Training for U.S. Navy SEALs, the special operations force, follows a warrior tradition that harkens back to Samurais, but fitness experts say the tough regime is gaining popularity with entrepreneurs, corporate executives, lawyers and elite athletes.

“We look at training as being as important to our life as eating and sleeping,” said retired Navy SEAL commander and fitness instructor Mark Divine, the author of “8 Weeks to SEALFIT: a Navy Seal’s Guide to Unconventional Training for Physical and Mental Toughness.”

SEALFIT draws on the varied, high-intensity interval training of CrossFit, Olympic weightlifting, plyometrics, powerlifting, gymnastics, calisthenics, strongman exercises, yoga, and martial arts. “CrossFit is baked into the SEALFIT model,” said Divine, “but our workouts are much longer: two hours if you go through the whole thing.”

Divine believes if you lean into hard work it becomes enjoyable, even transformational, although he admits the rigorous type of training has become rare in modern society. Breathing exercises, concentration drills and visualization exercises are as crucial as physical prowess to Divine, who is trained in Ashtanga, a rigorous form of yoga, and in martial arts.


Working in as well as working out, he said, cultivates the warrior spirit, or kokoro, a Japanese word he defines as the merging of heart and mind in action.

A word of caution, this kind of a work out is only for those who can handle tough fitness regimes and is certainly not for the faint-hearted or those who have small weight loss goals to achieve!


8 Weeks to SEALFIT: A Navy Seal’s Guide to Unconventional Training for Physical and Mental Toughness.