MOPs & MOEs

This time the tables were turned and we were guests on the Not Your Typical Doctors podcast. We're airing it on our feed to give you guys a taste of their content, and if you like what you hear we'd encourage you to go check them out. Sarah and Alyse discuss very similar topics, but from a different perspective that offers valuable insights. In this particular conversation we covered wide ranging topics, but with a theme of what human performance teams' role is in mental health.

Based on popular demand from many of you who listened to his previous episode, we brought LTC David DeGroot, PhD back to dive into the research process that led to the development of the ACFT. If you're familiar with the Baseline Soldier Physical Readiness Requirements Study (BSPRRS) he is one of the authors, and therefore played a key role in the creation of the test as we know it. In this conversation you'll hear a lot about the history (and a little bit about the politics) of how the Army determined that the APFT was an inadequate physical assessment, and how we got to the current version of the ACFT.

If you want to read the BSPRRS itself, you can find it here: https://www.iadlest.org/Portals/0/AD1097586%20Baseline%20Soldier%20Physical%20Readiness%20Requirements%20Study.pdf?ver=lI8Q0CmCEx_rmeabYlwG4Q%3D%3D

Six months into making this podcast, we wanted to take a pause to talk about how it's going, and more importantly where it's going in the future. There are way more of you listening than we could possibly expected, and we always appreciate your feedback, so this is a quick break for us to talk directly to the audience. It's a short one, but hopefully you like what we're trying to do with this platform.

As mentioned in the episode, if you want to provide feedback, you can reach us at [email protected]

As our first repeat guest, we brought Chris back to have a conversation about thinking. Specifically, we wanted to cover several logical fallacies that often disrupt well intentioned planning and evaluation. Chris is a seasoned special operations veteran and emergency medical professional with numerous combat deployments, an accomplished coach, and an impressive athlete in his own right. We highly recommend that you listen to Chris' previous episode about assessments before diving into this one. We can't promise that knowing about these will make you immune to them - we're all guilty of these - but they will give you the tools to better assess your own thinking.

Goodhart's Law

McNamara Fallacy

Survivorship Bias

Path Dependency

Bonus Topic: Dunning-Kruger Effect

Our guest for this episode is former Navy SEAL Jamie Monroe, who still lives near Coronado and has remained involved in the SEAL community including mentoring aspiring candidates. Jamie was a SEAL from the mid 90s through the early 2000s, serving on SEAL Team 1 and eventually transitioning into the Reserve. After his military time he got an MBA from Pepperdine and started pursuing entrepreneurial projects which have included everything from running a hair salon to managing sporting events. Incredibly, he also recently won an Emmy for his work with NBC Sunday Night Football. We wanted to talk to him about the recent news that a BUD/S candidate died shortly following Hell Week. You can find plenty of coverage about this on several news outlets, but when we refer to "the article" we're talking about the New York Times piece in particular, although some of the other pieces published recently are even more guilty of omitting relevant details. We dive into the specifics in this conversation, but suffice it to say that steroids were involved (among other drugs).

Sometimes Instagram drama can be productive, and this conversation is proof. After joining in on a classic MOPs & MOEs debate about periodization, Dr Jordan Feigenbaum of Barbell Medicine joined us on the podcast to continue the conversation. While "Doctor of Medicine" might overshadow the rest of his certifications, his perspective is uniquely shaped by the rest of the list which includes Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, ACSM Health and Fitness Specialist, USA Weightlifting Level 1, CrossFit Level 1, and Starting Strength Seminar Staff. As usual, our conversation spanned a wide variety of topics including injury risks in training, social determinants of health, and a really interesting conversations about the role of coaches in promoting health. We think you guys will really enjoy this one, and hopefully this shows how debates can add value as the tactical human performance space expands.

The Future Soldier Prep Course, an effort to help aspiring soldiers meet the physical and academic standards for enlistment, has received a lot of media attention lately. As always, there are plenty of critics on the internet, but there's also a tremendous amount of potential if something like this is executed well. We went straight to the source for this episode: Remey is directly responsible for overseeing the fitness and body composition component of this project. Her background (she's certified as a Physical Therapist, Athletic Trainer, and Strength and Conditioning Coach, among other things) makes her uniquely suited for the task, and it's obvious in our conversation that she's passionate about ensuring this program succeeds. At a time when our military is struggling to find eligible recruits, a program that helps people improve their health and fitness has ramifications not just for national security, but across all of public health.

Our guest on this episode is Rob Orr, who was just honored as the Tactical Strength and Conditioning Professional of the Year! Rob leads the Tactical Research Unit at Bond University in Queensland, Australia, and continues to serve in the Australian Army Reserve. His active duty career started as an infantryman, led to becoming a physical training instructor, and ultimately becoming a physiotherapist. If you've heard his name, it's likely because of his work study load carriage. Almost any evidence based recommendations for rucking load, volume, and frequency these days include citations of Rob's work. We had a great conversation about the realities of physical training within the constraints of a tactical environment, got some insight into Rob's career in the field, and heard about the really interesting work happening at the TRU!

David DeGroot's Army journey from enlisted soldier to senior research physiologist provides him a unique perspective on how we approach health and fitness. He describes himself as a mediocre scientist, but looking at his publication record we disagree. In addition to numerous studies on heat (and cold) exposure, he has published research on postpartum recovery, body composition, and fitness assessments across tactical populations. This conversation stems from some ongoing dialogue we've had on social media about training in the heat, but the breadth and depth of Dave's expertise means we'd be happy to have him back to address other topics if you guys are interested. For the nerds out there, the episode ends with a fascinating dive into some issues surrounding what research gets funded and published that we think you'll really enjoy.

Lots of you ask questions on the MOPs & MOEs social media platforms that require more in depth answers than it's possible to provide in a quick DM or comment. This episode is our first hack at collecting some of the most frequently asked questions and providing the thorough answers they deserve. Topics in this episode include what programs we do (and don't) recommend, why MOPs & MOEs hasn't shared any actual programs, how to improve human performance in your organization even if you don't have a staff, and how to break into this field (since many tactical professionals seem to see it as a desirable transition plan).

If you have a question that we don't get to here, please send a message letting us know what you want to hear about!