This is part three of a four part series dealing with the demands of building the tactical athlete.

All of us go through the daily rigmarole of training specified by our coaches, bosses and trainers. For the Military, Law Enforcement and Fire Departments it seems we go through the motions of these mandatory training exercises that are no fun and when you sit back and look at the fundamentals of the training they seem to only hit the basics. The basics in all training are a must for perfection of that specific fundamental exercise. Wither it is Basic Rifle Marksmanship, First Aid training or Communications Training.

Now I am not down playing the "Basics" what so ever, but after your athletes have mastered the basics you need to put them into real world situations or simulated situations for events that may arise on the battlefield, hostage crisis, trapped person in a burning building or a simple car crash with casualties.

You can "what if" it all day when it comes to making scenarios. But try to go for the most probable ones that you run across and your athletes will adapt to the new ones that they face quickly without much thought at all.

I will start with Basic Rifle Marksmanship, after your athlete has zeroed there weapons and gone through there shooting drills of CQB, CQM and shoot house drills with there teams. Make a "stress shoot" training exercise. This setup can be how ever you deem necessary with your current situations. If you are a Police Officer you may need to shoot in and around cars or in buildings. Make a course that implements all these difficult shots and throw in some realistic happenings i.e. a partner goes down in the battle and you need to recover him quickly and give him first aid while the fight continues, or you find your self or your team in a situation were you start receiving fire and you have never been under fire yourself and your in charge! Train on communication on the radio being calm and still situational aware of what is still happening around you as you speak. You can even conduct a 2 way live fire with paintball guns or air soft guns so when you get hit by a round it stings you and makes you see were you should have been behind cover or just approached the situation differently. Being hit by a paintball will also allow you to get in the mind set of fighting on even though you're hit. This is important to know in your mind that even though you're hit by a bullet you can still fight on. A lot of the times people get hit they don't even know it until they have completed the mission. This is due to real world training and having the mind set that you are in a since invisible. Fight through it and fight on.

When you set up your course have a route that your athletes can run from/to the course in there kit to get the heart rate up and get there Central Nervous System running. This will cause them to react slower at first as they are exhausted already by the time they get to the course. Train them to get faster as they learn the situations and quick thinking it requires making it through the course successfully. Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse it is important to rehearse your plan before you go to a mission but if you don't have time to rehearse the plan before you go. These real world exercises will allow you to know that they can take on anything that comes at them.

For the Firemen out there train your athletes to react to the same type of problems they may face. For example do a drill were a house is on fire and get one of those medical dummies that bleed and allow you to perform CPR and everything to them. Now, dress that dummy up as a fireman and in the middle of your training call an audible and tell the fire team that there is a partner trapped under a beam in the 3rd floor and to go get him now. This will of course send there minds and body's in to almost panic state which will make them either react more quickly or send them into shock as there buddy is down and out. You must train for this because it may happen. It will also get them in the mind set of trying to go just as fast if not faster for the civilian casualties they face on a day to day basis. Then make them run the casualty down that 3 flights of stairs or even higher with a 200lb dummy bleeding out on them and make them treat the casualty until the medics arrive this will ensure they are on there game in all aspects of there job.

Now my favorite training exercise I like to do is one were anyone can do this and benefit from the training. I like to call it the Circle of Death. This is were you take your team or Platoon or even department and make a circle evenly separated and pick one person to start the exercise. They get in the middle of the circle and call out the first fighter. Once that first fighter is recognized he goes in the middle to fight, and then the rotation of fighters goes clockwise or counters clockwise until all people have fought the first original guy. After that the next guy come's in to fight and the circle starts again. The fighters will grapple for 30 seconds, this short time span makes the athlete get explosive and moving as there is a new fighter every 30 seconds ready to try and get the original guy to tap out. With 30 seconds to fight there is little time to actually make the fighters tap so it is an all out brawl expending a lot of energy into moving and fighting the fighter off of the other fighter. This will make the CNS and mind go crazy as to how in the world to make this new guy tap or just be able to handle his techniques he brings. This training is great for building camaraderie among your section or athletes. It will also build incredible stamina to go the extra distance when they think there done for.

How can you implement all this into a typical athlete? Run drills for your specific sport or job and make it stressful, fast changes in the situations will make your athletes improve on there thinking ability and speed of making the correct decisions in the heat of battle. Wither it be on the football field, baseball field, basketball court or the battlefield of life.

Bill Long

I began my military career in high school joining the Iowa National guard in 1998 on Dec. 07. After I graduated High School in 2000 I fought with my unit to go active duty and finally in May of 2001 I was stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY. I have been in the 101st since then and have spent numerous deployments around the country and around the world to include, 2 years in Iraq and a 5 month stint in Afghanistan before being sent home this year to have surgery on an umbilical hernia. I have held the positions of Team Leader, Squad Leader, and Platoon Sergeant. I am currently studying to get certified by the NSCA as a CPT and studying slowly but surely to get my degree in Exercise Science. I am also slowly starting to get my Personal Training business up and running. You can contact me at bodybylong@gmail.com and check out my blog at http://bodybylong.blogspot.com for videos and training logs to help you with your own Strength and Conditioning programs.