As most of you know by now (hopefully…), I do seminars and or performance/fitness related training for tactical law enforcement. I have a series of videos on last years training that lead up to a competition, as well as vids from the competition. I am working with the same group (NEMLEC SWAT/RRT) in preparation for this years CT SWAT Challenge. This training season I used many new training aids, which will be covered in the new series of vids coming out shortly. Here’s a few generic pics that does not “give away” the training that we are doing and how it differs from last year.
Military members with more muscle are penalized during fitness tests.
Keeping with my recent theme of there being a general anti muscle bias…I’m sure this will come as no surprise to those in the military, but it’s good to see that objective data shows the bigger guys and gals in the military tend to be penalized for carrying extra muscle mass during testing. A paper by a Dr. Vanderburgh published in Military Medicine entitled “Correction Factors for Body Mass Bias in Military Physical Fitness Tests” concludes “…recent research evidence indicates that military physical fitness tests penalize heavier service members and do not measure levels of absolute fitness, arguably just as important as relative fitness.”
A regional RRT group in the New England area invited me to do a seminar, and I brought John Sullivan – a trainer for Optimal SWAT – along with me to help out. The seminar was followed by a group competition using low-tech functional exercise challenges. They were broken up into teams of 10, and were timed on a long course of rope climbing, obstacle course, chain drag, keg run, farmers walk, phone pole run, truck push, tire drag, and more! Alone, one of the units was not terribly challenging, but strung together and done continuously, the difficulty mounted quickly!
Did a seminar for the Waterbury CT RRT/SWAT team at their Training Division Headquarters 4/15/09. I try to cover a broad range of topics applicable to tactical athletes, such as supplements, nutrition, and training, but considering how extensive each of these topics are, and all could be a long seminar on their own, it’s a balancing act at best.
This is a fun highlight vid from 2008 training, from the 12 weeks I worked with them for the CT SWAT Challenge, the third largest such competition in the country. I didn’t produce this particular vid. One of the guys on the team used footage I had taken to make this vid which does a nice job of summarizing the hard work we did.
Anyway, 2009 training gets underway soon (May 2009) and I plan to take it to the next level, hit the ground running this year, and generally step up the training. Like most guys on RRT/SWAT teams, these guys have full time jobs, families, etc, and this is done on their own time, so it takes a lot of dedication for them to do this type of training for 12-14 weeks leading up such a comp. Of course it ultimately leads to improving their abilities for the job, so it’s time well spent.
Enjoy!
Reducing Musculoskeletal injuries in SF soldiers
A fairly recent article in the Journal of Special Operations Medicine (JSOM)* examined the Musculoskeletal injuries from 5th group.
The authors decided to quantify the rates and types of these injuries in SF using the records from 5th group, “who treated numerous middle-aged team sergeants with shoulder, back, and knee overuse injuries” The authors noted “Special Forces, and Ranger units are about 10 to 12 injuries per 100 Soldier-months, which is comparable to collegiate endurance athletes. Of all the types of units studied, Special Forces has the highest incidence of injury rate at 12.1 per 100 Soldier-months.”
This study revealed that physical training caused 50% of all injuries, and 30% were linked to running. Injuries resulted in 10-times the number of profile days (lost work days) as illnesses with the leading reason for outpatient visits in our Group was for musculoskeletal disorders.
The locations of affected musculoskeletal conditions in descending order include: back/neck (31%), ankle (10%), shoulder (10%), and knee (10%).
The authors found that “…over 40% of all clinical diagnoses in the 5th Group Clinic were for musculoskeletal problems.” This translated into injured members of 5th group being put on “light duty” an average of 20 to 30 days each which has “significant” operational impact on the unit.
It was interesting to note that in other army units studied, musculoskeletal injuries are more common in the lower extremities (e.g., knees and ankles) but in SF, upper extremity injuries (e.g., lower back, upper back, shoulders, etc) are more common. The authors theorized “This may be due to the slightly older average age of our Soldiers versus conventional units, in addition to the cumulative effect of repetitive micro trauma from airborne operations, combatives training, wearing heavy body armor, and carrying heavy loads.”
This article covered a bunch of additional info about injury rates and other details interested parties (trainers, docs, etc) can look up the full article for additional details there. Of most interest to me, was their comments on prevention: “Finally to focus more on prevention, Special Forces Groups should modify unit physical training programs to incorporate the fitness and performance fundamentals used in today’s top athletic programs. Military researchers have shown that modified physical training programs can result in lower injury rates with improvements in physical fitness. Training regimens that emphasize core strength and cross-training would likely increase physical readiness while decreasing the incidence of spine and lower extremity injuries.”
I agree with all of the above. As mentioned, training hard and training smart, are not always the same thing. The latter leading to greater performance and reduced injury rates, with improved operational readiness and (potentially) greater operational longevity for the SF soldier. The top coaches involved in “today’s top athletic programs” follow similar guidelines I mentioned regarding programs that follow a wave form pattern vs. a linear pattern I had mentioned in other blog posts here. I’m happy to see the medical and training community within the SOF community is starting to see the benefits in both performance -and reduced rates of injuries – following more modern concepts in training already being utilized by the top athletic programs and or coaches in the field. The authors finished their report by summing it up nicely:
“By making these changes to training and resourcing, Special Forces Groups will be investing in our most lethal weapon—the individual Special Forces Soldier.”
* Clinical Diagnoses in a Special Forces Group: The Musculoskeletal Burden James H. Lynch, MD, MS and Mark P. Pallis, DO, FAAOS. Journal of Special Operations Medicine (JSOM): Volume 8, Edition 2 / Spring 2008, 76-79
Practical Applied Stress Training For Tactical Law Enforcement.
© 2008, 2009
Readers Note: This article can be found in the 2009 Sept-Oct issue of Tactical Response Magazine.
As the demands of tactical law enforcement (SWAT) vary greatly, the training must prepare the SWAT operator for virtually any event. In the most extreme examples, the entire system, body and mind, are stressed to their maximal ability. Anaerobic, aerobic, and neural systems are challenged simultaneously, which will either lead to a successful outcome for the operator, who is both physically and mentally trained for the event, or it will end badly.
As some of you may know, via my vids and articles, I do some training with tactical law enforcement (e.g., SWAT, etc) as well as other groups.
As I have mentioned before in my articles on the topic, supplement use appears to be very common among Special Operations military, such as Navy SEALs as well as others. In addition to my reading what you would expect me to read, such as various medical/nutritional research, I read quite a bit of military biographies and other related topics. Once in a while you will see “real world” references to supplement use by Special Operations Forces (SOF) in some biographies, especially newer biographies.
Folks, a quick note let members know a well-known site that reviews and tracks all kinds of LE/mil related topics, equipment, weapons, etc., called SoldierSystems did a nice review on my Optimal SWAT program/site and put up one of the training vids I did. Can see been here:
http://soldiersystems.net/blog1/2008/10/28/optimal-swat/
Enjoy!
Folks, Part 1 of the CT SWAT Challenge covered the difficult PT Challenge, which was over 6 miles long with 24 different exercise stations. Now that was a workout! Video Part 2 covers the highlights from the shooting stages of this law enforcement competition.
