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082 - Military Measures of Performance & Effectiveness w/ Alex Morrow
61 Plays1 day ago
In this fireside chat from the NSCA Tactical Strength & Conditioning Conference, I sit down with Alex Morrow—creator of MOPs & MOEs (Measures of Performance & Measures of Effectiveness)—to unpack how leaders in both the military and sport can stop confusing activity with impact.
We dig into the “Nazareth Syndrome” (why your own people overlook your expertise), the real story behind ACFT evolution, and why training culture breaks down when organizations chase metrics instead of mission.
If you’ve ever felt the tension between looking good on paper and doing what actually works in the real world, this episode will sharpen how you measure, communicate, and lead.
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#MilitaryLeadership #HumanPerformance #MOPsAndMOEs #LeadershipDevelopment #StrengthAndConditioning #TacticalAthlete #MilitaryFitness #PerformanceCulture #CoachDevelopment #CaptainsAndCoaches
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Transcript
Understanding True Buy-In
00:00:00
Speaker
I'll use this opportunity to get into a soapbox real quick. I hear the term buy-in all the time. um Buy-in isn't happening unless money is changing hands. right Buy-in means payment.
00:00:13
Speaker
right So people constantly look for buy-in from the soldiers. Soldiers are not the ones who are putting money into the program. You do need to look for buy-in from the people who write the checks that make the program happen.
Introduction to the Captains and Coaches Podcast
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast where explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. I'm your host Texman Quilkin and today I come to you live from the and NSCA Tactical Conference in San Antonio for a fireside chat with Alex Morrow, creator of the Mops and Mows podcast. That's measures of performance and measures of effectiveness.
00:00:45
Speaker
Alex is a West Point grad who spent eight years on active duty before landing at the Army Physical Fitness School, where he realized the military's approach to fitness needed a serious
Modernizing Military Fitness
00:00:56
Speaker
overhaul. He continues serving as an intelligent officer in the Army Reserve while working to modernize how the force thinks about human performance.
00:01:04
Speaker
We connected at the Fort Bliss H2F Summit in July, where Alex presented and led a panel on Keeping It Real and Soldier Performance And today we're diving into the ACFT, military fitness culture, and why real experts are often overlooked. With that, we'll hand it off to Alex to help us raise the game. Ready, ready, and ready. We're live, action. Alex Morrow, we're at the Tactical Strength and Conditioning Conference for the NSCA.
00:01:31
Speaker
And we connected at Fort Bliss yeah at H2F Summit. And then you had you presented on a topic that i it all the these lights went off for me. I didn't realize this was a topic, but the the Nazareth... Syndrome. Syndrome. I couldn't remember if it was like a paradox or something, but
Challenges of Being an Expert
00:01:54
Speaker
syndrome. Yeah. so I've got a but questions based off that and I want lead off with that. yeah And then we're going to deep dive ACFT.
00:02:04
Speaker
Okay. Let's do it. I'm going to wind you up and they's set you free. Deal. So I actually learned the term Nazareth syndrome at a TSEC, tactical annual training, I think three, four years ago, maybe at this point, um I had just finished a presentation on a totally different topic.
00:02:20
Speaker
Coach in the audience got up, asked me if I'd heard of it. And it was, what a similar to what you said with like lights just going off, like things kind of clicking. So I've been thinking about it ever since. In the simplest way, it's just a fancy term to describe the classic quote that no man is a profit in his own home.
00:02:38
Speaker
oh But there's layers to it, right? It's, it's always going to be easier to seem like an expert when you're an outsider. it's ah It's marketing at that point. It's telling a story that you control.
00:02:52
Speaker
Once you're inside an organization, you're dealing with the the practical realities of logistics, limited funds, competing demands on time. Once all that happens, things look messier. You don't look like as much of a ah brilliant expert as you might have because you've had to run into all these challenges. Mm-hmm.
00:03:11
Speaker
But it's a reminder that that's going to be true for everybody.
Perceptions in Coaching
00:03:14
Speaker
i in In the human performance space, I've been lucky with jobs, gotten to go to some of the coolest places where I thought they had everything figured out and they have the same problems as everybody else does. Yeah. And it's it's just that encapsulated. Yeah.
00:03:26
Speaker
From my perspective, I coach lacrosse in a small town. and then literally get paid to go to army bases or all over the world to then teach all the tools i'm applying at practice yeahp and then the parents are blowing up about it they say i'm doing crossfit at practice and it's like time out yeah and then that that just quote uh the the it it encapsulated everything that I felt and I'm like, oh man, yeah now I'm not as frustrated. yeah Still frustrated, just not as frustrated. And I think it's an important reminder in settings like this, because get to visit all these teams and see them in action, and it's if you go in with the mentality of like finding what's wrong and calling it out, you can find it everywhere. No matter where you go, there's always problems.
00:04:14
Speaker
And i think sometimes whether it's sport and it's like parents or coaches or whether it's military and it's commanders or whatever setting people are working in, it it can be hard to know what to compare yourself to. Because if you just look at the public image of programs that you see or the public image of services or brands or companies, it looks really polished.
00:04:37
Speaker
and And you start to think like, am i doing a really
Naming the MOPS and MOES Podcast
00:04:40
Speaker
bad job? I don't know. cause it's the same thing. like I go back to my day job and we've got all sorts of hurdles. we we don't even have a facility, right? Like we train outside.
00:04:48
Speaker
yeah And it's easy for me to get up on stage and like sound real smart. It's a whole different thing to go back to the reality of day to day and and face those challenges and still provide a good product.
00:04:59
Speaker
yeah So your podcasts, MOPS and MOES, I wasn't familiar with those acronyms stood for. And then I had a ah ah buddy in Special Forces who recommended the podcast to me.
00:05:13
Speaker
And then we coincidentally run into each other at that summit. And I had never heard of these acronyms before. yeah So what it what is MOPS and MOES stand for? yep And then why so much to then name your podcast that? Absolutely. ah Why name the podcast that kind of an accident.
00:05:33
Speaker
Just having a trouble thinking of a name for the podcast. It was a placeholder, but once you like start with something, it's pretty hard to change it.
Podcast's Mission: Impact over Popularity
00:05:39
Speaker
Um, so I remember there's a whole page in my notebook of possible titles for the podcast and we're like, we're just trying to, this is probably gonna go nowhere. We'll do the mobs and mo's thing. And then a few years later, like everybody knows it by that name. So like you can't change it anymore.
00:05:52
Speaker
Um, a few like strategic planning nerds out there will, will recognize it. A lot of like majors and Lieutenant colonels in the army. know what mobs and mobs are. It's measures of performance and measures of effectiveness.
00:06:05
Speaker
It's a concept borrowed from systems engineering and And a simple way to put it is measures of performance measures, are we doing things right? And measures of effectiveness measures, are we doing the right things?
00:06:19
Speaker
Because even if you execute a task perfectly, it's not necessarily the task that would have gotten you closer to the goal. it's It's simple for the most part in military settings. Like that's why it's used so much in military planning, global war on terror, Vietnam,
00:06:38
Speaker
We measured success initially using measures of performance, how many bad guys in body bags. But when the mission is to create stable governance, you can't bad guys in body bags your way to a stable government.
00:06:53
Speaker
There's a lot of other things you have to start measuring to test whether, no matter how well you did the task, like we're really good at causing damage. Like the military ultimately is very good at damaging things.
00:07:04
Speaker
It's hard to measure whether you're building things up and making them better. And then what's your mission and vision for the show? Is it just talk military shop or are you aiming for that effectiveness and change? So, so we have gone through this a few times and I think it's always fun to discuss the mobs and mo's of mobs and mo's, um, an easy measure of performance for the podcast. How many people download, how many people listen, how many people subscribe, but that is not a measure of effectiveness. Sometimes our least popular episodes are our most impactful.
00:07:37
Speaker
yeah So I don't know if we're really measuring effectiveness as much as reminding ourselves that there's a different kind of effectiveness to be on the lookout for, and that's the impact piece. And I think as far as mission and vision at this stage of where we're at, it's to take conversations that are happening behind closed doors and make them accessible to a larger audience.
00:07:59
Speaker
cause I don't think anything we discuss on the podcast is new or revolutionary. It's just something that we ran into because of a conversation at work, conversation with a friend, conversation with a peer somewhere else in the community that we think resonates and is important, but isn't getting enough widespread attention. So that's all we're really trying to do is take those conversations and bring them into a broader
Leadership Insights and Challenges
00:08:22
Speaker
forum. Yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
And what was cool about the summit is you were on a panel and then you just you just took over. It was awesome to see that dynamic. And I'll give it to the the our friends that are running the event. They made questions anonymous and so people were not afraid to. Yeah. They didn't have to stand up and speak into a microphone. Yep. And then they were open about their opinion about a lot of things. Yeah. ah So, I mean,
00:08:48
Speaker
that brass, that confidence to stand and deliver what you view is is right direction and action to take for the Army. Like, where where did that start?
00:08:59
Speaker
Where did you make your first stand? Sure. um First, I'll say summit was really well run You were there. You saw it. I think it was a really successful event. Got leaders at different echelons engaged in the conversation.
00:09:12
Speaker
They did say before we went up to the panel, like they would they would filter out the real political tense questions. And I specifically asked, how about we don't do that? Like how about we address these questions? Like that's the point. and And where'd the brass come from?
00:09:30
Speaker
Hard to say. I've been lucky to have really understanding leadership throughout my career. It's come up a couple of times that like certain jobs are really hard to explain what your job is. And I've been in those jobs for a long time.
00:09:42
Speaker
And i consider my job in most of the settings I've been in, um people who are being more charitable have described me as the voice of reason in certain settings. I would say I'm just the guy who's willing to raise his hand and say, is what we're doing dumb?
00:09:58
Speaker
Like we're halfway down this road. i don't know if it's going where we think it's going. Is it dumb? And I pause and have those conversations. And it does get a little easier to do that kind of stuff in the military when you take off the uniform and put on this outfit.
00:10:12
Speaker
Um, just being a civilian, you get to say things that are little different. Um, I used to have really, really strict boundaries. I would tell people there are three different versions of me.
00:10:24
Speaker
There's the DOD civilian version of me. There's the service member reservist version of me. And then there's the outside of those capacities, like the mops and mows or personal me and I gradually started to realize that you can't really separate your identities. You're always the same person.
00:10:39
Speaker
um So at the beginning of that presentation I gave, I did identify that there's there's three of me. I work in different capacities. When I get the chance to speak not on behalf of those first two capacities, that's when I get a little more direct.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. And where did leadership start for you? did Were you an athlete growing up? i Not by choice. um Not terribly athletic naturally.
00:11:06
Speaker
My parents did require that I do a sport. That was just part of what they expected of me.
Leadership Development at West Point
00:11:12
Speaker
Cross country had no cuts in my high school. As long as you could run three miles in 30 minutes, you could be on the team. So there was like a hundred kids on cross country team.
00:11:20
Speaker
There were a lot of people on the team. um Wasn't a standout athlete by any means, but I i showed up and ran cross country. I think went to West Point, obviously a large focus on leadership there.
00:11:32
Speaker
served as a junior officer on active duty in the army, a lot of that. What year did you graduate at West Point? 13. 13, okay. But I think it's interesting that you ask where leadership start for you and then went straight to athlete, because I think I learned more about leadership being a captain of the rock climbing club than I did from actual leadership classes.
00:11:53
Speaker
like getting Getting people to like work towards a shared goal who don't have to work towards that shared goal taught me a lot more about leadership than when you have like UCMJ authority over somebody and they just have to do it.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah it like there is clearly a sport leadership thing going on there. And there's a reason every cadet at West Point has to participate in some kind of sports. I think there's an understanding culturally that that matters for developing leaders.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, a couple of buddies, 09 graduates, and one unfortunately was killed in duty, Dimitri Del Castillo. Yeah. i adell I didn't know Dell. I know a lot of people who knew Dell and his wife is still pretty involved.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah. Getting goosebumps. Yeah. So we went to high school with him.
Adapting to Coaching Today's Athletes
00:12:40
Speaker
He was one year younger. And then Colin Mooney, same class. He was football. Yeah. And yeah. So always root for West Point. And now Mooney's the man. he ah He went to the NFL. So served two years, went to the NFL. And now he's a freaking doctor in Killeen. Yeah.
00:12:57
Speaker
So he he sets his mind at something, yeah like West Point way. So it's cool to always watch his growth and success yeah ah from the sidelines. Time out. Coach, have you ever felt like your athletes shut down tune-out or just too cool for coaching?
00:13:12
Speaker
You want them to listen, you shake them, you know this attitude and approach that they're taking with their training or their practice in front of you is not going to lead to success on the field or off the field later in life and you have to change it.
00:13:28
Speaker
Athletes today are operating on a different internal system and we need to course correct on how our approach is going to land with them. And that's why I wrote the new course, Why They Won't Listen, Coaching Today's Athletes.
00:13:44
Speaker
If you want to learn more, head to listen.captainsandcoaches.com for this online course. If you want the first lesson free, see how I break down and combine whiteboard lecture and practical demos, movement-based lessons,
00:13:59
Speaker
that you can bring them to your practice and your training environments. Again, head to listen.captainsandcoaches.com to learn more and get that free
Evolution of Military Fitness Tests
00:14:08
Speaker
lesson. And now back to the show. Ready, ready and break.
00:14:12
Speaker
And yeah, continuing in that I first took an education trip opportunity to brag 2017. pre-ACFT. And so our our mind is like, as a strength and conditioning coach, is reverse engineering a training program from a goal.
00:14:29
Speaker
Goal at the time was that former fitness test. I forget what it's called. APFT push-ups hit up two mile run. Yeah. And so we're like, nah. So then we started treating them like athletes and performing and had a soldier coach development pipeline at Bragg and it was awesome. And then...
00:14:48
Speaker
the ACFT happened. Significant emotional event. but it For me, yeah, because it blew up our whole opportunity ah where we were coaching soldier coaches, and then it had to be a uniform way across the board. They had the same mindset because they were reverse engineering now a test so that people would train for the test.
00:15:06
Speaker
that was The test was actual training. And you've seen different evolutions of that. Now I'm on the outside looking in, and I have a sense of humor about it. and the test has changed multiple times since that 2018, 2017 timeframe. I've brought some articles, yeah especially Leg Tech Nation on your website. oh yeah And I know some Marines and that's that's my joke with them. I'm like, all the army needs to do is just put in your pull-up test, because they just got to do 14 in a set amount of time, I can't recall.
00:15:43
Speaker
Like, okay, that's the max score is 14. um I don't want to take away, but it like did the goal match the intent that they were aiming to accomplish?
00:15:54
Speaker
m ah In a very literal sense, no. um The way the test has been implemented does not match what it was designed to do. it And that's because...
00:16:06
Speaker
You have this theoretical construct. i get a place like this, you have a bunch of exercise physiologists, sports scientists, things like that. And the the military employs people like that to do some really cool work.
00:16:18
Speaker
And then they create a recommendation. And then that recommendation has to deal with the political realities of recruiting and retention and the complexities of implementing something and changing a culture. and it What was created initially is not what's been implemented today.
00:16:34
Speaker
I think it's still a step in the right direction. We've introduced incentives to train in different ways.
Fitness Assessments and Military Culture
00:16:40
Speaker
I think We had an opportunity to set a high bar and show people how to reach that high bar and we didn't quite seize that opportunity the way we could have. That's where the whole concept of leg tuck nation comes from. I don't think the leg tuck is that special.
00:16:54
Speaker
It's kind of a weird exercise. Pull-ups would be simpler. But essentially the leg tuck, in my eyes, became a martyr. Like it became powerful after we killed it because it's a symbol of,
00:17:09
Speaker
in unwillingness to set a high bar and commit to it and help people reach it. Instead, the army, an organization that should be all about that, decided to admit defeat to an exercise.
00:17:23
Speaker
And it's more complicated than that. That sounds pretty extreme. But I think, i'll I'll go back to Chris Frankel's presentation from a year or two ago at Tactical where he talked about the different purposes of assessments.
00:17:38
Speaker
he He had nice analogies, camera, map, crystal ball, and engine. A camera assessment, it needs we need to make sure it has construct validity. Is it accurately assessing the component of fitness that it says it's assessing?
00:17:53
Speaker
A map assessment should help us chart a path forward. It should be useful for designing programming based on it. A crystal ball assessment should predict the future, injury risk, health outcomes, performance on the field, whatever it is.
00:18:07
Speaker
and And one we think about, don't always quantify very well, is the engine assessment. And they all play multiple roles at the end of the day, but the engine role of an assessment is that it should motivate behaviors that we want participants to adhere to, right?
00:18:23
Speaker
I had it, somebody mentioned it recently, the previous sergeant major of the army said somewhere publicly that he didn't start deadlifting until he was in his forties, because that's when it was added to the ACFT.
00:18:37
Speaker
we shouldn't train for the test. Like our doctrine says, don't train for the test, but something as simple as I didn't deadlift, we put deadlift in the test and now I deadlift, tells you that people trained for the test to some degree, no matter how much we tell them not to, the test incentivizes certain types of training.
Trusting Human Performance Experts
00:18:52
Speaker
And that's the engine version of an assessment.
00:18:54
Speaker
I just, I love that framework for thinking about what, because mobs and mobs, right? What do we want the test to do? Part of what we want to do is change the culture. Yeah.
00:19:05
Speaker
and as and As a leader, I mean, what's your first take for culture? You get the opportunity to educate, and then there's a lot of lot of young soldiers in the room where you were presenting.
00:19:20
Speaker
What's your your vision for the culture of the Army that you're so passionate about? I think it's moving towards the ideal that we write in doctrine, because doctrine is not enforceable. It's essentially just a collection of ideas that we think would make things better.
00:19:36
Speaker
But I think in in that particular context at 4Bliss, was talking to that room, the goal was to get them to trust and utilize the human performance professionals they have in their organizations.
00:19:48
Speaker
Because it's easy to see what's on social media and like, that's way sexier. Like that guy has a quarter million followers. He must know what he's doing. Look how good it looks. Look how jacked he is. Look how fast he is. We should do what that guy says.
00:19:59
Speaker
But that guy's marketing, that guy's doing sales, he's not doing real life. The people you have with you in your organization, it's not as sexy, it's not as polished, because they're dealing with real life. But they know your culture, they know your limitations, they know your current status, they know what equipment you have, they know what the weather is like, they know what your leaders will approve, they know what's on the calendar next month. Like, that was the goal with that conversation.
00:20:23
Speaker
Do you feel it's necessary to be a combat veteran or ex-military to be in those training positions? i I certainly don't think it's necessary.
00:20:34
Speaker
I think it provides certain advantages of being able to navigate the culture and understand what's going on You know what a first sergeant is and you know what a captain is, all that kind of stuff. um But...
00:20:45
Speaker
It comes with some disadvantages of you're used to the way it's always been done and that might affect you and you you might not be as open to changes that other people might
Adapting to Military Training Culture
00:20:53
Speaker
be. um We've found a lot through the podcast that some of the most valuable, relevant, insightful perspectives that have changed our approaches have come from people who not only aren't involved in the military, but aren't even really human performance professionals. People that have a psychology background or people who have an economics background or like they're there are other advantages that come from other unique backgrounds as well.
00:21:17
Speaker
I imagine you've met a lot of dudes in H2F that did not have that military background. So what guidance and advice would you give them to help relate to build the bridge to really accelerate the buy-in? Because they're getting the job because they mean well and they know their stuff.
00:21:36
Speaker
So how do you connect to that person? Don't assume that what you think you've been hired for is what you were actually expected to do once you arrive.
00:21:49
Speaker
There's layers to why I say that. One is in this space, I don't think we've done the best job yet with writing job descriptions. I think a lot of people think they've been hired to either do what they did in a collegiate athletic setting to soldiers or to make soldiers into power lifters or to what i make soldiers into whatever ideal of an athlete they think it is. I think step one, especially if you haven't had any previous exposure to the military, you've got to learn the culture.
00:22:18
Speaker
Don't expect the military to change for you. You're going have to change for the military, right? i get at some like The program has a lot of contractors. The program has a lot of civilians. Neither of those are going to war when the balloon goes up.
00:22:31
Speaker
So the military is going to have to still be able to do its thing with or without you. you You provide an extra service and it's awesome and I love it. That's why I do this work. But don't expect them to just overnight flip a switch on the culture and do it the way you think it needs to be done.
00:22:48
Speaker
you gotta learn what you're fitting into as well. Yeah. And then same respect, because a big part of that position is being a 360 degree leader. You gotta lead down to your absolutely guys or training, work with your team on the same level, but then start leading up.
00:23:04
Speaker
And a sport coach and a general, those are oh yeah two different people. And i'll I'll use this opportunity to get go on a soapbox real quick. I hear the term buy-in all the time.
00:23:15
Speaker
um Buy-in isn't happening unless money is changing hands, right? Buy-in means payment, right? So people constantly look for buy-in from the soldiers.
00:23:28
Speaker
Soldiers are not the ones who are putting money into the program. You do need to look for buy-in from the people who write the checks that make the program happen. Those are your senior civilians, your generals, your members of Congress, things like that. So you gotta understand what they want and prove that you're providing that. That's where buy-in comes from, because they write the checks. You do want the soldiers to value the program and use it and get excited about it but that's different than buy-in.
00:23:54
Speaker
A lot of them don't intrinsically value the things you want them to care about. That's reality. And they're not going to.
Reality vs Perception in Military Training
00:24:01
Speaker
Understanding behavior change, understanding what does get them motivated, understanding the value you can add to for them is important.
00:24:08
Speaker
It's different than buy-in, though. I think I struggled with that early on in this. You walk into a private training facility just outside a military base, and everybody's excited, and everybody's into it, and they're trying really hard, and they have personal relationships with the coaches, and it's amazing.
00:24:23
Speaker
and you go into units on that base with just as qualified coaches and that energy isn't always there, there's a difference. The people off base are literally bought in. They paid their personal money to train as part of that program.
00:24:38
Speaker
That's what buy-in is. We are never going to have that in a tactical setting. if soldiers had to pay to use your program, a lot of them wouldn't be there. That's just reality. So you have to take a different approach. Yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
And I've heard you share that the military prioritizes being warriors over the process of becoming warriors. Oh, yeah. I'd love to highlight that because there's parallels to athletics as well.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah. um I remember when I was first making my way into the Army. High school, Alex, saw a really cool flyer for West Point. It had helicopters and obstacle courses and all this cool stuff. I'm like, I'll give it a shot.
00:25:17
Speaker
And I was pretty sure i would not make it through basic training.
00:25:21
Speaker
Got to basic training, or at least the version of it that I went to. Turned out to not be that hard, especially were in high school, cross country, you'll be fine. Even if you suck at high school, cross country, like me, you're ahead of a lot of people. um So then that ends and it's time to be a cadet at a West Point.
00:25:36
Speaker
And I was like, all right this is where they're gonna find out I'm a fraud. Not gonna make it. Got there, turns out normal people can hang, let's do it. Graduated from West Point, first assignment, infantry battalion. i was like, this is where they're gonna find out that I'm a joke who's like never lived up to the real expectations.
00:25:54
Speaker
And all of this was informed by like commercials and movies and documentaries about what the army is. I get to an infantry battalion, still regular dudes, like regular people that I can compete with and I can perform well against if I work hard.
00:26:07
Speaker
And that was, that comes back to the Nazareth syndrome stuff, the the marketing, the advertising always looks better than the real thing. And, and it's easy to cling to the warrior identity because it's sexy.
00:26:21
Speaker
Like you can put it on a tattoo. You can put it on a poster. You can put it on a commercial. That's awesome. Let's be warriors. Let's do the things warriors do. I saw this awesome guy do this awesome workout on a YouTube video. We're going to do that.
00:26:34
Speaker
The less sexy part is how many years of consistency it takes to be able to do that safely at a high level, effectively.
Readiness and Military Effectiveness
00:26:45
Speaker
against It's just not sexy to put in all the work. It's sexy to see the results and people want it much faster. You don't need to train the way the athlete you want to be trains now. You need to train the way the athlete you want to be trained when they were at the level you are currently at.
00:26:58
Speaker
And that might've been when they were seven. cause they've been training consistently since then and like haven't missed a week at all. And people forget that. oh we We talk a lot lately about like biometrics and wearable technology and all the things it offers.
00:27:14
Speaker
in In the program I work in, the utility of wearable devices that I have found most valuable is I can look at a calendar and see how many days in the month they did anything.
00:27:27
Speaker
Anything meaningful that was training oriented. most valuable metric right there. Are you participating? Are you trying? Are you consistent about it? Because the program doesn't matter if you're not doing anything more than like once or twice a week.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that that makes great sense. And then, man, dudes always get up for game day. And then they're like, practice is a chore, all this.
00:27:52
Speaker
yeah And it's like, dude, game day would be a hell of a lot more fun. Yeah. The better you are. 100%. just how do I reach these kids? Yeah, and I i remember struggling with it myself, because I did eight years active of duty.
00:28:04
Speaker
After my first assignment, I still had not deployed. um So when I went to career course, I asked to go to the unit that was next up to deploy. got that assignment, they canceled the deployment.
00:28:17
Speaker
And i I struggled a lot. And this is like part of my journey of like, do I stay in the army until I get to do the thing or do I get out and do what I want to do? it it was tough. And I still don't have a great answer to it I'm still in the reserve. So I have a halfway solution of kind of being in the army, kind of not keep that door open.
00:28:32
Speaker
But I had a really good conversation with a mentor. um He was my first battalion commander. He's a general now. And He reminded me that the army doesn't pay you to go to war.
00:28:47
Speaker
The army pays you to be ready to go to war. Whether it happens, barely relevant. The army pays you to be ready for it. And that's the unsexy day-to-day training meetings, going to the field,
00:29:04
Speaker
working out consistently, whatever it is, it's not sexy. There's never gonna be a ah documentary that everybody gets hyped for and goes to watch in theaters about being in garrison for a couple years and just training and then never going to combat.
00:29:17
Speaker
yeah But that's where it happens, that's the thing that matters is the training you did before you go do the thing, whether or not you get asked to do the thing. Yeah. is Is that communicated? Is the marketing still, hey, let's be awesome, get them in. And then is there a moment where it's like, gotcha.
00:29:37
Speaker
I mean, if you look at the way soldiers talk about recruiters, I think there is a mismatch between the reality and the sales. I think but that's natural. That happens everywhere. yeah Like when you're getting recruited for anything, they're going to paint a nicer picture than the reality is when you get there. In sports, you are... Oh, you're amazing. You're going start right away. No, you're not. Yeah, exactly.
00:29:58
Speaker
So I think that's inevitable that there's gonna be a little bit of that mismatch. um It took me...
00:30:06
Speaker
six plus years of active D before that even started to sink in. And i I still, there's still a part of me that wonders if I'm any good at doing Intel. Cause I've never done it against a real enemy on a real battlefield.
00:30:18
Speaker
I just haven't. And so you that that advertising and that messaging affects people and just like the sexiness is what gets people motivated. We can't ignore that. um But I think it is worth having conversations, especially today where we're not sending nearly as many people into active combat zones, but there are very serious geopolitical threats on the horizon that people need to be ready for and units need to be ready for.
00:30:43
Speaker
It is hard to keep people motivated in those transitional periods. We see it every time. every we We don't really get ready for the war until the war has already started. yeah And the same kind of thing applies to what you said about practice and game day. like People have an easier time showing up for game day, for deployment, for combat, than they do for practice.
Defining Military Fitness Goals
00:31:06
Speaker
and And trying to help people understand that consistency in practice, consistency in training, is what makes people able to perform yeah when the sexy thing happens.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, I love the Navy SEAL moniker that nobody rises to the occasion, you fall at the level of your training. So then I utilize conditioning as more of a a behavior shaper than like VO2 max and everything that Frankel talks about. I'm gonna give him hard time, he's a great guy. So ah yeah, and then that's what I'm shaping, because now That's the inevitable stress and challenge they'll face in the real world is getting emotional, getting fatigued, being tired and making responsible decisions under duress. Yeah, I think this is something Drew and I have been talking about exploring on the podcast soon. We haven't quite figured out the right way to do it, but for things that we need to measure the effectiveness of.
00:32:04
Speaker
I'm not quite sure that the military has even agreed on the intended purpose of physical training, right? A lot of strength and conditioning coaches will assume that the intended purpose of physical training is to improve measures like strength, like muscular endurance, like aerobic capacity, like anaerobic, whatever, all these easy to quantify physical attributes.
00:32:28
Speaker
And that's certainly part of it, but I don't think that's the whole thing. And there are a lot of leaders out there. you'll You'll hear all the time in the army, like PT is not supposed to make you better. It's just supposed to maintain. I disagree with that. I think if you're spending five, seven plus hours a week on it, you should probably make you better because that's a lot of training.
00:32:49
Speaker
But they have other ideas in their head of what it's supposed to achieve. Bonding within the team, giving junior leaders the opportunity to plan. facing adversity on a regular basis so you're used to it. In some places, it's just a way to do hard things out in the environment.
00:33:03
Speaker
A couple weeks ago, I was out at Fort Wainwright up in Alaska. And i in that place, going out and doing PT when it's zero, negative 10, negative 20, negative 60 sometimes,
00:33:16
Speaker
It's not necessarily about getting fitter. You might, you might not. Sometimes it's about doing hard physical things in the conditions you're going to have to do hard physical military things in, and it's just a way to practice it in a little bit more controlled environment.
Articulating Military Concepts
00:33:30
Speaker
So I don't know if we've defined our goal well enough to measure the effectiveness of the thing. And that's hard to do. Yeah. What I... can comically observe from the exterior is how the military grabs onto certain words that are sticky.
00:33:46
Speaker
Oh yeah. So resilience is a big one readiness in, in your humble opinion, like what words do you feel are overused misused and what do you feel is like a one word more appropriate manner that someone can embody to then, then effectively lead through.
00:34:10
Speaker
I don't think I'm going to be able to answer the second part of that question of like, what's a one word thing that people should focus on. If I had an answer to that, I'll be next conversation. yeah I'll give you time. It's homework. Next time we chat, I'll have figured out the one word that people need to focus on to, to solve this whole problem.
00:34:27
Speaker
Um, shout out. Nate Palin, we worked together in our day jobs. His whole presentation was on the overuse of those words, readiness, resilience, lethality. Lethality, that's another Yeah, lethality the latest one.
00:34:41
Speaker
And I think the the tough part of lethality is that it's easy to understand lethality for certain jobs in the military. And those are the jobs where human performance programs started, special operators, most specifically, but also infantrymen and things like that.
00:34:59
Speaker
Lethality becomes more and more conceptual or indirect the farther you get from those roles. And I think people outside the military might not realize how small a percentage of the total military is in combat roles. yeah And then even then, what a small percentage of the people in those combat roles ever actually fire their weapon at an enemy in direct combat.
00:35:25
Speaker
and it's more and more true the more you zoom out. time out text here at train heroic headquarters meeting with the team to talk about the coaching experience that i'm able to provide
00:35:47
Speaker
I'm delivering literally over tens of thousands of workouts to athletes, and Train Heroic allows me to provide the unique coaching experience that I want to. Uploading video, providing coaching feedback, directions, and building a community, that's why I love Train Heroic. And if you want to take your athletes where they can't take themselves, that they want to go, head to trainheroic.com slash captains and check out how you can deliver programming to them.
00:36:13
Speaker
And now, back to the show. Ready, ready, and
00:36:18
Speaker
Right? my My day job today is with the Space Force. These guys provide an incredible degree of lethality through the work they do. That work happens at a computer in a windowless room.
00:36:32
Speaker
Right? It's not the same. It's not kicking down doors. It's not pulling triggers. There is a baseline level of that that's required if you put on the uniform. because you may deploy into a hostile area where you have to defend yourself, you have to maneuver, you have to do those things.
00:36:46
Speaker
But their primary task is entirely technical. um it It makes things possible for the guys who kick in doors and pull triggers that would not otherwise be possible without a really long tail of technical and logistics and just all these other things that make lethality happen at the pointy end of the spear.
Team Dynamics in Sports and Military
00:37:06
Speaker
But how do you articulate lethality to a guy whose job happens on a computer That's tough. It's tough to measure. It's tough to articulate. It's tough to make it motivational. And why should that guy have to be physically fit if he can't picture a situation where physicality is going to make or break his ability to do the thing he does for the mission?
00:37:27
Speaker
and then It's hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's cool. i'm just thinking how would it aim to do that? And it there's roles on teams. a practice player, practice squad, you got a particular role. Freshman, you got a particular role.
00:37:43
Speaker
JV, varsity, all these different things. But as long as expectations are clear, they can prepare for a specific role. But then, that's why I love high school sports. Every year, you're graduating into a new role. Yeah.
00:37:56
Speaker
I think the roles thing is fun. I saw a great product, shout out Consortium for Health and Military Performance. They're like a ah research body at the DOD level that looks at military human performance. And I remember a presentation I got from some members of their team years ago, where you start adding layers of complexity.
00:38:15
Speaker
like i think the first example they used was like a crew team. Like how complicated is this task? How hard is it to understand the demands? There is some complexity, but it's pretty straightforward. You can measure the duration of the event. You can look at the muscles activated during it, all these things.
00:38:31
Speaker
There's still a team dynamic element and a coordination element that make it a little complicated, but it's fairly straightforward. Then switch to like a football team. Bunch different positions, do different things, duration of activity, somewhat predictable, but could vary. could have a play that lasts two seconds. could a play that lasts 30 seconds or more.
00:38:50
Speaker
a lot more complexity now. <unk> It's not just physical output. Now you have to contend with an opponent who might do unpredictable things. It's getting more complicated. And then you switch to a picture of a platoon maneuvering, right?
00:39:03
Speaker
That's a degree of complexity way beyond what we see on athletic fields. Yeah. Right? We don't know the environment they will operate in. It could the moments that matter could last seconds, they could last days.
00:39:18
Speaker
Everybody on the platoon has a different job, has a different level of experience, has a different level of fitness, their physical demands are not the same, they might train together, but their needs are different.
Cultural Challenges Over Physical Training
00:39:28
Speaker
In sport, you can mostly assume a similar archetype. yeah Like if you have a cross country team, it's a certain archetype genetically. If you have a football team, it's a certain archetype genetically. None of that is predictable in a military setting, that's all gone.
00:39:42
Speaker
the most important thing might be physical or it might be technical. You gotta do physical things and also communicate with a pilot in an aircraft on a radio. it's It's just a degree of complexity that I think when you when you initially get taught like the foundations of sports science or exercise science,
00:40:01
Speaker
they assume you can draw out like a an energy systems distribution of what somebody does or a strength requirements distribution of what somebody does. And that's just not gonna fly in almost any military setting. It's just that much more complicated.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, wild. those Those are fun problems to solve for a lot of people, I believe. And if I've learned anything, doing it for a few years, doing the podcast reviews, having conversations about these things, it's that it is not at the end of the day,
00:40:27
Speaker
Answering those questions about the physical capacities or how to train them that matter It's figuring out culture
Impactful War Films and Podcast Engagement
00:40:33
Speaker
that matters. Yeah and we tough And that is the same between sport and the military now we're talking all right some some fun things to close out on Favorite military army based war movie
00:40:50
Speaker
This is gonna not really connect with the whole physical fitness thing but and it's not like It's not my favorite for a fun reason. It's my because it was impactful. The Outpost.
00:41:03
Speaker
didn't know that one. It's based on Cop Keating. It's based on a book written about it. Multiple medals of honor won in this battle. Some of the guys who fought in the battle play themselves in the movie.
00:41:15
Speaker
I care about it because the story begins with intel, which is what I did when I was active duty. um If you're like me, you will cry when you watch it.
00:41:27
Speaker
It's pretty real. What stars are in it that... Honestly, I think the the stars that are in it are not actors. I don't even remember who the actors are that are in it. The stars that are in it are the soldiers that play themselves. Yeah. um My personal connection to it is that If you watch the movie, Doc Cordova um has been awarded for valor for his actions in it. He was the physician assistant on my knee surgery, um which is like a pretty hard thing to like. Yeah. Like you're telling me what to do at like post-op for my knee, but also you're a war hero. like
00:41:57
Speaker
This is complicated. So that was why I ended up reading the book after I got to know who he was. It's why I watched the movie because I read the book. um Yeah. Highly recommend. I will check that out. Yeah. me The credits song.
00:42:12
Speaker
i I tear up a little bit whenever I hear it, even if I'm not watching the movie. Okay. Yeah. Man. I'm in. I was expecting Fury. but Sorry. Fury's a good one, too. It influenced my haircut as a lieutenant. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:42:25
Speaker
Well, there we go. Dude, tell people where to follow the podcast, follow your writing so you still write amazing blogs, articles, and post them out. We write some blogs. it's A lot of the recent blogs that are really good are written by people who just send them to us. So people, if they have a good idea, they want to get out there, that's a great opportunity to do it.
00:42:42
Speaker
We accept guest submissions for the blog. But where to find us? um everything is mops and mo's m-o-p-s-n-m-o-e-s um you'll find us on every podcast platform all the normal ones you'll find us on the website podcasts with show notes are all on the website you'll find us on instagram um i i will add a caveat for the sake of my own mental health i do not really monitor the instagram dms that closely anymore for the first few years i i looked at every single one that was not a good
00:43:13
Speaker
Not a good way to live. Once it gets too big, it's a problem and people get too much access to you. So I will require people who want to reach out to take at least 10 seconds worth of extra effort before reaching out.
00:43:24
Speaker
Alex at mobsandmoes.com is my email or there's a contact form on the website. Boom. Yeah, man. Well, appreciate you. Yeah, no, appreciate you. We were running similar circulars for a long time, so then glad we had got the opportunity to absolutely connect and looking forward to more, man. so And appreciate the training session you led at the summit. It was some pretty cool stuff. it I definitely tweaked a little bit of the things I was doing after that.
00:43:46
Speaker
Yeah, just introducing different lanes and movements and preparation and then just assessment. If you could feel it. o Oh, I'm weak here. And if you if you figure out some of the stuff you were talking about in a really practical way, it's a ah really good framework for solving one of the classic military physical training problems, which is how do you train people of wildly diverse fitness levels and backgrounds together in the same training session and have everybody get an appropriate stimulus. Yeah.
00:44:14
Speaker
We're all following the same program, but then... yep Finding different ways. That that was the aim. Cool. Well, we got to get back to a conference. So appreciate you, man. And thank you for tuning in.
00:44:24
Speaker
And we'll see you next time. Thanks, Tex. See All right. Fireside Chats. Oh, yeah. Revealing the podcast, dude.