The Mission-Direct Standard

By Rob Shaul, Founder

Core to the MTI Method is this: mission demands dictate fitness demands.

This standard eliminates personal biases and guesswork from tactical fitness programming and exercise selection. The mission decides.

A team sports athlete to isn't physically prepared for his sport may lose is starting position, or cost his team in the game. An individual sport athlete who isn't prepared may not finish the race, or could lose the match.

Stakes are higher for tactical athletes:

- A soldier too slow on a rapid egress ruck risks being captured, or killed.

- An obese firefighter who collapses in a house fire becomes a liability, risking his own life and endangering the firefighters forced to drag him out.

- An unfit patrol officer might invite a fight, lose his weapon, and get shot with it.

Tactical athletes do get injured or killed on the job. Combat is chaos, and mission-direct fitness can mean the difference between success and a line-of-duty death. This reality places immense responsibility on tactical strength and conditioning coaches. Embrace it. Approach programming with unflinching, no-bullshit determination to prepare athletes for the known demands of their mission.

Pinpoint the critical mission-direct physical demands. These - not coach or athlete preference - dictate program design and exercise selection.

Don’t let mission variability overcomplicate the process. Daily shifts, fluctuating durations, and real-world quirks can't excuse unfocused analysis.

With sharp observation and sound judgment, you can nail 80% of mission-direct fitness demands and smartly estimate the rest.

Brace for pushback from doubtful operators, admins, commanders, and coaches.

The lazy defaults will be generic fitness plans, college-style sports training, CrossFit-style HIIT, or the latest UFC champ’s routine. Resist. The mission is your boss.

Beware recycled programs rebranded as “tactical.” Common offenders are repackaged sports-performance plans built for college or pro athletes. Operators, administrators and salesmen will claim that what works in the NFL or NBA will work on? the battlefield, street, or fireground. It won't.

Consider loaded sprinting. All tactical athletes carry 20 to 70 pounds of gear—body armor, weapons, ammo, and protective equipment. In dangerous situations, they must sprint under that load.

This is a universal, mission-direct fitness demand. Team-sport athletes don’t have this requirement, so sports-performance programs don’t train for it. But tactical work capacity programming must prioritize loaded movement and sprinting.

Ninety-five percent of your programming should prepare tactical athletes for the known 80% of mission demands. That’s right—over-prepare to crush the known demands.

If a tactical athlete returns from selection, PFT, or a course and says your programming left him unprepared—you failed.