MOPs & MOEs

On this episode we welcome Drew's hero to the conversation: Dr. John Kiely. He established himself as a serious athlete with several Irish national championships in kickboxing and Muay Thai and ultimately won the Irish heavyweight boxing championship twice. After his competitive career he set out on his career in strength and conditioning which has taken him to the highest levels of sport in Europe. He's coached world champions and Olympians in a wide variety of sports, he's coached teams at the highest levels of soccer and track and field. But what he's best known for now is his writing, much of which is critical of periodization theory, especially the way many of its traditional paradigms are based on outdated stress science. At its root, this is a conversation about how humans are not robots, and the non-physical components of training are almost certainly more important than the details of the physical aspect. You can find his publications here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Kiely You can learn about the Professional Doctorate in Human Performance and Innovation program he works with at the University of Limerick here: https://www.ul.ie/gps/human-performance-and-innovation-professional-doctorate

Chris Pokorny is a chaplain with Air Force Special Operations Command, and in addition to his Master of Divinity, also has a Master of Social Work degree. It doesn't hurt that he also observes weightlifting as a spiritual discipline, which undoubtedly helped him integrate with the human performance teams he has been a part of in his military career. His dual credentials mean he's very passionate about research at the intersection of spirituality and mental health. We brought him in to have a conversation about the many challenges that surround integrating spirituality into human performance operations, but if you listen you'll also learn a fun story about his un-chaplain-like taste in music.

Sleep is foundational. Insufficient sleep compromises almost everything: marksmanship, leadership, interpersonal skills, decision making, weight loss, and of course physical performance. For this episode, we have an awesome conversation about sleep for tactical professionals with one of the foremost experts in the field. On top of being one of the Army's few active duty neuroscientists, Allison Brager is also a multiple time CrossFit Games athlete, astronaut candidate, frequently published researcher, and author of Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain. There are few people more qualified to talk about sleep in the tactical space, so we hope you enjoy hearing from her!

We invited Chris McNamara onto the pod to talk about assessments in tactical strength and conditioning. Chris is both a seasoned special operations leader and an accomplished athlete and coach. He's the owner of Evolution Athletics, a training facility near Fort Bragg that is home to some incredible athletes, and he's also an accomplished emergency medical professional with numerous combat deployments. This combination gives him a unique perspective for a discussion on how we test tactical professionals' fitness, and some ways we could potentially do it better.

What makes training "tactical"? Is it working out in a uniform? Is it wearing body armor? Is rucking tactical? So many questions, and so few clear answers. In this episode we discuss the concept of "tactical PT" and why the lack of a clear definition is such a problem. Don't want to listen to the full episode? Here's the secret: it's all about what you wear. If you look tactical when you do it, that's all that matters. Probably.

From starting out as a D1 collegiate swimmer to coaching Olympic medalists to training operators for the most elite selections, Scott Johnston has a lot of experience when it comes to knowing how to produce high performance. A core element of his methodology is a massive emphasis on aerobic base building, and his results speak for themselves. In the most recent Best Ranger Competition six of the top ten teams prepared by following training from Uphill Athlete, Scott's company. In this episode, Scott explains the foundations of his approach and why methods developed for training mountain athletes work so well for tactical athletes.

A month ago a study on injury prediction technology was released that got the tactical human performance space EXTREMELY riled up. Today, we have the authors of that study on to discuss what they found and the state of the search for the injury prediction holy grail. This team has done some serious work with Air Force Special Warfare to put the latest technology to the test, and as the military pursues ways to address critical levels of injuries and disability, their findings are extremely relevant. Lt Col Ben Hando is a physical therapist and clinical researcher in the US Air Force.  He recently served as the Research Flight Commander at the Special Warfare Training Wing and he is currently a Research Fellow at Kennell and Associates. He serves on numerous Air Force and Joint level committees as an orthopedic physical therapy expert. Dr. Sid Angadi is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia in the Department of Kinesiology and a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. He's a cardiovascular physiologist by training, with research focusing on the use of exercise to improve outcomes for patients with cases from heart disease, to kidney disease, to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Dr. Casan Scott is currently a Senior Data Scientist with NCCI. Previously, he worked as a Research Analyst with the USAF Special Warfare Human Performance Squadron and as a Data Scientist with the Army's 1st Special Forces Group THOR3 human performance team.

Do pedometers work in space? As the Space Force works to implement a wearable device-driven fitness standard, we're here to ask the important questions. Join us as we discuss all this and more. From types of data to influencing behavior change, this episode is an overarching conversation on the various applications of technology in the tactical human performance space, with a critical look at when it is - and isn't - useful. It also serves as an introduction to the next episode, in which we'll dive into more specifics with a team that has been researching this topic over the past several years.

Evan Peikon is a physiologist & bioscientist who focuses on human performance, including consulting for elite athletes and military special operations. If you've read any of his content you know he has a particular interest in how the body utilizes oxygen, and how better understanding that can enhance our training protocols. Our conversation is all about changing paradigms in tactical strength and conditioning, so be prepared to have some of your foundational assumptions challenged.

You guys have nutrition questions, but we aren't nutrition experts, so we called one in to help out! Sam Leyh is a Performance Dietitian working in Air Force Special Warfare. Listen to this episode to learn how abs are made at Burger King and why you start sweating if you eat too much meat. There might be some other more useful content too, but it will be mixed in with plenty of bad food puns. Sponsored by broccoli™