MOPs & MOEs

Angus Bradley is the quintessential Australian. He's a surfer who dropped out of college to tour with his band before getting into Olympic weightlifting which led him to his current career as a personal trainer (although he might really be a comedian). He now operates out of Sydney, Australia training people across the spectrum from gen pop to professional athletes and hosting the Hyperformance podcast. This episode definitely includes more laughter than any other we've done, but it also includes some solid gold nuggets of wisdom, references to economic theory, and discussions of the philosophy of science. Some disclaimers: We get pretty unfiltered in this episode, so it's important to remind everyone that these are only our opinions, and do not reflect the positions of any organizations with which we are associated. It's also our first episode where I have to check the "explicit" block, thanks to some flowery language.

On this episode we welcome the owner of what may be the coolest job title on the planet: COL Nick Gist, the Master of the Sword. He leads West Point's Department of Physical Education, which is both an academic department (teaching the Kinesiology major along with a couple fundamentals of fitness courses) and responsible for delivering the physical courses that all cadets must take. We ended up having a really cool conversation that centered around what people need to know to be effective in the fitness space, and what his department is trying to do to give them those tools.

This time the tables were turned and we were guests on the Not Your Typical Doctors podcast. We're airing it on our feed to give you guys a taste of their content, and if you like what you hear we'd encourage you to go check them out. Sarah and Alyse discuss very similar topics, but from a different perspective that offers valuable insights. In this particular conversation we covered wide ranging topics, but with a theme of what human performance teams' role is in mental health. Disclaimer from Alex: at one point I say "brigade of 400 to 800 people" because apparently I'm an idiot and can't remember the difference between a battalion and a brigade.

Based on popular demand from many of you who listened to his previous episode, we brought LTC David DeGroot, PhD back to dive into the research process that led to the development of the ACFT. If you're familiar with the Baseline Soldier Physical Readiness Requirements Study (BSPRRS) he is one of the authors, and therefore played a key role in the creation of the test as we know it. In this conversation you'll hear a lot about the history (and a little bit about the politics) of how the Army determined that the APFT was an inadequate physical assessment, and how we got to the current version of the ACFT. If you want to read the BSPRRS itself, you can find it here: https://www.iadlest.org/Portals/0/AD1097586%20Baseline%20Soldier%20Physical%20Readiness%20Requirements%20Study.pdf?ver=lI8Q0CmCEx_rmeabYlwG4Q%3D%3D We also mention Dr. Chip East's history of Army physical training and testing which you can order in hard copy from Amazon, or you can access it digitally for free here: https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/APRT_WhitfieldEast.pdf

Six months into making this podcast, we wanted to take a pause to talk about how it's going, and more importantly where it's going in the future. There are way more of you listening than we could possibly expected, and we always appreciate your feedback, so this is a quick break for us to talk directly to the audience. It's a short one, but hopefully you like what we're trying to do with this platform. As mentioned in the episode, if you want to provide feedback, you can reach us at mopsnmoes@gmail.com

As our first repeat guest, we brought Chris back to have a conversation about thinking. Specifically, we wanted to cover several logical fallacies that often disrupt well intentioned planning and evaluation. Chris is a seasoned special operations veteran and emergency medical professional with numerous combat deployments, an accomplished coach, and an impressive athlete in his own right. We highly recommend that you listen to Chris' previous episode about assessments before diving into this one. We can't promise that knowing about these will make you immune to them - we're all guilty of these - but they will give you the tools to better assess your own thinking. Topics we covered: What is "MOPs & MOEs" all about? Goodhart's Law McNamara Fallacy Survivorship Bias Path Dependency Bonus Topic: Dunning-Kruger Effect

Our guest for this episode is former Navy SEAL Jamie Monroe, who still lives near Coronado and has remained involved in the SEAL community including mentoring aspiring candidates. Jamie was a SEAL from the mid 90s through the early 2000s, serving on SEAL Team 1 and eventually transitioning into the Reserve. After his military time he got an MBA from Pepperdine and started pursuing entrepreneurial projects which have included everything from running a hair salon to managing sporting events. Incredibly, he also recently won an Emmy for his work with NBC Sunday Night Football. We wanted to talk to him about the recent news that a BUD/S candidate died shortly following Hell Week. You can find plenty of coverage about this on several news outlets, but when we refer to "the article" we're talking about the New York Times piece in particular, although some of the other pieces published recently are even more guilty of omitting relevant details. We dive into the specifics in this conversation, but suffice it to say that steroids were involved (among other drugs). NYT Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/us/navy-seal-training-death.html

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!