Training the Unconventional Warrior Athlete

As a Marine Veteran and high-performance coach, I understand, first-hand, the challenges faced by our warfighters and athletes, both mentally and physically. For the past 20 years following my service in the Marine Corps and time studying exercise science at Purdue University, I’ve been worked with 1000’s of individuals looking to improve their overall health and performance. These clients have ranged from elite pro-athletes, to Olympic and Paralympic athletes. I’ve had the honor and challenge of taking broken bodies with spinal, knee, hip or shoulder issues, and bringing them back to a point where they can excel at the performance tasks they aim to complete.

My passion has always been to combine the practical knowledge about human performance I’ve gained with experience, my academic exercise science background, and my time in Marine Corps, to create a better means of training warfighters and athletes.

This summary is an overview of the problem of current training methodologies as I see it and a simpler, more relevant and effective way to give each of our elite warfighters the opportunity to reach their true potential. This will also give a very quick introduction to the NeuroPak, an unconventional tool and approach that I have specifically developed for our warfighters. I will be happy to dive into deeper detail on any area of interest or questions that you may have. Feel free to challenge anything that you have questions about or don’t agree with.

As a Veteran, I understand why it matters to bring a real solution to our community and I feel a tremendous sense of duty to find a better way to train our warfighters. My unconventional approach goes against the grain and challenges our best and brightest HP experts. I deeply encourage you to keep an open mind and please take the time to review this summary. I am completely open to being challenged right back if you see something that you don’t agree with. There is no ego here... we owe it to our warfighters to get this right.

Current HP Challenges Facing Warfighter Readiness and Performance

After meeting with command leadership about HP challenges and how those challenges relate to the elite operator I sincerely wanted to draft a response that would give a different approach and if possible, connect some missing dots.

What I am consistently hearing is that "We aren't sure how to achieve our goal of increasing operational readiness, injury prevention, and soldier lethality. We are looking at advanced technologies such as VERT, DARI motion, Vald Performance, etc. to identify MSK issues earlier, measure performance/fatigue, and then trying organize training plans but, we still aren't sure if that's the correct approach to accomplish our goals."

Assessment and Opinion

Where my frustrations begin is that human performance optimization in its purest form is fairly basic. We assess and identify the individuals bio-mechanical dysfunction then train/rehabilitate in a truly functional or skill specific way to correct that dysfunction which will improve biomechanical readiness and ultimately improve performance. In addition, we reduce the risk of MSK injuries and hone skill-based competencies applicable to our elite critical skill operators. It goes without saying that it’s imperative to add quality nutrition and to consistently manage proper recovery..

Where I See a Disconnect

Where I see the disconnect and the opportunity is that we are still applying conventional, athletic, lengthy, periodization training methodologies to an unconventional population. The community we serve aren't collegiate athletes and do not get time outs or off-seasons to recover. Our community can be called upon at any time not to just perform but to operate at the most elite level where winning is the only option.

While it’s still important that we include an appropriate strength and conditioning training plan, we must do it in a way that doesn’t impede operational readiness and allows each service member the appropriate approach that will be suited for their respective skill sets, biomechanics, and mission capabilities.

Examples

• A bicep curl will never translate to a faster draw stroke. It will just result in a stronger bicep that doesn't understand the movement of a draw stroke.
• A deadlift will build a stronger foundation and provides a basic kinetic link through the movement but that does not directly translate into moving dynamically under fire carrying a full load of gear.
• A 6-12 month periodized training schedule that phases in heavy lifting cycles throughout just sets up our operators to potentially be at a disadvantage because they have not fully recovered from a heavy training load.
• My guiding principle for the last 20 years of training athletes and fixing broken people
• “Sometimes a coach will limit the athletes true potential because the coach doesn’t have the experience to match the true potential that the individual athlete has. So, the athlete only grows as far as the coach’s base of knowledge. It is our job as coaches to identify more potential in our athletes and bring in the expertise necessary to guide that athlete to reach his or her absolute greatness.” I often say to my professional athletes on day one that you are putting your future and million-dollar contracts in my trust and I accept this responsibility with the greatest of care and respect.

The job demands for our community are unique and require an unconventional approach and training plan that evolves and adapts to the ever-changing obstacles that we face from our enemies and their unpredictable tactics. The training plan must also not limit the operator’s physical capacity at any time. I am not telling you anything that you don't already know.

My Unconventional Approach to Unconventional Athletes

My mission is to propose a clinically validated, unconventional approach to an unconventional population of athletes. While there will always be a place and need for quality strength and conditioning, if we just focus on training muscles and not movement then we will never truly optimize the warfighter. I have seen many athletes with unlimited potential be limited by the quality of their coaching, respecting the coach’s commitment to how athletes should train instead of observing and reacting to the need of the individual athlete.

The Key is Bio-Mechanical Readiness

I am sure that you all are familiar with sport-specific training.

What I have invented will fundamentally change the paradigm of how we approach sport- specific or skill specific development and human motion quality. My goal was to look at our current HP problems globally. Not in parts and pieces. I set out on a mission to not just give a new training aide but to actually address the entire goal of troop readiness, resiliency, soldier lethality, and injury prevention.

I have engineered a clinically validated neuromuscular training system, the NeuroPak. The NeuroPak is an easy to use, lightweight (less than 3 lbs.) wearable training device that loads approximately 6lbs of constant resistance to the entire kinetic chain. The NeuroPak allows warfighters to train with no limitations to their movements or training environments. The NeuroPak not only accelerates skill development and motor learning but also conditions neural plasticity (smells, sounds, temp, etc.).

The NeuroPak intuitively conditions better global biomechanics and joint performance/stability while you train in the environment and the demands of any given training evolution- in full gear and team training.

In addition, the NeuroPak has proven time after time to accelerate anerobic/aerobic conditioning and intuitively correct running mechanics while you actually run. The NeuroPak adapts to your specific needs and body type and intuitively cues your body to move better immediately. We have proven in our running research that we can achieve better results, including aerobic and anerobic conditioning with less stress on the body, in a shorter amount of time. The NeuroPak acts as a personal force multiplier by approximately 3x- meaning you can achieve a better workout from a two-mile run than in your former six-mile run.

The NeuroPak accelerates energy system conditioning (energy systems being either anerobic or aerobic). This is greatly relevant to the demands of a deployed operator as the environments that they face are uncontrolled and require a much more efficient use of energy systems.

Examples

• A soldier or elite critical skill operator doesn’t have events like a 3-mile run, then a break. After that break have a lifting event, then another break. The real world doesn’t operate in an organized action-recovery-action pattern.
• A warfighter must be conditioned to call on either energy system at a moments notice. THERE IS NO TIME OUT TO RECOVER IN BATTLE.
• The NeuroPak will allow you to put less stress and impact on your body, optimize your personal biomechanics while you run/train, and require less of your time conditioning. Which allows for more time and focus on warfighting skills.
• There is significantly more to present on the benefits of the NeuroPak, but I will stop here and offer to give a full brief and demonstration of the NeuroPak capabilities at your convenience. I do not expect you to take my word for it. Just try the NeuroPak one time on any operator and I will let the Pak prove it to you firsthand.

Very Respectfully,

Chris Tedesco USMC-Veteran 1109 Bravo