Navy SEAL BUD/S training: ‘Hell Week’ explained

The Navy’s training for SEALS, called BUD/S, is known as one of the most arduous trials in the military, testing the physical and mental strength of SEAL candidates. Three weeks into the first phase of training, “Hell Week” is an exhaustive test of someone’s commitment to becoming a Navy SEAL.

“I call it a gut check to see who really wants to be there and is not going to quit regardless of how miserable they are,” said former Navy SEAL Paul Anderson, who retired from the Navy in 2012. “It’s very, very difficult during ‘Hell Week.’ You get 4 hours of sleep. You’re not allowed to have any caffeine. Throughout the entire week, you’re hungry, you’re cold, you’re sandy, you’re wet, just the lack of sleep. Constantly getting pushed harder and harder.”

In this grueling 5-day stretch, each candidate runs more than 200 miles and sleeps only a total of four hours during the entire time.


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[Vaiva]

Who else came here because David goggins wrote about it

[momoshekar]

My wrestling coach was a former navy seal and he bases all of our cardio workout of of the hell week training. He even made our workouts easier, and none of us can get through all of it without a little bit of a break. Massive respect to these guys

[Klompe]

My favourite part was when they said "You are not allowed to use any CAFFEINE", to illustrate how excruciating the program is

[AroundSun]

Remember, 3-4 hours of sleep for the entire WEEK, not per day. This is while running over 200 miles, doing thousands of pushups, pullups, and crunches per day. Log PT, boat training, surf torture, cold, wet, sandy, skin chafing, open wounds, salt water and sand in your eyes and nose while you are already halucinating from being up for 3 days and working out 23 hours day after day non-stop. Imagine getting 20 mins of sleep in the cold, after being up for 2 days straight, just ran 20 miles the prior two days, did a thousand pushups, body screaming, just to wake up freezing and told to go lay in the cold ocean water at night in your sandy clothes, with the wind, for 4 hours, just cuz we said so. Then we'll get you out, dry you off, and go do it again for another hour. How long can you keep this up for?

[freddyvielma]

Let’s take a minute to address that David Goggins went through it 3 MOTHERFUCKING TIMES! That man is the toughest mf out there.

[superspice]

“It’s Just all in your head” before you were talking about someone who died

[kgcane]

As a 50 year old man who is in decent shape I must say I wouldn’t last a second through that brutal training, lol!

[mabro]

I just saw many men like David Goggins 😂

[Mantis_Toboggan_TrashMan]

This is a understatement. They stay awake five days straight. Imagine staying up five days on four hours sleep while doing insane exercising the entire time.

You hear crazy shit like a guy seeing a plane and thinking it was a flying horse. I've been up 30 while sitting on my ass and it still sucks.

[flowinglikethewaterz]

"You have to have that intestinal fortitude to push forward. To keep going, it's in your gut or in your heart or in your head"

[stevenjfrisch]

Horrible that he aspired to do something incredible and ended up dead. Good to hear at least that the Navy had doctors check them daily and had other reasonable precautions.

[kennytalabi]

This man is sitting in his living room and still looks like he hasnt fully recovered from BUDs training...phew. This thing must be darn hard....

[xlnu]

Why they shocked he died? This is torture the guy literally worked his body to the point that he died

[tommyzDad]

What week is the writing class, because you know all SEALs write books/ movie scripts when they get out?

[shivumdewan]

"Who's gonna carry the boats and the logs" David Goggins

[warrioroflight]

I especially love how the instructors constantly encourage you to give up and have a table of hot donuts and coffee available for the guys who decide to quit.


And the quitters get to eat the refreshments in front of the guys still going...

[LennoxmeineckeGHG]

And David goggins survived this for 3 weeks 😮

[ironsharpensiron]

I made through did not ring the bell, class 191 We went from 120 to going into hell week down to 67 graduating five days later

[icegold]

I came here from watching Rob O'Neil with Joe budden because he said they don't sleep from Sunday to Friday. "4hours sleep" 🤔

[mattias]

There will always be trainibg casualties in all military branches i remember when i was in training in the army in my country in winter and one guy lost a thumb due to having diesel on it and it being 45-c and he being on guard. And another dude died drom his terrain vehicle loosing control. Thesw things do happen.