MOPs & MOEs

Sometimes Instagram drama can be productive, and this conversation is proof. After joining in on a classic MOPs & MOEs debate about periodization, Dr Jordan Feigenbaum of Barbell Medicine joined us on the podcast to continue the conversation. While "Doctor of Medicine" might overshadow the rest of his certifications, his perspective is uniquely shaped by the rest of the list which includes Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, ACSM Health and Fitness Specialist, USA Weightlifting Level 1, CrossFit Level 1, and Starting Strength Seminar Staff. As usual, our conversation spanned a wide variety of topics including injury risks in training, social determinants of health, and a really interesting conversations about the role of coaches in promoting health. We think you guys will really enjoy this one, and hopefully this shows how debates can add value as the tactical human performance space expands.

The Future Soldier Prep Course, an effort to help aspiring soldiers meet the physical and academic standards for enlistment, has received a lot of media attention lately. As always, there are plenty of critics on the internet, but there's also a tremendous amount of potential if something like this is executed well. We went straight to the source for this episode: Remey is directly responsible for overseeing the fitness and body composition component of this project. Her background (she's certified as a Physical Therapist, Athletic Trainer, and Strength and Conditioning Coach, among other things) makes her uniquely suited for the task, and it's obvious in our conversation that she's passionate about ensuring this program succeeds. At a time when our military is struggling to find eligible recruits, a program that helps people improve their health and fitness has ramifications not just for national security, but across all of public health.

Our guest on this episode is Rob Orr, who was just honored as the Tactical Strength and Conditioning Professional of the Year! Rob leads the Tactical Research Unit at Bond University in Queensland, Australia, and continues to serve in the Australian Army Reserve. His active duty career started as an infantryman, led to becoming a physical training instructor, and ultimately becoming a physiotherapist. If you've heard his name, it's likely because of his work study load carriage. Almost any evidence based recommendations for rucking load, volume, and frequency these days include citations of Rob's work. We had a great conversation about the realities of physical training within the constraints of a tactical environment, got some insight into Rob's career in the field, and heard about the really interesting work happening at the TRU!

David DeGroot's Army journey from enlisted soldier to senior research physiologist provides him a unique perspective on how we approach health and fitness. He describes himself as a mediocre scientist, but looking at his publication record we disagree. In addition to numerous studies on heat (and cold) exposure, he has published research on postpartum recovery, body composition, and fitness assessments across tactical populations. This conversation stems from some ongoing dialogue we've had on social media about training in the heat, but the breadth and depth of Dave's expertise means we'd be happy to have him back to address other topics if you guys are interested. For the nerds out there, the episode ends with a fascinating dive into some issues surrounding what research gets funded and published that we think you'll really enjoy. If you interested in learning more about Dave's research, check out his ResearchGate page! https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Degroot-2 Since we mention Dave's contributions to the Warrior Heat and Exertion Related Events Collaborative (WHEC), anyone interested in more information on that effort can start here: https://www.hprc-online.org/resources-partners/whec 

Lots of you ask questions on the MOPs & MOEs social media platforms that require more in depth answers than it's possible to provide in a quick DM or comment. This episode is our first hack at collecting some of the most frequently asked questions and providing the thorough answers they deserve. Topics in this episode include what programs we do (and don't) recommend, why MOPs & MOEs hasn't shared any actual programs, how to improve human performance in your organization even if you don't have a staff, and how to break into this field (since many tactical professionals seem to see it as a desirable transition plan). If you have a question that we don't get to here, please send a message letting us know what you want to hear about!

Many of you have sent in articles or asked questions about the news around Space Force's fitness test (or lack thereof), so we thought we'd bring on an expert to talk about what they're doing. Shep is currently the Senior Human Performance Specialist at the United States Space Force. His three decade career in human performance has spanned everything from orthopedic rehab to world class athletics. His background includes serving as a Combat Medic in the Army, competitive powerlifting,  Masters Degrees in both Physician Assistant Studies and Exercise Science, teaching at the collegiate level, and strength and conditioning roles in settings ranging from the Army, to Fire/Rescue, to now the Space Force. Disclaimers: The Space Force does not yet have an official policy on this stuff published, they're under a one year exception from existing Air Force policy. As a result, we could not discuss specifics in this conversation, but we do talk about their intentions. To set the record straight, there's a comment in this episode that implies Drew served in the military. He worked for the Air Force for several years and now works for the Army, but he has not served in uniform.

Alec Blenis is a lot of things: Georgia Tech physics grad, former professional Spartan Racer and competitive ultramarathoner, current Murph world record holder, Instagram Q&A master, and coach at Complete Human Performance. With a background like that, it makes sense that he specializes in coaching people who also want to do a lot of things. Specifically, he coaches people who are looking to pursue "concurrent training," with goals spanning both strength and endurance simultaneously. The relevance of this for tactical professionals is obvious, so we brought him on to have a conversation about how he approaches this kind of training as both an athlete and a coach.  

There is probably not a Human Performance demographic that Coach Taysom hasn’t had experience with at this point. He's trained everyone from children to Olympians and NFL players, he's taught high school and college classes, he's worked in senior care and of course the tactical setting. The program he built at Fort Carson, initially known as the Tactical Athlete Program (TAP) and later the Ironhorse Human Performance Optimization Program (IHPOP), has been cited as one of the direct examples of what grew to become H2F. In his own athletic pursuits he was Strongman national champion in 2016 and has a few top ten finishes in the world. The common thread between all of these things is his passion, which is immediately apparent in every conversation with Mark, this one included. Make sure you have a pen and paper for this one, you're going to want to take notes.

We recorded this presentation just prior to a briefing Dan Bornstein gave to Congress on the threat to national security posed by the physical inactivity of America's youth. The briefing discussed the ways that the National Physical Activity Plan, of which Dan is the Chair for the Military Sector, proposes to address these challenges. In 2012, after many years training athletes, Dan completed his PhD in Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina and joined the faculty at The Citadel where he built their tactical strength and conditioning programs. His research and commentary have been featured in numerous scientific journals and over a hundred media outlets including USA Today, Newsweek, Stars and Stripes, and NPR. You may have encountered his research on regional trends in which military recruits are most likely to get injured, which has received significant attention, and we discuss it briefly in this conversation. We promised a few links would be in the show notes, so here they are: National Physical Activity Plan: https://paamovewithus.org/national-physical-activity-plan/ National Youth Sports Strategy: https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/national-youth-sports-strategy/about-national-youth-sports-strategy CDC Physical Activity Page: https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/index.html "The Naperville Study" (also know as "Zero Hour PE" and "Learning Readiness PE"): https://iphionline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/P.E._Case_Study_Naperville.pdf 

Vince Paikowski has multiple combat deployments with the 75th Ranger Regiment, won the Best Ranger Competition in 2021 with his partner Alastair Keys, and has been involved in overhauling how the best teams now prepare for the competition. Teams using his training framework recently took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th in the 2022 competition. Vince's training approach has been heavily influenced by Uphill Athlete, so this serves as something of a continuation from our conversation with Scott Johnston. This discussion focuses on the importance of cardio base building and strategies for incorporating it into your training, but other topics include goalsetting to maintain motivation, strength training to support endurance events, and more.