MOPs & MOEs

Sometimes Instagram drama can be productive, and this conversation is proof. After joining in on a classic MOPs & MOEs debate about periodization, Dr Jordan Feigenbaum of Barbell Medicine joined us on the podcast to continue the conversation. While "Doctor of Medicine" might overshadow the rest of his certifications, his perspective is uniquely shaped by the rest of the list which includes Cer...

The Future Soldier Prep Course, an effort to help aspiring soldiers meet the physical and academic standards for enlistment, has received a lot of media attention lately. As always, there are plenty of critics on the internet, but there's also a tremendous amount of potential if something like this is executed well. We went straight to the source for this episode: Remey is directly responsible for...

Our guest on this episode is Rob Orr, who was just honored as the Tactical Strength and Conditioning Professional of the Year! Rob leads the Tactical Research Unit at Bond University in Queensland, Australia, and continues to serve in the Australian Army Reserve. His active duty career started as an infantryman, led to becoming a physical training instructor, and ultimately becoming a physiotherap...

David DeGroot's Army journey from enlisted soldier to senior research physiologist provides him a unique perspective on how we approach health and fitness. He describes himself as a mediocre scientist, but looking at his publication record we disagree. In addition to numerous studies on heat (and cold) exposure, he has published research on postpartum recovery, body composition, and fitness assess...

Lots of you ask questions on the MOPs & MOEs social media platforms that require more in depth answers than it's possible to provide in a quick DM or comment. This episode is our first hack at collecting some of the most frequently asked questions and providing the thorough answers they deserve. Topics in this episode include what programs we do (and don't) recommend, why MOPs & MOEs hasn'...

Many of you have sent in articles or asked questions about the news around Space Force's fitness test (or lack thereof), so we thought we'd bring on an expert to talk about what they're doing. Shep is currently the Senior Human Performance Specialist at the United States Space Force. His three decade career in human performance has spanned everything from orthopedic rehab to world class athletics....

Alec Blenis is a lot of things: Georgia Tech physics grad, former professional Spartan Racer and competitive ultramarathoner, current Murph world record holder, Instagram Q&A master, and coach at Complete Human Performance. With a background like that, it makes sense that he specializes in coaching people who also want to do a lot of things. Specifically, he coaches people who are looking to p...

There is probably not a Human Performance demographic that Coach Taysom hasn’t had experience with at this point. He's trained everyone from children to Olympians and NFL players, he's taught high school and college classes, he's worked in senior care and of course the tactical setting. The program he built at Fort Carson, initially known as the Tactical Athlete Program (TAP) and later the Ironhor...

We recorded this presentation just prior to a briefing Dan Bornstein gave to Congress on the threat to national security posed by the physical inactivity of America's youth. The briefing discussed the ways that the National Physical Activity Plan, of which Dan is the Chair for the Military Sector, proposes to address these challenges. In 2012, after many years training athletes, Dan completed his...

Vince Paikowski has multiple combat deployments with the 75th Ranger Regiment, won the Best Ranger Competition in 2021 with his partner Alastair Keys, and has been involved in overhauling how the best teams now prepare for the competition. Teams using his training framework recently took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th in the 2022 competition. Vince's training approach has been heavily influenced...

On this episode we welcome Drew's hero to the conversation: Dr. John Kiely. He established himself as a serious athlete with several Irish national championships in kickboxing and Muay Thai and ultimately won the Irish heavyweight boxing championship twice. After his competitive career he set out on his career in strength and conditioning which has taken him to the highest levels of sport in Europ...

Chris Pokorny is a chaplain with Air Force Special Operations Command, and in addition to his Master of Divinity, also has a Master of Social Work degree. It doesn't hurt that he also observes weightlifting as a spiritual discipline, which undoubtedly helped him integrate with the human performance teams he has been a part of in his military career. His dual credentials mean he's very passionate a...

Sleep is foundational. Insufficient sleep compromises almost everything: marksmanship, leadership, interpersonal skills, decision making, weight loss, and of course physical performance. For this episode, we have an awesome conversation about sleep for tactical professionals with one of the foremost experts in the field. On top of being one of the Army's few active duty neuroscientists, Allison Br...

We invited Chris McNamara onto the pod to talk about assessments in tactical strength and conditioning. Chris is both a seasoned special operations leader and an accomplished athlete and coach. He's the owner of Evolution Athletics, a training facility near Fort Bragg that is home to some incredible athletes, and he's also an accomplished emergency medical professional with numerous combat deploym...

What makes training "tactical"? Is it working out in a uniform? Is it wearing body armor? Is rucking tactical? So many questions, and so few clear answers. In this episode we discuss the concept of "tactical PT" and why the lack of a clear definition is such a problem. Don't want to listen to the full episode? Here's the secret: it's all about what you wear. If you look tactical when you do it, th...

From starting out as a D1 collegiate swimmer to coaching Olympic medalists to training operators for the most elite selections, Scott Johnston has a lot of experience when it comes to knowing how to produce high performance. A core element of his methodology is a massive emphasis on aerobic base building, and his results speak for themselves. In the most recent Best Ranger Competition six of the t...

A month ago a study on injury prediction technology was released that got the tactical human performance space EXTREMELY riled up. Today, we have the authors of that study on to discuss what they found and the state of the search for the injury prediction holy grail. This team has done some serious work with Air Force Special Warfare to put the latest technology to the test, and as the military pu...

Do pedometers work in space? As the Space Force works to implement a wearable device-driven fitness standard, we're here to ask the important questions. Join us as we discuss all this and more. From types of data to influencing behavior change, this episode is an overarching conversation on the various applications of technology in the tactical human performance space, with a critical look at when...

Evan Peikon is a physiologist & bioscientist who focuses on human performance, including consulting for elite athletes and military special operations. If you've read any of his content you know he has a particular interest in how the body utilizes oxygen, and how better understanding that can enhance our training protocols. Our conversation is all about changing paradigms in tactical strength...

You guys have nutrition questions, but we aren't nutrition experts, so we called one in to help out! Sam Leyh is a Performance Dietitian working in Air Force Special Warfare. Listen to this episode to learn how abs are made at Burger King and why you start sweating if you eat too much meat. There might be some other more useful content too, but it will be mixed in with plenty of bad food puns. Spo...

Our guest on this episode, Brendon Huttmann, recently transitioned into tactical human performance after a long and accomplished career in professional baseball.  He held major league strength and conditioning and sports science positions with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Los Angeles Dodgers after working his way up through minor league jobs with the Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, and...

In this episode we take on the classic question: which is more important for tactical athletes, strength or endurance? For once we have an answer that's better than "it depends," but it also took us down a few rabbit holes. Luckily the conversation brought out a few really valuable points that we hope you'll find useful in your training. Or maybe it will just make you mad, in which case we look fo...

In our first full episode we have a conversation with the one and only Nate Palin about whether "tactical athlete" is a useful term. Nate has been a big part of shaping what tactical strength and conditioning is today, and offers a great perspective. Are tactical professionals athletes? Is the athlete mindset helpful in a tactical environment? Can coaches expect the same things from tactical profe...

Welcome to the MOPs & MOEs podcast! In this pilot episode we'll introduce ourselves, explain what the "MOPs & MOEs" concept is all about, and lay out the way ahead for the podcast. This is where we'll have the longer form conversations that social media doesn't really allow for.  MOPs & MOEs on IG: https://www.instagram.com/mops_n_moes/ MOPs & MOEs on FB: https://www.facebook....