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MOPs & MOEs: Daily Summaries Delivered
by MOPs & MOEs
Changing the fitness culture of the force. Your one stop shop for all things fitness for tactical professionals.
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- 1 weeks ago1h 11m
Military Fitness Hot Takes: PT Tests, AI, and Swimming
MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the platform built for military and tactical organizations. From scheduling to accountability to compliance, Teamworks keeps your unit running like a unit. If your team is still doing it with spreadsheets and group texts, there’s a better way. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the training app we actually use to run the All-Access Bundle. Built for athletes who train with a purpose, not just a goal. Programming built for people who have a job to do. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comAlex posted a simple prompt on Instagram: give me your hottest take, I want to fight with you. Turns out that works a lot better than asking for podcast topic suggestions. This week, Alex and Drew work through the best ones: policy, programming, coaching, and a few that ended up in somebody’s LinkedIn mentions.Topics covered:The new Health and Human Performance Optimization Advisory Committee (HHPO) and why having WPO under Personnel & Readiness and HHPO under the Defense Health Agency at the same time is the same fight the military has been having over human performance for over a decadeCunningham’s Law: the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answerTactical athletes are closer to endurance athletes than powerlifters: stamped approved, discussed at length, nothing new here but it keeps coming upH2F coaches suck at run programs: specifically, one told a soldier “I’m not a cross-country coach.” Drew and Alex on whether that’s a coaching problem or a system problemHigher running mileage should be a goal to strive for, and too many people are chasing minimal effective dose instead of building real volume tolerancePT tests should be randomized like your urinalysis: both agree, Drew wrote the blog post, Alex nerds out on the psychology of behavior changeAll branches should have the same PT test: maybe, but only if you decouple the general health test from the occupationally specific one the DoD instruction already says you’re supposed to haveH2F CPS positions are a waste of government funds: Alex bats less than 50%, Drew blames the undefined role; the real issue is H2F conflating cognitive, mental, and brain health as though they’re the same thingMost strength and conditioning billets could be replaced by ChatGPT: the guy who built GPT 4.0 still has a personal trainer, because AI doesn’t make you feel bad when you skip a workoutIf we liked kettlebell swings as much as push-ups, we’d be an unstoppable force: moderate agreement, strong skepticism of the kettlebell cultMost units should do swim PT, even if it means lessons during PT time: agreed, and there is no swim standard to deploy on a Navy ship, which is insaneTrain: https://www.mopsnmoes.com/all-accessDiscord: https://discord.com/servers/mops-moes-1357721021733671043
- 2 weeks ago51 min
The Army CTO on Fitness, Wearables, and the Limits of Data
MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the platform built for military and tactical organizations. From scheduling to accountability to compliance, Teamworks keeps your unit running like a unit. If your team is still doing it with spreadsheets and group texts, there’s a better way. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the training app we actually use to run the All-Access Bundle. Built for athletes who train with a purpose, not just a goal. Programming built for people who have a job to do. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comAlex sat down with Dr. Alex Miller, Chief Technology Officer of the Army at AUSA. Before they got into tech and data, the conversation started somewhere more personal: a photo from a buddy’s wedding fifteen years ago, GoRuck, Spartan, and the moment he decided to take his own fitness seriously.What followed was one of the more honest conversations we’ve had about what technology can and can’t actually do for human performance — from someone who has spent a career at the intersection of data collection, intelligence, and the Army.Topics covered:The switch moment behind a personal transformation — and the difference between being hurt and being injuredWhy technology cannot fix culture by itself, and what the intel community’s data science revolution teaches us about collecting human performance dataThe quote he keeps coming back to: “Data’s a lot like garbage. You should probably have a plan for what you’re going to do with it before you start collecting it.”What Thor 2 and Thor 3 get right — starting with the decision you’re trying to drive, not the sensorWhy “buy-in” means something literal: when you give people things for free, they attach exactly that value to itThe fear and trust problem behind wearable adoption — why even fit soldiers hesitate when they don’t control what happens to the dataFitness as table stakes: it doesn’t matter how good you are at the end point if you can’t get to the end pointWhy changing the PT test shouldn’t change your training program — if you were training for the mission in the first placeThe gamification problem: social media platforms are just databases we convinced people it was fun to put data into — and we haven’t cracked that for human performance yetThe people he’s most worried about: E8s and above on a general officer’s staff Train: https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation?attrib=565490-pod Discord: https://discord.com/servers/mops-moes-1357721021733671043
- 3 weeks ago1h 44m
What is Endurance? with Michael Blevins
MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the platform built for military and tactical organizations. From scheduling to accountability to compliance, Teamworks keeps your unit running like a unit. If your team is still doing it with spreadsheets and group texts, there’s a better way. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the training app we actually use to run the All-Access Bundle. Built for athletes who train with a purpose, not just a goal. Programming built for people who have a job to do. Start your free trial at trainheroic.com.Alex is out this week, so Drew and John brought in a friend of the show: Michael Blevins — high performance coach, consultant, and the guy who trained Henry Cavill for Man of Steel and the Justice League films. This is round three, and we spent it going deep on endurance — what it actually is, how we’ve gotten it wrong, and what it means to build it for life rather than just the next event.Michael’s first psychedelic experience happened on a bicycle in Bulgaria. No substances involved. Just a thirty-minute out-of-body experience while climbing Mount Vitosha, and a 30% PR on his twenty-minute power output. It’s an odd place to start a conversation about endurance training, but it sets the stage for the conversation. Topics covered:Why “endurance” and “going faster” are not the same thing The 90-minute threshold: why most people can’t yet endure long enough to actually train enduranceMore, better, different — the sequence that applies to both business and building an aerobic baseWhy discipline gets you started but self-care is what keeps you goingHow the Hittite Empire was writing periodization programs for war horses in 800 BCEGalen, gladiators, and why rigid programming without accounting for athlete state has always been a problemThe running limitation that has nothing to do with your lungsCardiac drift as a practical guide for building volume without breaking downWhy the question “what do you want to do after the event?” changes the entire programTrain: https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation?attrib=565490-podDiscord: https://discord.com/servers/mops-moes-1357721021733671043
- 4 weeks ago1h 38m
The Military's Running Problem
MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the platform built for military and tactical organizations. From scheduling to accountability to compliance, Teamworks keeps your unit running like a unit. If your team is still doing it with spreadsheets and group texts, there's a better way. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the training app we actually use to run the All-Access Bundle. Built for athletes who train with a purpose, not just a goal. Programming built for people who have a job to do. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comRunning is the most failed event on the Army Fitness Test. It’s also blamed for more injuries than anything else in the epidemiology data. So what’s actually going on, and what can leaders do about it?John is back, and we’re digging into the Instagram comments from a post Alex put up a few weeks ago on running injuries and PT test performance. The responses ranged from thoughtful to deeply unhinged, and we work through all of them.We cover why 27% of recorded Army injuries being “running-related” is a lot less clear than it sounds (90% of injuries in that dataset had no cause recorded at all), what the research actually says about footwear and injury risk, and why the best predictor of future injury (previous injury) may stop predicting once rehab is actually complete.We also get into the zone two debate, why “overuse injury” is the wrong frame, and what the National Guard’s recruit sustainment program can teach us about the real fix: it’s not too much too soon, it’s too little for too long.Topics covered:Why Army running injury data is messier than the headlines suggestFootwear, heel striking, and what the research actually showsPrevious injury as a risk factor — and when it stops being oneThe tissue tolerance and volume tolerance problem PT tests don’t measureZone two vs. intensity: what actually matters and whenWhy “overuse injury” is a misnomer — underuse causes overuseWhat the National Guard does differently in initial entry trainingPractical tools: pogo hops, strides, and why jump rope is underrated💪 Train: https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation?attrib=565490-pod💬 Discord: https://discord.com/servers/mops-moes-1357721021733671043
- Oct 11, 20261h 30m
Do Hard Things with COL Mike Kloepper and Dr Ryan Erbe
72 miles through the Italian Dolomites. 22,000 feet of climbing. 31 meals together.Colonel Mike Kloepper and Dr. Ryan Erbe took a group of West Point cadets into the mountains to work on character development. They join us to talk about how they planned the trip, what they saw in the cadets, and what they’d change next time.What we get into:Physical challenge and reflection. The hiking was only part of it. They built in time for cadets to talk through what happened each day, how they handled it, and what they could learn from it.What they mean by character. Erbe talks about humility, self-control, and caring for the people you lead. Kloepper brings it back to duty, honor, country—and what those words ask of you.Eating together. They shared 31 meals over the trip, without screens. Kloepper explains why sitting down together after a hard day mattered so much, and what leaders could take from that.What they wish they’d measured. Kloepper came home frustrated that they hadn’t collected baseline data. We talk about what that might have told them and whether measuring the experience would have changed it.Doing this closer to home. You don’t need a trip to Italy. Kloepper’s advice: get outside with your team, do something physically hard, and eat together. Make time to do it again.Mentioned in this episode:Team Red, White & BlueSimon Center for the Professional Military EthicWalking the Ridgeline, Colonel Klepper’s SubstackJim Collins, Good to GreatWest Point’s Cadet Character Education ProgramIndividual Advanced Development (IAD) programsThe “what, so what, now what” reflection frameworkTrain with us: https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation?attrib=565490-podJoin the Discord: https://discord.com/servers/mops-moes-1357721021733671043Subscribe wherever you listen: https://open.spotify.com/show/0RSP5CywOYxn2RHK0zzreQ?si=868021b97f304b56
- Oct 4, 20261h 32m
Sports Science with Bryce Murphy
Sports Science at Scale: What the Military Can Learn from IMG AcademyBryce works with roughly 1,600 athletes across 12 sports at IMG Academy. We brought him on to talk about what actually goes into managing that many athletes, how much of the data makes it into training decisions, and whether elite sport has this whole sports science thing figured out.Spoiler: they're still working on it, too.MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the platform built for military and tactical organizations. From scheduling to accountability to compliance, Teamworks keeps your unit running like a unit. If your team is still doing it with spreadsheets and group texts, there's a better way. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the training app we actually use to run the All-Access Bundle. Built for athletes who train with a purpose, not just a goal. Programming built for people who have a job to do. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comWhat we get into:— Everybody's collecting. Who's actually using it? Bryce watched Catapult take off in American football in 2015. Suddenly everybody was wearing the bra, but the training often looked suspiciously similar. Collecting more information is easy enough. Explaining what you changed because of it gets a little harder.— People and processes. Alex likes graphs. Drew likes tables. A seemingly small detail, until you realize the person receiving your report has no interest in reading it. Before getting too excited about the technology, you probably need to understand how your coaches make decisions.— Same run, very different workouts. Put the whole unit on the same run at the same pace and your fittest soldier gets a warm-up while your least fit soldier fights for his life. We know this. We keep doing it anyway. Bryce sees versions of the same thing in sport, where having the information to individualize training doesn't necessarily mean it happens.— What earns its place at IMG. Bar velocity informs programming. Athlete availability shapes sessions. Mental performance assessments guide group work. But none of that earned a permanent seat at the table just because somebody thought it was interesting. Coaches had to explain why they were collecting something and how they used it. — About that readiness dashboard… We'd all love a little green light telling us to send it. Unfortunately, the human being attached to the dashboard remains a bit more complicated. We get into force plates, Omega Wave, and how much confidence we should put in the numbers. As Bryce put it, placebo is a hell of a drug.Mentioned in this episode:IMG Academy — imga.comCatapult Sports — catapult.comMartin Buchheit — 30-15 Intermittent Fitness TestKinexon — local positioning systemThe Sports Gene — David EpsteinAdrian Peterson — the ACL rehab highlight reel that got Alex through his own recoveryOur All-Access Bundle bundle gets you access to every program MOPs & MOEs has ever releasedOr try our classic Long & Strong program with a free trial weekJoin the conversation by signing up for our Discord serverViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
- Sep 27, 20261h 33m
Why Your Training Doesn't Transfer with Dr. Job Fransen
MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the platform built for military and tactical organizations. From scheduling to accountability to compliance, Teamworks keeps your unit running like a unit. If your team is still doing it with spreadsheets and group texts, there's a better way. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the training app we actually use to run the All-Access Bundle. Built for athletes who train with a purpose, not just a goal. Programming built for people who have a job to do. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comJob Fransen Returns: A Taxonomy for TransferJob Fransen is back. Last time, we covered near and far transfer — the gap between what you train and what you actually need to do. This time, we go deeper. Job, along with Franco Impellizzeri, published a taxonomy for the transfer of skills in sport, and it's one of those frameworks that immediately makes you rethink how you're building training programs.The Pentagon's warfighter performance optimization memo is sitting in the background of this whole conversation — specifically the part about elevating cognitive performance as a readiness priority. Drew and Alex think the people writing that memo probably don't know what it means. Job doesn't disagree.What we get into:— Transfer isn't just near or far. Job and Franco's taxonomy breaks it down across 13 dimensions borrowed from Barnett & Cécé's education framework and rebuilt for motor skills. Reach, distance, and likelihood are the three pillars.— Procedure vs. principle. If you know how to cook a steak on your specific pan, you're in trouble the second the pan changes. If you understand the Maillard reaction, you can cook anywhere. This is the chef-vs-cook distinction applied directly to how you design training.— Why shortcuts fail. Far transfer is alluring because it's fast — skip the messy middle, jump straight from generic training to elite performance. The problem is it almost never works. The research says so. The practitioners pitching video game cognitive training to the Pentagon either haven't read it or don't care.— VR and AR are not the answer. We tend to assume simulated environments are close enough to real ones. They're usually not, and the research is starting to catch up to that assumption. Job has a front-row seat to how sporting organizations get pitched these tools and how often they buy them anyway.— The military problem is harder. It's already difficult to design near-transfer practice in sport. Replicating combat — the noise, the stakes, the threat of actual harm — is orders of magnitude harder. The chain of near transfers still has to get built. You just can't use most of the middle links you'd want.— The three moderators that sink good practice design. Exposure, feedback and instruction, and learner disposition. Even if you design a perfect near-transfer task, you can blow the whole thing by getting any one of these wrong.Mentioned in this episode:Barnett & Cécé transfer taxonomy — the education framework Job built fromJob Fransen & Franco Impellizzeri — "A Taxonomy for the Transfer of Skills in Sport"Pentagon Warfighter Performance Optimization memoFirst Job Fransen episode — MOPs & MOEs, December 2025Our All-Access Bundle is the best place to get access to every training product we offerJoin the conversation on our DiscordViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
- Sep 20, 20261h 26m
Army Fitness Drama
MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comArmy Fitness Drama, R2 Gets Cut, and the Job Board Blows UpDrew is sick. It's not COVID. Apparently nobody cares about COVID anymore, which was news to him. Regardless, this week had more going on than either of them planned for.What we get into:The R2 contract got cut to shreds. A lot of people who work in Ready and Resilient performance centers found out they were losing their jobs, which is genuinely rough — and made worse by the fact that their employer almost certainly saw it coming and didn't say anything. Drew and Alex both feel for the folks caught in that. Alex is also pretty skeptical of the R2 program in general, and he explains why without holding back. The PT test rumors. The Vice Chief of Staff and Sergeant Major of the Army said it was all fake news at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference. Alex's take: that's not true, and it's fine to backtrack when you see the reaction, but let's not pretend it wasn't a thing. The specific rumor — remove the deadlift, remove the sprint drag carry, speed up the run times until it's basically the APFT — is what we're working with. And if your new Army fitness culture mirrors the Air Force fitness culture, Alex has some thoughts on that.The deadlift should stay. The National Guard lieutenant who was considered one of the fittest soldiers in his state, by APFT standards, who threw out his back deadlifting 65 pounds on day one of the master fitness trainer course. Every soldier at some point picks up and carries heavy awkward stuff in chaotic environments. Testing that is not optional.The sprint drag carry is in a weird gray area. A lot of people online are saying it's the most operationally relevant event. What they mean is it has the highest face validity — it looks the coolest and most military. Whether that's the same thing is a longer conversation.The closer lands on something worth sitting with. Alex argues that no amount of data will fix the perception that human performance is a luxury program. What will fix it is senior leaders who experienced H2F firsthand — as battalion and brigade commanders — moving into higher positions and advocating from personal experience rather than a PowerPoint.And on the job board: we launched a talent network this week, the R2 situation sent a wave of people to it, and it turns out cognitive performance is the discipline least likely to have salary listed. Zero out of 61 jobs. Zero.Mentioned in this episode:MOPs & MOEs job board — mopsnmoes.com/jobsAlex's R2 blog article Jón Páll Sigmarsson — there's no reason to be alive if you can't deadliftGeneral Frost — early ACFT and H2F rolloutLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
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