Tactical athletes MUST be a jack of all trades. They face the unknown every day. Fundamental movement skills will help them build a broad athletic platfom for them to become more athletic overall. All of this starts with the warm-up...
Traditionally, the warm-up for military PT is a complete waste of time. The days of the "hamstring stretch standing" are hopefully dead in military formations of today. While the Army's new PT program has attempted to fix the problems of the past, it is still lagging behind and some units are still using static stretching. I have said it before…our military tactical athletes are athletes and should be treated as such. I understand that a PT formation has its need for accountability and general disciple/order. But, at a certain point, when those formations are then handed off to the platoon/team/small group size, leaders need to then take into consideration how they can help their soldiers physically perform and excel.
First, is to design a proper warm-up. A good way to carry out a good/general PT warm-up would be to do something very similar to the way collegiate athletes, and good crossfit boxes run their warm-up. Things to take into consideration and what you want to try to implement are: a good general dynamic warm-up, some mobility drills, and movement specific preparation/training.
An example of a warm-up would be:
-5 min light jog, or something to gets the heart rate up
-10 min of mobility work (open up hips, shoulders, ankles, etc…again, should be movement specific). Use bands if available, or in a future post we will discus IMD (improvised mobility devices). Save the soft tissue work for your recovery as it doesn't fire the CNS.
-10 min on dynamic movement and movement specific preparation (if there is a upper body focus that day, work on opening up the arm, shoulder, and reinforce what good movement should look like….of if you are doing a long run, work on some running drills you can find over at crossfitendurance.com/run)
Some example of dynamic movements you could incorporate:
(all movements going about 20 yards each)
-inchworm
-walking lunges and reverse lunges
-A-skips
-knee hugs
-high knees
-power jumps
-leg swings (frankenstein walk)
-karaoke
-butt kicks
-bear crawls (regular or stiff legged)
-spiderman crawl
There are a ton of other drills that you can research. I prefer to pair a slower drill with a faster drill and alternate. For example: inchworm 20 yards one way, then butt kicks back 20 yards. All of these will help your soldiers general athleticism and help to prevent injuries. Also, it will let your soldiers know that you take their fitness and performance seriously, and show them you care and see them as the tactical athletes they are.
