THE TOP 5 MOBILITY EXERCISES FOR AVOIDING COMBAT TRAINING INJURIES

https://www.onnit.com/academy/the-top-5-mobility-exercises-for-avoiding-combat-training-injuries/

Last year I had the privilege of taking a trip to Hunter Army Airfield with Coach Scott Sonnon to teach the TACFIT system to members of the160th SOAR, a.k.a. The Night Stalkers. The 160th is most elite helicopter unit in any military. They have the responsibility of flying the most dangerous missions, often in the middle of the night, which is how they earned the name. When Green Berets, SEALs, Rangers and Delta Force units are on the job, they are often inserted or extracted by the men of the 160th. One of the most famous incidents that the Night Stalkers were involved in was made into a blockbuster movie called “Black Hawk Down.” More recently, they were involved in Operation Neptune Spear which resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden.

As soon as the training started, it was easy to see why these guys are some of the best; the intensity in the room was undeniable and not one person even considered taking a break during any of the work sets. That makes sense considering the motto of this elite military unit: Night Stalkers Don’t Quit! Based on the amount of drive these guys demonstrated, my responsibility as a coach was more about slowing the training tempo down rather than driving them to work harder. Based on my experience with this unit and their ability to work hard through discomfort, it is easy to see why the Borden Institute’s Textbook of Military Medicine states:

“As a consequence of their intense physical training, both basic training and combat unit populations have a high incidence of exercise-related injury. Numerous studies of military trainees have documented the high risk of exerciserelated injuries, ranging from 14% to 42% among men and from 27% to 61.7% among women. Most injuries are to the lower extremities, and most of these are overuse injuries.”

The Most Common Injuries Among Men and Women in the Same Army Basic Combat Training Program

Injury Rank Among Men / Women 1. Low back pain / Muscle Strain 2. Tendinitis / Stress Fracture 3. Sprain / Sprain 4. Muscle Strain / Tendinitis 5. Stress Fracture / Overuse knee injury Data Source: Jones BH, Bovee MW, Harris JM 3d, Cowan DN. Intrinsic risk factors for exercise-related injuries among male and female army trainees. Am J Sports Med. 1993;21:705–710.

According to the Borden Institutes Textbook, many of these men and women are injured as a result of working hard in an effort to be mission ready, with the majority of these injuries occurring in the lower extremities and back. With so much value placed on long distance runs and ruck marches loaded with gear in military training, these overuse and stress injuries can seem inevitable. The solution to reduce the propensity towards injury is not evident since exercise is both a necessary element of preparation and the cause of many injuries. They define the challenging nature of this problem by stating:

“The need for fitness and the requisite physical training to maintain missionreadiness, the burden and impact of training injuries, and the protective effects of fitness in preventing subsequent injuries result in a complex and dynamic matrix of competing requirements. Understanding this matrix and optimizing the competing requirements is a difficult challenge for military policymakers, planners, commanders, and medical personnel. Nonetheless, only coordinated, well-planned, and multifaceted approaches based on an understanding of the many factors involved will have a positive impact on reducing the levels of injuries.”

The solution to this problem must therefore reduce the chance for injury while maintaining the effectiveness of training and be optimized to meet competing requirements. Most fitness programs fall short in the ability to address so many concerns and account for the specific needs of any tactical operator. That is until TACFIT, the first tacticallyspecific fitness program was designed by Coach Scott Sonnon. The TACFIT system is revolutionary in its primary focus shift of training from performance to recovery. The good news about this shift is that performance is not sacrificed. In fact, individual performance skyrockets as a result of this change.

The injury prevention aspect of the TACFIT system is the result of specific recovery through the use of joint mobility exercises and what we call compensatory movement. The goal of these modalities of training are to increase range of motion, joint health, spatial awareness, condition various connective tissues, and unload the structure of training stress. The result is the ability to train longer, harder and more often while reducing the chance for overuse injury. In other words, TACFIT is the coordinated, well-planned and multifaceted approach that is optimized just for what the military wants!

Coach Sonnon borrows the theory that it is not strength or size that determines the victor in combat but the ability to effectively cycle through what is called the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide & Act) loop. The ability to cycle through this process quickly requires a particular level of mental and physical agility and efficiency. The following workout was designed to meet the needs of military operators to unload their hips and spine from overuse in the line of duty. It is an example of how TACFIT can be tailored to meet the specific needs of a group or individual.

TACFIT Workout

The following workout The following six exercises will be done in 20/10 x 8 format. You will perform 8 rounds of 20 seconds of work with 10 second rest periods and rest for one minute before starting the next exercise. Each exercise is scored by the lowest number of reps achieved in any of the 8 work sets. Total score for the workout is the sum of all scored rounds.

1. Shinbox Switch w/Hip Extension
2. Split Squat w/OH Roll
3. Knee Through
4. Bear Squat
5. Kneeling Arm Thread
6. Spinal Rock

Shinbox Switch with Hip Extension

Split Squat with Roll

Knee Through

Bear Squat

Kneeling Arm Thread