The Combat Athlete

I just returned from an amazing three day symposium on
training the combat athlete at Hurlburt Air force Base Florida. The focus was
on revising the curriculum throughout the pipeline of training
for the Air Force special Ops troops. I was never in the military so much of
what I saw and heard was new to me. It is an amazing culture of
physical and mental preparation with a laser like focus on building a team. All
the analogies about battle we use in sports are really cliché’s when you hear
and see preparation for real battle as these folks must fight. They are the
first ones in. They have to depend on their teammate’s not to make a block or a
pass but to save their lives. To their credit they recognize that their
training methods need to be up graded to reflect current best practice in the
world of elite sports and current research from sport science. That was the
purpose of the symposium. That being be said the focus and dedication was equivalent
to what I have seen at the highest level of elite sport.

This is food for thought – think of how you would prepare
for this scenario: You are notified via beeper that you are leaving in thirty
minutes. Your gear is packed and you do not know where you are going. When you arrive
you learn you are flying to Afghanistan. You fly 17 or 18 hours, get off the
plane, get on a helicopter and are flown to 12,000 in the Hindu Kush mountain
range. You get off the helicopter wearing 85 pounds of equipment and body armor
and then climb on trails to 16,00 feet of altitude to immediately engage the enemy
in a fire fight. You may stay there for four months or you may hike back down
and leave the next day. These guys are athletes!