A buddy of mine is shooting for: 87 pushups in 2 minutes, 105 situps(w/somebody holding your feet) in 2 minutes, and a 1.5mile run in 12 minutes. We couldn't figure out if this was a mostly strength or endurance event. My reasoning is, the pushups and situps get knocked out at HIGH speed...I mean to do them right everybody busts them out using as much momentum as possible. And the run which follows the pushups and situps isn't exactly a long run event. So I figure it was more an issue of power. His argument is you do so many pushups and situps that it's simply endurance, and he considers any run over 2 laps(1/2 a mile) to be endurance. Should you train for something like this with more intervals or straight up no rest max out sets?
I'd call it endurance. Anything that involves 87 nonstop reps automatically qualifies as endurance if you ask me.
Somebody joining the army? That sounds like a typical military style PT test. Best way to train for it is probably with tabata on the pushups and situps. Sprints for the run. The 1.5 mile run is a piece of cake if you prepare by running a lot of sprints and doing some distance runs. For info on tabata, see http://www.warriorforce.com/newsletter/warriorwire3.htm
Endurance. Even if you're doing the pushups and situps fast, it's endurance just because of the sheer volume; your power will drop off the higher you go in the rep range for both situps and pushups. Ballistic/speed strength work is usually done with low reps (like 3), a few sets (maybe 4 or so sets), and a relatively light weight (maybe an 8RM or 10RM).
Yeah it's a military PRT. My buddy is training for it to join up and I'm helping him train for it as far as how it's run and all that. I see your point on the endurance classification, now that I think about it, once I got past a certain point on the pushups training was more about how much longer I could sustain pace, not how much faster I could knock em out. Same for situps. That run is pretty sadistic though IMO. Too long to be an all effort mile, too short for a comfy run. I usually ended up taking the first and second to last at an easier pace, going at a pretty high speed for the three laps in the middle, then building up on the last lap to an all out sprint.
