The Art of Manliness - #270： Becoming a Tactical Athlete

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast where we don't

00:00:18.680 normally think of soldiers and first responders as professional athletes but that's exactly how

00:00:23.640 my guest today argues they should see themselves his name is rob shawl and he's the founder and

00:00:27.980 president of the mountain tactical institute it's a research organization dedicated to creating

00:00:32.200 fitness programming that takes workouts outside the gym and gives them a mission-centered focus

00:00:36.660 rob believes that soldiers police officers firefighters even plumbers and hvac guys and

00:00:41.480 folks who participate in strenuous mountain activities like rock climbing and backcountry

00:00:45.540 skiing should view themselves as professional athletes and train not just to train but for a

00:00:50.060 purpose outside the gym and today on the show rob and i discuss what makes the mountain tactical

00:00:54.480 institute's mission-focused approach to fitness different from other organizations why it is

00:00:58.120 that soldiers and first responders should think of themselves as professional athletes why soldiers

00:01:02.580 serving in afghanistan started following his fitness programming for mountain climbers why there's so

00:01:06.980 many out of shape first responders on active duty and how to train to become a tactical athlete even if

00:01:11.560 you're a civilian great show packed with information after the show's over check out the show notes at

00:01:15.460 aom.is slash tactical athlete where you can find links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic

00:01:20.460 rob shawl welcome to the show well thank you brad good morning uh so you uh own a company founded a

00:01:30.880 company called mountain tactical institute back in 2007 uh originally was a mountain athlete but you

00:01:36.980 now it's now called mountain tactical institute i'm curious before we get into talking about mti what was

00:01:43.640 your background before that what prompted you to start um mountain athlete uh lifelong gym rat on the

00:01:51.620 fitness side um with the coast guard academy was in the coast guard for five years after school and

00:01:57.280 military then went got my master or my master's degree actually in political science is my education

00:02:02.940 and uh and then i uh moved back to wyoming and uh started a company um and uh did that for 10 years and

00:02:11.540 uh decided to sell that and wanted to do something else and i just one of those guys you kind of

00:02:17.720 would go to the gym and train and pretty much uh other guys would other people would see me train and

00:02:22.660 want to start training with me and uh there was a i was just in a small town in wyoming a little bit

00:02:28.920 south of jackson here where i grew up uh just training in a physical therapy like little gym um was the

00:02:35.200 only thing we had in this town pretty much a universal machine a few free weights some dumbbells

00:02:40.360 and uh that the lady you owned that said hey i want you to start coaching for me and i kind of

00:02:45.160 started doing that and uh one thing led the other and just kind of worked out where i wanted to go

00:02:51.680 ahead and transition into into coaching and that's kind of what got me there i jackson where the town i

00:02:57.780 was in uh it's a little bit too small for what i wanted to do and so um jackson is a really interesting

00:03:04.880 place and i started a company called mountain athlete i wanted to come up here and work

00:03:09.900 with some of the athletes up here specifically mountain guides and so i came up here and reached

00:03:15.260 out to one of the guiding companies said hey i'll train your guys for free and made a lot of early

00:03:20.060 mistakes um and everything's kind of developed uh from that so what's mti's focus i mean it's called

00:03:27.120 mountain tactical institute so i'm guessing it's mountain athletes and tactical guys

00:03:31.180 yeah kind of our company mission is to um improve mountain and tactical mission performance

00:03:37.860 um and keep these types of athletes safe um so that's really our focus we for years had primarily

00:03:46.180 um emphasized fitness programming and fitness training um we did some other stuff too on the

00:03:54.460 tactical side we actually developed a system to train accurate marksmanship under stress believe it or

00:04:00.000 not did a lot of shooting um but then just uh about a year and a half ago two years ago we expanded our

00:04:07.200 reach um to start taking a look at um policy safety issues gear and so now we're pretty much a research

00:04:14.960 institute we we cover all those different areas um anything that has to do with the mountain or tactical

00:04:20.760 performance um and mission success we're interested in taking a look at so with the mountain athletes why

00:04:27.440 why why do you think these folks needed specialized fitness programming isn't doing their job or 0.59

00:04:33.020 activity enough i mean if you want to get better at skiing like just go backcountry ski a lot

00:04:37.440 you're right there was really no um and there really is no strong condition of gym-based

00:04:46.500 fitness programming for mountain athletes especially on the recreational side

00:04:51.680 um now the the high level athletes do this type of stuff the high level rock climbers and

00:04:59.960 obviously the alpine race skiers um us ski team those types of folks do a lot of

00:05:05.760 gym-based programming but for even the backcountry skiers or the alpinists there was really no um strong 0.99

00:05:13.060 tradition of that and um my uh approach was just to get in there and see what we could do and uh and

00:05:22.820 develop a programming that transferred um to mission performance i think that as more and more athletes

00:05:30.660 started doing these sports we saw a couple things first um because of the x games and uh free ski world

00:05:38.660 tour there was a little bit more money and emphasis and media attention on some of these sports and

00:05:45.380 what that did was it started attracting a higher level of athlete here in jackson it's pretty amazing

00:05:51.060 how many collegiate division one athletes come into the gym to train and they're here you know ski

00:05:56.980 bumming or trying to develop their their alpine mountain athlete type resume um and so i think that

00:06:05.940 the sports started attracting better athletes and those athletes had a background in uh strength

00:06:10.820 conditioning especially a lot of collegiate athletes and then also because of the attention

00:06:15.380 um on the media side um the competition for attention and what people were doing on the

00:06:22.180 outside just kept on increasing and decreasing so all those different factors have worked together

00:06:28.100 i'll be the first to admit that um it's still not strong in these communities that's one of the

00:06:33.380 things that we've always kind of struggled with and we i've kind of got away from trying to convince

00:06:39.060 people how um on the mountain side how um proper programming will improve their performance um we've

00:06:47.380 just been doing it too long now now we just do it and let our athletes speak for us um and we've had

00:06:52.420 some really great success with some athletes so your initial programming was geared towards mountain

00:06:57.460 athletes rock climbers skiers things like that how did your programming come to the attention of

00:07:03.700 military members and um how did that transition into tactical or military athletes

00:07:12.740 yeah 2008 2009 you know i remember um we would just put our sessions up online and i remember just

00:07:20.100 getting emails from um guys downrange iraq and afghanistan um mad at me because i hadn't got the

00:07:28.740 the session up for that day online yet of course they were ahead of us or behind us on and it just

00:07:33.860 started building and building and um especially on the afghanistan side we had military units who were

00:07:42.500 deploying to really mountainous regions at altitude and their patrol mission set included a lot of up

00:07:51.060 and down hiking under load and they just were getting there unfit for it and so our work on the mountain

00:07:58.900 side we had guys reach out to us to start developing programming to get guys ready and we developed a

00:08:04.100 program we called the afghanistan pre-deployment training program which we gave away

00:08:09.060 and uh we gave that away to thousands of guys we had battalion commanders deploy it with their

00:08:15.140 entire battalions lots of individual guys lots of platoon leaders and squad leaders and up and down the

00:08:22.180 chain and it was just a uh a program we developed from what we learned working here on the mountain

00:08:27.460 side and how to get athletes ready in a gym-based setting where you don't have a mountain outside if you're

00:08:33.940 in fort campbell kentucky or fort bragg north carolina you can't go hike up and down a mountain

00:08:40.740 um but to to kind of use what they had really basic equipment and do the best we could to get

00:08:47.140 them ready to go down range so that's kind of what it got us our start so i mean like what what do you

00:08:54.340 think is lacking in the default physical training the armed services currently where you had guys in

00:09:00.340 afghanistan and iraq saying i'm going to go to this outside source to get my physical training in

00:09:07.620 really just knowledge um just how do you train to climb up and down you know mountains when you first

00:09:14.500 once you because guys would deploy and get down range and you know the next day to be out on patrol so

00:09:20.020 how do you train for that and the the traditional we were coming along um you know crossfit had a huge

00:09:28.500 impact on military um guys also um greater than us um and uh and so guys would do crossfit or they

00:09:37.780 would do typical military pt which is running push-ups and sit-ups and uh fine they got down

00:09:44.660 range and they just were performing well when they did their patrols um so that kind of led to them

00:09:51.620 seeking us out just in that aspect of that it was just a knowledge of how you program and train for that

00:09:55.620 um and that kind of got us going on this idea of working with the different sports that we work

00:10:00.660 with and then with these different mission sets on the tactical side it helped us get more and more

00:10:06.980 focused on designing sport-specific or event-specific or mission-specific programming fitness programming

00:10:14.980 for whatever that mission is going to be so we went from designing a general training program for

00:10:21.940 mountain athletes to designing a season-specific program for lift-assisted

00:10:31.940 alpine skiing designing a really mission-specific programming for one of our athletes who attempted to

00:10:40.100 to ski to climb and ski a major peak in the wrinkle that ones up in alaska so we uh what we found is that we

00:10:50.260 as we started doing more and more programming our stuff got more and more specific from a general

00:10:55.780 training program for mountain athletes all around mountain athletes to a season-specific programming for

00:11:02.260 something like lift-assisted skiing to a really specific program for an athlete who's going to do a

00:11:11.220 backcountry major ski mountaineering expedition a single 24-hour push for a

00:11:17.140 a peak in the wrinkle mountains in alaska and all those different types of programming from the

00:11:23.780 fitness perspective are different and what we've developed is a methodology on how to identify

00:11:32.020 the fitness demands of the sport of a season of a specific event work backward from those demands identify

00:11:40.980 the fitness programming which trains those demands and gets an athlete ready sport specifically for that

00:11:47.780 event or mission or sport or whatever it is so our

00:11:55.300 our currency in terms of athletes that we work with is that methodology how we put all that stuff

00:12:00.660 together to develop programming that really transfers outside the gym to mission-specific performance

00:12:07.140 okay and we'll talk a little more about what your programming looks like in a bit here

00:12:10.980 but let's talk about uh military athlete a bit so you know as you the number of requests you were

00:12:16.740 getting from for mission-specific and more tactical specific programming increased you started military

00:12:22.100 athlete um let's say i'm sure there's plenty of listeners who are listening the show right now and

00:12:27.220 they're thinking of joining the military or they want to get selected for special forces

00:12:31.780 um based on your experience with working with thousands of different um of individuals in the

00:12:37.860 the military world what are the most important things that listener should know in order to prepare for

00:12:44.500 for for the physical training portion of that not to assume that just being fit in one area will make

00:12:53.300 you fit for what you're going to face at boot camp or at special forces selection or whatever

00:13:00.260 um what we say is that the further you are away from the event the more general your programming can be

00:13:07.460 and as you get closer the more specific it should be so for example um um guys you do a lot of crossfit

00:13:17.060 can't assume that because they're smoking these three to five minute super intense gym-based exercises or events

00:13:23.860 and you know crossfit that that's going to transfer over to being able to rock 12 miles with 45 pounds

00:13:31.620 you know in three hours at the end of a long 10-hour day of getting smoked by the cadre

00:13:38.980 um so there's just uh the idea is to focus on or identify kind of what what you're going to be facing

00:13:45.060 and then train for that um and just understand that not all programming transfers well

00:13:51.140 and identify the programming it transfers well or the preparation that'll transfer well to the event

00:13:57.220 that's that's great um and i've also noticed on your site too that you've also expanded into creating

00:14:02.180 programming for law enforcement officers and fire and rescue professionals first responders

00:14:07.940 um and i guess there was a need for that i mean you you had a blog post where you talked about the

00:14:12.980 the number of first responders who are out of shape like not just like they can't run very far like

00:14:18.100 they're obese or whatever do you have any statistics about the number of out of shape first responders

00:14:22.980 in the u.s out there not to that level we do know that for example in 2015 the number one cause of

00:14:33.460 firefighter deaths was cardiac arrest um which is just heart attacks um and that's consistently

00:14:41.300 the issue we we kind of happened was we had many military guys were moving out of the they get out

00:14:49.620 of the service and they would go uh to the first responder world especially in the law enforcement

00:14:54.100 side and then we also got some currency within the law enforcement guys on the side who were in there

00:14:58.900 already you found our stuff and started wanting us to start programming for um cops and detectives and

00:15:05.460 swat teams and the programming is different than the military stuff but amongst the first responder

00:15:12.500 community in general there is not a strong fitness culture one of the things the military has that

00:15:19.780 many or the vast majority of first responder units doesn't have is an annual high jeopardy fitness

00:15:26.580 assessment high jeopardy means you don't do well it can lose your job many um all the academies for

00:15:34.180 the fire academies or the law enforcement academies they have entered entry-level gait fitness

00:15:41.780 assessments and fitness is a big part of the academy but once guys and women i guess get out of the

00:15:48.180 academy they go into their units or their departments there's no more for most units there's no more

00:15:55.460 um fitness assessments or if there is a fist assessment it doesn't have high jeopardy or

00:16:04.100 the standards are so low that it's a joke um and so what we've kind of found is that we've actually

00:16:10.740 studied um we set some researchers just to study the fitness culture at um a uh a fire department in a

00:16:19.460 mid-sized city in the midwest and we developed i sent a phd and another researcher and that was one

00:16:26.420 of the things we want to take a look and see you know can we develop a fitness culture assessment

00:16:30.340 so we took a look at you know individual interviews we interviewed the command we kind of observed to

00:16:34.820 see how much guys were training at this uh department every every station had kind of a tiny little

00:16:41.060 fitness room where they had some you know dumbbells and uh and plenty of stuff to train equipment's no

00:16:48.100 reason but um this department there was actually a requirement that um the firefighters train every

00:16:55.700 day they were on duty and they had to sign they had to sign something or their um department or their

00:17:04.180 station captain had to sign something to verify they did it and there were some integrity issues guys

00:17:09.220 were signing and they weren't training it was just part of this kind of culture certainly there

00:17:13.540 were guys at this uh department who were very fit um but many of them were fit not for work

00:17:20.900 but for their sport so there were some triathletes who just did endurance stuff and some power

00:17:25.140 lifters who just did powers you know heavy lifting you can kind of see how that works but as a

00:17:30.180 so what we found was there's a lacking kind of uh programming um to train for their work their job their

00:17:37.860 profession and then also just a pretty poor culture we actually took a look at our articles that we

00:17:45.380 wrote last year in 2016 and identified which ones were the most read and the one that was the most read

00:17:51.620 was uh i wrote a article was titled you know first responders how come you tolerate unfit police and

00:17:59.300 firefighters we had heard when i went i worked with lots of these guys and taught courses at departments

00:18:06.420 and there's lots of excuses on why first responders as a as a general they're just not a strong fitness

00:18:16.740 culture and i just started thinking about it that it's an incredible safety issue um an unfit fireman

00:18:24.020 or a police officer can get himself killed or herself killed and some of the people in the department

00:18:31.140 no matter what it is killed also it's a huge safety issue um but it's not really thought of that that

00:18:37.540 way one of the there are some other things that are that kind of prevent a strong fitness culture from

00:18:43.300 being developed one is that unions often fight fitness standards or fitness assessments down in

00:18:51.460 colorado springs a couple years ago really enlightened colorado springs is where the headquarters of the

00:18:57.220 national um strength conditioning association is and the local police department kind of worked with the

00:19:01.620 nsca um kind of enlightened um chief at the police department to implement a high jeopardy fitness

00:19:09.860 assessment at that department and um and they had a gentle on-ramp for this fitness assessment to let

00:19:17.700 everybody in the department know it was coming everybody took it you know they had a chance to get up

00:19:22.820 uh and do it well um plenty of time you know coaching was offered and it wouldn't it finally got jeopardy

00:19:30.900 when it was finally implemented um several of the female members didn't pass the assessment and um one of 1.00

00:19:42.180 the first it was a jeopardy assessment so one of the first things that happened is if you didn't pass you

00:19:47.700 you were taken off the street and put on desk duty until you passed it and uh

00:19:55.140 there was a lawsuit that came out of that the uh the officers you didn't pass sued the department

00:20:00.340 a judge put a stay on the fitness assessment this is a fairly common thing so there are just some

00:20:06.820 things on the military side in terms of culture in terms of high jeopardy fitness assessment that is

00:20:12.180 done every year how it's related to you can't be an up-and-coming officer in the in the army these

00:20:17.860 days and not have a pretty smoking pft score it's going to get you're going to it's going to hurt your

00:20:23.380 performance evaluation all those things make it easier to have a stronger fitness culture in the military

00:20:30.340 and those tools aren't there on on the first responder side the other thing that's really

00:20:36.260 interesting on the first responder side there's just so many interesting things about it is that in the

00:20:41.780 military if you get you know past 40 40 you're pretty much done being on the tip of the spear you know

00:20:50.740 even even on the listed side you're you're high enough ranked where chances are you're not running

00:20:56.100 and gunning with the boys anymore but on the first responder side that's not the case um i just saw a

00:21:04.260 statistic today where um the average or the biggest block age block for firefighters in the nation is like

00:21:11.620 41 to 50. so it's entirely possible to be a policeman or firefighter in your late 40s or 50s and actually

00:21:20.660 be you know the guy on the on the nozzle going in to fight the fire and we work with several guys who do

00:21:26.500 that um so they can work uh longer at you know kind of the tip of the spear and be in danger which is

00:21:33.540 even which would point to even greater need for fitness but you've got this thing that's called

00:21:39.380 legacy members is the term for it these legacy guys are like you know i'm too old to do that or

00:21:45.780 you know i didn't do that when i was coming up so i don't need to train now or i'm so street smart or

00:21:50.580 fire aware that i'll never get myself in a situation where i'll need to to you know have a great fitness

00:21:57.860 it's just an interesting um dynamic that really works against developing a fitness culture

00:22:03.620 the other thing that is kind of interesting as i've worked with first responders especially on

00:22:08.580 the law enforcement side but really both how much respect i've gained for them um

00:22:15.140 in the military unless you're well even if you're at a tier one special forces unit

00:22:20.180 those guys generally know when they're going to be in harm's way and when they aren't

00:22:23.940 but for a policeman or a firefighter it's like they're deployed all the time

00:22:28.500 you know any normal traffic stop could result in you know a dangerous situation

00:22:35.220 so um it's just in i really have developed a high level respect for these athletes

00:22:41.460 and we've just been trying to work with them we again kind of like on the mountainside we we kind

00:22:46.740 of step back and trying to convince people why fitness is important and we're trying to identify

00:22:51.380 the people who agree with us in the first responder side give them the tools they need to train

00:22:57.300 support specifically for for their uh their job and just let others take notice um we kind of found

00:23:06.580 that in general the top performers in the military first responder side also happen to be pretty darn fit

00:23:13.460 and uh there's a reason for that fitness improves everything um we you know if you have a

00:23:20.580 uh a cop who just depends on his fitness his body um to keep himself safe and his partner safe and he's

00:23:29.940 obviously deconditioned it makes you wonder about how how that cop is doing the other aspects of his

00:23:35.940 profession you know is he doing his paperwork properly you know is he going to the range and

00:23:40.500 he's spending time with his weapon um is he reading the latest on case studies i mean what we've kind of

00:23:45.860 found in general is that and this is across all the communities that we work with um we the guys

00:23:53.380 who are the athletes men and women who come in and train with us or follow our programming

00:23:58.500 are also the top levels of the other elements of their profession so fitness trains everything we

00:24:04.180 here in jackson the guides the mountain guys professional mountain guides who spend the most

00:24:09.460 time with us are the most experienced highest level mountain guides the young guides aren't in their

00:24:15.300 training with us it's the older guys who know the most who are in their training with us they've come

00:24:21.060 to realize the importance of fitness and how they want to be professional about that element of their

00:24:28.420 job just like everything else well i think it's interesting you've been as you've been talking you've

00:24:32.980 been referring to uh police officers military guys uh firefighters as athletes and i think that you

00:24:40.340 it's a big thing you you hit on your site and with what you do is you you want first responders and

00:24:45.540 military individual folks in the military to think of themselves as professional athletes or tactical

00:24:50.260 athletes why do you think that why do you think it's important that they have that mindset and think of

00:24:55.220 themselves that way well if you if you're a cop and you get injured you know you you can't do your job

00:25:04.740 you're not going to get paid so there's a direct link between health and fitness for a first responder

00:25:12.340 a mountain guide or a tactical athlete and their paycheck just like there is for an nfl quarterback

00:25:20.740 um if the nfl quarterback gets injured because he's unfit or um isn't fit coming into camp

00:25:30.020 he can lose his job it's a direct link to his paycheck that's kind of how i define an athlete in that

00:25:35.700 sense we have a term we've used before called industrial athletes plumbers carpenters um you know hvac

00:25:41.940 guys those guys are athletes too you know if they get hurt um or something and they're not fit enough

00:25:46.500 to do the job they're just not going to get paid so it's almost an economic point that i want to make

00:25:52.500 but also there's an idea it's kind of cool to be a professional athlete you know i'm a i'm not i'm

00:25:59.380 a strength conditioning coach so um uh i kind of work out for a living right but there's no real transfer

00:26:06.660 over to my real to my real job we we purposely use that term we call the the people who come to our gym

00:26:14.500 athletes we don't call them clients um the semantics is important i think it it lays a uh

00:26:22.260 it brings a a level of um currency to the work that they're doing if they think themselves of athletes

00:26:28.740 i think it just helps them um embrace this idea that um they're training for their job and and their

00:26:36.260 fitness is an important part of their profession a really important part of it and hopefully it'll

00:26:40.980 encourage them to invest in it do it well get get self-educated and also set an example for

00:26:50.660 other first responders or military guys or mountain people out there to kind of follow their lead

00:26:57.060 what's the overarching philosophy behind becoming a tactical athlete and i mean are there different

00:27:03.220 fitness or skill aptitudes a tactical athlete should have yeah we've we've actually uh even broken it

00:27:10.020 down further um we've identified five types of tactical athletes and fitness demands for each type

00:27:17.940 many of the the fitness demands carry over um but um some have all of them and some don't so for

00:27:26.340 example a uh um a military um you know like an army ranger or infantryman or a special forces guy

00:27:35.460 um they need a high relative strength um relative strength is strength per body weight we're not

00:27:43.380 trying to develop olympic weightlifters or world champion powerlifters or bodybuilders we just want

00:27:51.540 athletes who have high relative strength um our strength standards for tactical athletes are not super

00:27:59.460 aggressive aggressive and ambitious in the strength world they're you know relatively moderate but for

00:28:05.460 athletes who have a myriad of fitness demands um you know they're uh they're fairly high level we want

00:28:12.180 them to have a high level of work capacity but when we talk about work capacity it's not like it's just any

00:28:18.420 type of work capacity tactical athletes um law enforcement fire rescue military they need to be able

00:28:27.460 to do repeatable they need to be a work capacity side they need to be able to sprint repeatedly sprint

00:28:34.020 recover sprint recover sprint recover so not only they need high work capacity for multimodal stuff

00:28:40.500 we're not sure what type of event they're going to face on the field but we do know um that in general

00:28:46.100 um they need to be able to sprint um on the endurance side our military athletes or mountain

00:28:54.340 athletes need a high level of endurance but it's not just any type of endurance um military athletes

00:29:01.380 don't need to bike they don't need to row you know they need to be able to run and they need to be able

00:29:06.420 to ruck run or ruck well for long distances and recover from it um on the mountain side um athletes need

00:29:14.980 to be able to run and hike uphill under load and recover from it um on the law enforcement side one

00:29:23.300 of our fitness attributes for law enforcement guys on the patrol detective side is upper body hypertrophy

00:29:30.900 um a cop who has a big chest and biceps that could be actually a tool to intimidate bad bad guys from

00:29:38.740 trying something stupid um so we actually train our programming for cops we'll have upper body 0.94

00:29:44.340 hypertrophy in there and we'll manipulate our sets and reps to and have different cycles which emphasize 0.99

00:29:50.580 upper body hypertrophy um so uh yeah we we have identified fitness attributes for tactical athletes

00:29:58.500 and then amongst that community which ones apply to the different professions and then we program from

00:30:05.060 there for those individual professions and i also noticed you also put emphasis on um durability with across your different athletes

00:30:14.100 yeah my the more i've done worked with durability the more

00:30:19.140 i guess contrarian to what generally happens in the strength conditioning world i've become

00:30:26.100 early on we we kind of jumped into the idea of durability and i went and got fms certified through

00:30:32.900 great cook and we implemented the fms are you familiar with the fms brett it's functional movement system

00:30:38.100 right yeah it's called the functional movement screen and uh and uh for our listeners who aren't familiar

00:30:46.580 with that can you explain what that is the functional movement screen is developed i don't know a decade

00:30:51.780 or so ago by um a couple of pts on east coast and what they claimed it did was it was just a screen of

00:31:00.660 different movements and exercises that they could put athletes through that had some predictive value on

00:31:08.420 injury in the event or whatever they were doing so if athlete didn't score above a certain level in

00:31:15.540 these in the screen um their chances of getting injured were greater is what the fms founders or designers

00:31:24.900 claimed initially um and so this is a great all of a sudden it's a great tool this is the idea the idea

00:31:31.380 in general is that really proper movement transfers to durability and these guys claimed that they had a

00:31:39.780 a screen to identify what was a proper level of of movement and then based on how you did on the exercises

00:31:48.580 they had um on the screen they had exercises you could train to get better at the screen

00:31:54.580 and we initially really jumped on that idea and did it with all our athletes and and uh implemented

00:32:01.300 their exercises and we also followed what was going on with other pts and other type of mobility and

00:32:08.020 durability um thought out there but the more and more i worked with that type of stuff the less and less

00:32:15.220 value i thought it had um and that's continued um right now my my durability equation is uh durability

00:32:25.620 equals 95 sport slash missions flash event fitness plus five percent durability and mobility um there's

00:32:36.980 an emphasis on the fitness side for sure um and so we've kind of come to the point where

00:32:41.860 being sport specifically fit for whatever you're going to do is a greatest buffer you're going to

00:32:47.460 have to stay durable and when we started to take a look and there's been several studies have come out

00:32:52.580 now who have questioned the fms's ability to predict durability there was a one of the studies that

00:33:01.300 initially caught my eye was it was of several hundred marine corps ocs candidates and uh they they were

00:33:10.580 given the fms and and they and the way i understood it was that the fms predicted you know fairly well

00:33:19.540 how much energy would come out of ocs but then when they started taking a closer look at it now it was

00:33:25.780 the fms plus their usmc pft scores that really was the greatest predictable um when they put them

00:33:31.860 together and then when you broke it out a little bit further the pft ski scores were the really the

00:33:36.900 great you know had a greater uh alone than the fms anyway as we've as we've uh moved down and and

00:33:45.140 become and had more experience programming for athletes um we've identified the idea that we

00:33:51.700 really want to make guys durable but a huge part of that is getting sport specifically fit for their

00:33:57.140 event in this world of strength conditioning and i'm sure you've seen this in the interviews and stuff

00:34:02.260 that you've done i guess everything works and nothing works forever and whenever i when i first

00:34:07.860 started uh programming and designing i was so righteous about so many things you know i'm never

00:34:12.740 going to do this i'm never going to do that or that's you know and uh the the or the more i've done

00:34:19.460 it the less righteous i've become in general um but also the more skeptical i've become of of

00:34:26.420 single bullets that seem to just do more than or just too good to be true i guess and uh so from

00:34:34.340 our perspective the durability is primarily just a high high degree of relative strength um high

00:34:40.740 degree of sports specific fitness so if you're a guy going down range and you're going to go to a

00:34:47.780 tactical situation on the military side chances are if you do come under fire you're going to be sprinting

00:34:53.860 hitting the ground and shooting and get up and doing it again and uh if you're not used to doing

00:34:58.580 that you're not going to have the work capacity to do it if you're not used to doing it under load

00:35:02.420 you know with your kit and your weapons and all your ammo you may not have the um mid-session

00:35:08.740 strength um under especially if you do it for a while the strength endurance and all that stuff

00:35:14.980 could lead to injury so durability is a huge part of what we do obviously and our focus is just

00:35:21.620 getting guys specifically fit for what they're going to be facing right so foam rolling is it

00:35:26.100 going to help you carry load sprinting we yeah we uh we do a little bit of foam rolling uh but it's

00:35:33.140 not a huge part of what we do um we all of our sessions include generally you know mobility exercises

00:35:42.420 we'll plug in mobility exercises especially in strength circuits in the strength circuit to keep guys busy

00:35:47.940 give them something to do as they're resting between sets um but also um we do know it carries

00:35:54.820 there is some carry over but um it's uh there's having a great overhead squat does not mean you won't

00:36:03.060 get injured um if you're not a sport specifically fit at the same time i mean i've seen you know it's

00:36:09.700 just uh what i've kind of found anecdotally is the the the really good athletes and i had to find a

00:36:15.460 really good athlete uh as someone who really moves well in space um and so they'll they're the ones who

00:36:23.620 smoke the fms i found they're delicate um for whatever reason part of that might be that really

00:36:31.780 good athletes are much more in tune with their body and so a little ding will will make them you know

00:36:38.340 freak out and uh other athletes kind of like me we don't score well in the fms but i'm like an f-150

00:36:46.980 you know my first truck was old 79 f-150 and uh you know that thing got dinged and beat up and uh you

00:36:53.860 know i run into walls with it and it just kept on going it was very durable so uh i guess taking a

00:37:01.060 step back we just kind of found that the best thing i do for my athletes on durability side

00:37:05.380 is increase their relative strength and get them to sport specifically fit for the event or the

00:37:10.820 mission or the job they have that's the best thing i could do rob do you think there's any value for

00:37:15.780 civilians striving to become a tactical athlete you know i think uh the best thing that anybody can do for

00:37:22.500 their their fitness life what i've kind of found over over the years in uh as a guy who's been a

00:37:30.260 i'm 48 kind of lifelong gym rat is um

00:37:36.740 if you do your own programming no matter what it is you end up doing what you're good at or what

00:37:43.540 you've always done it's really easy to get into a rut and so if you're a civilian and you have an

00:37:50.020 office job you really don't have a you know a a job that demands a certain level of fitness

00:37:56.100 what i recommend is there seems to be this this path for civilians they they kind of get in the

00:38:04.580 gym they come in or whatever fitness perspective they do especially if they don't have a collegiate

00:38:10.420 athlete background it may be high school athlete they'll get out you know they'll go to college they'll

00:38:15.620 play intramurals or whatever and then they'll get to their their work life and uh they'll end up

00:38:22.500 doing aerobics or maybe get endurance stuff and then crossfit or something similar we'll get them

00:38:27.380 back in the gym and they'll kind of be all i'm excited about that for a while and it seemed the

00:38:32.980 evolution of the sport of fitness which is pretty much what crossfit is is now athletes will take that

00:38:41.140 fitness and they'll start doing stuff outside um and it seems their first stepping stone will be

00:38:46.820 a tough mudder or spartan sprint race um or maybe a go rock event one of these kind of manufactured

00:38:54.580 artificial outdoor events they're definitely physically challenging um but are still artificial

00:39:03.780 what i kind of find is my prediction for the next step is is athletes you know the civilian side we're

00:39:09.860 kind of seeing this now going ahead and saying okay i've i've kind of done a tough mudder event or

00:39:15.060 whatever now i want to go on my own and do a rim to rim you know push of the grand canyon or i want to

00:39:22.900 come and uh you know hike the uh bridge or teton wilderness highline trail you know 50 miles in uh

00:39:30.100 in a week backpack or i want to go climb rainier or denali or um i want to get into rock climbing so

00:39:39.220 what is kind of interesting from a fitness perspective is all those different things you're doing outside the

00:39:43.940 gym if you're programming and training for those specifically in the gym it keeps your gym life

00:39:51.540 kind of really there's just a lot of variety that you're going to be doing and it'll keep you in the

00:39:55.860 gym where you know if you're just going to do the same thing all the time or or train for appearance

00:40:00.900 really um it can get so stale so fast but training for outside events it just opens up a whole new

00:40:08.580 incredible world to you not only for the events but also for for your gym life certainly that's been

00:40:13.780 my experience and and the athletes around the world who follow our stuff you know they kind of fall

00:40:19.460 into that it's interesting how you know people have been following our stuff for years they're like

00:40:23.380 you know i did this you know i you know i went and climbed rainier you know i just did a go rock

00:40:31.380 i'm going to go do a three gun you know shooting contest

00:40:33.700 you know this summer i'm looking at a 50 mile you know 50 mile ultra race and uh they're able to use

00:40:42.100 our programming for all those types of events and you can imagine their their gym life it's so so much

00:40:48.020 variety is so interesting right so yeah i guess having that mindset as a professional athlete tactical

00:40:52.500 athlete as someone you're training to do the thing you like to do outside the gym that can really help

00:40:58.340 civilians out a lot yeah especially as a especially when they're the programming or training starts

00:41:05.940 getting stale having an outside something outside to train for it can really enhance their training

00:41:10.980 life so let's let's talk about more specifically the the what programming looks like at uh mti um

00:41:17.540 i mean your workouts i've seen a few of them they look they look crossfit like but it's not really

00:41:22.900 crossfit um because you're doing things you're doing olympic lifts you're doing sandbags things like

00:41:27.940 that sprints um what do you think the difference between what you do at mti and what you might see

00:41:35.300 at a crossfit workout what is interesting about um our programming is in general that the sessions

00:41:44.420 every session has a certain goal um and so it's been a long time since i've taken a look at

00:41:50.500 it at and and within the crossfit world there's you know all the different gyms have different

00:41:56.260 approaches and crossfit is known primarily for their work capacity short hard work capacity events

00:42:02.980 and we deploy some of that similar programming in our stuff um but every session will have

00:42:08.820 a different training objective and right now in general we have um four or five different training

00:42:14.820 objectives one is just relative strength and other is work capacity which i spoke of a little bit

00:42:19.780 before another is chassis integrity which is our approach to mid-section strength training

00:42:25.940 mid-section strength and strength endurance um on the tactical side we have something called taxipa

00:42:31.940 which stands for tactical speed explosive power and agility and then um for both the tactical and

00:42:39.780 mountainside we have endurance programming that we do and then uh on the mountainside we have climbing

00:42:45.700 training programming so um as part of our general programming for mountain athletes um one or two

00:42:52.020 times a week we've got them in a rock gym you know doing intervals on a system board or bouldering

00:42:57.380 problems or something like that so it's difficult to look at one of our individual specific training

00:43:02.580 sessions and and say you know this is what we do all the time um but in general every session will have

00:43:10.820 uh training objective um what is the main difference between us i guess is crossfit is we're training

00:43:18.180 for outside performance and um and so um that is what gives us the liberty really to take and have

00:43:26.740 these different focuses for the training sessions the other the other areas that we probably do a lot more

00:43:33.300 endurance than than they do in the typical crossfit side and when i say endurance you know we're not

00:43:39.940 into the i mean we do some long running and some long rucking some long endurance um we i believe you

00:43:48.260 have to go long to train long to go long and so that's a big part i guess it's kind of hard to take a

00:43:53.620 one session snapshot and say that way we do that's what we do um and perhaps that's the biggest difference

00:43:58.420 between us and crossfit is a lot of times you can take one session of a typical crossfit workout

00:44:05.140 and everything is going to be fairly similar it's not the case with us um i mean uh it's much different

00:44:11.620 for us well let's take a look at uh with the strength side what what are you guys doing is it

00:44:16.980 body weight stuff lifting weights what what kind of thing do we see on developing that relative body weight

00:44:21.940 strength um yeah we do um we've developed actually five or six different strength progressions

00:44:28.260 over the years that we used um to develop relative strength and most of those are barbell based

00:44:36.340 but when i say strength progression you know for example the 531 which is a popular 555 is popular

00:44:42.580 strength progressions we've developed our own strength progression so um we use a barbell strength

00:44:49.300 we use everything from one rm and then broken down from that percentage based progression based on one rms

00:44:56.660 we use um something we call big 24 where we'll have an athlete to work up to a 3 rm and to do a

00:45:03.700 progression based on a 3 rm we have a progression we call 357 where we'll deploy a one rm a percentage

00:45:12.340 based um effort based on that one rm in the same session and then also have right after that a hard

00:45:20.020 body weight based work capacity effort three to seven minutes long which complements the strength

00:45:26.340 word that was done previously complements meaning deploys the same movements and uh muscles movement

00:45:32.980 patterns and muscles and the idea is to elicit some of that hormonal flush to kind of get out of a crossfit

00:45:38.740 to enhance the the strength strength work um so um and sometimes we'll take and we'll step out of

00:45:48.820 barbell work to do uh body weight focused um cycle of strength training um primarily just to unload for

00:45:57.300 a while um when i say relative strength i mean strength per body weight that doesn't mean body weight

00:46:02.580 strength for example our strength standard for tactical athletes is a 1.5 body weight bench press

00:46:11.220 and front squat so if i weigh 150 pounds i want to be able to front squat and bench press 225 that's

00:46:18.500 one of our strength standards for um tactical athletes so it's not like we want to be able to do

00:46:25.300 you know so many air squats in a certain time that's strength endurance we're interested in relative

00:46:29.540 strength so so i mean i i know you can't uh get like a broad sweeping look at what a program looks

00:46:36.500 like but it sounds like you're gonna have a workout where you'll do some strength followed by some work

00:46:40.420 capacity and then the next day you might do some endurance work depending on what your um mission

00:46:46.740 specific goal is right either the mission specific goal or and again in general the way our programming

00:46:53.300 work is the more the further you are from the event the more general your programming can be

00:46:57.460 and we call that general programming we call that base programming mountain base military base law

00:47:05.060 enforcement base that general programming isn't totally random there's definitely a focus to that and in

00:47:11.380 that focus is training those different attributes that we want to train so for example let's say we have

00:47:17.060 a guy who's going to uh sfas which is green beret selection and he's got um six months to train

00:47:27.700 our green beret selection specific program we call the rook base selection training program is eight weeks

00:47:33.620 long we want him to do that program right eight weeks right before he goes to selection so that's two

00:47:40.580 months we've got four months for him to do other stuff and that other stuff is what we call our tactical base so

00:47:46.820 he'll be working on cycles that train um relative strength work capacity endurance um tactical sepa

00:47:55.940 um and chassis integrity so his typical week may monday's coming in and he's doing um taxi agility and

00:48:04.100 strength tuesday's coming in and he's or tuesday he's out rucking um with a 45 pound pack for you know six

00:48:12.900 miles was a comes in he does another um half session of relative strength the second half is work

00:48:19.060 capacity thursday he's uh he's going to go out and do um uh 800 intervals based on a three mile run

00:48:27.860 time he did before okay we're working on his speed over ground for running um friday comes in he does

00:48:34.900 work capacity and chassis integrity and then saturday is another long ruck so you can kind of see how

00:48:40.340 that kind of works together we're trying to train all those different attributes concurrently now when

00:48:45.380 it gets to that eight weeks before um selection the idea of training that stuff concurrently goes out

00:48:52.420 the window we're not concerned about that anymore we want to get that athlete sport specifically ready

00:48:58.180 for special forces selection what does that mean means we're going to greatly increase his rucking

00:49:04.020 he's going to do a lot more rucking the first thing he's going to do when he gets there he's going

00:49:08.420 to have to do the apft the army physical fitness test push-ups sit-ups um three mile or two mile run

00:49:15.540 so we're going to the first day of the of our plan he's going to take the apft and we're going to use

00:49:20.580 his scores on that apft that initial one and for specific progression as he works through our plan

00:49:29.540 he's also going to get um team events and and just work capacity smokers that selection

00:49:34.580 long days will just come out and they'll mess with the guys right um we'll brew so he's developed um

00:49:40.420 work capacity events sandbag work dumbbell work stuff in a vest or iba individual body armor

00:49:48.660 his his uh now a sports specific plan will train all these different attributes get him specifically

00:49:54.260 ready for um special forces selection it includes a saturday long ruck um so he'll work up i think

00:50:01.700 like 18 miles on a saturday it's just a ruck um it's a very intense um super focused on the fitness

00:50:08.980 demands at selection it includes a taper the last week is a taper it's assessment based so the athlete

00:50:16.500 will come in the first week is an assessment week um the he'll he'll do programming based on his

00:50:22.900 assessment results uh week four we'll reassess him we're assuming he's going to get more fit and then

00:50:28.340 we'll reset all the progressions for the last few weeks and then the last week is a taper week so

00:50:33.220 hopefully we're sending him in to sfas um sport sickly fit sport specifically fit for that event 1.00

00:50:41.300 but also relatively fresh so it can hammer and get ready to hit it hard when he gets there that sounds

00:50:46.260 awesome i'm a civilian i don't plan on joining the green berets it sounds like an awesome program i mean

00:50:50.980 so after that like what do like what does a maintenance program look like let's say you you've you're a

00:50:55.300 first responder you're a police officer you're in the military you're on active duty uh you've passed

00:50:59.780 the test um does is there like a set maintenance program do you follow or are you all always

00:51:05.460 constantly updating that to i don't know make it exciting make it fresh um but also ensure that these

00:51:12.180 guys are ready to do their job yeah when they once he gets done with selection he's going to drop back

00:51:18.660 into that tactical based programming the tactical based programming has its own over the years um

00:51:27.140 we've each cycle each each tactical based programming cycles even on the mountain side and all of our

00:51:34.100 cycles now are six weeks long and each of them has a certain emphasis so we'll be training on the

00:51:40.020 tactical side and the military side you know relative strength work capacity endurance chassis

00:51:44.980 integrity taxi concurrently but within each cycle we'll take a couple of those attributes and we'll

00:51:51.220 place some emphasis on them so for example this cycle um a base cycle maybe there's emphasis on

00:51:57.460 strength and work capacity and unload week the next cycle will be emphasis on chassis integrity and tactical

00:52:03.540 agility and unload week the next emphasis will be on endurance so the athlete is still trading all

00:52:09.620 those different fitness attributes but each cycle has a little bit of emphasis to get that athlete

00:52:15.300 better in that attribute and what we've kind of found is that methodology creates a pretty incredible

00:52:25.620 variety for the different athletes we talk about what we call the burden of constant fitness for tactical and

00:52:32.900 and even mountain athletes professional mountain athletes but especially

00:52:36.180 tactical athletes military fire rescue and um law enforcement these guys are these athletes i hate to say

00:52:43.780 say guys work with plenty of female athletes but these athletes they can never really afford to be out of shape 0.99

00:52:49.780 and so they got to be constantly training that creates a burden can really lead to stillness in your

00:52:54.420 programming if you're if you keep on doing the same thing over the years we found that

00:52:59.620 our base fitness cycles really do a great job of um addressing the stillness and keeping things

00:53:07.860 interesting generally in a base fitness cycle you know there will be some type of assessment

00:53:13.620 um

00:53:15.700 so for example i mentioned the one earlier maybe he'll be you know come out in the first week of the cycle

00:53:21.540 the athlete will need to do a one mile or a three mile run for time and they will

00:53:25.860 do progressions based on that assessment the middle cycle reassess it and that assessment

00:53:32.340 and kind of measuring yourself really helps keep things interesting as well our programming is

00:53:39.060 continually evolving just last year we i mean just this past couple years we introduced we changed the

00:53:46.820 way we train mid-session strength completely with our new chassis integrity theory

00:53:51.780 um we introduced tax sepa so it's not like our programming is static we're continually evolving

00:54:00.100 it as we look to find things that work better work well one of the changes that we made just this past

00:54:08.020 year was we got away from what i call garbage reps um i'm 48 i've probably been doing my programming

00:54:13.780 longer than anybody and my knees are just stiff they're pretty damn stiff all the time now and

00:54:21.620 i wonder if all the lightly loaded squats and lunges i did in the past kind of following you

00:54:28.420 know like a a bunch of thrusters to a run or something if that had impacted my knees so we've

00:54:34.740 gotten away from if we're going to work a deep squatting movement we're going to go either really

00:54:40.100 heavy or body weight we're not going to do just moderate loaded stuff we so our programming i guess

00:54:45.620 i'm trying to impart is that we're always evaluating what we're doing trying to do it better thinking

00:54:51.380 about mission performance long-term longevity for the athletes mission durability all those types

00:54:57.620 of things and if you're doing your job well no matter what your profession is you're always looking

00:55:01.940 to continuously improve and with that continuous improvement uh from the athlete's perspective

00:55:07.540 is this programming that hopefully is getting them ready for their job but also is really interesting

00:55:15.220 and intriguing to do um and hopefully keeping them interested in their programming and their

00:55:20.260 training and uh making them fit for their jobs awesome well rob this has been a great conversation

00:55:26.260 where can people go to learn more about what you do at mti and find out more about signing up for some

00:55:30.100 of your programs you have available yeah just our website just uh mtntactical.com and uh

00:55:37.860 everything's right there rob shawl thanks so much for your time it's been a pleasure thank you so much

00:55:43.380 brett my guest today was rob shawl he's the founder and president of the mountain tactical institute

00:55:48.340 you can find more information about the programming they do there at mountain tactical institute by going

00:55:52.260 to ntntactical.com also check out our show notes at aom.is tactical athlete where you can find links

00:55:59.060 to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art

00:56:12.100 of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:56:16.100 at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy our show appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes

00:56:20.020 or teacher it helps us out a lot as always thank you for your continued support and until next time

00:56:23.860 this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - January 18, 2017

#270： Becoming a Tactical Athlete

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