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I'll spell that to you because it's not as you
think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing, and this week I have
an incredibly powerful and unique conversation
for you. I am joined by CrossFit endurance guru
Chris Hinshaw, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Nick
Gregson, and strength and conditioning coach
for the U .S. Marines Kelsey Mead. Now, in this
conversation, we have three different perspectives
when it comes to fitness and strength conditioning
within our warfighters, the overall condition
of the general population, recruitment, and then
most importantly, raising the bar within the
military. Now, Nick is one of the creators of
the fittest instructor competition within the
Marines, where they get their best strength coaches,
bring them together, and then get them to compete
against each other whilst continually being coached,
with the ultimate end goal being open -minded
to all elements of coaching and raising the bar
within their own organization. Now, before we
get to this incredibly powerful conversation,
as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe
to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find. And this is a free library of
well over a thousand episodes now. So all I ask
in return is that you help share these incredible
men and women's stories. so I can get them to
every single person on planet Earth who needs
to hear them. So with that being said, I introduce
to you Chris Hinshaw, Nick Gregson, and Kelsey
Mead. Enjoy. Well, Kelsey and Nick, I want to
start by saying thank you so much for coming
on the Behind the Shield podcast. We're going
to be joined by Chris Hinshaw when he frees up.
But right now, I just want to welcome the both
of you onto the show today. Thank you for having
me. Yeah, thanks very much. All right. So very
first question, where on planet Earth are we
finding you this afternoon? Quantico, Virginia.
Marine Corps Base Quantico. Same. All right.
I think the best way for us to do this is Chris
has been on the show before, so people would
have listened to that and know who he is if they've
listened to the episode. Let's start with each
of you. We'll get a little background, your journey
into strength and conditioning, wearing uniform,
and then we'll progress forward from there. So
Kelsey, let's start with you. Talk to me about
your journey into training the collegiate and
sporting athlete, and then let's walk forward
to how you found yourself on the military side.
When I was in school doing my undergrad, I had
declared athletic training as my major because
I wanted to do something with sports, but I didn't
know what I wanted to do. And I had no idea that
strength and conditioning was a job that I could
do. And I didn't know that until I took a couple
elective classes that were literally strength
and conditioning. My degree happened to require
an internship, and I looked at a bunch of coaches
that I did know, and I started working with Mike
Boyle. I chose an internship with him at his
facility up in Massachusetts. I'm from New England,
so essentially I went back home for my internship.
And that internship changed everything. I started
to really realize that this was a full career.
When I graduated, I went and worked at the University
of New Hampshire as an intern as well. So I was
working for free. I was working a bunch of other
jobs to pay for rent and all the other things.
And they kept me on for quite a while. I went
to grad school and I was a graduate assistant
strength coach at Boston University. And that
decision was because if I was going to choose
to be a collegiate strength coach, I was going
to have to have a graduate assistantship. Like
you really can't get a job as a college strength
coach without going to grad school. So a friend
of mine was already at the program at Boston
University and he spoke so highly of it. So I
said, I guess I'm going to Boston. And they took
me on for two years as a GA. And after that,
I was like, where do I go? Because the collegiate
world is really small. It's really hard to get
a job. And I'd always wanted to work with the
military somehow. My dad was in the military.
I've got family in the military. So I said, why
don't I figure out if this is a thing? Turns
out it is. And I've been doing tactical strength
conditioning now for 10 years, almost. It took
a long time to get from figuring out that it
was a job to doing what I'm doing now. What was
your educational experience like? The reason
I asked, I did sports science in University of
North London. I did my exercise physiology, finished
up my bachelor's in University of Florida. And
sadly, what I realized in a lot of. sports science
experts kind of programs is it kind of grooms
you to be in the lab. So really to then teach
sports science in higher education versus giving
you the tools to actually get on that code for,
excuse me, that road for coaching. What was your
specific path? And if you were a queen for a
day, what would you change to prepare young men
and women for the coaching environment? So I'm
actually really lucky in that I didn't have science
based. programs at all my undergrad um is in
exercise support and health education um and
it was very broad very very broad which the only
reason it became heavy industry conditioning
is because once i was you know a junior i could
take all of the electives i wanted and i just
made them all about coaching and all about performance
training right so that really broad undergrad
program i could have made it more kinesiology
based if i'd wanted to but i didn't I wanted
that coaching side of things. The science world
is not where I live. I'm a very hands on. I'm
a very in the moment, like with the team coach.
And so my undergrad was not very science. heavy
at all outside of like having to learn how to
periodize and how to program and yes I had anatomy
and physiology classes and I had multiple of
them so I had to learn all this stuff but it
wasn't heavy into the kinesiology or science
aspect and then my grad program was actually
phenomenal and that didn't have anything to do
with science at all it was basically two years
of coaching philosophy How do you coach? How
do you get how do you build buy in? How do you
build rapport? How do you get how do you get
the athletes to to want to work for you? And
how do you figure out who you are as a coach
and how you want to relay all the information
to your athletes? So it was it was literally
a coaching grad program. So when you hear about
other people's paths, what would be that ideal
hybrid so that people can have a similar journey
rather than end up kind of studying a more myopic
element of sports science? I mean, if the science
aspect is what you want, I think that there's
plenty of obviously avenues for you. But I would
really, really look into a program that has a
lot of philosophy and coaching. heavy classes
because that really changed i think my outlook
on it and it really made me realize that this
was this wasn't something that was out of my
realm because i'm not that i'm not that lab kinesiology
person and i knew i wasn't going to excel at
that but i can excel at at coaching people and
getting people to to want to do what i want them
to do in a good way um so really looking for
electives in your program in your undergrad and
your graduate program if you're going that route
like look for the electives that mean something
to you and and don't just feel like you have
to do the thing that everyone else is doing because
at the end of the day the elective classes are
the ones that matter the most I think in your
program because you've chosen them and you can
tailor whatever your time in school is to what
you want it to be. Brilliant. Thank you. All
right. Well, Nick, let's go to you. Let's start
with your journey into the military first, and
then we'll kind of circle back as far as your
interest into strength and conditioning. Okay.
Yeah, sure. So my journey in the military was
probably a lot, very similar to just about everybody
who's been in. very recently to 9 -11 with maybe
just one small caveat. So I grew up in the Marine
Corps. My dad was a career Marine. I very vividly
remember the day when I realized that dad was
a bad, bad man. And there was about six of us
and we were playing like this at -home laser
tag version. And we tried to team up against
him. And not one of us even saw him or got a
shot off. Dad dominated a whole bunch of neighborhood
teenagers. And we all realized that, okay, dad's
a bad man. So grew up in the Marine Corps, grew
up around Quantico, multiple military bases.
Went off to college as a freshman when the towers
fell. And then once the towers fell, I realized
that this giant sense of... a need to serve my
country and to be a part of what was going to
be the very quickly pending war. So much so that
my dad fought me almost every month to stay in
college and continue to remind me that, hey,
this war isn't going anywhere. So if you're going
to be a part of it, lead a part of it. and so
went off to ocs got my commission in 2005 and
really been been doing it ever since uh became
an artilleryman um so kudos to my algebra teacher
back in high school who said someday uh this
advanced algebra will save your life she was
absolutely right um i never thought for a period
of my life i'd be doing advanced advanced algebra
and calculus in a wartime environment so kudos
to her She was right. I was wrong. And then celebrate
20 years this summer. What about the the front
door? Because obviously we're going to be talking
about, you know, tactical athletes and how we're
coaching them these days and using competition
to enhance performance. What was the philosophy
and the types of training that you kind of you
were engrossed with when you first entered the
Marines? Yeah, so that's really, really matured
over 20 years. And so when I was in college,
I played college lacrosse and, you know, we do
very, very specific sort of weight room training
stuff. And as I've gotten much, much older, much
sort of smarter about it, everybody, even then,
even in college athletics, at least my college,
we were all training like bodybuilders. And so
there wasn't an enormous amount of compound movements.
The clean was about as advanced as you got. And
even that is, you better have known how to do
it first before the strength coach lets you do
it. And there was no teaching, even in the college
level. You got a sheet, it had your tempos, and
you executed the sheet by day, by week. And there
was no, this is why. Nobody ever explained, you
know, intent to move. Nobody ever explained any
kind of periodization. You just got your sheet
and you executed it, and then you went out and
you played lacrosse. um at least the makers when
uh when i came in in 2005 uh it was still very
much uh the 21 miles a week club the guidance
and everything that was given to everybody is
that there should be and you should go for around
five to six times a week you should accumulate
no more or no less than 21 miles a week uh one
of those runs should be a very hard three mile
run and that's it never never run less than three
miles uh in a single sitting because that's what
you have to do for the pft uh and then and then
off you go uh it wasn't until much later on i
think 2009 ish is when the the combat fitness
test so i was already a captain uh came into
the marine corps and we were and we even started
talking about sprinting because the combat fitness
test has the 800 meter but it was still a very
run and pull up dominant physical fitness programming
if your job required you to lift heavy things
then you got that heavy lifting on the job nobody
was talking about deadlifts nobody was talking
about cleans nobody was talking about strength
training marines at large um so much so the gym
where kelsey works um if you walk in and you
know nothing about uh you know gyms and weightlifting
and things like that you you question why is
the weight room on the second floor of the gym
that doesn't seem all that structurally sound.
I know very little about engineering, but the
weight room on the second floor doesn't seem
all that smart. And Kelsey's previous boss explained
this to me one day that when they were building
it, again, nobody was talking about deadlifts.
When it was bought and purchased and planned
in the 90s and the early 2000s, nobody was deadlifting.
Nobody was doing cleans. Nobody was Olympic lifting.
If you were, you were at a very odd gym. uh everybody
was doing you know back and bys chest and tries
everybody was on machines if you were strength
training at all uh the word anaerobic didn't
exist um maybe it did maybe just not in the circles
i was in but it was everything was low intensity
long distance running and and pull -ups and because
of that and the generation of officers that were
ahead of me that we all looked up to very much
had a very similar build which is very lean very
very endurance athlete uh very looking uh individual
and not taking anything away from their physical
fitness they're all incredibly fit but they had
a very different physical fitness sort of framework
based on the way that they came up as well for
the most part obviously so who's on the ground
floor because they must hate that for dropping
bumper plates all day long There's office games
and locker rooms and stuff downstairs. Okay.
I mean, my office is right next to it, so it's
really loud all the time. But it's a gym. It's
supposed to be loud. It's fine. Exactly. All
right. Well, let's go back to you. 10 feet from
the squat rack. It's true. Well, Kelsey, going
back to you, we'll bounce back and forth and
hopefully Chris will jump on in a bit. Speaking
of, you know, aerobic coaching. Yeah. Talk to
me about the difference between all of these
sporting athletes that you were coaching prior
and what you saw in these tactical athletes.
What were the initial kind of impressions that
you got of the differences between the two? I
think the main difference would be that the collegiate
athletes have their thing, right? you're a track
athlete, you're a sprinter, you're a soccer player,
you're a football player, you're whatever, you
are whatever sport, right? And the training that,
or the programming that the coach is going to
make is all across the board. It's all very similar.
There's a lot less that's different between the
sports than people assume. People assume that
a tennis player and a football player are going
to have vastly different training programs. But
they're still going to squat. They're still going
to do some form of a deadlift. They're still
going to do some agility work and some plyometric
explosive work. And, you know, they're still
going to do all the same things. It's just how
they're written that's going to be different.
Obviously, a tennis player is not going to be
as concerned about being able to squat a whole
lot or bench press a whole lot. And that's more
important for a football player, arguably. Right.
And so when you take that in consideration and
then you look at all these Marines. they don't
have a sport per se. They have their PFT, they
have their CFT, but like, do they have an in
-season and an off -season, right? They don't
really have that. So how can you take their kind
of generalized bodybuilding? Like, like Nick
was saying, like they're all bodybuilding. How
do you take that and get them to realize that,
oh, you can still do performance -based stuff,
even if you're not a sport athlete, even if you
don't have a sport right now. So it's definitely
taking the bodybuilding side and the fact that
I know that I can relate the performance side
to what they do, but getting everybody on the
same page as to how that works, I think, was
the biggest thing. Well, Chris, you just joined
us. We were just doing background of the other
two guests. So we'll do a quick background of
you, and then I want to bring you into your...
exposure to the tactical athletes so before we
do that just give everyone an overview of how
you found yourself in the athletic space and
then how you ended up transitioning to a high
level coach wow i i'm definitely known as an
endurance athlete i was a swimmer as an age grouper
wasn't very good as a swimmer as my body matured
i got into the sport of triathlons and was given
some pretty good natural ability. My VO2 was
in the mid 80s, milliliters per kilogram of body
weight per minute, which was big. My lungs are
50 % bigger than an average person. And 85 %
of my muscle fiber is slow twitch. And so I was
made for going fast for a long amount of time.
And I'd much rather be. a weightlifter where
I could be done in about 10 seconds versus, you
know, nine hours. But so a beast. I rode that
for a long time and loved coaching, but there's
honestly, it just wasn't a lot of opportunity
back then. And so I shelved it back around 2008.
I got into the sport of CrossFit, was given an
opportunity to. to help a elite CrossFit athlete,
Jason Kalipa. And Jason, he's 5 '9", around 225
pounds, and he would finish dead last in every
endurance event at the CrossFit Games. And he
said to me, he said that if he could fix that,
his endurance, because he was really good at
shorter time domains, strength -based workouts
that he could turn around his career. And because
of my knowledge of CrossFit at that time, I'd
been in the sport for four years. But I thought
that why not just take a pure CrossFit athlete?
And what if you gave them pure aerobic work?
What would happen? And it was a way for me to
experiment on him to see if it would work. But
mostly I was interested in just hanging out with
the champion, a former champion. And he went
on that year, got... three first place finishes
in the endurance events and got a third and the
fourth one and got second place overall and um
that kind of gave me the bug of getting back
into coaching and and since then i've i've worked
with i i i want to say three dozen 38 people
that have stood on the top spot of the podium
at the crossfit games and um yeah that's that's
how i i essentially that started. I interviewed
Jason. I met him at the Sandlot Jacks games,
the, uh, go rock games. And, uh, he's, I know
he's big into jujitsu now. So it's interesting
seeing that transition. Um, and that was, uh,
he ended up rolling with Tim Kennedy speaking
of the military. So I know that, that you've
done some work with the FDNY. If we have time
at the end, we'll definitely ask about that,
but talk to me again, just like with Kelsey,
you're working with all these sporting athletes.
What was your transition into coaching tactical
athletes? What was really interesting to me is
as an elite level triathlete is I realized why
the best get this. They get better. They're given
things to them because of their greatness. And
what I mean by that is, is that you're given
access to the best products. You're given access
to the best coaches. And I wasn't. as I got older,
as interested in helping people that were born
with a genetic predisposition to win a gold medal.
What I became interested in was the everyday
individual, the everyday fitness enthusiast,
the non -specialist, the one that was interested
in being strong, but also having that ability
to endure. And that's what really struck me about
CrossFit is it's... a sport for the athlete that
sits in the middle. And these are also athletes
that use that type of training, right? The training
that you do to build strength, but also the ability
to endure a hybrid athlete. And that's what we
see in first responders. We see it in military.
And that to me, I thought. What if you could
give this population of person who essentially
has been ignored in the past because of lack
of genetics and create a level of greatness that's
never been seen before? And that's what's happening
is that it's being demonstrated over and over
again that the person with a balanced mixture
of fast twitch and slow twitch fibers are the
healthiest of them all. They're the ones that
are going to survive. And that's the appeal.
It's interesting. We were talking a few weeks
ago when I hear conversations and we're going
to get into the Marines now about, you know,
especially the special forces groups within the
military. We hear about, you know, the Thor 3
program and all these, you know, elite coaches
that are working with these teams and they're
forging. performance they're forging resilience
against injury they're forging longevity and
yet when you look at my profession the strength
and conditioning coaches and the nutritionists
are coming in to say well you're dying a lot
see if we can get you dying less and there's
such a massive gap between forging performance
in the elite side the military and our first
responders and i think this is what's going to
be interesting for a lot of the responder community
listening to this is where the focus should be
when we get the work week and the rest and recovery
and the staffing back to where it needs to be
in the first place now we as a profession law
enforcement fire can start talking about the
same level of performance because if you look
at what we're asked to do at the drop of a hat
it equals you know special forces special operations
yeah that is an interesting uh i i find it surprising
too because i'll walk in and like you said i
do work with the fdny and i do you know a lot
of different seminars within fire and it's met
with a lot of sarcasm and resistance and i find
it like like here's a good example like we there's
been all kinds of studies that have said that
in fire In order to perform the tasks of a live
fire, you have to have, they monitor it based
upon METs, a metabolic equivalent, how much oxygen
is required to do a task, similar to a VO2 max.
And they've determined that 12 METs, roughly
42 milliliters of oxygen per minute in terms
of VO2, you could safely perform all these jobs.
Well, when I speak, I'm like. I'm going to show
you the cheat code in order to be able to hit
that aerobic capacity development. And people
are like, what, what did you agree with that?
I said, do you realize that when you guys put
on 60 pounds of turnout gear, what happens to
your 42 milliliters? I mean, in terms of population,
you go from 50%, meaning 42 is the middle population.
You're not even considered above average. And
now you're going to put 60 pounds of gear on
and you got to go fight a live fire. And do you
realize that that puts you in the bottom 20 %
of aerobic capacity? And you're trying to find
some wiggle room in this number to perform your
job safely. Would you take someone off of the
street that's in the bottom 20 % in terms of
aerobic health and say, go fight the fire. You
don't have to have turnout gear, but go fight
the fire. And that's what you guys do every day.
And you're negotiating with it. So, yeah, I think
it's very upside down. And that I find where,
you know, knowing Nick and Kelsey, like in the
Marine Corps, there is a reputation. It permeates
throughout everybody the importance of being
the fittest outfit in the world. And that's what's
nice. I think the problem that I've seen in my
community is we haven't evolved. So now you've
got this recruitment crisis. You've got these
insane work weeks that make no sense whatsoever.
Now you add overtime because we have a recruitment
crisis and you've got first responders, you know,
firefighters, especially working 80, eight zero
hour weeks. And then we're trying to hold them
to a fitness standard as you and I spoke before,
Chris, without sleep, you know, the rest and
recovery that's needed. your hypertrophy, your
strength training, all these other things, they're
not bearing fruits because you don't get that
recovery. And then we get hurt because we're
breaking down connective tissue and then wondering
why meniscus and backs are ripping. With that
being said, with the recruitment crisis, going
back to you, Nick, you've got a 20 -year span.
20 years ago, it was extremely competitive to
be a firefighter. Again, it was post 9 -11. I
was testing against thousands of people for a
job, one of 30. And I've seen this kind of devolution
now. I had Dan Bornstein on talking about, you
know, the national kind of wellness crisis and
how that's affecting recruitment for all these.
But with that all being said, what what have
you seen over the last 20 years? And, you know,
how are you using this competition and kind of
reframing some of this to to reverse that swing?
So the Marine Corps is pretty blessed. We're
the one service in the United States military
that we always meet our recruiting mission. And
I think that goes to a lot of the culture that
Chris was talking about. And we hold ourselves
to an incredibly high standard. And part of that
is, I think, necessary hubris. Part of that is
also we're... we're incredibly small so we can
um you know the united states army is america's
army so they have to fill their forces with a
lot more and the more demand obviously so marine
corps can be a bit pickier um and as such our
recruitment standards are much higher than the
rest but um one of the biggest things that we
really really wanted to to focus on uh as part
of this competition is uh in guidance with the
comment on the marine corps guidance to with
competition. And as the Marine Corps shifts away
from my career's war in the counterinsurgency
operations to this peer fight that we're preparing
for next. so we've done a lot of things that
that add competition into marines lives one of
the biggest and largest scale one uh is undoubtedly
uh magtap warrior exercise out in 29 palms where
we are literally taking units of marines in in
what can only be described as the world's you
know most elaborate game of laser tag where we
have live units going up against other live units
in a completely unscripted environment. And every
time that you do it, they're always very, very
clear that it's the unit with the most notes
about how things worked and how things didn't
work that wins. We're not worried about winning
or losing. We're worried about learning. And
so my job in training command right now is the
faculty development and learning development
officer. And so that... The competition predates
that. But when we put this together, one of the
guiding questions was, how do we prepare all
of our instructors to teach everything that they'll
be required to teach? And that includes physical
fitness. How do we recruit really high quality
Marines to come to training command? Instructor
duty is not easy. It's incredibly long hours.
It's incredibly difficult. we all know the high
school teacher that we know and love and we're
very much teaching those same kids but we're
very much teaching those same kids how to use
explosives um so it is very very demanding um
and it's very very long hours and so my brain
put together this idea of why don't we bring
everybody in for a week let's bring one competitor
per school We have 17 major sport and elements
of 17 major schools. And each one of those, we
have up to about 33 different locations around
the U .S. Why don't we bring in one? So 17 total
competitors. Let's put them around some of the
most inspiring coaches that we can find. Let's
teach them everything we can think of in a week's
time. We're not going to make them experts. but
let's give them let's give them the baseline
understanding of how to do these these foundational
movements um so that way when they do go back
and they're doing air squats they know what they're
doing it's just a small example uh and then let's
put them in competition with each other and the
competition has become um one of the most one
of the shiny objects of it um in that the marine
corps is very quickly running out of combat veterans
those of us who grew up in my generation where
there's less and less of us every day and those
of us who've been on the battlefield and understand
sort of the performance demands of it uh and
that's just in the type of war we were fighting
um you know throughout this past 20 years so
how do we teach marines at the very basis level
what it is to compete and so we're no longer
talking about performance minimums we're talking
about taking 17 type a competitors male and female
and we're putting them in an environment where
their best may not be good enough. They may run
a perfect PFT and CFT score. They may be the
best gym rat at their command. They may be enormously
in shape. But when you put them in a field against
17 other human beings that are very much the
same type of thing, what is good enough? And
so we truly believe that if we can learn... to
compete on the PT field today, then we'll know
what it is to dominate on the battlefield of
tomorrow. Because none of these athletes, when
they come into this competition, none of them
know all the events that they're going to have
to do. None of them know the time and intensity
that they'll have to do all of the events. And
none of them know what good enough is. Because
it's no longer about performance against a given
standard. It's competing against each other.
And we really, really do believe that that translates
at the basis level to the battlefield. When we're
on that battlefield with a peer competitor, whoever
that may be, whenever that may be, we don't know
what good enough really is. We think we do. We
train to. But good enough isn't in the United
States Marine Corps. So, you know, we train to
go faster. We train to go harder. We like to
find those sustainable maximum performances.
I've been an artilleryman for a very long time.
You know, the question always is, okay, if it
takes seven minutes, you know, by the book to
displace the howitzer and that's good enough
time, how long can we hit that seven minute mark?
And is seven minutes actually fast enough? How
do we make it faster? What is the situation where
we have to displace the howitzer in five minutes?
What is the situation where we have to displace
it in three? How do we do that safely? How do
we do that without causing injury to our human
beings or injury to the equipment? How do we
keep the gun in the fight? Until you start training
those types of movements, until you start training
and you eliminate sort of the minimum standard
and start worrying about a sustainable maximum,
you can't really figure that out. And so that's
what we at the basis level of this competition
are really trying to do with the competition
is teach Marines what it is to operate inside
of that really competitive environment. We were
talking when we spoke a few weeks ago and someone
on my show had mentioned something which was
so pertinent. The certification that you get
as a firefighter in Florida is actually labeled
minimum standards. That's what the certification
is called. So that's as shitty as you should
ever be your entire career. And what he said,
he pointed out is like the problem is that minimum
standards, whether it's the PFT, whether it's,
you know, my certification. for a lot of people
becomes maximum standards. And you hear about,
you know, an annual test and four weeks before
everyone's scrambling and training for it. So
by reframing that philosophy, as you talked about,
you know, and putting that bar high and getting
people to chase that bar, that minimum standards
actually becomes a true minimum standard. Well,
of course I can pass a PFT, but this is where
I'm actually heading to. That's yeah. That's
really interesting. Cause it, I was. once at
Camp Pendleton and spoke with the commanding
general there, General Turner, and I asked him
about the PFT and the times, you know, because
a lot of times you run into a senior officer
or someone high up in command and they're the
reason for the problem, meaning the expectation
or the way in which things were done, right?
A lot of tradition. This is the way we've done
it since the 60s. And I wanted to know, like,
how reasonable is this man? And I asked him,
I said, so in your PFT three mile, for every
Marine, what would be the wish in terms of finishing
times? And he says, you have to understand one
thing that, you know, when you are in combat,
you make life and death decisions. And it's important
for you to recognize that if you make that decision
with less fatigue, meaning you're more recovered.
because of your aerobic fitness, that that matters.
But he right away says 24 minutes, which is amazing
to me. That is a very reasonable ask. And the
fact that he knows what that number is tells
me that there's some maneuvering room, right?
Because I don't care who you are. And in four
years, anybody can go under 24 minutes. And that's
what I liked. I liked that there was a benchmark
that was reasonable. I liked that it was achievable
and it was at the highest level. And that's not
getting you 100 points, but it's showing that
this is why and this is what the number is. Absolutely.
Well, Kelsey, I want to bring you in. We were
talking about the journey, you know, when it
came to strength and conditioning and the creation
of coaches. Nick's touched on the fact that you're
setting the bar high even for the coaches and
kind of putting them in the shark tank with other
coaches. What has been your impression of the
things that are done well in the coaching space
that you've seen strength and conditioning within
the Marines? And then what areas are you hoping
to surpass using competitions like this? So I
think the biggest thing that I've really enjoyed
watching over the last five years, because I
was, I, Started with the Marine Corps and then
I worked for the Navy for a handful of years
and then I went back to the Marine Corps and
I've been at Quantico for five years now. And
what I have loved to see is that they have adopted
the mindset of that collegiate model. So it's
not just, oh, we want them to be good at the
PFT and CFT. Oh, we want you as a coach to run
a bunch of unit PTs, just random sessions. Because
that is originally what people in my position
within the HIT program were doing. A unit would
request a PT. They're like, all right, just crush
us for an hour. Okay, like I can do that. And
then you wouldn't see them again, right? And
because they're doing their own, they're going
off and doing their own training, whatever their
own training looks like, right? But that's not...
sustainable. That doesn't build buy -in or any
sort of ability to periodize and program out
any sort of strength training, right? They're
just random sessions. And so the Marine Corps
adopting the model of, hey, we want to bring
in athletic trainers. We want to bring in nutritionists
and dietitians. And we want to have the coaches
working with all these people. And that is exactly,
that is what I did. And that's what happens in
a collegiate setting. I am support no matter
where I go. I am, I am just this, I'm part of
the support staff because in the collegiate setting,
I am, I'm not their sport coach. I'm not the
expert in football. I'm not the one that's like
helping them row on the water and be efficient
on the water as a, as a, as a seven man boat.
Like that's not my job. But I need to understand
their sport and I need to understand what they
do. And the coaches and the athletic trainers
and the dietitians and then myself, we are all
able to provide the best training possible when
we work together. So the Marine Corps has adopted
that and they've really, really been trying to
push for that. So they don't want, as you know,
the one -off PTs. They want units to come in
and want a coach to work with them long -term
indefinitely, right? So that's been really amazing
to see because it's what I'm passionate about.
And it gives me the ability to have connections
and build relationships and really know the people
that I'm coaching versus just like, here, go
do this random workout. Right. So I love that
that's where the Marine Corps is going. Nick,
you mentioned within this competition, the ability
for. these coaches to coach as they progress
through. So you're, you're teaching these coaches,
you know, the, the philosophy as, as Kelsey was
touching on earlier of coaching. And when we
get Chris back, we'll talk to him about even
when they're running, they can be able to give
them gate coaches and that kind of thing. So
expand on that a little bit. It's not just a
competition. What other attributes are going
to be gained throughout this week? Yeah, absolutely.
What did first and foremost, just, We bring together
one of the more expansive coaching networks that
we can within the Marine Corps, and that starts
with Kelsey here at Quantico. It expands down
to Amanda and Darren Peterson down at SY East.
We have several other individuals from headquarters
Semper Fit all around the East Coast. And we
really, really do bring in this incredible group
of coaches. Chris Henshaw is absolutely also
one of them. And the point there is. these are
all very very inspiring people and who are very
passionate about their job and there's no better
way than to inspire a group of people who are
already into fitness than to put them around
a bunch of other people who are truly passionate
about it who can make those tiny tweaks and so
we wanted to carry that through the competition
so um kelsey is you know one of the most overqualified
uh crossfit judges you'll ever find um in terms
of this competition and and her and the rest
of the entire coaching staff overly qualified
it's not just judging squat depth it's each one
of our coaches are are allowed and encouraged
to coach the athlete through the workout so if
an athlete is starting the red line and you know
the coach can see that they're blowing up like
we absolutely encourage the coaches to to kind
of talk them through and to remind them how to
breathe and how to how to follow this and um
it's more than just evaluating a competition
of athletes. These competitions, the competitive
parts of the program are really written with
an academic program of instruction mindset where
what we're teaching is paramount. The events
themselves are designed to reinforce what we're
teaching. And then so when the judges and coaches
are out there evaluating performance and just
keeping score for me, because it is a competition.
we do crown the title of fittest Marine instructor
across the board, but we want them to, to take
something more away from the competition other
than, all right, I redlined and I failed. I don't
know what that is. And so the coaches and the
judges are a, the same person and be like absolutely
encouraged to, to talk the athlete through the
workout. Hey, slow down. You're starting to redline,
you know, Hey. all right breathe breathe through
it you know um chris loves to uh find the athlete
who's truly struggling on some kind of aerobic
workout that we're doing and then just run alongside
him and just match up his breath with him and
then tell him like all right you're at a two
count breath um and it's it's great for them
um but you know the responses are always the
guy's already had a two count breath you know
Chances are their willingness to listen to criticism
at that point in time will go a very long way
to tell you about the character of the human
being that we're coaching. Marines by nature
are stubborn bastards. So it was very fun to
watch for me as I sit back. But yeah, we want
this to be something more. We want them to go
back to their units and to build their own smaller
competitions amongst their Marines. We want them
to know how to build these competitions and how
to find the Kelsey needs at their location to
bring in and establish that long -term coaching
network and coaching philosophy. We want the
imitation to reoccur. uh at these other locations
and we really really do want to just inspire
the marines to go seek seek you know coaching
go find uh all of these incredible individuals
that that marine corps and semper fit uh are
constantly hiring you know hey i'm struggling
to lose weight well have you gone to go see the
dietitian no do we have one of those yes uh go
see the dietitian in fact why don't we bring
the dietitian in to do an entire evaluation of
the entire unit I mean, you know, the network
is there and we just have to encourage Marines
to go seek out that help across the board. And
so if we can do that at the entry level training
network, we feel that, you know, in three to
four years, we can raise a Marine Corps that
understands that seeking help and fitness of
any kind, any of the pillars of fitness is a
sign of strength and not a sign of weakness.
You know, that's really an interesting topic,
a subject that Nick brings up, because these
individuals that are coming from these different
training commands, I mean, they're very skilled
from an athletic standpoint, but their knowledge
is just not there. And what they're interested
in is is and we I really I think, Nick, that's
Kelsey. I don't know about you, but I think one
of the greatest moments in the week with them
is all of a sudden this realization. That, yeah,
they're there for this competition, but the juice,
what they're really excited about is the content
that is shared with them in the educational classroom.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's. I think the most important
part, but it's also honestly one of the harder
parts because how do you, how do you give these
guys a level above what regular Marines have
knowledge -wise? How do you, how do you pick
and choose what the most important things that
they know are? Because I can't give them all
six years of my college degree. Like how do I
choose what they need to know? And how do I,
um how do i help them realize that like hey to
to to what you were saying nick they don't realize
that we're even there so like they feel like
there's all this information that they can't
get across to their marines but they don't know
that someone like me exists they might think
that there's a group x instructor there's some
personal trainers but they don't have the same
background as me they're not the same they don't
do the same thing so is there someone i can go
to to to get a reminder of that knowledge because
we inundate them with so much education during
the during the week here like we give them so
much information but when they're back to whatever
school they're in like can they go to somebody
else and can they say hey i learned about x y
and z i really would like to know more about
it or Hey, can you refresh my memory? Because
I was talking about this, you know, last month,
but I really want to incorporate it. And I'm
not sure how to incorporate it, but I really
want to. And letting them know that, hey, you're
not going to know everything all at once. It's
okay to find people to help you. I think that's
really, really important. And yes, it's that
light bulb moment of like, I'm here to win, but
like, I'm also here to learn how to be better
at my job for my Marines. Typically, the dawn
of the education is far more important. Both
years we've had the same three groups of people,
different numbers of people in each group, but
there's the tier that find themselves, you know,
they're incredible Marine Corps athletes and
they're in very good shape according to Marine
Corps standards, but in this highly competitive
environment, they don't measure up. And so they
become... incredible students straight away.
They want to learn everything. They come to every
after class. They get every coach's number. They're
incredible. There's the very small top tier that
are the top tier of athletes, even in the competitive
environment. But those individuals are humble
enough to know that there's still something more
that I can learn. There's something that I can
do to do better and everything else. Now, coincidentally,
I went back and looked. If they finish in the
top five of the swim event of both years, the
top five of the swim event has carried the remainder
of the week, which is interesting. And it's the
middle group, which perplexes me. The middle
group are very, very fit athletes. They're slightly
fitter than sort of the first group I mentioned.
And they have typically some form of... a little
bit of education they're conversationally competent
in it um and and they spend the first two days
not paying attention to class and you can you
can just sit back and watch the people who don't
have notebooks the people are just sitting there
uh there's always the there's always the one
guy who says like hey does anybody want to go
work out like i don't really feel like i got
a great workout today you're in the middle of
a fitness competition you're gonna get an extra
workout and so and then you watch i don't know
yet absolutely yeah they really don't um because
they've never had to do two to three workouts
over a six day period consistently right it's
the volume that that that they're like oh day
two i don't feel that sore like okay wait um
it's that middle group um that that you kind
of have to around wednesday of the competition
walk over to and just say all right hey how's
it going like the competition's not going as
well as you thought like okay remember this is
this is also a faculty development program um
you know keep at it um there's always the guy
who can deadlift you know 700 pounds and congratulations
on 17th um like that that's fantastic mongo moved
the bar um but congrats on on finishing in the
bottom tier of the competition uh fitness is
more uh than than just uh weights and and we
program around that philosophy and that uh all
of the weights that we program are typically
a percentage of the human's body weight um so
instead of thrusters at 95 pounds it's thrusters
at 50 of their body weight um and in that way
um we can sort of norm the workouts. Everybody
has the exact same stimulus of the workout. And
it's not so much that the strongest athlete wins,
but we're looking for that strength to weight
ratio in this competition to a large degree.
How do you manage to forge that humility so that
more people can be in those top two tiers? I've
gotten pretty, we were able to head it off a
lot more. Yeah. Yeah. I'll walk up to an athlete
who's, who's a Marine. I changed clothes a lot.
Like I literally changed clothes a lot in the
event. So if I'm going to talk to a competitor
and I'm going to talk to him about, you know,
his conduct or, or him being, we have a very
strong rule. um called be a good dude um and
if they're violating that rule um i'll put you
know the entire marine corps uniform on um not
just in pt gear and i'll pull them aside and
um one of the perks of being a lieutenant colonel
you know i don't have to raise my voice i can
just ask ask the individual a number of questions
and they very very quickly realize that that
they have broken the cardinal rule of be a good
dude um and so We haven't had a problem after
any of that. I've talked to maybe two, three
athletes over the two years about just, hey,
check your attitude. Last year, I called it out.
I called out that second group and said, hey,
last year we had this group. I hope it's less
this year. And I think that worked a little bit.
This year, we'll do the same thing. We'll make
the athletes aware of sort of the trend of the
three groups. And we really, really do stress
all day every day the competition. The competition's
the fun part, right? Go out, give it everything
you have, put the education that we're giving
you to use. But in the end, if you finish in
the top three, that's incredible. If you finish
in the bottom three and you took away an enormous
amount of notes, much like the MacTec four -year
exercise that I mentioned that's done at 29 Palms,
the athlete who walks away with the most notes,
they're the ones who are... really winning this
competition and this event because they're going
to go back and they're going to start to evaluate
how they do and really that sort of self -education
and that the passion is how i found my way into
coaching and to any degree is that after college
lacrosse i joined the marine corps and i found
that i had no idea how to work out i could i
could execute baseline movements because that
had been drilled into me but i didn't know why
i didn't know why i was doing this squad or this
or this periodization of this because no one
ever actually taught me and so when i tried to
put it together back together myself as a young
officer and balance it with life I found that
A, I was getting really out of shape, and B,
I was always getting injured. And so I started
to hit the books on my own. The more and more
that I found, read and understood, and then found
the Kelsey Meads of the world at Camp Lejeune,
North Carolina, when I was a young officer, like
better in shape than I got. The better in shape
that I got, the more I wanted to drive my buddies
to the gym. and introduce them um to to the hit
coaches and say like all right hey let's let's
let's work out with this hit coach she's she's
really really good she can come and she can tailor
x y and z um and then for whatever reason they
always had sort of this absolute like 20 minute
ad program at the leisure and hit gym that was
just if you want to talk about a class that was
packed there were a hundred participants almost
every day in that class uh and it was really
just planking and leg lifts for for 20 minutes
it was terrible um but we kept coming back. And
when, you know, when we came sort of those regulars
and the hit staff knew that we were serious about
it, then the level of coaching, the level of
programming started to get more and more. And
we started bringing them out to units and, and
I heard, Hey, we're having trouble maintaining
that the habits are displaced on under seven
minutes. Like what can you talk us through? So
it all sort of evolved into where we are now.
trying to give back to the Marines. How do we
arm these Marines with everything that they need
to be able to teach to include physical fitness?
And so that way we can take morning PT as serious
as we do every other classroom that these Marines
are in. The fitness standard in police and fire
is vehemently opposed, and I never understood
it. And, you know, this is the thing is that
when you're already on the back foot as a profession,
you get this one group that thinks you're trying
to take their jobs by putting a fitness standard.
But if you look at the performance, if you look
at the longevity and then also the humility that
you just talked about, when you think in your
mind that you're still that, you know, 22 year
old stud, but now that you're 38 and you've let
a little extra weight come on, I think it's a
great tool to remind you like, oh. OK, I can't
actually climb 10 flights of stairs with all
my gear and hose and some spare air bottles like
I would have to in a high rise fire. I think
there's so much importance to that. And it's
so sad that my profession has resisted, which
is why I hope in this revolution that we're beginning
now to change the working environment that then
alongside that we can put that bar as you know
where it needs to be at the top. An interesting
thing that I've seen over the last 10, 15 years
as a firefighter and a coach is rather than.
specific exercise, like, oh, you should do this
as a firefighter. What I found is a lot more
well received, just principles. You know, like
you said, there was the bodybuilding world. I
think from my profession, sandbags, sleds, kettlebells,
those are so good. And so, you know, such direct
correlation to what we do. I'm going to go to
you, Kelsey, because I know we're running out
of time before you got to go. What have you seen
as far as the evolution of training principles,
even the lessons learned from the last three
years of the Fittest Instructor Competition?
Well, I don't know how in relation to the Fittest
Instructor Competition. Nick would be better
at that, but I can say that the events are his
creation, right? Nick has been the one to say,
I want to do this and this. And he comes at me
and says, is this crazy, Kelsey? And sometimes
I say yes. More often than not, I might say yes.
But I don't know if that, because this is such
a unique competition, I don't know if that's
a good like benchmark for the rest of the Marine
Corps, right? In terms of principles, because
- While I may give a brief at the beginning of
the fitness instructor competition about how
to train or how to write a good program, like
here are some baseline information on how you
should write a good strength conditioning program
for your Marines. That doesn't directly correlate
to the events because the events are so intense,
like a solid strength conditioning program. is
going to not lend itself to the events right
like you have to train for the events you have
to train kind of in that extreme outlier kind
of area to be good at the events in my opinion
um and that's not to say that you can't but most
likely those marines aren't going to do that
well on their own they're going to need a coach
to help do that um so i think the event the fittest
instructor competition is kind of like an outlier
to the principles that we're trying to, we're
trying to see, we're trying to force to change,
I guess, overall. But that's not to say that,
you know, I don't deal on a daily basis with
like one group of Marines saying, I don't need
to do that. And another group of Marines saying,
oh, that's exactly what I need to do. And then
how do I get the group of Marines that are saying,
I don't need to do that to do the thing, right?
I may have one group of Marines that says, we
don't need to be able to move, like do crazy
agility stuff. Like, why are you having us do
agility and like SAQ stuff? I'm like, well, explosive
power is still important. And they're like, yeah,
but like, I can do that on my own. And you know
what? There are some cases where I'm just like,
you're right. You can do that on your own. You
don't need as much SAQ stuff, as much agility
stuff, as much speed work as this group over
here. You're not wrong. But that's not to say
that it's wrong for you to do this stuff either.
So in some cases, you're not going to get them
to realize that the principles that you're trying
to put into their programming are important.
And you kind of have to pick and choose your
battles, I think, depending on who you're working
with. Kelsey brings up a really good sort of
dichotomy there. Marines are, the PFT and the
CFT are calculated, especially in a young Marines
case, the score of the PFT and CFT are calculated
into what we call a cutting score. And it's based
on a number of different performance metrics
to see if they're promotable to the next rank.
And even when you get to a certain rank and you're
no longer dealing with cutting scores, you're
dealing with the performance reports within the
Marine Corps. the pft and the c the pft cft and
the your rifle pistol score are the only four
physical markers of performance uh on it so there
there is a very uh there's a very large dichotomy
i i think it's getting it's getting slower and
or smaller and smaller at least in in the marine
corps that i've hung out in which is very much
you know the infantry the artillery uh communities
um Whereas an artilleryman doesn't need to be
able to move heavy objects or deadlift or anything
else to pass the PFT -C18 to get a good score.
What they need to be able to do is, but when
they're doing their tactical job, an artillery
round weighs 100 pounds. And so to be able to
move that and to be able to move, you know, the
equipment and everything else that we're doing,
that requires sort of a different scope of fitness.
And it's blurring those two requirements, right?
One is going to get me promoted. One is going
to get me a higher score on a performance eval.
And one is going to make it so I'm very, very
good at my job. And that is a very hard line.
uh to truly truly blur in a very of course there
are strength and conditioning programs that can
manage all of that but those are very long -term
programs that require a very high level of sort
of programmatic thought discipline and and you
have to stick and stick with it and sometimes
ideally what we want space in the day we want
yeah it is a marine's life it's hard to do that
predictable yeah exactly Well, it's good that
you have that as part of the promotional system
too. I had a police chief from Idaho and that's
what they did. You got points for maxing out
on their physical test. And I think that's what
we should have in the first responders. You know,
if you are going to be out in the field and you're
required to be a certain level of athleticism
because you're still wearing the gear, then absolutely
that should be factored in just like in the Marines.
Yeah. I think the hard thing, I mean, I do a
lot in fire and law enforcement, and what's hard
is the skill level is so diverse. I'm talking
about the health level. And one of the big intimidation
factors that I see in fire is that the people
where life has just gotten in the way and they've
lost their fitness. And it's not that they're
not motivated to try and find it. They just don't
know what to do. And I think going back to what
I said at the very beginning, elite level athletes
have what we call an athlete -centered training
model. It's personalized around their prior results
and their goals. And one of the skill sets, for
example, that Kelsey can provide is a personalized
type of training program, a weightlifting program
that is geared around their prior results, but
also their obligations as a Marine. always interested
me within Special Forces is this requirement
to ruck. They've got the volume, the distance
that they must go when carrying a ruck, and the
training protocols are pretty solid building
capacity, that ability to endure. But the load
that they carry immediately ramps to full load
with after a short number of weeks meaning they're
just assuming that you have the strength but
you don't have the ability to endure well what
about people like myself i don't have a problem
in doing that 18 miles not at all the problem
is is i can't do it with the load and that's
where things i think are evolving um like we're
seeing in fire that we're trying to get to create
a relative intensity based upon your current
level of fitness, and then where do you need
to go? And that's essentially the holy grail
in programming, personalization. And so I see
that a shift occurring within FIRE, but for sure
with the group that come out for the fitness
instructor. I mean, one of the pieces that Nick
and I worked on back in year one was when they
do a... A Marine does a CFT 880 run and they
then have to do their PFT three mile run. Well,
Marine Corps is great at collecting the results,
but they don't do anything with the results.
What do those results tell you? Do you need to
do more speed training? Do you need to have more
strength? Do you need to have more power output?
Or do you need to work on your stamina, your
endurance? Well, one of the pieces that Nick
and I did was is, yeah, you collect the information.
But now when you enter that 880 time and that
three -mile time, it tells you precisely what
is your weakness, what's the magnitude of your
weakness, and what should you train on and the
frequency of what you should train with precision.
Well, my numbers show a different result than
Nick's and Kelsey's, and that is where it starts.
That what we're giving you something is yours.
It's not just vanilla. It's not just generic.
We're not just yelling at you. This is balanced.
And I see that shift occurring. I mean, and Nick,
I mean, I don't want to jump out of turn, but
that's how Nick judges this. The scoring systems
to be a Marine are in the PFT and CFTs. And that's
how Nick judges these results. So men, women,
old, young have the same shot based upon the
standards. personalized. Yeah, we are afforded
the opportunity in this competition that the
Marine Corps isn't right now. We like to interpolate
beyond the maximum scoring standard for a lot
of different events. We like to say, what if
we did this within this event? The year one,
no break CFT was incredible. CFT has three events.
There's five minutes of rest, no less than five
minutes of rest in between them. And we said,
what would happen if we just eliminated that
rest? What do those three events look like if
they're back to back to back? And it was very,
very different. This year's CFT event that we're
going to do involves marksmanship. So if you
take event three of the combat fitness test,
which is a sprint, a casualty evacuation, and
an ammo resupply, it's a shuttle run with under
load. And it's an anaerobic threshold test. To
maximize it, you're in the 250 to 245 range for
most age groups. It's painful. You know, going
into the CFT that everything's going to hurt.
And so this year, the Marine Corps shooting team
that we have access to, and Kelsey is the primary
strength coach for, said, what if we added a
fine motor skill like marksmanship to the combat
fitness test? And what if you had to, what if
you were scored on your marksmanship while you're
at enormously high heart rate? What does that
do? And so every shot will either add or subtract
time to that event. And then we'll compare that
directly to that individual's Marine Corps event
three time standard. So we get to play in the
margins and we get to ask what if we did X in
that way. a 20 year old female can directly compete
against a 40 year old male um and in any and
all strength events that we do we use the wilks
coefficient as well so like i said we're looking
for that strength uh uh strength to weight ratio
and so it's not it's not just absolute raw strength
it's what does that mean and as the um We get
asked a lot if we are going to expand into a
female and male category. And the answer is no.
We have no plans to do that in said training
commander with a fitness instructor. A, because
that's not how combat works anymore. Combat arms
are integrated, males and females. I was at Fort
Sill when we were testing a number of the job
-specific physical performance standards. And
it became glaringly obvious to us when you take
a look at the data, the initial data, you're
like, oh, well, females are failing these very
specific events that are required of cannoneers,
mainly like an ammo can kind of carry. And so
we kind of took a look at that and said, well,
wait. they're not failing at any higher rate
than a male who weighs under 150 pounds as well
the round weighs 100 pounds and so it's not a
male or female limitation if you're a corn -fed
boy from nebraska who grew up hay baling you're
going to have a easier time moving 100 pound
artillery shells for it the aviation community
has been far ahead of us for years. There's a
height requirement in both tall and short in
a lot of different cockpits. And that's used
as a discriminator in terms of what you fly.
Confirmed with an aviation buddy of mine before
coming on here to make sure I'm not saying this
wrong, but the aviation community uses femur
length as a potential discriminator for what
aircraft you're going to fly. Because if the
ejection seat and your femur length are at the
wrong ratio, if you eject, you have a greater
than average chance of potentially the ejection
seat breaking a femur. Are short pilots less
capable? I don't know. The arm length, their
ability to reach out and touch sort of that front
of the cockpit is something. So it's any number
of sort of physical attributes that Marines need.
And we always find ways to work around those.
At the competition, we get to play with that.
We get to say, okay, what if this wasn't it?
One of the things that Nick did last year was
it was a mile run, and then you did five shots
standing, five shots prone, three rounds. Yeah.
So that came later in the competition. But by
this time, and we've mentioned it earlier, I've
spent a lot of time with the individual. um marines
and being in a competition environment where
they're struggling they're having a hard time
they're now more engaged and more receptive how
can i actually find a cheat code to make my performance
go up and so in that event i'll run side by side
with them i'll listen to their breathing and
the other piece is is that when they come in
from that mile -long run They've been carrying
the rifle, they're wearing all their combat gear,
and they've got 100 meters to get their ammunition
and to get in position to take their first shot.
It's very similar to what we see in the Olympic
Games with the biathlon, cross -country skiing
and shooting. The recovery protocol matters.
Are they aware of, not just while they're running
or doing something, the frequency of the breath
and the consistency of their breath, but can
they actually develop a recovery protocol that
accelerates their ability to take that shot?
And that to me is what's really interesting is
it's not just these events and Nick just trying
to hit a stimulus or to come up with some silly
thing like 21 -15 -9 because that just is what...
people are used to. There's purpose behind it.
And people want to build from one to the next
to the next. And that event was awesome. Last
year, they did an event where it was, you're
going to do three miles and you're going to do
it in 50 minutes. No watch and the person closest
to 50 minutes wins. Well, the Marines all practiced
during that week, that same pace. What they realized
is the purpose of training. The more you train
at something, the better you get. That same event
came at the end, where three miles in 50 minutes.
Not difficult with a 45 -pound ruck, but it was
about accuracy. Can you pace without looking
at any kind of timing mechanisms or mileage markers?
And what was awesome was, Nick, eight seconds
or six seconds away from 50 minutes. Remarkable.
Amazing. So, yeah, I find that really interesting.
Remember how wide range? I think we had like
a 15 minute span at event one of that. And so
funny. You want to talk about like teaching humility.
There were guys coming in. who just thought they
had absolutely crushed that event and it was
like congrats 65 minutes um like you're nowhere
near the time you're 15 minutes up um and and
more so event one and event 10 was so tight it
was like three minute three minute difference
like i think the widest time frame was was like
53 minutes i mean everybody got so good at that
event and was like got it now i can hit the sustainable
pace for perpetuity hopefully and more so than
that nick it was it was are you like a lot of
them because it was a staggered start well what
if the person in front of you was going too slow
are you confident enough to be able to pass that
person and so nick was very upfront and engaging
with the marines about their confidence in their
own ability how do you think you did And that's
a big deal. The other piece that I do is like,
James, if you were good at your own breathing,
right, you have very good rhythm of your breath,
you understand the cadence of your breath relative
to your intensity. Many people are good doing
it themselves and assessing themselves. But one
of the pieces that is very interesting to me
about the Marine Corps is these senior officers.
Being able to observe others and make a determination
of the level of difficulty that they're experiencing.
And is that difficulty aerobic or is it stamina
related? Have they not put in the time on their
feet or is it that the intensity was too high?
And can they do that through observation? And
that to me is something that came to me. from
senior command. We want to understand through
observation, meaning no more just yelling and
saying, you know, you need to work harder, you
need to go faster. It's like, wait, maybe they
are already working harder. And that's the same
thing we see in fire. If you're climbing a stairwell
with a buddy through observation, are you able
to tell the difficulty that your partner's in?
Because why would you ask such a dumb question
to a Marine? How are you doing? Same thing to
a firefighter. You ask any Marine and any firefighter
how you're doing and he'll just give you the
thumbs up. I'm good. And what we're trying to
teach is that observation. Are you aware? And
every single one of those 17 people last year
learned that skill. Well, I was going to take
that small example onto the lacrosse field, you
know, in this weird world that I've become good
friends with Chris and he and I talk about sports
performance a lot and everything else. I've made
decisions as a lacrosse coach, like mid -game
or if it's in the fourth quarter, you call that
timeout, right? And it's, you know, closing seconds
and you got to do something. And you look at
your stud player and your stud players, you're
like, hey, are you good to run this play? And
they're like, yes, coach. No, you're not. No,
you're not at all. All right. Hey, we're going
to, hey, let me go to my number two guy who's
just as cool as a cucumber because he's, you
know, he may not be as good a lacrosse player,
but. He's got the legs and he's got the lungs
right now where my stud is just, he doesn't even
have the capacity to listen to me right now.
And so it really, it transcends sport to service,
to everything that we're doing. And that as a
leader, and I'm sure it translates into fire.
the fire and the police but if you're a coach
if you're if you're a commander if you're in
a leadership position in any way having an understanding
of where your where your subordinates heads are
at both in a macro and a micro sense is absolutely
vital and not just you know can they perform
in this moment but um the marine corps is a really
really great marine corps total fitness strategy
and we have multiple pillars of fitness and spiritual
uh emotional mental um and physical and if if
you as a leader a coach an instructor whatever
whatever word you want to use if you don't know
where your people are at across all of those
and both the macro and the micro like it's it's
a disservice to them and it's a disservice to
the organization that you serve in because we
we all deal in the capital of human beings doing
incredibly dangerous things um without having
a true a true dedication and understanding of
how fitness across the board affects their ability
to conduct these events, whether it's on a battlefield
or in a high -rise fire, you're putting lives
at risk, and that's good enough isn't. Absolutely.
Well, I know we've got to be mindful of your
time. We need to wrap up now. Before we do, for
anyone listening, if they're interested in the
fitness instructor competition, where are the
best places for people to go? Marine Corps Base
Quantico will be posting sort of the events.
Marine Corps Base Quantico Facebook will be posting
the events, the leaderboard. Training Command
Instagram, which we'll get you the handle for,
is going to do near live streaming. So we're
going to make sure that we look at the video
just quickly enough to get it out in near real
time. But there's always going to be a little
bit of editing. That's a lesson learned from
last year. And as well as marines .mil, it's
going to be another resource. If anybody listening
to your podcast is... you know government employee
we are going to be hosting as event 10 this year
we are going to be hosting a memorial workout
in honor of first lieutenant travis manion on
29 april which happens to be the anniversary
of his death so we're going to do a workout in
honor of him at the marine corps war memorial
in arlington virginia so we do want to invite
out government employees civilian military etc
Give me a shout. There's posters all up over
the Pentagon, Henderson Hall, things like that.
So we want to honor all fallen Marines, service
members, first responders, Leo, like every hero
that you've ever done. But this one in particular
is on the anniversary of Travis's death. And
so there's no better way to remind Marines that
even if they give the ultimate sacrifice and
they fall in combat, the Marine Corps is going
to remember who they are. Absolutely. Well, I
want to thank you both so much, and obviously
Kelsey as well, though she can't hear this at
the moment. It's been such an interesting conversation,
three very different lenses. So I truly, truly
appreciate you being so generous with your time
and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thanks, James. This was incredible. Thank you
so much.