The current generation is heavily influenced by technology and are much less mobile than previous generations. Young men and women are arriving at U.S Coast Guard Training Center Petaluma to participate in the Aviation Survival Technician (AST) Preparatory 16-Week Physical Training Program in the poorest shape ever; a direct reflection of the de-emphasis on physical fitness and nutrition in modern society (Cantrall, 2010). Current 2014 Center of Disease Control (CDC) reports state that 70 percent of adults over age 20 are overweight, with 38 percent of those considered obese (CDC, 2018). According to the Pentagon, 71 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 are ineligible to join the military because they are overweight (Phillips, 2018). Time, effort, and resources are required to turn an unfit individual into an effective AST candidate.

What are the Needs of the Current Prep Program?

The concept of a holistic approach to human performance, which includes nutrition, recovery, mobility, and proper functional movement, is coming to the forefront within the Department of Defense. The development of the Ranger Athlete Warrior (RAW) Program and the Tactical Human Optimization, Rapid Rehabilitation, and Reconditioning Program (THOR3) addresses the unique needs of special operation force (SOF) soldiers. These programs are designed for elite forces within the Department of Defense. Those working to become the Coast Guard’s elite do not have these programs available to them. A prep program that maximizes the human performance potential of an AST candidate is needed. This will provide a foundation for candidates to enhance functional movement, understand the importance of nutrition and recovery, and increase mobility.

The current 16-week AST prep program focuses on the physical aspects of strength and conditioning but lacks depth in the key variables of nutrition, rehabilitation, and mental training. Rescue swimmer candidates at Petaluma finish the 16-week program long before they leave for A School, forcing them to create unstructured and unguided workouts. The optimal Survival Technician Optimization, Recovery, and Mobility (STORM) program would last the entirety of the rescue swimmer candidates time at Training Center Petaluma. The methods learned through STORM on optimal human performance will be carried with the rescue swimmer candidates to A School and into their careers. STORM is a complete system that enhances overall athleticism by integrating program design variables such as resistance and aerobic training, nutrition, mental performance protocols, and solid movement skills foundation. The program’s differentiating factor from the current program is the implementation of a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) who will place strict adherence to mastering foundational movements at the physical and cognitive level. A rescue swimmer’s mission will require them to use land, sea, and air rescue techniques, experience harsh working environments beyond the norm, and operate in situations where adaptability is crucial. STORM will be a system that increases a rescue swimmer candidate’s performance by increasing adaptability, survivability, durability, and resiliency.

What STORM Brings

Aside from reducing injuries, the THOR3 and RAW programs are designed to align the physical training in the SOF community with the innovative training techniques used by elite athletes. The STORM program looks to implement these innovative training techniques to improve the existing program by bringing on board a CSCS who also is educated in nutrition. The CSCS also will be certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s tactical strength and conditioning (TASC) program which was created for military personnel, law enforcement officers, and fire/rescue first responders which emphasizes the importance of injury prevention, strength, power, speed, and agility. The TSAC program has enhanced the training and operational success of the Tenth Special Forces Group soldiers. According to the reports from the U.S Army Public Health Center’s evaluation of TSAC and THOR3, three fourths of soldiers reported improvements in physical fitness and being more physically fit for the mission as a result of THOR3. Results also indicated that the THOR3 group had lower self-reported injury rates when compared to other performance enhancement programs (Grier, Anderson, Depenbrock, Eiserman, Nindl, & Jones, 2018). These soldiers, like rescue swimmers, are athletes. The life of a rescue swimmer requires smart, disciplined approach to functional fitness, nutrition, rest and recovery, and rehabilitation which are the four components that make up the STORM program. The CSCS along with the help from veteran ASTs would be charged with evaluating specific weaknesses and working together to address them.

Components of S.T.O.R.M

Functional Fitness

The CSCS will be implemented to enhance the current preparatory program. Although rescue swimmer candidates have good overall fitness levels compared to the general population, they may be lacking an adequate strength and power foundation, and they may have limited experience training compound, multijoint movements (e.g., squat, bench press, deadlift) and power exercises (e.g., power clean). For this reason, the CSCS will educate the rescue swimmer candidates on the how and why of the movements performed. The CSCS will aim for quality over quantity by reteaching movement patterns. To ensure proper movement quality, rescue swimmer candidates will go through a movement screening. Also, the program will progress systematically, and gradually, once technical requirements of exercises and lifts are met to ensure movement competency. Performance data also will be collected through routine assessments on a range of physical attributes such as aerobic capacity, relative strength, muscular strength, and core strength.

Nutrition

Though the STORM program strives to optimize performance through functional movement skills, the importance of performance nutrition will not be overlooked. Proper nutrition forms the foundation for human performance. The CSCS will provide an understanding of adequate hydration, appropriate energy intake, and adequate protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamin, and mineral intakes that facilitate maximal benefits from training. The CSCS also will help make sense of the fueling confusion of what and when to eat, how to fuel before, during, and after exercise or operations. Learning nutritional basics will allow rescue swimmer candidates to understand what ingredients are necessary for human performance which they can carry with them throughout their career. The rescue swimmer candidates need to be reminded what they are training for and how they fuel themselves for it. Extended water operations, prolonged shivering in austere environments, and swimming in cold water will require nutritional countermeasures to avoid complete exhaustion and muscular fatigue (Duester, 2008). RSCs continuing poor nutritional practices will do nothing to improve human performance or keep the body in check to fight off disease and injury. Poor nutritional practices will come back to haunt rescue swimmers after many years of physical and mental stress if not corrected. The CSCS has an extensive education in nutrition to be able to guide the RSC’s nutritional practices.

Rest and Recovery

Rescue swimmer candidates spend most of their time worrying about getting stronger, faster, and powerful but often fail to realize that muscle growth and power improvement does not happen during training, but during rest periods (Mika, Oleksy, Kielnar, Wodka-Natkaniec, Twardowska, Kamiński, & Małek, 2016). Failure to adapt to training stressors either physical or psychological, can lead to detrimental conditions such as overtraining, overuse, or burnout. The STORM program’s CSCS will guide practices that reduce residual fatigue and enable candidates to cope with workouts more effectively. This enhances the candidate’s capacity to undertake more work and work more effectively (Calder, 2005). The CSCS will look to enhance the regeneration block of the current program with a full hour after the work day dedicated to increasing range of motion and motor control in order to enhance movement efficiency, recovery and, injury prevention. The STORM program will look to enhance the current program by focusing on both the mental and physical aspects of recovery.

The mental aspects of recovery include sleep and psychological care such as meditation. CSCS will stress importance of sleep to candidates. Sleep is the most crucial part of recovery. Sleep encourages the release of hormones for recovery of muscles, tendons, and ligaments, as well as the immune system (Rogers, 2009). The levels of several hormones are affected by sleep. Sleep disturbance negatively impacts hormonal rhythms and metabolism leading to hormonal imbalance and appetite dysregulation (Kim, Jeong, & Hong, 2015). A single night of restricted sleep after a heavy exercise bout was found to result in a decrease in performance and time to exhaustion (Watson, 2017 ). Given the significant implications for performance, health, and well-being the CSCS will promote proper sleep hygiene. The CSCS will recommend a proper sleep environment and schedule. Competitive pressures and other outside stressors such as personal or social conflicts cause psychological fatigue. This type of fatigue is expressed by loss of confidence and/or lowered self-esteem, poor communication among members, and negative attitudes (Brushoj, 2008).

STORM will not only make sure the body is willing and in shape but also understand the importance of the mind. Data collected from the AST Candidate Tracker shows that many candidates who do not graduate A School drop on request (DOR) or medical. Out of 85 candidates that made up five A School classes from October 2017 to October 2018, 18 of them were DOR and 19 were medical. An athlete who believes that he or she will perform poorly or that they are out of shape, will do just that. Our minds set our limits. A study from the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport shows a direct relationship between expectation and physical ability, looking specifically at the effect of a negative mental state on running. The study concluded, that mood and thoughts about performance are significantly associated (Lane, 2001). To address medical issues, athletes need to adopt a recovery mind-set by listening to and respecting their body and understanding that being injured does not negate your identity as an athlete. Nothing good can come of trying to push through an injury. STORM will look to implement a meditation routine using the Headspace Sport app to address psychological fatigue in candidates. Many meditative practices aim to sustain attention while ignoring unwanted thoughts, so it makes sense that meditators have enhanced focus, however a large amount of Western culture remains skeptical of the value of mindfulness meditation. Studies show that just 25 minutes of mindfulness meditation per day can boost the brain’s executive functions, cognitive abilities linked to goal-directed behavior and the ability to control knee-jerk emotional responses, habitual thinking patterns, and actions (University of Waterloo, 2017).

Rehabilitation

Many rehabilitation processes lack an effective bridge program from physical therapist appointments to returning to training. The STORM program will fix this by integrating the CSCS with physical therapists and doctors. Once the rehabilitation specialist allows a controlled exercise program, the CSCS may take a proactive role in helping the patient continue key exercises that were performed in the physical therapy clinic. Supervised rehabilitation has been shown to reduce the number of re-injuries and improve functional outcomes compared to home-based exercises. In a systematic review of supervised rehabilitation programs versus home exercise programs for acute ankle sprains, the evidence demonstrated that supervised programs resulted in less pain and self-reported instability at follow-up and greater gains in strength (Holme, Magnusson, Becher, Bieler, Aagaard, & Kjaer, 2007).

The CSCS will make gradual progress with low level training drills and strengthening. Goals such as full range of motion and passing functional tests will also be set by the CSCS to return the candidate back to full training. Physical activity and work settings can cause “overuse injuries.” Activities commonly associated with these injuries involve 1) overtraining, 2) ove exertion, 3) repetitive movement, 4) forceful actions, 5) vibratory force, and 6) extreme joint positions. These activities that cause micro-traumatic forces directly affect new injuries and may exacerbate or extend previous injuries or cause previous injuries to recur. Injuries are recognized as a leading health problem in the military.

There were 743,547 injury related muscoskeletal conditions in the military in 2006. Eighty-two percent of injury related muscoskeletal conditions were classified as inflammation/pain (overuse) followed by joint derangement (15 percent) and stress fractures (2 percent) (Lovalekar, 2016). A common injury seen in swimmers is rotator cuff tears. Data shows that once repaired there is a 20 percent chance of re-tear (John Hopkins Medicine, 2018) The STORM program can help young swimmers improve their muscular and cardiovascular endurance leading to better and more consistent stroke mechanics. Poor mechanics, poor breathing technique, poor flexibility, decreased rotator cuff strength, poor core strength, and decreased hip muscle strength are causes for swimming injuries (UPMC Sports Medicine, 2018). The STORM program will prevent and treat these injuries through strength training that focuses on rotator cuff and scapular muscles to improve stability of the shoulder. Strengthen the quadriceps (thigh muscles) and hip muscles to improve kick and strengthen the abdominal muscles and core. One does not become swift, fast, or strong overnight, nor does one heal in a day. While “playing with pain” is a necessary part of being a rescue swimmer, operating with injury is unwise. Through proper nutrition, rest, stretching, strengthening, and other means, rescue swimmer candidates will greatly enhance their chances of returning to training without risking injury re-occurrence.

Conclusion

The STORM program will look to create a paradigm shift in mindset in which candidates must see themselves as professional athletes’ vs. “just” rescue swimmer candidates. With this mind-set comes the same critical analysis that professional athletes use when looking for the extra edge to make them better and play longer. RSCs must understand that the fitness achieved while training for and passing through AST A School is just a stepping stone to getting stronger, faster, more agile, and, most important, smarter in their training approach throughout their entire career. The STORM program will compliment this mindset by offering the same quality and quantity of care afforded to NCAA, Olympic, and professional athletes. The ultimate STORM hope and vision is that as the program begins to take shape, it will influence the rescue swimmer community in such a way that this type of training becomes a way of life, not just something that is finished and forgot about during the physical training hours.

The mind and body are the foundation on which the skills needed to become a rescue swimmer are built. This often is overlooked when the focus is constantly on new equipment and technology. When one strips all the badges, the snorkel, and awards that tell rescue swimmers they are special or elite, all that remains of rescue swimmer are their minds, bodies, and sousl. Without a solid foundation of mental thought processes and functional movement to build on before adding the extras, then the chances of mental and physical failure, or at the very least, possible injury or mistakes will occur at a later time. This is inexcusable when lives of the individual and others are on the line, and an enormous amount of money, time, resources, and trust are spent in other areas to prepare rescue swimmers for mission accomplishment. Training Center Petaluma is the best place to live, work, and train. Let’s make it the best place to train future rescue swimmers.

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