1.35 million applicants received a military entrance physical from 2016 to 2020, and about 15% of them received an initial disqualification. More than half of these disqualified applicants sought a waiver, and they were more likely than not to get approved. This whole system can be frustrating and opaque, so in this episode we dive into the medical standards and waiver process with a guest who was deeply involved.

Dr. Christopher D. Meyering is a board-certified Primary Care Sports Medicine physician. He attended medical school at the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, Midwestern University and subsequently completed his Family Medicine internship and residency training at DeWitt Army Community Hospital at Fort Belvoir, VA. Following a 2-year assignment in Germany, he completed a Sports Medicine Fellowship at the Tri-Service Primary Care Fellowship at Fort Belvoir, VA. He is certified by the American Board of Family Physicians with a Certificate of Added Qualification in Sports Medicine, and he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Dr. Meyering retired from the U.S. Army after 21 years of Service which included 3 combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a Battalion Surgeon for Infantry, Armor, and Field Artillery units. Several key positions during his career were assignments as the Command Surgeon for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command which oversees all recruiting and training for the entire U.S. Army; the Command Surgeon for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command which made him the medical waiver authority for the Army; and the Division Surgeon for the 1st Cavalry Division.

Dr. Meyering was the Chief Medical Officer for the 2022 and 2024 DoD Warrior Games held in Orlando, FL. Additionally he was the co-medical lead for the 2021 Invictus Games held in The Hague, The Netherlands and for the 2023 Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany. He is currently the Chief Medical Officer for all upcoming DoD Warrior Games and is the Medical Lead for Team U.S. at the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada. He is the author of multiple peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and published abstracts, and he has presented at international and national conferences and events. He was previously the assistant team physician for George Mason University and covered all collegiate sports. He volunteered medical services at multiple levels and events to include the Marine Corps marathon, the Army 10 miler, the Augusta Half Iron Man Triathlon, All Army Wheelchair basketball, USA National and Golden Gloves Boxing events, Army combatives tournaments, professional fast pitch softball, and Special Olympics.

We reference a lot of data from this AMSARA report "Accession Medical Standards Analysis and Research Activity"

Some other relevant reporting on the issue includes this piece from The War Horse and this discussion of recent changes from AUSA

COL (R) Meyering told a story about national media attention on some of his work, and you can find that coverage here

How much do we really know about injury risk and prevention? Our guest this week argues it's less than most people think, so we dive into the state of the research to figure out why.

There aren't many people as qualified as Dr. Dan Rhon to discuss the problem of musculoskeletal injuries in the military. He has a bachelors in applied health, a masters in physical therapy, and THREE doctorates: one in physical therapy, one in orthopedic physical therapy, and one in physiotherapy.

All of those degrees are a bit ironic because he originally enlisted as an infantry marine because he didn't really think school was for him. That led him to going through marine corps infantry school, the scout swimmers course, the scout sniper course, SERE, and the special purpose recon and surveillance course. So he has military chops beyond his extensive medical qualifications.

He's been a hospital staff physical therapist, brigade combat team physical therapist while deployed to Iraq, research center director, USARIEM research fellow, and various faculty and professor positions across a few university and clinical settings.

He also lists 174 peer reviewed publications, well over 100 national and international presentations, and $35 million in total funding for projects where he was the primary investigator.

Why are there more MRI machines in Massachusetts than in all of Canada? Why is healthy food getting more expensive faster than processed food? Why does our medical system prioritize providing treatments over improving health outcomes?

Our guest this week answers all of these and more, and he's among the most qualified people in the world to take on these questions.

Dr. David Cutler is an American economist who is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. He holds a joint appointment in the economics department and at Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard School of Public Health, is a faculty member for the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, and serves as commissioner on the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission.

Cutler graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in economics, and then joined the Harvard faculty after receiving his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991. He has served in the administration of two presidents.
His book Your Money or Your Life gives an introduction on the US health care system or you can find a discussion of it in the New York Times Magazine article, "The Quality Cure" Cutler's 2003 study "Why have Americans become more obese?" discusses rising obesity as an outcome of the revolution in mass food packaging.

You can find links to his peer reviewed publications here

You can find links to much of his editorial work here

This week we're bringing you an episode from Part-Time Hitters, where Eric Evans interviewed us about all things military human performance. We discussed H2F, MOPs & MOEs, Leg Tuck Nation, and how to improve performance in the part-time military.

Go check out more from Part-Time Hitters and their supporters!

Part-Time Hitters Website (a podcast about the reservist life)

The Fratty Guard on Instagram (a lifestyle brand for part-time hitters)

Friendly Forces Website (a 501c3 non-profit committed to helping reserve component members seamlessly integrate their military service with rewarding civilian careers)

Welcome back to part 2 of our injury conversation. From prevention to treatment, in this episode we're answering all of your questions about anything to do with injuries. We collected these questions from you the listeners (and Instagram followers) and our Physical Therapist John is back to answer everything we didn't get to in part 1.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

Lower back pain and what kinds of exercise help with it.

Tendonitis, especially looking at the achilles and the patellar tendon. John even provides a very specific achilles tendonitis protocol you can use.

IT band syndrome, including what aggravates it and what treatments do and don't help.

How to build strong and durable hamstrings, as well as what types of activity tend to injure people's hamstrings.

Warm ups, specifically looking at how effective research suggests they are, and some specific strategies you can try.

And finally we talk about non-physical components of injury rehab, including nutrition, sleep, and the mental aspect.

From prevention to treatment, in this episode we're answering all of your questions about anything to do with injuries. And of course to do that we needed an expert, so our Physical Therapist John is back on pod. He has a background working with human performance teams and currently serves in Special Operations.

The primary topics we discuss in this episode are:

Bracing, sleeves, and wraps - Do they work? When are they appropriate? Are there any drawbacks?

How to decide whether or not to get a surgery.

When it's appropriate to push through pain.

Inflammation - When is it a good thing? When is it a bad thing? How should it be managed? Most notably, we talk about how RICE is out and PEACE & LOVE is in.

Does running cadence affect injury risk?

Shin splints - What causes them? How can they be prevented? What should you do if you have them?

Plantar fasciitis - Or maybe plantar fasciosis would be more correct? There have been some recent developments here, so we dive into them.

Shoulder impingement - Is it real? Do certain exercises cause it? What can we do about it?

At that point, we ran out of time. So come back for the next episode if you want to hear about achilles tendonitis, hamstring injury prevention, the biggest risks during injury rehab, and more!

We specifically mentioned this article in regards to running cadence: https://www.outsideonline.com/health/stop-overthinking-your-running-cadence/

We also mentioned a bit of research on ACL spontaneous healing, but we'll discuss that further next episode so you'll get the citations then.

Welcome back to part two of our Make America Healthy again breakdown. In this part of the conversation, after wrapping up the last of the key elements of the MAHA platform, we dive into the key personalities.

Specifically, we went through many of the participants from "American Health and Nutrition: A Second Opinion," a roundtable discussion hosted by Senator Ron Johnson. It essentially served as a mainstream declaration of MAHA's priorities, and clips featured prominently on social media.

Our discussion features the following key players in the MAHA community:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Dr. Mark Hyman

Vani Hari (Food Babe)

Dr. Casey Means and Calley Means

Max Lugavere

Dr. Jordan Peterson

Jillian Michaels

Join us as we dive into both the good and the bad of MAHA, with a particular focus on the ways some of these initiatives could positively impact American public health.

We're starting the new year by diving straight into a politically sensitive topic.

According to their platform, Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) seeks to drive a transformative agenda by aligning health-conscious, independent-minded voters with candidates who have the ability to disrupt the status quo. This includes prioritizing regenerative agriculture, preserving natural habitats, and eliminating toxins from our food, water, and air.

The face of MAHA is RFK Jr., who is the presumptive nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services under the incoming administration. Other key personalities associated with MAHA include Vani Hari (aka Food Babe), Senator Ron Johnson, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Casey Means, and celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels.

Join us as we dive into both the good and the bad of MAHA, with a particular focus on the ways some of these initiatives could positively impact American public health.

This is a rerun of an episode we did a year ago. As our last holiday rerun before we get into fresh content, this one helps to set the stage for our first couple episodes for 2025 which will discuss the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, aka MAHA. You might be surprised that many of our biggest problems today are the results of solutions to the problems we faced a few decades ago.

This episode is all about nutrition in America: How did we get here? (Hint: there are actually some very good reasons for all the processed food) What problems is our diet creating? (Hint: it's more than just obesity) And what can we do to start fixing it?

That's a huge topic, but our guest is one of the most qualified person to tackle it. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist, Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Professor of Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine, and an attending physician at Tufts Medical Center. Recently he also became the founding Director of the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute. His work aims to create the science and translation for a food system that is nutritious, equitable, and sustainable.

Dr. Mozaffarian has authored more than 500 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce diet-related diseases and improve health equity in the US and globally. Areas of focus include defining healthy diets, nutritional biomarkers, Food is Medicine interventions in healthcare, business innovation and entrepreneurship, and food policy.

He is one of the top cited researchers in medicine globally, he has served in numerous advisory roles including for the US and Canadian governments, American Heart Association, World Health Organization, and United Nations. His work has been featured in an array of media outlets. Thomson Reuters has named him as one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds In 2023, Dr. Mozaffarian was nominated by President Biden to serve on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition (PCSFN).

Dr. Mozaffarian received his B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University, M.D. from Columbia University. He took his residency at Stanford, and was a fellow in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Washington, where he also received his MPH. He earned a Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard. Before being appointed as Dean at Tufts in 2014, Dr. Mozaffarian was at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health for a decade and clinically active in cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is married, has three children, and actively trains as a Fourth Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo.

For an overview of the initiatives that the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute is tackling ⁠see their fact sheet.⁠

If you want to learn more about the Food Compass drama that we briefly discuss in the episode, ⁠check out this blog post summarizing the situation.⁠

You can find ⁠the text of the SWEET Act here⁠, which is a proposal to tax sugar sweetened beverages and use the revenue from that tax to fund research on diet-related health conditions.

This is a rerun of an episode from 2022, if you joined us recently it's a great introduction to building smarter physical training plans to improve performance and reduce injuries. We'll be back in a couple weeks with fresh content. Until then, happy holidays!

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.