The Navy SEAL Physical Screening Test is five events in one sitting with fixed rests. Here are the published minimums, the competitive scores that actually get contracts, and a six-day week built around them, run through a per-muscle recovery model.
The Physical Screening Test is the gate in front of every Naval Special Warfare contract, and it is unusual among military tests in that passing it is close to meaningless. Five events run back to back with fixed rests: a 500-yard swim, maximum push-ups in two minutes, maximum curl-ups in two minutes, maximum pull-ups with no time limit, and a 1.5-mile run. The published SEAL minimums are 12:30 for the swim, 50 push-ups, 50 curl-ups, 10 pull-ups and 10:30 for the run. Hitting exactly those numbers makes you eligible and essentially nothing else, because contracts are allocated by a periodic national board that ranks candidates against each other, not against the floor.
The number that matters is the one published alongside the minimum: the auto-qualifying or competitive score, roughly a 9:30 swim, 75 push-ups, 75 curl-ups, 15 pull-ups and a 9:30 run. Candidates who are actually selected commonly sit above that again. This page is a training week built for those five events and the fixed rests between them, with the swim treated as what it usually is: a technique problem wearing a fitness problem’s clothes.
Standards and the selection process are set by the Navy and change. Nothing here is affiliated with or endorsed by the Navy or Naval Special Warfare; treat the current official Navy recruiting materials and MILPERSMAN 1220-410 as the authority and verify before you test.
The program
Monday — Swim and press
Yardage plus push-up density
Swim intervals
10 × 100 yd combat side stroke on 2:30
The week's largest swim. Hold stroke count, not just pace: if the count climbs, the set is over.
Ten minutes after the last pull-up. Log all five numbers in one place every week.
Sunday
Rest
Rest. This is where the adaptation actually happens.
What it actually trains
Computed from the program above with the app’s involvement math, not asserted: brighter muscle, more weekly volume.
Hover a highlighted muscle
Most volumeModerateLight
Abs
17 · in the growth band
Upper Back
15 · in the growth band
Chest
12 · in the growth band
Shoulders
10 · in the growth band
Triceps
10 · maintenance
Quads
5 · maintenance
Hamstrings
5 · maintenance
Calves
5 · maintenance
Forearms
4 · maintenance
Biceps
4 · maintenance
Glutes
4 · token
Obliques
3 · token
Involvement-weighted sets per week, the same accounting the Helix app uses. The pale band marks 10–20 weighted sets, the range where extra volume reliably keeps paying back. Timed work (runs, holds) is counted as a few set-equivalents, an approximation.
Untrained by this program
TrapsLower BackAdductorsTibialis
2 recovery-window violations per week
Upper Backhit again after 48 h (Monday — Swim and press → Wednesday — Technique swim and pull density); needs ~72 h
Upper Backhit again after 48 h (Saturday — PST simulation → Monday — Swim and press); needs ~72 h
The reality check
The week is upper-body dominant, which is what the test is. Run through the involvement math, the top of the chart is abs at 17.1 weighted sets, upper back at 14.9, chest at 12, delts at 10.2 and triceps at 9.6. Legs sit far lower, around 5.4 weighted sets of quads, because the only lower-body demand on the PST is a 1.5-mile run and running is what trains it. One accounting note: the swims are entered as custom blocks weighted toward lats, delts and triceps at 2 to 4 set-equivalents depending on yardage, and the three runs at 3 each, because the cost of a swim or a run is mostly cardiovascular and does not map cleanly onto sets.
Two recovery flags, both from the swim, and they do not go away. The audit returns exactly two violations, both on the upper back: Monday to Wednesday and Saturday to Monday, 48 hours against a 72-hour window. That is not a scheduling mistake we failed to fix. It is the arithmetic of swimming three times a week with a stroke driven by the lats. Everything else is arranged around it, and that is why the placements look odd until you check them. Push-ups land Monday and Thursday because 72 hours is the chest’s window and 72 hours is exactly what that gives; Saturday’s scored push-up set is a single set on purpose, so the test day measures without adding a third stimulus. Pull-up work is Wednesday and Saturday and the Saturday back-off sets stop at three, which keeps biceps under the threshold and stops a third flag appearing.
The swim is where most candidates are losing minutes, not seconds. Freestyle is legal but the test allows breaststroke and the combat side stroke, and CSS is what the community trains, because it is a long-glide, low-turnover stroke that spends far less oxygen per yard than a thrashed freestyle. Candidates who actually drill it routinely take a minute or more off a freestyle 500, which is a bigger swing than months of conditioning would buy. If your 500 is over 11 minutes, the honest diagnosis is almost never that you are unfit. It is that you are fighting the water. Count strokes per length and treat that count as the training metric.
The gap between minimum and competitive is the whole story. Fifty push-ups to 75 is a 50 percent increase. Ten pull-ups to 15 is the same. A 12:30 swim to 9:30 is three minutes, and 10:30 to 9:30 on the run is a full minute over a mile and a half, which is roughly the difference between a 7:00 and a 6:20 mile pace. Plan in months. Twelve weeks is the shortest honest block, and most people arriving at the minimums need two or three of those blocks before they are competitive.
How to run it
Rehearse the exact order and the exact rests. The PST runs swim, then a 10-minute rest, then push-ups, 2 minutes, curl-ups, 2 minutes, pull-ups, 10 minutes, then the run. Those rests are short where it hurts most: your push-up set finishes 2 minutes before your curl-ups begin, and the triceps do not care that the clock says the event changed. Saturday exists to make that sequence boring. The most common test-day error is swimming the 500 too hard, arriving at push-ups with a heart rate that has not come down, and dropping 15 reps you already own.
Progress density, not maxes. The push-up and pull-up events are scored by a two-minute or single-set maximum, but training them with weekly maxima is how people plateau and inflame elbows. Add a set, then add reps per set, then shorten rest, in that order. Monday’s EMOM should climb from 15 to 20 reps per minute across a block before you add a sixth minute; Wednesday’s pull-up density should climb from half your max to two-thirds before you add sets. Test everything on Saturday and nowhere else.
Pace the run off a real number. Goal pace for the 1.5-mile run is a specific per-800 and per-400 split, and Tuesday is worthless if you guess it. Convert your target with our pace calculator before the session, then hold it. If the run is your weakest event, the Tuesday interval session is the lever with the most published evidence behind it, and our VO2max guide covers how to structure and pace hard intervals so they actually improve the engine rather than just hurting.
Deload before the test. In the week before a scored PST, cut the calisthenics volume by half, keep the intensity, keep one short swim for feel and one short run at goal pace, and take two rest days instead of one. Fatigue masks fitness on all five events, and the pull-up event in particular can lose three or four reps to a week that was one session too long. Then run the full block again: this is a 12-week template you repeat, not a program you graduate from.
The published SEAL minimums are a 500-yard swim in 12:30, 50 push-ups in two minutes, 50 curl-ups in two minutes, 10 pull-ups and a 1.5-mile run in 10:30. Meeting them only makes you eligible to be considered. Standards are set by the Navy and change, so verify against current Navy recruiting materials and MILPERSMAN 1220-410 before you test.
What is a competitive PST score?+
The commonly published competitive or auto-qualifying marks are roughly a 9:30 swim, 75 push-ups, 75 curl-ups, 15 pull-ups and a 9:30 run. Candidates who actually receive contracts frequently score above that again, because Special Warfare contracts are allocated by a board that ranks candidates nationally rather than by a pass mark.
Which swim stroke should I use for the 500-yard swim?+
The test permits breaststroke and sidestroke variants, and the combat side stroke is what the community trains. It is a long-glide, low-turnover stroke that costs far less oxygen per yard than most people's freestyle, and candidates who drill it properly commonly take a minute or more off their 500. If your swim is slow, technique is a bigger lever than conditioning.
How long does it take to go from the minimums to a competitive PST?+
Plan in months, not weeks. Going from 50 push-ups to 75 and 10 pull-ups to 15 is a 50 percent increase in both, and taking three minutes off a 500-yard swim usually means rebuilding the stroke. Twelve weeks is the shortest honest block; people starting at the minimums often need two or three such blocks.
Why does this program only train push-ups twice a week when the test is a max push-up set?+
Because the chest recovers on roughly a 72-hour window and two spaced sessions land exactly on it, while a third would put a session inside it. The two days carry real volume, about 12 weighted sets a week, and Saturday's scored set is a single set so the test day measures rather than adds. Frequency past what you can recover from produces sore elbows, not more reps.