Combat Fitness: Adapt or Die

Abstract

Dissatisfied with its soldiers’ physical readiness for combat, the US Army has recently conducted a sweeping review of its physical training program. To a degree, the rise of innovative fitness programs such as CrossFit influenced this review. This article contends that the theory and practice of physical training in the Australian Army requires review. The CrossFit strength and conditioning program offers an innovative prism through which to identify opportunities for improvement. Specifically the article compares the respective approaches of CrossFit and the Australian Army to ‘combat fitness’. From this it identifies the divergences in the principles of each program, considers what Army might leverage from these differences and finally discusses the need for a compelling narrative that defines our approach to combat fitness, that is simple enough for soldiers to remember, apply and be passionate about.

‘The human body is the chassis of every known weapon system.’

- Colonel P B McCoy¹

I recently heard a sergeant say to a group of soldiers in 1st Brigade that when they run around the brigade and see the warrant officers and older officers walking for physical training they are looking at themselves in fifteen years. The walkers in turn are looking back at them and seeing themselves fifteen years ago doing what they did then and wondering how they got from there to where they are now. Is it unreasonable to believe that a cycle breaker may have emerged in parallel with the other societal and organisational changes of the past two decades and those soldiers do not have to be walking the tank track in 2025? The US Army is asking similar questions; Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, the US Army Training and Doctrine Command’s deputy commanding General for Initial Military Training, recently reviewed US Army physical training and realised that the US Army’s ‘physical training programs were not that good and were not performing their intended purpose’.²

I do not think our Army is much different. This article contends that the theory and practice of physical training in the Australian Army requires review. The CrossFit strength and conditioning program offers an innovative prism through which to identify opportunities for improvement. Specifically the article compares the respective approaches of CrossFit and the Australian Army to ‘combat fitness’. From this, it identifies the divergences in the principles of each program, considers what Army might leverage from these differences and finally discusses the need for a compelling narrative that defines our approach to combat fitness and that is simple enough for soldiers to remember, apply and be passionate about. It consciously avoids any attempts to ‘sell’ CrossFit to Army; the Canadian Military,³ United States Marine Corps,⁴ other law enforcement agencies,⁵ Olympians⁶ and Special Operations Units⁷ have accepted the efficacy, efficiency and safety of CrossFit for reasons that will not be enumerated here. CrossFit is simply the vehicle of comparison.

Understanding CrossFit or any fitness program requires a definition of fitness. The Australian Army defines ‘combat fitness’ as the

physical capacity to perform the physical demands of routine and mission specific duties effectively, and still have enough energy left over to handle any contingencies that may arise. This includes possessing high levels of the physical fitness parameters of strength, endurance and aerobic capacity, and the motor skill parameters of agility, balance and coordination.⁸

This definition leads thinking down one of two possible paths. In the first instance, one can accept war’s violent, chaotic and unpredictable nature and as a corollary recognise that ‘routine and mission specific duties’ and ‘possible contingences’ (possible contingencies including lethal interpersonal violence) cannot be defined.⁹ Alternatively, one ignores the unpredictable nature of war and develops a laundry list of physical requirements for ‘routine and mission specific tasks’ by function, gender and age. The problem with the second prescriptive approach, used in Army’s definition of combat fitness, is that it fosters the illusions that combat lets its participants choose the tasks they perform. It may lead to an illusion that combat will only place large upper body strength demands on Artillery soldiers, combat will never require tankers to cover ground quickly on foot, or that combat’s demands diminish as we grow older. Clausewitz asserts that combat makes no such allowances because it is subject to immutable laws of chance and friction.¹⁰ Combat fitness by definition must acknowledge this truth. Alternatively, CrossFit posits that the physical demands of life, and by extension combat, are ‘unknown and unknowable’. ‘Unknown and unknowable’ is a closer representation of the uncertainty of combat than ‘routine and mission specific tasks’.

‘Unknown and unknowable’ is a closer representation of the uncertainty of combat than ‘routine and mission specific tasks’.

To physically prepare for the unknown and unknowable, CrossFit espouses a ‘belief in fitness’; that is, a belief in ‘a physical capacity which lends itself generally well to any endeavor’.¹¹ A program of ‘constantly varied, high intensity functional movements’ develops this physical capacity.¹² ‘Constantly varied’ translates as the use of a wide array of exercises from weight lifting, gymnastics and locomotion (running, rowing), in varying combinations and time intervals. CrossFit does not mandate specific exercise modes except to demand that all exercises are ‘functional movements’. Functional movements are those elemental movements we are born with and biomechanically designed to perform. Functional movements generally demand the movement of ‘large, loads long distances quickly’.¹³ These terms are relative to the human body—a clean and jerk is an example of ‘a large load being moved a long distance quickly’; a bicep curl is not. The final tenet, ‘high intensity’, describes the requirement to perform a lot of work in a short time frame and focuses on adaptation in the first two metabolic pathways.¹⁴ Most CrossFit workouts compete against the clock to tap the inherent competitive nature of humans and compel athletes to push themselves beyond what they might normally like to do; as Glassman says, ‘men will die for points’.¹⁵ I take it as self-evident that the reader will also recognise the psychological benefits of exposing a soldier to competitive and unpredictable situations on a daily basis.

The principles of Army’s combat fitness training methodology are: overload, specificity, individuality, recovery and reversibility. The principles ‘overload’, ‘recovery’ and ‘reversibility’ correlate broadly between Army and CrossFit and so will not be the focus of the discussion.¹⁶ The programs diverge with regard to specificity and individuality. Combat Fitness states:

The principle of specificity revolves around the training effect being specific to the overall objective. The body adapts according to the type of overload imposed and the specific method training being delivered. Weight training performed exclusively induces specific strength adaptations with little or no increase in aerobic fitness. Aerobic fitness training, in contrast, elicits specific endurance training adaptations with essentially no improvement in strength.¹⁷

CrossFit’s position is that ‘combat requires an ability to perform well at all tasks, even unfamiliar tasks, tasks combined in infinitely varying combinations. In practice this encourages the athlete [soldier] to disinvest in any set notions of sets, rest periods, reps, exercises, order of exercises, routines and periodization.’¹⁸ This approach is diametrically opposed to Army’s principle of specificity. Additionally, CrossFit focuses training in the first and second metabolic pathways because these adaptations translate generally well to the third metabolic pathway. The layman’s translation of this is that Army says doing high intensity Olympic lifting will not improve a military athlete’s running capacity;¹⁹ CrossFit says it does.²⁰

Consideration of the principle of ‘individuality’ reveals another divergence between Army and CrossFit. Combat Fitness describes ‘individuality’ as follows:

The focus for combat fitness training is on team performance; however, the team in its entirety is made up of individuals of different genetics, experience, lifestyles and tolerance to training intensities. The main aim of a preparatory combat fitness program is to identify shortfalls in the performance of individuals and prescribe training to enhance performance accordingly. The use of ability groups and personal training programs is essential to optimise performance improvements.²¹

To CrossFit, individuality means that athletes perform varied functional movements with intensity or load scaled to their ability. For example, every CrossFitter from seven years old to seventy years old will squat and perform Olympic lifts.²² CrossFit summarises this idea as, ‘the needs of Olympic athletes and housewives differ by degree not kind’. On the surface, in accordance with the principle of individuality, it seems reasonable for Australian Army units to conduct physical training differently as units have different demographics. However, it is my experience that the Australian Army is, informally at least, defining individuality to mean that people do the physical training they are comfortable with. We are not the only military to suffer from this malaise. Sergeant 1st Class Steven Lee, the senior trainer at the United States Army Physical Fitness School (USAPFS), comments ‘that the old FM [US Army Physical Training Doctrine] was a buffet. If you didn’t understand it, your diet became, “whatever I like, that’s what I’m going to do”.’²³ There must be a list of basic physical skills that military athletes should be able to perform. The Australian Army physical training doctrine is not clear on what they should be. Even if they were clear, an overemphasis on the training principle of individuality and the nature of the testing regime encourages divergence from doctrine in practice. Currently, whether it intends to or not, the Australian Army defines the critical components of an exercise program as running or walking, push-ups and sit-ups.²⁴ Similarly, Frank Palkoska, the USAPFS director, says that US Army physical training programs held to a flawed concept that ‘testing drove training ... units said, all we’ve got to do is do push-ups, sit-ups and run; and, the more we run, the better we’ll be’.²⁵ When doctrine is unclear on what is important then the assessed elements of physical training become the building block of the training program and crucial components are ignored.

To explore this idea without sinking into an exercise physiology swamp I will examine the squat as an example. The squat is a fundamental basic human movement,²⁶ which, in so much as it develops powerful hip extension, correlates very strongly to athletic performance.²⁷ Army, invoking or misusing the principle of ‘individuality’, allows individuals to not squat or to squat incorrectly, because they say they are too old, injured or cautious. CrossFit requires all its athletes to squat and modifies the load and number of repetitions by individual ability.²⁸ An analogy might be that all soldiers must be able to operate a F88 Austeyr competently but not all soldiers need to be able to group like an infantryman. The squat cannot be simply omitted, sidelined or diluted from a legitimate strength and conditioning program. In the CrossFit program squatting is taught, revised and practiced continually.²⁹ By comparison, my anecdotal observation is that a large proportion of Army’s combat soldiers have not been taught to squat correctly³⁰ nor are practiced in this skill repetitively—as they have done with drill, first aid or employment of their personal weapon. This lack of training focus on a major building block of athletic performance seems odd given the importance of combat fitness and its links to combat performance as stated in Combat Fitness:

Successful performance in combat is the driving force behind all military training; physical training is no exception. A high level of physical condition not only permits the efficient execution of tasks over extended periods of time, but increases confidence, discipline and esprit de corps, while reducing susceptibility to injury and mental and physical stress.³¹

To align the practice with this ideal, the squat, as but one example of a building block of physical capacity, should receive the same amount of training attention as weapons proficiency and other soldier skills.

The lack of understanding of critical components of physical training could be because Army’s physical training doctrine is not well known or understood in the force. Combat Fitness is a detailed and logical publication; unfortunately, its contents are not accessible to the individual soldier. I suspect this is because it is not particularly readable and has no dominant or easily understood narrative. To a sports scientist or physical training instructor the requirements of Combat Fitness are probably easily understood, but to a non-professional or soldier there is no clear and simple controlling idea that a soldier can use to guide their actions when conducting physical training. In contrast, CrossFit describes itself as a ‘constantly varied high intensity functional movement’ program. I concede that this is a little abstract without context; more useful is Greg Glassman’s ‘fitness in 100 words’ that describes CrossFit’s approach as:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, Clean and Jerk, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity all will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.³²

Combat Fitness, as a 743-page pamphlet, is also physically less accessible to the modern soldier than CrossFit’s ‘doctrine’. CrossFit’s doctrine is on the Internet in a variety of media such as videos, journal articles and iPod/iPhone files. The US Army has translated this idea to its revised physical training field manual by including videos showing how to execute every exercise in the training circular on the website of its Physical Training School. For mobile devices an ‘Army Physical Readiness Training’ iPhone app was created, which collates exercise details with photos, videos and example workout calendars for each of the physical readiness training phases.³³

Comparing CrossFit and the Army physical training methodology has identified the following possible avenues for improvement in Army physical training. First, align physical training doctrine to combat doctrine; in particular, discard the assumption that the physical requirements of combat can be known and quantified. Second, critically review the physical training principle of ‘specificity’. The principle of specificity does not relate well to the demands of combat, and is declining in importance as a principle in general strength and conditioning programs. Third, elevate learning and testing of basic physical skills to the same footing as learning how to march and how to use a weapon. Finally, build physical training doctrine on a simple ideology that every soldier can understand and execute, and publish this doctrine and its supporting information on the Internet in digestible media and easily searchable formats.

The weapons systems and tactics used in combat have evolved over the last fifteen years. The methods by which the Australian Army develops the physical capacity of the humans at foundation of these weapons systems and tactics have not. Other militaries are recognising this and reviewing their physical training programs. CrossFit offers a progressive prism through which to review and improve the theory and practice of physical training of the Australian Army.

About the Author

Major James Davis served as a Cavalry Squadron commander in 2008/2009 and is currently a student at the School of Advanced Military Studies. He is a CrossFit level one trainer and a member of the leadership group at Iron Major CrossFit, which is a not-for-profit military CrossFit affiliate based in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Endnotes

1     Colonel P B McCoy, ‘Leadership – Complete and Unedited’, CrossFit Journal, 6 September 2008, <http://journal.crossfit.com/2008/09/leadership---complete-and-unedited…; accessed 22 October 2010.

2     ‘PRT: The Army’s new road map for physical readiness’, United States Army, August 2010, <http://www.army.mil/-news/2010/08/30/44456-prt-the-armys-new-road-map-f…; accessed 3 November 2010.

3     ‘Army Fitness Manual Supplement: Combat Fitness Program’, Canadian Defence Force, p. 1-1.

4     USMC functional fitness concept, <http://journal.crossfit.com/2007/01/a-concept-for-functional-fitne.tpl&…; accessed 21 October 2010.

5     The Florida Police department has used CrossFit as its strength and conditioning program since 2003. See TJ Cooper and Phil Canto, ‘CrossFit Training for Law Enforcement: Jacksonville Five Years On’, CrossFit Journal, No. 61, September 2007, <http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/61_07_CF_Train_Law_Enfo.pdf&gt; accessed 22 October 2010.

25    ‘PRT: The Army’s new road map for physical readiness.’

26    ‘The squat is the only exercise that trains the recruitment of the entire posterior chain in a way that is progressively improvable ... these important muscles contribute to jumping, pulling, pushing, and anything else involving the lower body.’ Mark Rippetoe, ‘The Squat, or How I Learned to Stop Leg-Pressing and Use My Ass’, Starting Strength, <http://startingstrength.com/articles/squat_rippetoe.pdf&gt; accessed 27 October 2010.

27    National Strength and Conditioning Association. Position Statement. The Squat Exercise in Athletic Conditioning <http://www.nsca-lift.org/publications/SQTforWeb.pdf&gt; accessed 20 October 2010.

28    CrossFit does not modify the range of motion; that is, CrossFit requires all athletes to squat with the quadriceps below parallel.

29    Michael E Bewley, ‘The squat and its application to athletic performance’, National Strength and Conditioning Association Journal, No. 6, June 1984, pp. 10–19.

30    7-7-4 Combat Fitness, p. 518.

31    Ibid, p. 47.

32    Greg Glassman, ‘What is fitness?’, CrossFit Journal, 1 October 2002, <http://journal.crossfit.com/2002/10/what-is-fitness-by-greg-glassm.tpl&…; accessed 10 December 2010.

33    ‘PRT: The Army’s new road map for physical readiness.’