MOPs & MOEs

Scott's first appearance was our most popular episode of 2022, so we're kicking off 2023 by bringing him back to answer your most frequently asked questions about Zone 2 training! This conversation covers everything from how to implement it in group training settings to incorporating rucking and low impact modalities. It's one more step in our mission to #MakeEnduranceGreatAgain.

If you asked Santa for more MOPs & MOEs for Christmas, your wish has come true! 2022 is coming to an end, and we wanted to look back at all the ground we've covered in our first year of podcasting. Well, technically it's 3/4 of a year in review since we started this adventure in April. In this episode we shout out our most popular episodes from the first year of the MOPs & MOEs podcast and highlight some of the key themes we've discovered after all of these conversations with health and fitness professionals around the world. Thank you all for joining us on this journey, and please let us know what you want to hear from us in 2023!

We're trying something new with this episode and diving into the research a little bit. We're reviewing the International Olympic Committee's consensus statement on training load and injury risk. They assembled a panel of international experts and pulled together a huge amount of research to come up with some actionable recommendations for anyone who supervises physical training. This discussion is particularly timely as we head into the holidays, which for many people means a few weeks of lower training volume. Leaders might feel the urge to "make up for lost time" by hitting it hard when everyone gets back, but the evidence suggests that this is a perfect storm for injury risk. 

Spoiler alert: the answer is there's probably no such thing as too much. But there is definitely too much too soon.

Here are the links if you want to read it yourself:

Part 1: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/17/1030

Part 2: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/17/1043

You guys have been asking for a cognitive performance episode for a while, so we brought Mike on to dive into it. We knew he would bring a valuable perspective when he said he had a particular interest in measuring the effectiveness of cognitive interventions. Mike has worked in a variety of research and human performance roles, starting with the United States Naval Academy until he decided he wanted to be on a winning team instead so he switched over to the Army's 7th Special Forces Group. His credentials include a masters degree in Applied Psychological Research from Penn State University, a Leadership and Management certificate from Wharton School of Business, and Chartered Psychologist status from the British Psychological Society. He makes some strong arguments against oversimplifying cognitive performance and emphasizes that it is both individual and task dependent. 

Reilly is a legend up in the frozen north where he runs JBER Strength and Conditioning. It took us a while to get him on here, but he's definitely the most requested guest we've had on the podcast and the wait was worth it. Especially because all of those requests came from soldiers he has trained who can vouch for the impact he has on everyone who comes through his facility. After well over a decade of training soldiers, Reilly was recently recognized as the Tactical Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year, which is particularly noteworthy since unlike much of the industry he not only doesn't seek attention, he actively avoids it. There's nowhere to buy programs from him, and if you request to follow him on Instragram he won't accept it. This guy is all about doing the work, and getting soldiers Arctic Strong. The proof is how much leaders have invested in him: both his facility and Wolf's Lair up at Ft Wainwright are the tangible results of his work, and he was one of the first two civilians ever to graduate from the Army's Cold Weather Orientation Course, earning him the coveted Arctic tab.

In our continuing effort to not get fired and/or go to jail over this podcast, we thought it might be prudent to talk to a legal professional. Matt's background as an infantry officer turned lawyer gives him a unique perspective on military issues, and as you'll hear in this episode he has a special focus on social media policy. In fact, his work has been a driving force behind recent updates to DoD social media rules. Among other outlets, you can find Matt's work on LawFare, War on the Rocks, the Modern War Institute, and the Harvard National Security Journal. After leaving active duty earlier this year he also provided over 1,000 hours of free legal support to displaced Afghans seeking asylum in the United States.

"New" social media guidance: https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/540017p.PDF

Harvard National Security Journal / full form argument: https://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2021/03/Fitzgerald_Thank-Me-for-My-Service.pdf

Expanded recruiting pool argument: https://www.dayoneproject.org/ideas/a-digital-military-talent-initiative-for-noncitizen-technologists/

LTG (R) Hertling's TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWN13pKVp9s

No guest this time, just Alex and Drew trying to answer one of the most commonly asked questions we get here at MOPs & MOEs. Many of you are tactical professionals out there leading your teams without access to professional coaches. Or there are a lot of you training on your own with no guidance at all. So how do you build a plan that will produce results? This conversation will provide you with a few foundational principles you can apply to make sure you're on the right track. We discuss foundational movement patterns, conditioning modalities, frequencies for different types of training, balancing intensity and volume, and more. But we start with the most important thing, which too many people seem to forget: how to set a good goal.

Continuing our side quest of talking to the professionals calling BS on their professions, we're chatting with Chiropractor Aaron Kubal. He works specifically with chronic pain patients whose previous treatments have failed. Utilizing education & exercise, Aaron delivers a unique model of care that involves no manipulations whatsoever but rather focuses on graded exposure and patient empowerment. His approach is all about working WITH the person not on them.

Follow him on Instagram @aaron_kubal or we hear he's a big deal on TikTok but we're too old for that.

Angus Bradley is the quintessential Australian. He's a surfer who dropped out of college to tour with his band before getting into Olympic weightlifting which led him to his current career as a personal trainer (although he might really be a comedian). He now operates out of Sydney, Australia training people across the spectrum from gen pop to professional athletes and hosting the Hyperformance podcast. This episode definitely includes more laughter than any other we've done, but it also includes some solid gold nuggets of wisdom, references to economic theory, and discussions of the philosophy of science.

On this episode we welcome the owner of what may be the coolest job title on the planet: COL Nick Gist, the Master of the Sword. He leads West Point's Department of Physical Education, which is both an academic department (teaching the Kinesiology major along with a couple fundamentals of fitness courses) and responsible for delivering the physical courses that all cadets must take. We ended up having a really cool conversation that centered around what people need to know to be effective in the fitness space, and what his department is trying to do to give them those tools.