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How to Run Like a Legionnaire
Running tips from the French Foreign Legion.
Although the French Foreign Legion isn’t an official special forces group (it’s a subunit of the French Army), it boasts a lineup of some of the fittest and toughest warriors in the world. The Legion was originally created as a method to recruit criminals from around the world to do the French King’s bidding in war. To this day, the Legion recruits and gives new identities to those with a criminal past (although murderers and sex offenders are no longer permitted). Throughout the centuries, some of the world’s most aggressive and capable warriors have worn the French Foreign Legion’s uniform.
Legionaries are the French military’s front-line troops. Since the Legion’s conception in 1831, its soldiers have deployed into the world’s harshest combat zones. From the deserts of Afghanistan to the jungles of French Guiana, Legionnaires must have the fitness and toughness to succeed in these unforgiving environments.
Although the Legion has had some notable successes in battle, its true legacy comes from the French Legionnaires’ unreal level of physical training. Foreign Legion soldiers spend hours every day
performing calisthenics and various exercises. But the Legion’s training specialty lies in long-distance running.
Why French Legionnaires Run
In most militaries, running is simply an efficient way to improve a soldier’s strength and aerobic capacity. But for a Legionnaire, running is a matter of life and death. Because French Legionnaires are mostly foreign criminals, they have historically been regarded as an expendable force – the guys you send when you don’t want Frenchmen to die.
As such, the Legion has always contended with lower access to logistics and transportation than other units of the French army. For a Legionnaire, traveling long distances by foot isn’t just a training method – it’s a weapon of war.
Legionnaires are expected to cover significant distances without access to transportation. Thus, their training regimen must reflect their battlefield conditions. Aspiring Legionnaires who don’t excel at running are quickly cut from training.
In this OA guide, we’ll give you running tips and strategies straight from the French Foreign Legion. Let’s get started.
Use Hunger to Your Advantage
In the French Foreign Legion, hunger is a way of life. They train more than most military units yet intake significantly fewer calories. For a US soldier on base, breakfast might include pancakes, bacon, milk, and a bunch of other luxury foods. What do Legionnaires have for breakfast? A croissant and cup of black coffee (that is if they earned it on their 10km morning run).
Although the Legion takes it to the extreme, fasted training is an excellent way to burn fat while building muscle simultaneously. Our bodies use carbohydrates as a primary source of energy. While carbs are extremely efficient fuel sources, they prevent your body from burning any fat. As long as there are carbohydrates in your body, it opts to continue burning them instead of your fat. Fasted cardio is the solution to this problem.
When you wake up after 6-8 hours of sleep, your body has few (if any) carbohydrates left. That means when you start exercising, you are almost exclusively burning fat. This lets you lose fat by training on a temporary “calorie deficit” while still eating the calories you need to get stronger throughout the day. If you want to look and run like a Legionnaire, do it on an empty gas tank.
Train on Rough Terrain
Every French Foreign Legion deployment is unique. But one thing they all have in common is that they always take place in rough terrain. Whether in the desert, mountain, or jungle, Legionnaires rarely have the luxury of fighting on even ground. As such, every aspect of their training must harden their bodies and prepare them to take on harsh battlefield conditions. Their run training is no different.
Legionnaires rarely run on paved roads. In fact, the Legion often takes its off-road training to the extreme, with its soldiers running along mountain paths and rocky escarpments. Over time, this training strengthens a Legionnaire’s muscles, bones, and ligaments to
stabilize and adjust in dynamic conditions.
While you might not have access to a mountain near your house, you can still adopt the Legion’s offroad training to toughen your body and prepare it for action. Train how you will fight. If you’re going to BUD/S, start running on sandy and unstable land. If you’re shipping off to SFAS, run through forests and get used to the terrain you'll encounter during your ruck runs and Land NAV. If your current training involves running circles on a track, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
One of the best ways to improve your physical performance fast is to start an OA workout program. All of our training plans are proven to be effective and are created by special forces cadre who know what it takes to join the teams. If you need to enhance your physical performance in record time, you can depend on an OA workout program to get you the results you’re after. Don’t delay –
browse our workout programs now.
