As some of you may know, I am an avid shooter and work with tactical law enforcement (e.g., SWAT/RRT, etc) and other groups regarding performance, health, fitness, and so on. If you want to try excellent test of your basic skills with a handgun, try the F.A.S.T. (Fundamentals, Accuracy, & Speed Test) drill designed by ToddG at Pistol-Training.com. Below is my video of my FAST scores and a few range drills also.
I received another message literally days after the first question on operator training. This one was in reference to testing procedures. This is unedited and may be a bit all over the place, but hope you can pick out the good stuff out it.
For an actual testing process, I would use some form of obstacle course that involves what you’ll see 90% or more of the time. The old school o-courses aren’t actually all that bad. The problem with a realistic test is to be efficient, the varibles won’t always end of successful. Say you start with a few exercises to get the adrenaline stimulation up, then have a ballistic micro-fight, the variables of a fight could shift the results of the operators performance.
I recently received a message asking about strength and conditioning for law enforcement, specifically a SWAT breacher. Below is my reply on my thoughts on it.
Hey (insert silly false name here to protect identity), first off thanks for protecting your local citizens every day. It’s a job not many respect until they need you.
Hey (insert silly false name here to protect identity), first off thanks for protecting your local citizens every day. It’s a job not many respect until they need you.
Here’s my philosophy on Law enforcement training in general. For a patrol officer, the most common thing they will be doing is slinging people not objects.
Short post here. This is just my philosophy on the use of kettlebells as a tool in a broad spectrum training program.
- Work capacity
- Portability for travel or deployments
- ‘Feeder’ Exercises
I made the drive to Bellingham. It’s suppose to be an hour and a half drive, but those of you that have seen I-5 around Seattle know to double your time minimum. It took me four hours. I had just spent 19 hours the day prior sitting in HMMWV’s, so needless to say I was quite tight and worn out. I got some dinner and passed out immediately after in my hotel room.
Next morning I headed to the RMAX gym located in the Bellingham Athletic Club. I aked where the Tacfit certification was being hosted. I then cruised to the back room of the gym where there were rings hanging, plyo boxes, paralettes, kettlebells and of course the clubbell. Most the students were already there and chit chatting introducing each other. Turns out some of these cats had just gone through 3 days of CST certification, they were going 5 days straight!
The Impact Of Training on the Hormones Of Special Operations Soldiers With Possible Applications to Tactical LE
Some interesting research going on at locals such as Natick Army Labs looking at the effects of
Stress, training, lack of sleep, and or reduced calories and their effects on hormones.
After identifying which hormones take a nose dive in response to high levels of stress, etc and which are correlated to performance, there may be an effort to alter/maintain those hormones which could allow SOF/Tactical LE to extend/improve their performance operationally speaking. Nutritional interventions are being examined (some of which I covered in my articles here) as well as other possible interventions that could be of considerable benefit to members of the military and law enforcement community, specifically – but not limited to – SOF and Tactical LE.
Sign Up Here For The Tactical Athlete, performance/fitness summit
Folks, I’m currently putting together a one day seminar called:
“The Tactical Athlete, performance/fitness summit”
This one day summit will be similar to what I have done in the past (1,2) but with added speakers and topics. Right now, I am looking at dates in June. Would probably be held at the Excel Sport & Fitness in Waltham, Massachusetts, a great facility, and where a summit for MMA fighters was held in 2009(3).
I wanted to call it the “Tactical Officers Performance/Fitness Summit” but don’t want to exclude those LEOs not in tactical units, Mil, etc who might want to attend.
The topics will cover the specific needs/interests of the tactical athlete (e.g., tactical LE, Mil, etc) as it relates to training, nutrition, injury prevention, and other topics.
Army makes big purchase of TRX Suspension Trainers
As a fan of the TRX Suspension Trainer, and as someone who uses one semi regularly personally – as well as with the tactical LE/SWAT teams I have worked with – I think this is $$$ well spent for the Army. Below is the press release. You can see a short vid of yours truly using one at home HERE
Gang, if you watched some of the training vids I put up – which can also be found on my SWATFitnessTraining Youtube site – you can see the training is tough. The training paid off however and it was “mission accomplished” for the major goals we set:
Goal for this year, break the top 10:
The team I worked with (NEMLEC SWAT/RRT) was 7th out of 37 teams (last year they were 14th out of 33 teams)
Be #1 team from MA:
They were the number one team from MA (there were 6-8 teams from MA). The second closest team from MA was 4 places (the MSP team) who took 11th place, a very respectable placing for their first attempt BTW.
Crack top 5 of at least one stage again:
4th in the sniper challenge
Goals not achieved:
The only set back was they were not able to repeat their 4th place finish in the PT Challenge portion of it, but still placed a very respectable 13th. We had a beat up crew this year with a lot of injuries, other teams really brought up their game this year (we were told by several teams they used my vids as their training guide!) so I can live with 13th. Below is my vid from the PT portion of this competition:
Folks, Here is part 1 of the training that was done this past season leading up to the CT SWAT Challenge. I put it into a 3 part series. Here’s part 1 below.
This year, I was able to get improved tools for both the fitness/performance focus (via Prowler push sled, drag sleds, sandbags, etc from Elite Fitness Systems) and targets (via ActionTarget) as well as better use of other training modalities.
More vids to come!
