First the game, this is the kind of franchise that at first seems totally boring. Why's that, because its a thief-clone or commandos-clone or the most cruel simplification - commandos-rainbow six variation. Whatever you want to call that- you are right, this game is not a fresh idea in game industry, it even uses elements as old as prince of persia (the old one... no not sands of time, the cga graphic game from the nineties). More of that, this game isn't all that realistic as we could expect from the Tom Clancy signature.
We play as Sam Fisher, an NSA operative. This is all new approach to spy games or even spy stories at all. Because Sam is not a agent like those in three days of condor or james bond. No, the idea was to create a both futurized and more realistic idea of an dirty work operative that does all clandestine work, from assasinations, surveillance to undercover ops. In short, Sam is the guy that "does it all" himself. And so, despite that the realism isn't all that realistic, it is still totally believeable, just like Jason Bourne Sam is a total man-trasher using various combat fighting systems including krav maga and swat techniques. All of them are real-life techniques which makes the game much more deeper and interesting.
To make story short, because I will make a separate article on splinter cell series, now lets get to our point.
Splinter Cell series introduce the player to parkour fitness, navy seals, krav maga and some other stuff we'll skip here. I will concentrate on fitness, trying to introduce you how to get into Sam Fisher kind of shape and psyhique. We all know that Sam Fisher was a Navy Seal, so coming from this point if you want to see what it takes, you should try typical navy seals workouts, not mentioning that you will need a really incredible pull-up and climbing abillity to get at least somewhat close to Sam Fisher. Oh my gosh where to start.
1.All of your training should include weekly :
1 Long Slow Distance workout for both running and swimming
1 Continuous High Intensity workout for both running and swimming
1 Interval workout for both running and swimming
4-5 Calisthenics Routines
4-6 Strength Training Sessions – 2-3 each for upper and lower body
4-5 Core Exercise Routines
Daily Flexibility Routines
Specific injury prevention exercises as needed
to make it short -
strenght in this case means flexing your muscles properly. That means using the weights you can lift 5-8 times max and lifting them slowly, with pauses and longer "negatives" (negative means when you pull up, you need to get down right ? Coming down/back is a negative)
endurance is core fitness and calisthenics routines. Remember, You'll won't improve much (or it will be much harder) without improving your strenght in separate exercises.
Calisthenics Bodyweight exercises like pushups, pullups, situps and their variations like dips, chinese pushups, wide/narrow pushups/pullups, knees to elbows with a chin-up, rope climb etc etc
intervals if you run it means go hard, then easy, then hard then easy again.
Core fitness improving your biggest part of muscles first (the small will follow), so that you will faster improve your fitness. The most simple idea is to improve your back and abs muscles because they often do most of the work.
Now you can ask how the hell this is associated with parkour, and where the hell are the reps ?
Parkour exercises resolve around strenght. Strenght is built when you overload your muscles. To move more easily around city obstacles you will need a great dose of strenght, which will mean alot of static exercises, like flexed arm hang with weighted workout vests (20kg) or ring dips with the same weight. You can flex your muscles by a 5 reps of 2 minute flexed arm hang with 20kg vest then there shouldn't be any problems for you with starting your regular sam fisher calisthenics like regular/chinese (aka divebomber) pushups, standard dead hang pull ups and regular dips and situps.
So typical strenght workout may look like this :
biceps - 5 reps of 2 min flexed arm hang (20kg vest or dumbell). Its ok if you cant do all 5.
triceps - 5x5 reps of 30-40kg weighted dips. Do them slowly ! Don't bounce up and down.
belly- 5x5 knees to elbows with 10kg dumbell.
one legged squat (10 second for a repetition) -5x5 with a weight if you can do more than 8 or 10
deadlift- use a weight you can lift max 5 times and do 5 sets
weighted steps, farmer walks etc...
max 2 minutes of rest between sets and exercises
Remember it is made the way you are supposed to fail during performing it. Because if you can do more than 5 reps in the set or exact 5 times then you aren't challenging yourself enough. Always use very heavy stuff here. Never do that "10kg 5 reps ... hmmmm i think im tired", you are supposed to fail in the process. Strenght is just supposed to improve your calisthenics.
Typical calisthenics routine could be (semi-advanced) :
3-5x8-12 pullups
4x25-35 pushups
4x20 dips
5x30-40 situps
5x50 squats or one legged squats
max 1 minute between the sets, max 2 minutes between exercises
If you can perform too many pushups or pullups make them timed. If you reach 100 pushups or situps in over 2 minutes, switch to either one arm or add weight or other.
What will this give you ? If you've got the balls and consistency, you can be sure you will get ripped really fast, you will be both fast and strong, proficient in most physical exercises.
And the coolest thing about navy seals is that all of the info you need is avalible free on their site. So I highly encourage you to at least try it, training is so damn rewarding that I can't even explain it. Just go to http://www.sealswcc.com/
Everything there is free, you will even get free nutrition info- there is so much stuff on that site that its a small university. All from the guys that took down bin laden. I don't think there can be a better recommendation for self improvement. Don't go to navyseals.com seal-fit or some other civil phony workouts. sealswcc.com is an official site of navy seals.
Here you've got Naval Special Warfare youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/NavySEALandSWCC
This game is one of the most inspiring game that I have played so far. It is this game that got me into krav maga training and navy seal workouts. If you still wan't more info (or check out the game) you can check:
Oh and by the way. If you would like to read real-life story of an delta force operatives that do pretty much all the stuff that Sam Fisher does, you can read Delta Force by Eric Haney. Highly recommend it.
Some other tv stuff on the topic:
