Kathleen Oswald is a Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a Master's in Exercise and Sport Science and is earning her Ph.D. in Cognition and Instruction. She works at Peterson Space Force Base and is the first human-performance professional with a cognitive performance background to work with Space Force Guardians. 

Before that, Kathleen worked under the Cognitive Performance Specialist at the 10th Special Forces Group. By integrating tactical professionals into the design process of her exercises and workshops, she leveraged their expertise to optimize her coaching to help Special Forces operators improve their performance in some of the most challenging aspects of their jobs, such as CQB training. 

Her Ph.D. work in Cognition and Instruction allows her to research optimal programming for cognitive performance, develop a cognitive performance program for the US Space Force, and improve her abilities to teach, coach, and mentor the human performance professionals who serve our nation’s military. 

Aside from her work with the Special Forces and Space Force communities, Kathleen is also an ultramarathon runner, competing in races at 50k, 50-mile, 100k, and 100-mile distances. She is also a nationally qualified powerlifter.

You can get in touch with Kathleen and learn more about her work on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katoswald/


Timestamps:

00:00:22 Intro to Kathleen Oswald

00:01:43 NSCA Tactical Annual Training Session

00:03:15 Cognitive Function and Cognitive Skills

00:04:24 Ensuring Skills Training Transfers to the Real World

00:06:22 Examples of Decision-Making Scenarios 

00:08:06 Training for Selection Courses

00:10:07 Adding Incremental Difficulties During Training

00:11:39 Sponsor Note: Our Book, “Building the Elite” and Mentor Course

00:12:25 Training Via Stress vs. Skill Mastery

00:14:31 Assessing Technical Skills vs. Testing the Skills

00:17:45 Knowing When to Display Certain Attributes

00:18:52 Evaluating What Someone Is Made of

00:20:47 Concocting Tests for Perseverance

00:22:10 Performing with Severe Gastrointestinal Issues

00:25:28 Addressing Imposter Syndrome

00:28:25 Why Younger Generations May Struggle with Self-Regulation

00:31:16 Training in Silence

00:32:23 Being Perpetually Distracted

00:34:07 Evaluation in the Shoot House

00:39:35 Video Training Scenarios

00:41:16 Rapidly Presenting Critical Decisions with Perceptual Learning 

00:44:23 Comparing Different Levels of Skill 

00:47:15 Changes in Eye Movement as Skill Progresses

00:49:38 Emotional and Stress Regulation Assessments

00:53:04 Does Your Fear Response Help or Hurt Your Performance?

00:56:20 How Do You Determine What Foundational Training to Implement First?

01:00:31 Tech Gadgets for Cognitive Skills Training

01:03:49 Improving Cognitive Skills on Your Own

01:06:32 Best and Worst Advice Ever Received

01:09:26 Outro