in the breaststroke in your cammies and boots for up to 500m. You’ll cover much more than this in a typical pool session, but longer swims in fins aren’t introduced until MRC. 

Cadre will also test your ability to manage your stress response in the water through brutal water confidence sessions. We can’t discuss the details of these sessions here, but you need to be very confident with your basic water con drills and treading water. 

Technical proficiency is the first step. Swimming and treading are both heavily dependent on technical skills. You can’t out-wrestle the water. The better your technique, the less effort you’ll need, the more easily you’ll be able to compensate if you get a cramp, and the faster you’ll move through the water. 

Failures in the water typically result from an inability to tread water and stay calm. You should be able to easily tread water with your hands out of the water for ten minutes, even when stressed and fatigued. You should also have worked on your water confidence in a stressed state to know how to recover and stay calm when things start going sideways. 

A Treading Water Guide for SOF Selection

Swimming 101: A Guide for Special Operations Selection Training

Tactical, Technical, and Socio-Emotional Skills

MARSOC operators aren’t just good exercisers. During MRC, you’ll be evaluated on a wide range of skills and capacities, from CQB and job-specific technical scenarios to your speaking/briefing skills and how you interact with others. 

Obviously, we’re not going to teach you CQB. But these are important skills that you’ll be evaluated on in your course. The key concepts with these things are trainability and safety. 

The instructors aren’t looking for highly specific Youtube cool-guy shooting skills as you move through the house. If you get selected, you will learn their particular techniques and tactics, which are unique to every unit. What they are looking for is that you’re infallibly safe with a weapon, even when you’re tired, stressed, and working under highly chaotic conditions. They’re looking for your ability to comprehend and follow complicated instructions. In scenarios, they’re looking for your general ability to manage your stress response, stay calm, think clearly, and make good decisions. 

People don’t get negative marks in the shoot house because they didn’t do their no-look double knee slide rifle shot around a corner perfectly. They get negative marks because they’ve got their weapon off safe when it shouldn’t be, their finger on the trigger when it shouldn’t be, or it’s pointed in the wrong direction. 

Common CQB errors

The somewhat more nuanced errors you may be flagged on are also quite general to CQB, such as:

• ENOT (Eyes Not On Target)
• Not digging/clearing corners
• Reshooting targets
• Lack of verbiage
• Flyers
• Shooting non-hostiles/no shoot targets
• Poor weapons manipulation/handling

This means that highly polished fundamentals should be your focus in tactical and technical training. One of those fundamental skills is the ability to regulate your stress response and rapidly oscillate from highly engaged to calm and focused with open attention. Alex Fichtler, a former USN SEAL CQB instructor, talks about this concept in episode 95 of our podcast. 

Briefing and Interviewing Skills

You’ll also be evaluated on your interviewing and briefing skills. You must be comfortable describing a plan or explaining why you’re here to a room full of skeptical people who control your career path. You’ll need to be comfortable with public speaking and good at articulating your reasoning, from your decision-making process in a scenario to why you want to join this unit. 

Public speaking is a distinct skill

While there are some generalized components of autonomic and emotional regulation that we cover in the mental skills exercises in our training app that apply here, public speaking is a unique skillset that is important enough to warrant specific practice if you’re not good at it. We often recommend that our clients join something like Toastmasters if they need specific work on public speaking. 

Being good at articulating your reasoning and expressing yourself verbally is another distinct skill that stems from clarity of thought. Writing is an excellent way to practice this because it forces you to directly elucidate your thought process. As Leslie Lamport put it, “If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.” Incorporating a regular practice of journaling or writing in some form can help improve your communication, particularly if you have a feedback loop.

Social and emotional intelligence

Lastly, like all SOF selection courses, you’re not just evaluated on physical, tactical, and technical variables. The course cadre also wants to know what kind of person you are because if they bring you into their team, they’re going to be living and working with you in very close proximity, in situations ranging from trusting you with their life to sitting next to you in a car for an entire day. So, your sociability and emotional regulation are important considerations. 

In short: you need to pass the beer test, and be the sort of person your fellow candidates, the instructors, and the support staff would like to have a beer with. Be a person, not a robot. 

We address the development of your emotional and social intelligence skills through dedicated courses on these topics in our app. There are too many individual component pieces to cover here, but suffice it to say you must be skilled at working in teams, managing complex and difficult social situations, and communicating effectively with a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds. 

12-Month Training Plan for MARSOC Assessment & Selection and MRC

You should give yourself at least 12 months to prepare, given that you’re likely to have some disruptions due to professional and family commitments and the physical standards you need to achieve to give yourself a good shot at getting selected.  

Here’s a sample layout:

6-12 months out: Build the foundation 

This far out, your training should be individualized and specific to your limiting factors. We always use a concurrent training approach to pull this off without neglecting anything.

Concurrent means “done at the same time.” In this model, all physiological qualities are targeted simultaneously, and one or two specific qualities are emphasized for three to six weeks. As the famous track coach Charlie Francis described it, “Everything is done, only the volume varies.”  

Your goal during this phase is to work up to the following capacities: 

• Dial in your running technique and build up to about 15 miles per week. By the end of the foundation phase (6 months out), you should be running at an 8:00 min/mile pace (at the very slowest) for 5 miles, ideally closer to a 7:30 min/mile pace. 
• Build an aerobic foundation via zone 2 rucking, working up to 2-3 hour rucks. By the end of this phase, you should be at a 15:00 min/mile pace for 8+ miles without shuffling/ruck-running and in heart rate zone 2. 
• Dialing basic swimming and water treading techniques. You should be able to swim 500m continuously and tread water with your feet and hands for 10 minutes. 
• Ensure your relative strength and movement capacity are sufficient to stay healthy as you add volume and transition to a more specific methodology. 

Training Session Distribution

The number of strength vs. running, rucking, swimming, and work capacity sessions depends on your specific limiting factors. Assuming you have a solid training background (has been training consistently for years without neglecting any capacity for long durations), your program will fall within the parameters below: 

• Strength workouts: 1-3 per week
• Running: 1-2 per week
• Rucking: 2-3 per week
• Swimming/water confidence: 2 per week
• Work Capacity: 1-2 per week 

If you have a significant deficit in one area, say strength, you should move toward the higher end of the range and be on the lower end with running. Those who need improvement in all areas might have a balanced mix of strength, running, & work capacity. If conditioning is your limiting factor, you may only have one strength session, 2-3 runs, one swim, and two rucks. No one-size-fits-all template will work for anyone because your training history, ability to recover from training (life stress, sleep quality/quantity, and nutrition), and specific limiting factors matter. 

3-6 months out: A&S prep 

At this point, you should have no glaring limiting factors.

Common Limiting Factor #1

The most common one we see is not having a sufficient aerobic base. By now, you should have been consistently rucking for up to 3 hours with moderate loads and should be able to hold a 15-minute per mile pace for 8-12 miles while in heart rate zone 2 while moving at a fast walk (not shuffling/ruck-running).

Common Limiting Factor #2

The second most common limiting factor is running. If your 5-mile run is above an 8:00 min/mile pace, you won’t be ready for selection and in competitive shape, so you should delay selection. You realistically have one shot at A&S. It’s best to show up ready to excel, not hoping you’ll squeak through. Be a professional and give yourself enough time.  

Lifestyle and professional obligations are another consideration. If you can’t handle 10-15 hours of weekly training volume, you might be capable of hitting all the minimum standards (passing PT screens), but you won’t be in good enough overall shape to make it through the daily grind of selection for several months. You must get 7+ hours of high-quality sleep most days of the week, eat a healthy diet, and have no significant disruptions in training for the next six months. This can be hard to do with personal and professional obligations, but it’s necessary. 

Introducing Open-Ended Workouts

If you have been doing the work and have a solid foundation, it’s time to add more specificity. We do this via:

• Open-ended workouts: These twice-monthly workouts should last 3-5 hours and be a mix of runs, rucks, and beatdowns with no ability to predict what’s next or when the session will end. 
• Long-distance rucks with heavier loads: You should consistently do 12-20 mile rucks with 45# (dry) at a sub-15-minute per mile pace while in zone 2. These are the foundational workouts of turning yourself into a rucking machine. 
• Highly specific work capacity sessions: A mix of low-fatigue but high-volume methods and higher-rep/fatigue methods, such as circuits and complexes, that stress movement fidelity under increasing stress and fatigue levels. 
• Reduction in strength work: Unless strength is a limiting factor, strength training volume should drop to maintenance loads and volume (1-2 sessions per week). 
• Higher intensity running: Running volume during this phase typically stays flat, while average speed should improve week over week. 
• Feet-only water treading: Now that you can swim and tread water, you should start working on treading with your feet only and eventually with weight in your hands once you can do 10 minutes with feet only. 

2-3 months out: Selection prep 

Once you can crush the physical screener standards and have the invite to A&S, we shift the emphasis of training to handling long overland movements, weighted carries, team events, beatdowns, and water comp. This includes continuing open-ended workouts a few times monthly, mixing beatdowns, rucks, and runs for 4-6 hours. 

You should have your highest volume training weeks during this phase and hammer any specific limiting factors to bring them up to speed while focusing on maintaining anything up to standard. Aim to build a well-rounded foundation so you can perform at a high level through long, demanding days without breaking down.

In the pool, you should introduce high-stress water confidence sessions, such as treading water with weights in your hand while stressed and fatigued.   

We also emphasize movement work and taking care of your body. Your training volume is very high at this stage, and has been for quite some time. Selection often leads to injuries, so take care of yourself during this phase to avoid getting dropped for medical or performance reasons.

1-month out: Deload & peaking 

At this point, you’ve done the work. It’s time to recover and put the finishing touches on your prep process by spending more time on your interview, weapons, and other job-specific skills as you taper your training volume. 

One of the biggest mistakes you could make is showing up to selection beat up and with residual fatigue. By tapering volume and strategically integrating high-intensity sessions over the final 4-6 weeks, you’ll show up to selection, peaking physically and feeling fresh. We’ve sent hundreds of clients to the SOF selection courses and have mastered this process.

A general formula would look something like this:

• Week 1-3: Low-volume, moderate-intensity strength work 1-2x weekly to maintain your strength.
  • Short but intense runs (1-2 milers and 3-5 milers).
  • Relatively short and easy rucks (6-8 miles).
  • Max-rep testing for pushups, pull-ups, and dips.
  • Four to five sessions per week with volume tapering down each week. 
• Week 4: Drop nearly all training stress aside from easy maintenance sessions. You’ve done the work and applied all the training stressors you need. Your final task before the Selection is to support your body’s recovery as much as possible. In doing so, you can fully realize the adaptations that will result from your training. 

Conclusion

Preparing for the MARSOC pipeline is a monumental task that demands dedication, discipline, and a strategic approach to training:

• Focus on the key elements of Assessment & Selection and the Marine Raider Course.
• Tailor your training to match your specific needs.
• Prioritize long-term preparation.

These steps will dramatically improve your chances of success in Marine Raider Assessment and Selection and MRC. The path isn’t easy, but every rep, ruck, and round gets you closer. Stay disciplined. Stay focused. Start your preparation today and show up as a professional, and you’ll earn your place among the elite.