MOPs & MOEs

Welcome to the first episode of our four part series with NASA, focusing on how they approach human performance for the unique demands of spaceflight. We're starting with an astronaut and in the rest of the series we'll be talking with the human performance and research teams who support them. Stay tuned! Colonel (retired) Shane Kimbrough is a 1989 West Point graduate where he was captain of the baseball team. He was commissioned as an aviation officer and flew Apaches, including in Desert Storm. He got his Masters of Science degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1998, and headed back to West Point to teach in the math department. While he was teaching he got selected by NASA to be an astronaut and he entered that program in 2004. He completed his first spaceflight in 2008 on STS-126, one of the last shuttle missions where they were building the international space station. He spent almost 16 days on the mission to expand the crew living quarters to accommodate a six-member crew on the International Space Station (ISS). He performed two spacewalks during this mission. On his second spaceflight, Kimbrough launched to the ISS on the Russian Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This mission lasted 173 days as part of Expeditions 49 and 50, where he performed four spacewalks and numerous science and maintenance activities. He most recently served as commander of the NASA/SpaceX Crew-2 Dragon spacecraft, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once on the ISS, Kimbrough served as Flight Engineer of Expedition 65/66. He performed three spacewalks during the 199-day mission. Kimbrough now has a total of 388 days in space. For additional insights into Shane's approach to fitness, your can read his profiles in Men’s Health and Men’s Journal.

This week's episode is all about work capacity. What is it? How do you train for it? What programming principles apply? This is another one of our recurring "how to" episodes, and it essentially fills in the gap left after our strength and endurance episodes. Somewhere between those two is the fuzzy concept of work capacity, which brings up related concepts like "mixed modal training" and even the dreaded CrossFit. We start with a few definitions (some better than others) and even a quick science lesson. After that the bulk of this episode focuses on Drew's "Theoretical Guide to Work Capacity" which lays out his multi-pace theory. We highly recommend you pull up the blog post if you can, some of the framework is easier to digest when you can look at a chart. To some extent, this also builds on the previous blog post "Three Strategies for Functional Conditioning." Subscribers to our Long and Strong program may enjoy this look into the method behind the madness of the work capacity sessions they've been doing a lot of. If this episode gets you curious, we'd love to have you join us! One of our definitions of work capacity came from the very smart Greg Nuckols of Stronger by Science. Another came from T-Nation, which can be a good resource as long as you're on guard for their shameless and aggressive supplement sales. Unsurprisingly we also touch on CrossFit's definition as well And Drew also specifically cites OPEX's framework, specifically maximal aerobic power. Finally, and perhaps oddly, one of our definitions came from the Indian Journal of Environmental & Occupational Medicine. It turns out there is a large body of research focused on work capacity in the context of manual labor. Based on their less than impressive grasp on physiology, this might be an opportunity for some exercise physiology folks to help them out.

On this episode we're diving into the mental health conversation, and we hope it's only the beginning. Our guest is Jonathan Wilson, a former Navy SEAL with multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. His transition journey included an MBA from University of Oxford's Said Business School and working as an equity trader at Goldman Sachs. While it all looked great on paper, he still found himself struggling with his own mental health. This led him to founding the SEAL Future Foundation in 2012. Our focus in this episode though is his role as CEO and Founder of INVI Mindhealth. They are leveraging some interesting technology to monitor physiological indicators of distress, but more importantly they're combining the tech with human to human interaction. In what is starting to becoming a theme with our favorite episodes, we threw the plan for this conversation out the window almost immediately. So join as we go down many of the rabbit holes involved in military and veteran mental health.

Data Driven Strength is on a mission to translate research, integrate experience, and develop strength. On this week's episode we have Zac and Josh who, along with their partner Jake, are researchers and coaches who directly apply evidence based approaches to developing powerlifters. In particular, they leverage their knowledge to individualize training programs based on monitoring performance data. Some themes of this discussion involve rethinking traditional notions around RPE and maximal strength and acknowledging the complexity of truly individualizing both research and programming. We even dive in to the potential impact of AI on strength and conditioning, but as you might expect that's a little more complicated than it might seem on the surface. The work they're doing with Data Driven Strength has definitely impacted how we talk about these issues, and you can see its influence on our programming, so we hope you enjoy some deeper insight into their methods. You can find a wealth of resources, including their own podcast and blog on their website. Almost everything we referenced in this conversation can be found on their blog. The one exception is we did reference Range by David Epstein. It's a great discussion of how humans learn if you want to dive into that.

On this episode we welcome Newton Cheng back to the podcast, but this time he's taking over hosting duty! In his previous episode we focused on what military human performance could learn from corporate wellness, but he wanted to turn the tables and find out what corporate wellness could learn from military human performance. Newton is a father, world-class powerlifter, engineer, and Google's Director of Health and Performance. In his work, he leads a team with the mission to support the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health and well-being of Google's global workforce. At the time this episode is publishing, he's also just a few days out from competing in primetime at USAPL raw nationals. If you're curious to learn more about his (impressive) powerlifting, check out his Instagram page. This wide ranging conversation is all about helping someone with an outside perspective understand how the military approaches human performance, including both the good parts and the bad parts. We hope this will become a continuing conversation, since we have a lot to learn from each other in this space. In our discussion about spirituality we recommended Soul Boom by Rainn Wilson, which you can find here. In our attempt to define both corporate wellness and military human performance we cited several sources, those are: Human Performance Optimization: A Framework for the Military Health System Booz Allen's Human Performance Training for Military Missions RTI International's Military Health and Human Performance Human Performance Resources by the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) Bureau of Labor Statistics' What attributes characterize a successful corporate wellness program?

This week's guest is Tyler Fillion, the current Company 1SG and Senior Enlisted Advisor to the 75th Ranger Regiment Selection and Training Company. The Company conducts assessment and selection programs, known as RASP1 and RASP2, as well as a pre-Ranger School course known as SURT (small unit Ranger tactics). Additionally, the Company runs an extensive Pre-RASP program that prepares service members for RASP1. Tyler has been serving in the Army since 2005 and attended Ranger School shortly after a 15 month deployment to Iraq during the surge. That was his first exposure to Ranger Regiment soldiers, and after another deployment he attended one of the first editions of the RASP1 course in 2010. His career has taken him from 3rd Ranger Battalion, to Regimental Headquarters, to 1st Ranger Battalion, and now back to Fort Moore with Selection and Training. Tyler holds a Masters degree in Psychology with a focus on Industrial and Organization Psychology. It's very clear from our conversation that Tyler cares deeply about human performance and is a huge believer in the Army's H2F system. As you might expect from a leader in Ranger Regiment, he's all about challenging people to achieve things they might not have thought were possible. This episode has a lot of good information for any soldier who aspires to serve in Ranger Regiment, but it's also full of insight for anyone who is interested in how to incorporate human performance staffs into a military unit. The Rangers have been doing it for over a decade now, and Tyler speaks to how they get the most value out of their Ranger Athlete Warrior program. For insight into assessment and selection processes, Tyler recommended this documentary about the British Pegasus Company. To understand the culture in Ranger Regiment, Tyer recommended the 6-part Ranger Creed series. You can find those videos, along with plenty of others about life in Ranger Regiment on their YouTube channel. To find the monthly challenges we talked about, check out @75th_humanperformance_wellness on Instagram. RASP also has their own Instagram page that offers glimpses into the assessment and selection process. And finally, if you're ready to take the next steps towards becoming a Ranger, you can find their recruiting team here.

This week's episode is an exciting one. If you've been following MOPs & MOEs on Instagram you'll know that, in additional to the normally scheduled military human performance content, we occasionally transform into a fan page for the one and only Chandler Smith. This week, we finally have him on for a chat! When we recorded this conversation Chandler was in the final weeks of preparation for his fourth CrossFit Games appearance, where he ultimately placed 7th. This year was a comeback season for him after a massive asthma attack during last year's semifinals derailed his season. Chandler grew up around athletics, his father was an NFL fullback and now works as a strength and conditioning coach for the Dallas Cowboys. Chandler wrestled throughout high school and at West Point, discovering CrossFit as a conditioning tool along the way. Graduating in 2015, Chandler commissioned as an Armor Officer and started focusing more and more on training for competitive CrossFit with a goal of making it to the Games by 2022. Despite a couple setbacks including losing part of his left ring finger in an Army training accident in 2017 and having to train in extremely austere conditions while deployed in 2018, he ended up beating his goal and qualifying for the Games in 2019. He has since separated from the Army and is now a full time professional CrossFit athlete. Chandler is also very involved in the programming of his training, reflecting his interest in understanding the why behind various training approaches. This gives us a unique opportunity to talk to someone who is not only well versed on the Xs and Os of training, but is also applying those principles at an elite level. If you want to learn more about what happened to Chandler last year, we highly recommend the In the Arena documentary following his 2022 season. You can find Chandler on Instagram here.

We're launching a training program! In this episode we are explaining the Long & Strong program that we are getting ready to launch. This is a subscription based program that will be delivered via TrainHeroic. Programming will start in September, but if you subscribe during the August presale, you'll get a discount! This will be a concurrent training program, meaning it incorporates both strength and endurance training, including some work capacity type of conditioning sessions. If you've been following along with the podcast you'll find that many of the concepts we discuss here are reflected in the program. If you have questions about what to expect and how it will work, this is the episode for you. We collected questions on Instagram, and we answer all of the frequently asked ones here. Click here to sign up! This program is based on numerous concepts we've discussed before on the podcast, shared on the Instagram page, and gone a little deeper on on the blog. Two blog posts that Drew specifically recommended during our conversation are: 4 Fundamental Truths of Tactical Training A Theoretical Guide to Work Capacity

This wide ranging episode will touch on everything from the Army's fitness education for leaders, to the way soldiers prepare physically for demanding courses like Ranger and Sapper, to what it's like being a woman and a leader in combat organizations. Emma brings an authentic perspective and is very direct on these issues in a way that will hopefully start some important conversations. 1LT Emma Powless currently serves as a Combat Engineer in the Army’s only Rough Terrain unit, the 57th Sapper Company (Airborne), at Fort Liberty, NC. This is the Army's only unit designed to intentionally jump into trees and then clear landing zones and drop zones for follow on forces. Emma graduated from West Point in 2020 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology where she also competed on the Women's Lacrosse Team, the Triathlon Team, and the Functional Fitness Team. Her military schools include Airborne School, Military Freefall School, Ranger School, Sapper School, Jumpmaster School, and the Master Fitness Trainer Course. With all those schools, she was the 6th woman ever to earn both her Ranger and Sapper tabs. Outside of the Army Emma enjoys fitness, mentoring others, sourdough baking, and skydiving. Emma is a huge advocate for mentorship, and if you want to reach out to her directly you can email her at epowless21@gmail.com

On today's episode we're diving into Yoga Nidra, which translated literally means yoga sleep. While it's not literally sleep, evidence suggests it can be a powerful tool for improving sleep quality and falling asleep faster, among many other things. That is the subject of a piece by our guest, titled "The Thin Line Between Waking and Sleeping in Athletes: A Call for Yoga Nidra in the Sporting Context." Selenia di Fronso is a PhD researcher affiliated with the Department of Medicine and Aging Sciences, within the Behavioral Imaging and Neural Dynamics Center, University “G. d'Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy. She focuses on sports psychology, including things like mental imagery, stress management, and mindfulness. While this is an opinion piece, it heavily references the existing literature on Yoga Nidra, especially in medical contexts. She's primarily calling for greater investigation of how Yoga Nidra could be applied in athletic contexts. Once you hear about it, we're sure some of you are going to be interested in trying this out. For those people we're also releasing a recorded guided session that she has prepared for us, which will appear as a separate episode. Below are some additional resources if you want to learn more or find more sessions: For our veteran listeners, there is an 8-week prerecorded iRest series through the VA’s War Related Illness and Injury Study Center, or you can contact them for live sessions. Technically these recordings are right there on their website, so you don't really need to be a veteran... A 2010 Pain Management Task Force report from the Office of the Army Surgeon General listed Yoga Nidra as a “Tier 1” modality for pain management. Evidence from Occupational Therapy settings suggests that Yoga Nidra can significantly improve time spent asleep (above and beyond traditional sleep hygiene interventions) for patients suffering from sleep disorders. Clinical studies have shown that yoga nidra meditation is associated with positive physiological changes, including improvements in several hematological variables, red blood cell counts, blood glucose levels, and hormonal status. Two neuroimaging studies have shown that yoga nidra produces changes in endogenous dopamine release and cerebral blood flow, a further confirmation that its effects on the CNS are objectively measurable. The practice has also been shown to reduce psychometrically measured indices of mild depression and anxiety, although these benefits were not shown in an experimental study to extend to severe depression or severe anxiety.