Shoot-Move-Communicate – the most foundational skillset a warfighter possesses. In addition to becoming a master of tactics and equipment, physical readiness is an essential component of being able to do this well.

As the battlefield modernizes with advanced technology, we should also seek to optimize tactical human performance. I’m not talking about more high-tech equipment or the latest wearable device…

I’m talking about getting our strength and conditioning professionals to look through the same lens as the military professional and think about physical training cycles in a similar fashion to tactical training and readiness cycles.

Tactical strength & conditioning coaches tend to think about military professionals as “in-season” athletes 365 days out of the year. If we go by what the NSCA’s Essentials of Strength and Conditioning textbook tells us, this means that more than likely the coach is minimizing volume to just the essential dose and carefully monitoring the military athlete’s daily training readiness. What the coach doesn’t want to do is unintentionally degrade occupational performance by pushing them too hard in the weight room. He/she must also account for occupational and personal stress, schedule variance, and potentially poor sleep and nutrition outside of the gym.

There’s nothing wrong with this and it trumps doing the opposite – pushing them to the brink every training session so that they have nothing left when it comes to performing their actual job.

However, I would challenge the “in-season” coaches to take their approach to a slightly deeper level and look how military professionals develop their tactical training plans to prepare for a deployment.

Military training and readiness cycles are codified on a Long Range Training Calendar, which is scrutinized and approved at various echelons of command to ensure that no stone is left unturned while preparing for deployment. They generally have 4 basic phases:

• Post-Deployment or R3: time to take leave, reintegrate with family and friends, and unwind from your deployment.
• Individual to Collective Training Progression: begins by developing individual Soldier skills, attending schools, and progresses into unit level movement and maneuver (collective training).
• Pre Mission Training: teams or units of action are assigned specific deployment locations and begin preparation for that specific mission. You can think of this as going from training the general core tasks of the military professional’s job to training mission specific tasks that will be performed on the upcoming deployment.
• Deployment: begins when Soldiers deploy into theater and execute the mission. Training still occurs; however, it is often intended to maintain skill proficiency throughout the deployment.

So, why can’t we think about developing physical readiness using the same phases?

This is why we developed our Readiness Framework – which is how we think about training tactical professionals.

Level 1: Readiness Foundations

Typically aligning against the post-deployment or R3 phase of the training calendar, Readiness Foundations is intended to focus on developing overall movement quality in military athletes. If the Soldier is returning from a deployment, they may or may not have had the time or ability to training consistently for a period of 6 months or more.

This phase is all about building proficiency in foundational movement patterns, reorienting the athlete to nutritional foundations, developing adequate sleep and recovery habits, and being proactive in strengthening common injury sites to mitigate risk of injury prior to entering into individual and collective training.

The strength and conditioning professional should be careful to not increase training intensity or volume at such a rate to introduce the possibility of injury if the athlete is coming off a prolonged period of inconsistent training.

Level 2: Operational Readiness

This is where the tactical professional will spend a majority of their time and aligns with the individual to collective training phases of the long range training calendar.

Physical preparation is still general and focuses on building a strong foundation across the ATP-PC, glycolytic, and aerobic energy systems. Strength and conditioning coaches should build capacity to accomplish core occupational tasks, which often require a foundation of strength, power, aerobic endurance, work capacity, and external load carriage capacity.

The intent of Level 2 is to concurrently raise as many foundational qualities as possible to accelerate training when shifting to more specific physical preparation.

Level 3: Mission Specific Readiness

This level aligns with the Pre Mission Training phase of the training calendar. This is where training shifts from general to more specific physical preparation. It’s important to note that we aren’t talking about physically loading your tactical tasks, but dialing in on the specific energy systems used and environmental considerations of the upcoming deployment.

For instance, the physical demands of deploying to the mountainous terrain of eastern Afghanistan has different demands than a crisis response team deployed to Iraq. The strength and conditioning professional seeks to prepare the individual for the specific demands of the environment and mission – accounting for altitude, temperature, and anticipated mission-specific tasks.

It’s also important to keep in mind that this framework doesn’t apply solely to just strength and conditioning coaches. The performance dietitian can use this time to educate the military athlete on substrate utilization at altitude and how diet may affect performance or provide recommendations for supplementation. This is just one example, but every member of the human performance team should be considering how they can best prepare the athlete for the unique mission and environmental specific demands.

Level 4: Readiness Sustainment

This level aligns against the actual deployment and is all about consolidating and sustaining the gains made during the first three levels. Ideally, the athlete would have some form of reachback capability with the coaching staff, but if not, it’s important to educate the athlete on how to maintain what they’ve built.

More than likely, the military athlete will be dealing with higher degrees of stress, an unpredictable schedule, limited sleep, and inconsistent access to nutrient dense food. How do you help this athlete maintain a high level of physical readiness?

Educating the military professional on applying minimum effective dose, or how their training plan can be amended for limited training resources in more austere environments are just a couple ways to do this. A sports psychologist may work with the athlete on stress management techniques and how to filter through chaos and focus on what matters.

Perhaps the physical therapy team trains the athlete in relieving chronic pain, even if it is temporary, so they can get through the mission, come home, and start more intensive rehabilitation.

We shouldn’t just be seeking for them to deploy physically fit and without injury, but we should be a resource to help them sustain this physical readiness for the duration of the deployment.

Building the Cycle

While this readiness framework is depicted above as a pyramid, it’s probably better to think of it as cyclical. Each level is not something you hit one time in your life and move on. When that military athlete returns home from a deployment, the cycle starts again.

This article isn’t intended to prescribe specific exercises or tell you how to periodize your training, but more to deliver a conceptual framework.

A different way to think about how you may build an annual training plan that truly aligns with occupational readiness.

Because we should seek to look at physical preparation as more than just “doing PT” and actually aligning a framework that best supports operator readiness and lethality.