Health and Fitness for Pilots: Optimizing Performance and Longevity

Health Mistakes and Lessons Learned

The way I treat my body in training, nutrition, and recovery now compared to when I first started pilot training in 2021 have almost nothing in common. Past me thought a protein bar and four hours of sleep was a recovery protocol. Current me spends too much time Googling the HRV benefits between Coherent Breathing and the Box Breathing methods.

Both versions of me, however, remain completely powerless against a cold beer after a long day. A character flaw I've decided to stop fighting and start managing.

Also, don’t call it a flaw. This is my blog and I don’t need your judgment.

The stereotype is real because the culture is real. Aviation (the strike fighter community in particular) runs on a particular kind of fuel: caffeine in the morning, protein bars at noon, and beers when the work is finally done. Long days, longer nights, and the kind of shared exhaustion that quietly builds something between people.

What I’ve learned is to stop trying to avoid the hard parts. The irregular sleep, the stress, the celebratory drinks after a brutal detachment. Instead, I learned to build around them with habits resilient enough to absorb the chaos rather than collapse under it.

If you take one thing from the post, let it be this: do not push off your health and fitness. Too many times in flight school I heard students complain they didn’t have time to meal prep, workout, or sleep. It’s a lie they told themselves and I guarantee their grades in the short term and health in the long term were worse because of it.
I'm not a doctor, nutritionist, or certified anything. But I guess you don’t have to be nowadays to be play one on TikTok. This is, however, what I've learned from flying F/A-18s and paying attention to my own body. Take it as one pilot's perspective, not medical advice.

Fighter Pilot Perspective: As military aviators, we’ll do just about anything to stay Med Up and flying. Because of this, the flight surgeon relationship can be tricky. They’re supposed to be our advocates and keep us flying. I’ve had some incredible flight docs who’ve done just that. I’ve also had a flight doc openly tell me he’d rather keep me flying in the F/A-18 than run a test that could potentially diagnose a career-ending disease, like cancer. I think I’d trade “not flying” for “not shitting in a bag the rest of my life”. Your health is your greatest asset and no job is worth sacrificing it for.

Nutrition

The Dietary Trap

Food. It fuels you and sets the tone for performance physically, mentally, and emotionally. It’s part of the IMSAFE preflight checklist for a reason. But, in my opinion, often incorrectly applied.

The aviation trope of never flying on an empty stomach is so established that I’ve seen pilots develop some pretty revolting eating habits just to satisfy it. Or to justify their pre-existing lazy or unhealthy habits.

Flying on an empty stomach is not a bad thing and I’ve done it many times. I wouldn’t advise flying “hungry” as negative emotional behavior is strongly linked to the side effects of hunger but preflight rushing to crush a protein bar, specifically designed with chemical ingredients that your body cannot absorb just to say you ‘ate something’ does far more harm than good.
Eat real food.

And Chic-fil-A, Panda Express, and Subway don’t count—regardless of how convenient they are on base.

As of this study looking at data from 2019-2021, 75% of the US Navy is overweight or obese.

That is a massive health crisis, and pilots are no exception to this population.

If you care about performance in the cockpit, the real preflight starts in the kitchen.

Save money, time, and stomach discomfort by eating real foods that you cooked yourself. I’m far from perfect, it took me four painful years to figure this out and I wish I knew it sooner.

What I Eat Now

I prioritize protein and fiber. That’s the key and almost everything else is an afterthought. Obviously I’m not a robot and love to crush a good pizza from the best pizza in Pensacola on weekends, but this simple summary will be flight-focused—what I would eat if I had morning, afternoon, night flights to prep for.

Breakfast: Greek yogurt, granola, and berries. I won't be convinced otherwise. Greek yogurt for protein and gut health, granola for fiber and slow-burning carbs, berries for vitamins. Everything keeps you full, which is the whole point. If you're not hungry, you're not raiding the geedunk at 1000 for a Snickers.

Lunch: Sweet potatoes and eggs, a sandwich with quality high-fiber bread, salads with homemade dressing. Once again: fiber and protein. Nothing too fatty, no sauces.

Dinner: If I’m doing a night flight with, say, a 2000 takeoff time, I’ll definitely eat beforehand. Pasta with meat sauce, a rice bowl (the kids call it “boy kibble” now?), something simple that microwaves well and doesn’t get you kicked out of the ready room.

Snacks: What I’ve only recently discovered: psyllium husk. Add it to a clean protein shake and chug a ton of water, and you’ll be full and hydrated for hours.

What I Drink Now

Gone for me are the days of a Diet Coke/Coke Zero (the unofficial sponsor of Naval Aviation) before and after a flight. I regret nothing, they were hands down the most refreshing way to cool down in the Kingsville ready room. But they did nothing good for me.

Coffee and La Croix (AKA Officer Water) are the new staples. In the right doses, coffee is, in my estimation, a super food. But it has a cutoff in my world of 1400, regardless of whether I’m flying that evening or not.

Sprinkle in electrolytes (LMNT are my current favorite) in a water bottle carried with you throughout the day and you’re set up for success. Tactical (or real) dehydration will probably still happen but the goal is to minimize its effects.

Finally, non-alcoholic beer has also been game changer for decompressing after a long day without hurting sleep quality.

Real beer stays. Just... on the weekends.

Fighter Pilot Perspective: the most dangerous “passive” enemy on every flight is the G-lock. It can kill you. Many physiological factors go into your ability to tolerate G’s but the one you can directly control is hydration. Just a 3% reduction in hydration can reduce mean endurance time under G’s from 60 seconds down to 35 seconds. Drink up.

Fitness & Training

The Fitness Trifecta

How I train now is also a lot different than when I first started flight school. I train for three reasons: health and longevity generally, flight activities specifically, and looking/feeling good.

I’m a pilot with great hair, so although I was likely already destined to be self-absorbed, don’t discount that last reason as not being a compelling motivator.

About a year ago I wrote about fitness for fighter pilots, and how I train for what can be several minutes under intense G forces during a dogfight.

Since then, some things have changed and some haven’t. “Gritty” workouts and mobility are two things that haven’t fallen out of my rotation and, in fact, are more of a centerpiece than ever.

Let’s break it down.

Cardiovascular Fitness

THE most underrated aspect of fitness for pilots.

Cardiovascular disease accounts for 50% of all declined pilot licenses due to medical reasons in Western Europe.

The FAA’s data is similar, in fact, showing for pilots above age 45, cardiovascular disease is the # 1 leading physical cause of permanent career grounding.

So not only will having improved cardiovascular fitness make you better at flying (better G-tolerance and more resilient to hypoxia), it can also prolong your career by combatting Coronary Artery Disease, Hypertension, AFib and Arrhythmia.

If you’ve been here a while you’ll know about my latest fitness obsession in cycling. My goal for 2025 was to increase my Garmin-reported VO2 Max to the purple “Superior” category, which I accomplished for both cycling and running.

That’s right, despite what I’ve said in the past on running, I was actually able to improve even my running cardiovascular fitness simply from biking. It surprised me too.

If I were to give an explanation for this miraculous accomplishment which I saw as nearly impossible, it would be best described by Naval’s quote:

Do what feels like play to you, but looks like work to others.

Cycling on Zwift is so fun and addictive that you nearly forget you’re working out sometimes. Never in my life have I been able to ride / run indoors for hours until I found the video game world of Watopia.

VO2 Max Workouts

VO2 Max workouts are absolutely considered gritty and lately I have, non-negotiably, included these in my training every week. What’s crazy is the improvement in fitness I’ve noticed in just two months of consistent execution. I’ve tried many different ways to achieve the desired training effect but this workout on the treadmill is what I’ve found to be most effective.

4 Rounds:
4 minutes @ 15% incline
3 minutes walking recovery

*As for the speed: just go as fast as you can to quickly rocket your heart rate into that red zone and reduce speed or incline as necessary to avoid becoming road kill.

Mobility

Whether you’re a long-haul captain crushing your posture with hours on end in the left seat of an airliner or a fighter pilot contorting your spine to look back at your buddy about to kill you, chances are you could benefit from more mobility.

For me (and probably all ejection-seat pilots), it’s been a constant story of lower-back pain. I’ve tried everything from foam rolling to flow yoga but nothing has made such a positive impact like like video from YouTuber, jackhwoods.

For an overall mobility flow, I also will visit this routine about once a week from Strength Side, also on YouTube. Feels great for the hips in particular.

Strength

Without actively realizing it, strength training has wrongly taken a decreasing trend in my fitness over the last year. I discovered Zwift and cycling which immediately stole my focus since it was just so much fun.

What was once the “bro split” soon turned into the optimized full-body workout three times a week, which soon turned into a thirty minute pump twice a week. With what we know about muscle in terms of longevity and the fact that one’s ability to build or maintain muscle decreases over time, I knew this was a problem.

Also, what’s kind of cool is, although maybe gimmicky, Whoop tracks strength training hours per week as a major contributor to your “Whoop Age”, which has been weirdly motivating.

As of writing this I’m back to three days a week of strength, no exceptions. That breaks down in the following schedule following principles from Knees Over Toes Guy, jackhwoods, and a couple other common sources cobbled together.

Day 1: Pure Strength

Reps in the 6-10 rage, 3-5 sets, often supersetting a lower body exercise with an upper body one for maximum time efficiency, resting about 90 seconds in between.

My latest example:

A1 Bulgarian Split Squat
A2 Overhead Press
B1 Romanian Deadlift
B2 Bent Over Row
C1 Glute Bridge
C2 Push Up
D1 Leg Raise
D2 Curl and Press

Day 2: Box Fitness/HIIT

Something that still overall focuses on strength and lifting heavy but also spikes the heart rate a couple times per round. This varies a lot, depending on what I’m feeling on a weekly basis.

My latest example:

6 Rounds:
10 Box Jumps
5 Pull Ups
10 Dips
10 Toes to Bar
02:00 Run

This took me about 40 minutes last week which is what I typically target for a HIIT day, whether that’s all in one or broken up into multiple smaller AMRAMs/EMOMs/circuits.

Day 3: Upper Body Hypertrophy

For the beach bod (and to pump the Whoop stats). Lately this has been working well as a little “reward” or “extra credit” following the VO2 Max treadmill session. Cool down from the run, get an upper body pump, out of the gym in just over an hour.

My latest example:

Literally just do whatever you want for that sweet, sweet pump. I try to hit chest, shoulders, and back.

Core, Spine and Neck

I spent way too many years of inadequately training my core and now my lower back suffers because of it. When the Navy shifted from sit-ups to the plank (which I was woefully bad at), that was my wakeup call to really get serious about core.

Following the guidelines of The McGill Big Three has made a huge difference in overall athleticism and day-to-day lower back pain.

Fighter Pilot Perspective: Nothing will make you start to take your neck strength seriously like hearing the jarring crunch of your neck vertebrae during G-loading and realizing you’re not going to be able to move your head for the next week. So do yourself a favor: if you know you’re going down the strike-fighter track, start training that neck now.

Sleep & Recovery

For the first twenty years of my life, sleep was an afterthought. I idolized people like Jocko, Margaret Thatcher, and others who were known for functioning on very little sleep. I thought it was a badge of honor to burn the candle at both ends.

It wasn’t until I got my first sleep tracker (the Oura Ring 2), around the same time I started flight school, that I started paying attention to sleep at all. Unfortunately, you can’t just go from having poor sleep hygiene to getting perfect sleep scores like Bryan Johnson overnight.

Furthermore, being a pilot almost necessitates poor sleep habits. Inconsistent sleep and wake windows, stressed sleep due to high levels of stress late into the night, and waking up randomly at 0400 are just part of the job. And if you’re constantly flying to new timezones, you’ve got even more hurdles to overcome.

Countless times I’ve read the conventional wisdom on sleep: avoid alcohol and late night meals, no screens or blue light as you try to wind down, and try to maintain consistency in sleep and wake times. The issue for me was, even with a sleep tracker like Oura, I didn’t really make changes to my behavior, I just lightly observed correlations: like a poor sleep score after a night of drinking.

Whoop, on the other hand, has really helped me focus in on sleep—particularly consistency. I’m probably more reliant on technology than I should be and a thousand years ago likely would have been taken out by Ol’ Darwin, but it’s 2026 and, for me, tech is incredibly useful for actually seeing how habit changes yield results. Even with the unpredictable schedule of being a naval aviator, I've really tried to dial in sleep consistency, helping me feel better overall.

To add onto this: if I don't sleep well, coupled with an early flight, I’ll now adjust my physical training or add in a nap versus just carrying on with the preplanned 10k run PR attempt I had scheduled later that evening. Whoop has made me realize that if I were to do this, not only will the run not be optimal, but I prolong the negative state into another night of suboptimal recovery.

I’m good at not listening to my body, but I’m very bad at not listening to my Whoop.

The best flights I’ve ever had were when I slept well, my mind was razor sharp, and my body felt energized.

Good sleep is a super power.

Fighter Pilot Perspective: the hardest adjustment I’ve had to make, and still struggle with, is sleeping through loud environments like jet noise. I still haven’t been able to get used to sleeping with ear plugs in and, despite the recommendations from friends, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep with AirPods in. But if there was a “skill” to work on that would pay dividends in your military aviation career, this would be it.

Mental Health

A sensitive topic among pilots, and for good reason. Support for mental health is something everyone needs, especially if you work in a stressful life-and-death career field.

The issue is the taboo surrounding the topic. Say one wrong word and you may never fly again. Thankfully there are ways to get help that don’t involve you losing your wings.

The Brandon Act allows service members to get mental health support without any command interference. Talking to a therapist can sound scary but HIPAA still applies and there are only a few specific scenarios where your provider would have to inform your command. And regardless of the scenario, no job is worth struggling alone.

Thankfully, meaningful steps are being taken by the FAA in making it easier for all aviators and air traffic controllers to seek help without necessarily risking their entire careers.

Fighter Pilot Perspective: The military makes this hard. Stigma is real, the flight surgeon relationship is complicated, and the fear of being grounded keeps people suffering in silence. But your squadron/your wingman/your back-seater all deserve the best, most focused version of you and in order to do that, you have a duty to take care of yourself.

Marginal Gains

None of this happened overnight. It was four years of trial and error, a cycling game that somehow turned me into a cardio guy, and enough lower back pain to finally take core training seriously.

The point was never perfection, but paying attention to what actually moved the needle for me.

You're flying complex jets in environments your body was never designed for. Treating your health as an afterthought isn't just a personal problem, it's a readiness problem. Your squadron deserves the best version of you, so does your family, and so do you.

So eat real food, train hard, and sleep harder.

If you're struggling mentally, get help. The Brandon Act exists. The FAA is coming around. The stigma is real but so is the cost of doing nothing.

You want to be like the A-10 Warthog, always able to come back to the fight no matter how broken or battered, and sticking around for way longer than anyone ever wanted.

Your Support

I write everything for free in the hopes that it will inspire and educate on what it’s like to fly planes in the world’s greatest Navy and to spread the joys of aviation in general.

If you enjoyed this article, you can show your support by checking out my store on Etsy, where I sell really cool aviation-themed streetwear clothing. It’s all designed by me, a real-life, very-average fighter pilot.

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