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Study on training injuries reveals patterns among recruits and officer cadets

garb811 said:
I think it could also be beneficial if they were to dig into patterns within certain platoons. I've heard first hand about how different Pls have different "intensities" based on their DS and that certainly will affect injury rates as physical activities outside the official training syllabus are layered on.

Yup. BMQ DS do not necessarily have the knowledge or skills to properly develop recruits physically, so probably need some  training themselves, as well as making sure that properly qualified staff manage/ lead more complex programs.

I've run hundreds of recruits through training but never had one minute of training myself in anything related to physical training science or practice. We were just expected to follow the program pick it up along the way, unlike most everything else we trained people for such as navigation, skill at arms etc.

Casualties? We just shuffled them off to the MIR and carried on...
 
cld617 said:
Very very few [females] achieve the same standards as fit males in strength, this is where the training focus needs to be.
Curiosity:  why does the focus need to be on strength? 

Once upon a time, I was in a regiment that had no shortage of guys who could bench-press a truck.... but we seemed to spend an awful lot of time running -- and not sleeping -- usually in swamps.


Rucking was pretty common in filling out morning PT too, but once in the field, having gotten to 'Point A,' everyone emptied all the support weapon ammo and radio batteries out of their ruck, which tended to get ditched at the RV;  spare kit: dry socks, fleece, toque/bug net went in pockets not filled with pers ammo.  ;)
 
Journeyman said:
Curiosity:  why does the focus need to be on strength? 

Because strength along with structural differences between the genders are often the biggest bridges to gap. Aerobic capacities once trained become more similar, however even in trained females the strength differences are still significant. Even once those rucks are stripped down and you're walking around with 40lbs, the male who's now walking around with a ruck that is at 1/6th his max squat capacity is going to work much less than the female who's is at 1/4th her's, this directly translates to alleviated stress accumulation and in turn less injury. Even running has a strength component to it, both in providing momentum and reducing stress. There's a reason nearly every trip to a physiotherapist has you leaving with a list of exercises to accomplish, strength training is pivotal in overcoming and prevent injury.

I'm not suggesting women try and get a 225lb bench press, but I am suggesting they get a 225lb squat. They need to build functional strength levels that their peers are already at.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3633121
 
[quote author=Journeyman]

Once upon a time, I was in a regiment that had no shortage of guys who could bench-press a truck.... but we seemed to spend an awful lot of time running -
[/quote]



45041693-464432087419110-3771577929859858432-n.jpg


;D
 
[quote author=daftandbarmy]
I've run hundreds of recruits through training but never had one minute of training myself in anything related to physical training science or practice. We were just expected to follow the program pick it up along the way, unlike most everything else we trained people for such as navigation, skill at arms etc.

[/quote]

The last leadership course I taught on had a checked out psp guy give classes on the proper way to run a pt session the students had to pass a Po check running a pt session. Worked in theory. In practice a little bit of the value was lost because the whole course was tested over two days and it was just a meat grinder back to back 20 minute pt sessions.

Still I thought the instruction was pretty good. I think I'd like it if we had what the British army still has and our own pt instructor trade.
 
Jarnhamar said:
I think I'd like it if we had what the British army still has and our own pt instructor trade.

In the mid 90s we chose musicians over fitness instructors as a continued military trade...
 
dapaterson said:
In the mid 90s we chose musicians over fitness instructors as a continued military trade...
Are you actually implying that we should have kept a support trade that had no war-fighting role, at all?  :Tin-Foil-Hat:

While there were some awesome PERIs, there were also more than a few who believed the only reason for the trade was so they could partake of a better sports scholarship than hockey players in a Bn.
 
A pretty decent article on US army fitness by Mark Rippetoe, the author of Starting Strength:

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/heavier-kit-stronger-soldiers/?fbclid=IwAR0xUr4P16AWoDxIefBguwNw2CY4RlA6DF4VdcKA9e_j2LJzTX6HMjlCSrI

Heavier Kit? Stronger Soldiers!
BY MARK RIPPETOE DECEMBER 31, 2018

An article last week in Popular Mechanics lamented the fact that today's soldiers are being asked to carry ever-heavier loads of squad and personal equipment, even as advances in battlefield technology continue apace with modern warfare. Our friend Glenn Reynolds thought I might have something to say about this, and amazingly enough I do.

It seems odd to me that an entire article could be written about how heavier-than-ever kit must be carried by combat infantry without once using the word "stronger." The actual weight of the components of battlefield munitions is examined in excruciating detail, from batteries to bullets, from body armor to water, from communications to medical gear, as are the efforts to minimize its weight through technology. Strategies to help soldiers carry increasing loads were listed -- track vehicle "mules," motorized exoskeletons, and various robotic options are discussed, but by the end of the piece no plans for dealing with the problem had been announced. It was observed that "[a] soldier carries 100 pounds of the lightest kit imaginable."

The fundamental problem here is quite simple, as is its solution: Soldiers are not strong enough to carry a heavier kit, and as long as military physical training remains rooted in pushups, situps, and running, PT will be inadequate to the task of producing a stronger soldier. The solution is to address basic training from a strength approach and to leave subsequent conditioning to the discretion of the company command team based on the needs of their unit's assignment. Essentially all of it now is conditioning, with no barbell strength requirement in place at the basic training level.

To be sure, the Army seems to understand that it should address this problem. But their response has been typical of a military bureaucracy: leave 90% in place and take the lowest bid on the 10% that gets the chop. My suggestion is quite radical, highly effective, quite inexpensive, immediately productive, easily implemented, safer than endurance-based training, and as a result will never even be considered. I'll share it with you.

The vast majority of military recruits are young men. These people are plagued with poisonous levels of natural testosterone. Instead of running them into the ground, let's make them stronger by implementing a correctly designed and performed barbell-based strength program as the primary PT modality for basic training.

It is perfectly normal to take an 18-year-old kid from no deadlift at all to 400 pounds in six months, with comparable increases in all the other strength indices. This will be accompanied by an increase in useful muscle mass of anywhere from 20 to 30 pounds. I have done it professionally for 40 years, and it is not complicated if you understand the simple accumulative effect of adding five pounds to an exercise performed three days per week. If you have absolute control over the training and dietary environment of an 18-year-old kid -- as you do in basic training -- there is absolutely no reason why every male in the military cannot become at least two or three times as strong as they are under the current paradigm.

Barbells are very cheap. They don't use a lot of space. They are far more portable than exercise machines. Each barbell has multiple functions -- they are not single-purpose devices. They are easy to learn how to use, and they are relatively easy to learn how to coach. They are quite a bit safer to use if properly implemented. Stress fractures are quite common among runners and virtually unheard of in barbell training, and in the military they are the equivalent of low-back pain in the general population. The DoD spends about $500 million per year on musculoskeletal injuries, about 80% of which are overuse injuries like stress fractures. The hilarious thing is that strength training specifically prevents these types of injuries, even though the conventional wisdom holds that it is dangerous.

Conditioning develops very quickly, whereas strength takes time. Moving two miles with a 100-pound kit is a strength performance in that each step is a submaximal display of strength. It should be obvious that a 400-pound deadlift translates into a much easier two-mile transit than a 200-pound deadlift would enable. Since conditioning comes on quickly (ever hear of two-a-days?), if we need to train for it within a short time frame we can. Strength takes longer, but it lasts longer once it's acquired, and so it should be prioritized since it enables ground combat personnel to function more effectively.

Modern soldiers are not runners, or even walkers anymore. Mechanization has taken the place of the 20-mile march. But it is very important to understand that a strength-trained 18-year-old kid can still run quite effectively without wasting time by running as PT. You all know a strong kid who can run anyway. He can run accidentally. He doesn't need to waste time running when he can be training for the much more useful capacity of strength.

If Heavy is the problem, Strong is the solution. And you don't get strong while running. We are wasting the strength potential of every man in the service by misunderstanding the nature of this problem. It can be addressed by the systematic application of the correct PT. Unfortunately, I'm not in charge.
 
I'm a big believer is barbell-based strength training as a core of any physical training regime.  It is simple (you only need to master a half-dozen movements), it's flexible, its progressive, and it produces results.  In the military, it is something that can be done collectively.

I think one of the problems is that using barbells doesn't convey the same image as what Rippetoe has labelled "conditioning."  If I run a platoon through barbell training, their muscles are sore, but they aren't panting and sweating as much as if they went out for a 5km run.  That can be perceived by some as "lazy."
 
Brihard said:
A pretty decent article on US army fitness by Mark Rippetoe, the author of Starting Strength:

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/heavier-kit-stronger-soldiers/?fbclid=IwAR0xUr4P16AWoDxIefBguwNw2CY4RlA6DF4VdcKA9e_j2LJzTX6HMjlCSrI

Heavier Kit? Stronger Soldiers!
BY MARK RIPPETOE DECEMBER 31, 2018

An article last week in Popular Mechanics lamented the fact that today's soldiers are being asked to carry ever-heavier loads of squad and personal equipment, even as advances in battlefield technology continue apace with modern warfare. Our friend Glenn Reynolds thought I might have something to say about this, and amazingly enough I do.

It seems odd to me that an entire article could be written about how heavier-than-ever kit must be carried by combat infantry without once using the word "stronger." The actual weight of the components of battlefield munitions is examined in excruciating detail, from batteries to bullets, from body armor to water, from communications to medical gear, as are the efforts to minimize its weight through technology. Strategies to help soldiers carry increasing loads were listed -- track vehicle "mules," motorized exoskeletons, and various robotic options are discussed, but by the end of the piece no plans for dealing with the problem had been announced. It was observed that "[a] soldier carries 100 pounds of the lightest kit imaginable."

The fundamental problem here is quite simple, as is its solution: Soldiers are not strong enough to carry a heavier kit, and as long as military physical training remains rooted in pushups, situps, and running, PT will be inadequate to the task of producing a stronger soldier. The solution is to address basic training from a strength approach and to leave subsequent conditioning to the discretion of the company command team based on the needs of their unit's assignment. Essentially all of it now is conditioning, with no barbell strength requirement in place at the basic training level.

To be sure, the Army seems to understand that it should address this problem. But their response has been typical of a military bureaucracy: leave 90% in place and take the lowest bid on the 10% that gets the chop. My suggestion is quite radical, highly effective, quite inexpensive, immediately productive, easily implemented, safer than endurance-based training, and as a result will never even be considered. I'll share it with you.

The vast majority of military recruits are young men. These people are plagued with poisonous levels of natural testosterone. Instead of running them into the ground, let's make them stronger by implementing a correctly designed and performed barbell-based strength program as the primary PT modality for basic training.

It is perfectly normal to take an 18-year-old kid from no deadlift at all to 400 pounds in six months, with comparable increases in all the other strength indices. This will be accompanied by an increase in useful muscle mass of anywhere from 20 to 30 pounds. I have done it professionally for 40 years, and it is not complicated if you understand the simple accumulative effect of adding five pounds to an exercise performed three days per week. If you have absolute control over the training and dietary environment of an 18-year-old kid -- as you do in basic training -- there is absolutely no reason why every male in the military cannot become at least two or three times as strong as they are under the current paradigm.

Barbells are very cheap. They don't use a lot of space. They are far more portable than exercise machines. Each barbell has multiple functions -- they are not single-purpose devices. They are easy to learn how to use, and they are relatively easy to learn how to coach. They are quite a bit safer to use if properly implemented. Stress fractures are quite common among runners and virtually unheard of in barbell training, and in the military they are the equivalent of low-back pain in the general population. The DoD spends about $500 million per year on musculoskeletal injuries, about 80% of which are overuse injuries like stress fractures. The hilarious thing is that strength training specifically prevents these types of injuries, even though the conventional wisdom holds that it is dangerous.

Conditioning develops very quickly, whereas strength takes time. Moving two miles with a 100-pound kit is a strength performance in that each step is a submaximal display of strength. It should be obvious that a 400-pound deadlift translates into a much easier two-mile transit than a 200-pound deadlift would enable. Since conditioning comes on quickly (ever hear of two-a-days?), if we need to train for it within a short time frame we can. Strength takes longer, but it lasts longer once it's acquired, and so it should be prioritized since it enables ground combat personnel to function more effectively.

Modern soldiers are not runners, or even walkers anymore. Mechanization has taken the place of the 20-mile march. But it is very important to understand that a strength-trained 18-year-old kid can still run quite effectively without wasting time by running as PT. You all know a strong kid who can run anyway. He can run accidentally. He doesn't need to waste time running when he can be training for the much more useful capacity of strength.

If Heavy is the problem, Strong is the solution. And you don't get strong while running. We are wasting the strength potential of every man in the service by misunderstanding the nature of this problem. It can be addressed by the systematic application of the correct PT. Unfortunately, I'm not in charge.

Hit the nail on the head.  Conditioning is so easy it should be the last thing a soldier focuses on.  More important is strength, speed & agility and flexibility.

The problem is these things are hard to coach and require time and proper planning to get right. 

A proper strength training program needs a minimum of 90min (120 min is better) to complete correctly with adequate rest built in between sets.

The military would need to drastically change it's philosophy on unit PT and the entire CAF would need a radical culture change for this to be implemented properly.

The only place I've even seen this sort of thing in the CAF are at Light Bns and Special Units. 

When I was at a Bn, I worked out for a minimum of 2hrs everyday.  A mix of powerlifting, boxing and circuit training with tires, jerry cans, sandbags and sledgehammers. This was only possible because my former CO (who is now retired) was a huge proponent of physical fitness and mandated that fitness was to be done until 10 o'clock every day by everyone (including himself) no exceptions.




 
Infanteer said:
I'm a big believer is barbell-based strength training as a core of any physical training regime.  It is simple (you only need to master a half-dozen movements), it's flexible, its progressive, and it produces results.  In the military, it is something that can be done collectively.

I think one of the problems is that using barbells doesn't convey the same image as what Rippetoe has labelled "conditioning."  If I run a platoon through barbell training, their muscles are sore, but they aren't panting and sweating as much as if they went out for a 5km run.  That can be perceived by some as "lazy."

Put 4x45lb plates on a prowler and have those "runners" push them a 100m 10x and then see if they still think it's "lazy".
 
Maybe it's time to transition basic training into it's own respective elements, have Army instructors run Army candidates, Air Force for Air Force etc etc. What good is it having RCAF and RCN recruits train like the Army - scale obstacle courses and endlessly walk with ruck sacks. The Army already does a great job of destroying the body of a soldier, I see re-musters every year with guys in their late 20s to mid 30s who have shoulder, hip, back, knee problems that will likely translate to VAC claims. Do we really need to train everyone the same, even in basic training, considering how drastically different deployments and careers will be for the three elements?






 
Most of the rucking is gone from BMQ. Maybe instead of splitting the services back up, we put an emphasis back on fitness and healthy lifestyle?

Yeah, the Army breaks people physically. The RCAF breaks people financially (Cold Lake) and the RCN breaks people mentally (constant deployments if you're sea fit). Pick your poison. :facepalm:
 
PuckChaser said:
Most of the rucking is gone from BMQ. Maybe instead of splitting the services back up, we put an emphasis back on fitness and healthy lifestyle?

Yeah, the Army breaks people physically. The RCAF breaks people financially (Cold Lake) and the RCN breaks people mentally (constant deployments if you're sea fit). Pick your poison. :facepalm:

Fitness and Healthy Lifestyle.  Wouldn't that be just Grand?

We could easily do it if we wanted to, there is zero will to change; however.

 
Quirky said:
Maybe it's time to transition basic training into it's own respective elements, have Army instructors run Army candidates, Air Force for Air Force etc etc. What good is it having RCAF and RCN recruits train like the Army - scale obstacle courses and endlessly walk with ruck sacks. The Army already does a great job of destroying the body of a soldier, I see re-musters every year with guys in their late 20s to mid 30s who have shoulder, hip, back, knee problems that will likely translate to VAC claims. Do we really need to train everyone the same, even in basic training, considering how drastically different deployments and careers will be for the three elements?

Good idea.

IIRC that the FORCE Fit test is a reasonable requirement for everyone. Beyond that, it's probably important to tailor our fitness training approaches more specifically to each arm and service.

I can't believe that it's outside the realms of the reasonably possible, given that we already have a well developed system of tailoring other kinds of training accordingly.
 
Funny that we live in a country where everyone is categorized, sub-categorized, and hyphenated into ever shrinking special interest groups, but the idea of soldiers training soldiers, sailors training sailors, and airpersons training airpersons is horrifying.
 
Infanteer said:
I think one of the problems is that using barbells doesn't convey the same image as what Rippetoe has labelled "conditioning."  If I run a platoon through barbell training, their muscles are sore, but they aren't panting and sweating as much as if they went out for a 5km run.  That can be perceived by some as "lazy."

Which is exactly why physical training needs to be stripped from unqualified pers to teach, beyond administering a strictly controlled regime written by a professional.
 
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