Featured Coach: Meg Cruz

Army-fitness.com is proud to partner with coach Meg Cruz! She’s ready to help female soldiers maximize their fitness and score on the ACFT

Meg Cruz is a NASM and NSCA credentialed personal trainer with over nine years of coaching experience. She got her start in fitness with CrossFit to get her ready for Army Basic Combat Training (BCT). Meg transitioned from a CrossFit athlete to coach in 2010. She coached group classes and boot camps at her local gym in Charlotte, North Carolina. While she started CrossFit as a way to get fit for BCT, she gradually excelled to a competitive level. Eventually she competed in the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games Regionals.

Experience

Meg served in the US Army for 7+ years. She was both as a rotary wing aviator, and as part of Special Operations Forces (SOF). She also and has been published in The CrossFit Journal and Special Warfare Magazine. Coach Meg has been through multiple physically-demanding Army schools and assessments. These physical tests helped develop her understanding of what female warriors face in pursuit of their career goals. She founded The Valkyrie Project to close the gap in female service member training. This was triggered by the 2016 change when all jobs and schools were opened to women by the Department of Defense. She saw a need for training designed specifically to help women succeed in challenging physical profiles.

Meg’s passion is to support military women seeking to grow professionally through training and job specialties that were unavailable to them until recent years.

The Valkyrie Project incorporates research-backed knowledge of female athlete biology and physiology into writing workout programming. In addition to accounting for female physiological differences in programming (including considerations for upper body strength needs, energy system development for women versus men, stabilization and injury-proofing for female anatomy), biology is also accounted for.

What to expect from The Valkyrie Project

Female athletes looking to join The Valkyrie Project can expect three workout track options. Each track specifies luteal or follicular training in the app so they can correctly identify where to start. All three tracks populate workouts daily in the CrossFit Beyond the White Board (BTWB) mobile app. Each workout is available to the member at no additional monthly cost. The online closed Facebook VP forum hosts male and female mentors who are current or prior service members, as well as nutritionists, physical therapists and sports psychologists to answer questions. Membership is $30/month ($20 for students), and includes BTWB access and use, access to the closed Facebook forum and three workout track options.

Go for Gold

The three workout tracks are Gold, Green and Black. Gold is for women looking to score the best possible on the ACFT. It incorporates movements to allow women to gradually build toward improving leg tucks, learning to do pull-ups and better deadlift scores. It also incorporates explosive movement training for the ball throw and tailored energy system training for the 2 mile run and sprint drag carry.

Go for Green

Green is similar to Gold, but is designed for women with a school or assessment date in the next six months. The assumption with Green is that these women are already doing well on their APFT/ACFT, but need more help doing more pull-ups, maintaining performance over long distances under load (rucking), and running farther and faster. Green also facilitates increased APFT and ACFT performance.

Go for Black

Black is designed for women who are already in good APFT/ACFT shape and do not have a school or assessment in the future. They simply want to stay in good shape. The best candidates for Black were prior collegiate or competitive CrossFit athletes, and already have a strong foundation of strength.

To learn more, please visit valkyrieprojectus.com/training-program

Follow the Valkyrie Project and Coach Meg Cruz

Facebook (@thevalkyrieproject)

Instagram (@valkyrieprojectus)

Twitter (@valkyrieprojus)

You can also find free and fascinating knowledge about female military athlete health, nutrition and performance on our podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-valkyrie-project . The Valkyrie Project podcast is free and available on iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn and Sound Cloud.

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