Episode 22

full
Published on:

2nd Nov 2026

S6 Ep22 Dr. Chris Edwards on Standards, Selection, and Operator Longevity

In this episode of the Teamcast, Dr. Preston Cline introduces Dr. Chris Edwards, the new Director of MCTI’s Human Performance Adaptation Division, to talk about what selection and assessment systems are actually testing.

Chris holds a PhD in physiology and biomechanics. Her research, shaped by clinical work with veterans and work with Canadian Special Operations Forces, spans musculoskeletal injury, sex-specific injury and performance indicators, PTSD, and TBI.

In this episode:

  • How performance differs between elite sport and MCTs
  • When a pushup count or a back squat is the wrong proxy test for the job
  • Why you can stress someone or teach someone, but not at the same time
  • Holding the standard to the task as women enter selection

Chris also identifies something most teams aren’t built to support: the mental health of team members becoming parents.

This conversation is part of a series on the current state of human performance. Harry Moffitt’s recent conversation with Jonpaul Nevin, is another.

If you find value in this discussion, the best way to support our work and stay up to date on future episodes is to subscribe and leave us a quick rating or review. It helps us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.

Transcript
Preston:

Welcome to the Teamcast.

Preston:

I'm Dr.

Preston:

Preston Cline, Director of the Mission Critical Team Institute.

Preston:

Here, we discuss all things mission-critical teams.

Preston:

These are teams of four to 12 people indigenously trained and educated to

Preston:

solve rapidly emerging complex adaptive problem sets where the consequence of

Preston:

failure is death or catastrophic loss.

Preston:

With my colleagues and our guests, we bring you insights from combat

Preston:

zones to emergency rooms, dedicated to improving the success, survivability,

Preston:

and sustainability of these teams.

Preston:

We grapple with how to prepare for future events and how to develop

Preston:

language and frameworks to transfer critical, often unspoken, knowledge.

Preston:

Whether you're on a mission-critical team or not, we aim to bring you

Preston:

the broadest range of topics and guests as possible to help prepare

Preston:

you to perform when it matters most.

Preston:

Thank you for joining us, and hope you enjoy the Teamcast

Preston:

Welcome back to the Teamcast.

Preston:

This is Dr.

Preston:

Preston Cline.

Preston:

Today, I am joined by a friend and an esteemed colleague named Dr.

Preston:

Chris Edwards and I'll let her introduce herself in a moment.

Preston:

Today, we're talking about a bunch of different things, but primarily

Preston:

about selection and assessment.

Preston:

In the worlds that we've talked about, where it's intact teams and tactical

Preston:

swarms, a lot of teams around the world are now reinvestigating, are

Preston:

we actually going about finding the people that we need the right way?

Preston:

And this includes everything that historically has been not just

Preston:

operators and assaulters or not just the primer we call the center of gravity,

Preston:

but also enablers and supporters.

Preston:

And this also means the introduction of women, as we know that women

Preston:

have been attempting selections in a number of teams around the world.

Preston:

And in fact, the, the Norwegians have Jegertroppen, which is…

Preston:

I'm probably saying that incorrectly, but an all-female SOF troupe.

Preston:

And why this matters for those of you who are like, "Oh, here we go," it

Preston:

matters because the places that we're going now we need a bunch of different

Preston:

capabilities that fighting-aged white males cannot always deliver.

Preston:

And so with that comes a bunch of questions, but interestingly enough,

Preston:

it also comes back to questions about reinvestigating the selections that we are

Preston:

currently doing and how we're doing them.

Preston:

And so This is not just gonna be about women, it's gonna be about

Preston:

selection, assessment, development and the longevity of operators.

Preston:

For those of you who are out and know the costs of it, how do we start to dial

Preston:

those costs down for people coming into the pipeline and still make them, lethal

Preston:

and professional and everything else?

Preston:

So with that, I'd like to introduce Dr.

Preston:

Chris Edwards.

Preston:

Chris, thanks for joining us.

Preston:

Tell us a little bit about where you are, where you're coming from, what's going on.

Chris:

Thank you, Preston.

Chris:

Also, I just wanted to acknowledge how long we've been talking about doing this.

Chris:

I'm just really happy to be able to have this conversation.

Chris:

I don't even know where to begin.

Chris:

I guess my education kind of matters.

Chris:

I have a PhD.

Chris:

My doctoral work looked at physiology and biomechanics, as well as

Chris:

a little bit of epidemiology.

Chris:

My background is mostly on the research side, focused on musculoskeletal

Chris:

injuries, and that graduated into sex-specific indicators for

Chris:

musculoskeletal injuries and performance.

Chris:

Anyone who's done work in this space will quickly realize that we don't

Chris:

have much at all regarding females.

Chris:

And so to actually do meaningful sex comparisons in either injury risk or

Chris:

performance spaces, we actually have a considerable amount of work to do to

Chris:

increase the knowledge base to actually do sex comparisons in a meaningful way.

Chris:

And so a lot of my public-facing research is on the female service member and

Chris:

emergency response personnel as well.

Preston:

I think why this matters to humans, not just to female humans,

Preston:

but to humans, is it also invites the asking of questions that thus

Preston:

far have not often been asked.

Preston:

And I'll start this way.

Preston:

If you go to the US Army they will talk about RAST, which is recruitment,

Preston:

assessment, selection, and training.

Preston:

That's the pipeline that they focus on.

Preston:

At MCTI, we actually talk about a much longer kind of pipeline,

Preston:

which is recruitment, screening, assessment, selection, training,

Preston:

education, sustainment, and transition.

Preston:

And the reason we do that is because if we just look at the numbers,

Preston:

it costs more to replace somebody than it does to keep somebody.

Preston:

So if we're just being ruthless about it, being able to keep somebody in the game

Preston:

longer and sustain themselves longer, and I mean sustain themselves in its entirety

Preston:

is better for the country and everything else, and then to help them transition.

Preston:

And so what I often am saying to people is that we need to actually

Preston:

start with transition in mind.

Preston:

People are often like we need to start with recruitment."

Preston:

I would argue we need to start with th- the end in mind, and then think

Preston:

about how to build a pipeline to create people that are both lethal

Preston:

and successful and sustainable.

Preston:

And just, I know you've done a lot of work on this, and I just wanted to see

Preston:

if you had any initial thoughts on that sort of framing and conceptualization.

Chris:

Yeah, this actually is great because that's how I

Chris:

ended up doing what I do now.

Chris:

I was working in clinic in Vancouver with a number of veterans in a active

Chris:

rehab context and What I was seeing was actually quite fascinating.

Chris:

Regardless of the injury background or the occupation that the individual

Chris:

had, they had really distinct movement pattern dysfunction.

Chris:

So when someone has an injury they compensate, right?

Chris:

So if you have a left knee injury, all of the muscles that involve the hip,

Chris:

the lower back, the ankle, all of those muscles are having to work harder to

Chris:

take force off of that injured knee.

Chris:

So you end up with these movement patterns that aren't natural, but

Chris:

they're accommodating this injury.

Chris:

So typically with certain injuries, you would see common

Chris:

movement pattern dysfunction.

Chris:

But with these individuals, I was seeing really restricted

Chris:

movements through the T spine.

Chris:

So when you would put them into rotation, so if you wanted them to

Chris:

shoulder check or even lift their arms up to the sky and then open their arms

Chris:

up to the T, into a T shape to the right or to the left, there was a huge

Chris:

restriction in both rotation directions.

Chris:

And their shoulders were just so jacked up close to their ears that

Chris:

their necks were, like, quite engaged.

Chris:

And there were a number of other dysfunctions that were common, but

Chris:

those ones really stood out to me.

Chris:

But what would happen is I would get them into talking about certain topics, and

Chris:

so usually those topics would bring them joy or be more common conversations, not

Chris:

about their injuries, not about work, not about their transport to the clinic.

Chris:

They would slowly start to relax through their shoulders, their necks

Chris:

would open up, and their rotation would come back and it wasn't really

Chris:

to do with the exercises that we were doing, it was more to do with the

Chris:

conversations that we were having.

Chris:

And this happened enough times that I started to get really hooked on this,

Chris:

and so I reached out to a mentor of mine.

Chris:

His name is Dr.

Chris:

Marvin Westwood.

Chris:

And he dedicated his whole academic career, I would say his whole life

Chris:

actually, to looking at PTSD in veterans.

Chris:

He had some personal connections t- to this and he, he brings me

Chris:

into his office and he's "All right, Chris how's it going?"

Chris:

I was like, "Marv, I got some questions for you and I need some answers."

Chris:

And he's like, "Okay, let's hear what they are."

Chris:

And I explained the situation, and he looks at me and he's

Chris:

nodding, and he's like, " Yes.."

Chris:

And I was like, "Okay, Marv, what's going on?"

Chris:

And he goes, Chris, I don't actually know, but I think you

Chris:

just figured out what you're gonna dedicate the rest of your life to."

Chris:

I was not expecting that when I walked in there.

Chris:

But yeah, so I walked out of his office called my real estate agent,

Chris:

was like, I gotta sell my place."

Chris:

Called my business partner, "Gotta sell the clinic."

Chris:

Packed up my life and started working on a military base out in Eastern

Chris:

Canada, and then I got deployed.

Chris:

And then I went to Petawawa, where I got introduced to

Chris:

CANSOF, and the rest is history.

Preston:

Yeah.

Preston:

So CANSOF Canadian Special Operations Command.

Preston:

And you're currently up in Canada right now.

Preston:

You're in- you're above Ottawa.

Preston:

Is that right, where you're living right now?

Chris:

Yeah, I'm very close to Ottawa.

Chris:

Yeah.

Preston:

And I know that you work, for example, both with the military

Preston:

and I believe sports as well.

Chris:

I did work with sport.

Chris:

I don't really work with sport that often anymore.

Chris:

It's a pretty unique case.

Chris:

And usually, if I'm working in sport, it's because they're also a service member

Chris:

or emergency response personnel, which-

Preston:

Got it

Chris:

yeah.

Preston:

And this really matters, right?

Preston:

Because we're Talking about human performance, and I should mention

Preston:

to everybody that Chris is the new Director of MCTI's Human

Preston:

Performance Adaptation Division.

Preston:

And the reason we chose that name, instead of human performance optimization

Preston:

is due to our friend Harry Moffitt, as well as conversations that we had.

Preston:

My work in education and training, often what I care about when I'm looking at

Preston:

candidates and I'm looking at people that are coming through as students of any

Preston:

of the pipelines is not so much if they make mistakes, but how they recover from

Preston:

those mistakes, how they adapt themselves to circumstances and overcome them.

Preston:

And what Chris has opened my eyes up to is this is happening

Preston:

physiologically as well as it's happening intellectually or emotionally

Preston:

or cognitively or any of those things.

Preston:

And all of that is background to say that oftentimes when I am at a

Preston:

base with a team, I will be meeting with their psychologists and their

Preston:

chaplains, but also their HP folks.

Preston:

And they come in a couple of varieties, and one of them is the folks that walk

Preston:

up to me and they say, "Oh, Preston, I used to work in the NBA or the NFL or

Preston:

the NHL," or whatever it is, and wanna lead with their sort of brand, which is

Preston:

they used to work in professional sports.

Preston:

My challenge with that, and I think, Chris, I wanted you to comment

Preston:

on this, is sports are not the military, sports are not tactical

Preston:

law enforcement, sports are not fire.

Preston:

And it matters.

Preston:

And people say "There's a lot of overlap."

Preston:

And I want us to just be careful about that.

Preston:

And Chris, I just wanted to give you a a chance to talk at all about that.

Chris:

Yeah, I c- completely agree with everything you just said.

Chris:

Sport is predictable, especially elite sport.

Chris:

And if you're working on an Olympic cycle, you've got a four-year cycle with world

Chris:

championships, Olympic qualifiers, and then a few other major events in there.

Chris:

Or if you're working in a team sport environment, you got playoffs,

Chris:

and you're working towards that.

Chris:

You've got off-season, preseason, in-season.

Chris:

And so there's really clear phases established within the

Chris:

sport world and the sport cycle, and so you can really plan well.

Chris:

And so long as nothing happens majorly in someone's life, you can

Chris:

pretty much predict the physiological adaptations that they're going to

Chris:

have and how they'll be performing physically and almost to the millisecond

Chris:

in some of these events, right?

Chris:

Whereas the military, by nature, especially the special operations

Chris:

community it's not predictable.

Chris:

And so you have in sport where it's we demand performance, and that's important.

Chris:

But in the military context, especially special operations MCT environment,

Chris:

it's performance on demand, and we don't know what variables someone's going to

Chris:

be interacting with, so we can't really focus on running faster and getting them

Chris:

to be the top 1% of the 1% in running.

Chris:

If we do that, then we…

Chris:

What?

Chris:

At the expense of what?

Chris:

At the expense of strength?

Chris:

We also might need them to be able to lift up, a human with a bunch of kit on

Chris:

them, so weighing over 200 pounds, 300 pounds, and carry them up a mountain.

Chris:

That running training is actually now going to be taking away from

Chris:

someone's ability to do that.

Chris:

And so we need to be masters of the 80% with the ability to augment that

Chris:

80% in, at any moment, and then return back to 80% and continue functioning.

Chris:

And from a training perspective, in sport, you really know the variables that

Chris:

we're going to interact with, so you can pretty much plan within a program and

Chris:

collaborating with coaches and everything like that to have sport-specific training.

Chris:

Whereas in the military, the human performance team really doesn't

Chris:

know what the jobs are gonna be, and neither should they, really.

Chris:

But we do know a few things.

Chris:

We can monitor injuries, so we can monitor what strain is going

Chris:

to be applied to the human.

Chris:

So we can, reverse engineer our programming based off of exposures, which

Chris:

is a, a super helpful way to go about it.

Chris:

But again when you don't know what you're actually training someone for, supporting

Chris:

someone for, and they don't actually know fully what they're training for it

Chris:

can lead to a little bit of complexity.

Chris:

And in the sport world, we just don't have that, not to this degree.

Preston:

So in the early parts of the last war leading up to 2001, a

Preston:

lot of folks were very into CrossFit.

Preston:

And after the war kicked off the joke started to become that there

Preston:

are show dogs and working dogs.

Preston:

And show dogs don't do so well down range because they just gas out.

Preston:

They don't have the endurance, they don't have whatever.

Preston:

And following that, a lot of teams got rid of their huge human performance thing,

Preston:

and what they started to do was just say, "Hey, put on a backpack and ruck.

Preston:

Hike for long distances by yourself without earphones."

Preston:

Because what they found was that it wasn't the physical fitness per se that

Preston:

was the problem, it was bone density in the legs, it was the ability to go

Preston:

long distance while suffering, it was the ability to carry a pack and be in

Preston:

your own head without anyone telling you to keep going or whatever else.

Preston:

And those are the kinds of things that, yes, you can do some mental

Preston:

strength and conditioning around but it just requires laps, a lot of laps.

Preston:

And so it was an interesting, when you have these very bespoke HP folks that are

Preston:

working in very constrained environments, meaning like a baseball pitch or a

Preston:

running track, where they can control for everything and they're like, "Oh, you just

Preston:

gotta do this one thing," it certainly created some misunderstandings and

Preston:

misrepresentations of what was possible.

Preston:

And I just wanted to say that in reflection to see if that's fair.

Chris:

There's a lot of things that we get to do in sport that aren't

Chris:

feasible in a military context, right?

Chris:

In an endurance activity in sport, you're aiming for over 90 grams of carbs per hour

Chris:

and some people are up to 120 now with the gut training, which is fantastic for them.

Chris:

And, you wanna have water every 10 minutes, and that's also

Chris:

great, fantastic for them.

Chris:

And you should be having a salt tab every couple hours if you're

Chris:

in a ultra endurance and heat.

Chris:

Some people would argue with me on that, but in sport we can really

Chris:

control all of those factors, and then there's these things that

Chris:

give you these small incremental improvements in your performance.

Chris:

And in the military, we have guys that'll go 48 hours on a Snickers bar,

Chris:

and some water from a puddle, and that's as good as it's gonna get for them.

Chris:

I'm not taking away from the fact that athletes experience pain and

Chris:

there aren't, there isn't hardship, but it's a completely different level

Chris:

of mental toughness, robustness, and resilience that is required to just

Chris:

carry something heavy with agony in your traps and you feel like your back's

Chris:

going to explode, but it's not going to.

Chris:

And for what purpose?

Chris:

Who knows.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

Who knows.

Chris:

Are you gonna get to where you're going?

Chris:

You hope so.

Preston:

So one of the things that I also want to just chime in and let everybody

Preston:

know is that this is going to be part of a series of podcasts that we are

Preston:

going to do with Chris, myself, and also Harry Moffitt on sort of the current

Preston:

status of human performance and also what's working and what's not working.

Preston:

We'll talk a little bit about that today.

Preston:

But I think one of the things that comes up a lot when folks talk to

Preston:

me about human performance, and the folks that work in human performance,

Preston:

is the establishing of credibility.

Preston:

And so one reasonable question an operator would ask me right now

Preston:

is, "Why should I listen to Dr.

Preston:

Chris Edwards?

Preston:

Yes, she has a doctorate, but what does she know about my world or

Preston:

what does she know about suffering or doing anything long duration?"

Preston:

What is your reply to that?

Chris:

They have a point.

Chris:

I'm not a badged operator.

Preston:

Yep, true.

Chris:

Neither will I ever be.

Chris:

But I have spent quite a bit of time within the community with the intention

Chris:

of understanding the community first.

Chris:

So when I left Vancouver, my goal was to start researching the

Chris:

physiological and psychological link in response to trauma within

Chris:

the military context.

Chris:

And I very quickly realized that we don't have fundamental information to

Chris:

actually ask that question effectively, nor would that be a great line of

Chris:

effort to contribute to the community because they're not there yet.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

At the time, we didn't have very good information on what

Chris:

injuries were actually happening within the Canadian Armed Forces.

Chris:

And some militaries have a better injury surveillance system.

Chris:

The United States services all seem to have a fairly robust injury

Chris:

surveillance, which is fantastic.

Chris:

But most countries in Five Eyes don't actually have that information.

Chris:

And given the fact that in this community, if you're working to support these

Chris:

individuals in, making them a little bit better than yesterday and helping

Chris:

them, not just in a performance context, but also for their overall health and

Chris:

longevity so that they can, when they get out of the uniform and go back

Chris:

into regular life, whatever that looks like for them, they actually have the

Chris:

ability to engage with their humans or whatever life that they've created.

Chris:

That's really been my priority is to understand the community and the needs

Chris:

of the human that is in the uniform.

Chris:

And my perspective, of course, is the physiology, so the meat sack that moves

Chris:

around the world, and how do I support that based on the evidence that exists,

Chris:

and then also how do I engage in research to answer some really important questions

Chris:

to then help that human go about their life so that they can be an operator as

Chris:

long as they want to be and as long as the organization would like them to be,

Chris:

and then also that they can go home and actually have a life after that as well.

Chris:

I really have dedicated a lot of time and understanding.

Chris:

But I'm not gonna get it right.

Chris:

I don't get it right all the time.

Chris:

I make a lot of mistakes, and I'm really fortunate to have a group of people that

Chris:

are very quick to tell me when I do- Yeah … and to also help work with me

Chris:

so that I can improve, so next time I, don't say something or do something that

Chris:

isn't relevant or correct or appropriate.

Chris:

So there's that.

Chris:

And then I do whatever I can to be able to keep up with the guys that I'm coaching.

Chris:

I used to just run marathons and realized quickly that actually that

Chris:

is so not sufficient to be able to effectively support the guys and, work

Chris:

out with them and and if I need to pace somebody when they ruck I need to

Chris:

have a pretty high level of fitness.

Chris:

So I also engage in my own training.

Chris:

I started Doing triathlon a couple of years ago.

Chris:

I lost a bet in a group of the guys and ended up having to sign up for an Ironman

Chris:

. And turned out I wasn't half bad at it, and now I do what I can to ensure that

Chris:

I can maintain a level where I compete in the world championships every year.

Chris:

So I do my part to, to keep up, but I'm always learning and trying

Chris:

to just do what I can to help.

Chris:

I think that's why my research portfolio's expanded in the way that it has.

Chris:

I started with musculoskeletal injury, which then developed into sex-specific

Chris:

indicators for musculoskeletal injury because we have females in this space that

Chris:

we need to leverage operationally, and we don't know how to really support them.

Chris:

That also expanded into my roots of the psychological and physiological

Chris:

response to trauma, where I'm now also doing research in PTSD and

Chris:

TBI and some treatments for those.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

So- That was a very long answer, but-

Preston:

No, it's good.

Preston:

But I will just sum it up this way, and with not the intention to embarrass

Preston:

you, but just to state the facts.

Preston:

You are considered a leading authority on this idea of females in tier one

Preston:

selection, and you are ranked and currently competing in the world

Preston:

championships in Ironman around the world.

Preston:

And so what I'm trying to get across here is that it's not just that you

Preston:

study it, it's that you also do it.

Preston:

And so when I think about MCTI while, yes, I do a lot of research, the

Preston:

majority of my time are actually on military bases in shoot houses or school

Preston:

houses or fire buildings with the FDNY or others, talking about how do we

Preston:

actually teach this next generation?

Preston:

What does that mean?

Preston:

And just like you most of our research comes from somebody coming up to me

Preston:

going, "Hey, have you seen this before?

Preston:

Is this…"

Preston:

And I'm like, "Nope, actually I haven't.

Preston:

Let me dig into it and find out."

Preston:

And that often leads to papers like residue or routine versus

Preston:

critical communication, right?

Preston:

So routine versus critical communication was created watching open heart

Preston:

surgery at the Cleveland Clinic because the why I was there and what I was

Preston:

seeing didn't match up, and so we had to come up with a novel response.

Preston:

But being an applied research institute, it really matters that

Preston:

we're not only saying what we're saying, but we're also trying to do

Preston:

the thing that we say we're good at.

Preston:

The reason we're giving that as context, and this is something I want to encourage

Preston:

those that are listening to think about, is that human performance is a relatively

Preston:

new thing in professional military.

Preston:

Really started mostly after 9/11 and probably a decade after

Preston:

9/11 in any serious things.

Preston:

That's where the money came from.

Preston:

And what that means is you have a bunch of people that are being

Preston:

brought in from universities, from sports to work with these folks.

Preston:

And often they are excited about what they know and the populations they

Preston:

work with, but they don't necessarily know how to bridge that gap from what

Preston:

they know to the world of the operator.

Preston:

And this is a phenomenon we see a lot.

Preston:

And I'll give you one example that has been eye-opening for me, and then I'm

Preston:

gonna turn it back to you . The US Navy a number of years ago was looking at

Preston:

cold water immersion and specifically how The brain can rewire the limbic

Preston:

system or the amygdala, specifically with the mammalian diving reflex.

Preston:

And what they wanted to simply know was, historically it would take a boot camp

Preston:

11, 12 weeks, this was the thinking, to rewire your acute stress response,

Preston:

any physiologically built-in responses.

Preston:

And so what they did is they did a series of what at the time were

Preston:

called the big four, which was the mental strength and conditioning.

Preston:

This is a couple decades ago, early research.

Preston:

And the question was could we take somebody who had an instinctive autonomic

Preston:

response, mammalian diving reflex, and that's triggered when cold water hits your

Preston:

face, you'll do a gasp or startle reflex.

Preston:

And so could we reorganize that from a cognitive place, from a

Preston:

neurological place in just four hours?

Preston:

And it turns out that four hours with certain training, you can

Preston:

actually affect how people engage with that kind of activity.

Preston:

The reason I bring this up is because a lot of people took

Preston:

the wrong lessons from that.

Preston:

A lot of people extrapolated that to do a lot of things which aren't true.

Preston:

And so it's not a cure-all for everything, and getting into a, a bucket of water that

Preston:

is cold is not the same thing as being in combat or surgery or fighting a fire.

Preston:

It's a very limited fixed sort of timeframe, duration,

Preston:

depth, et cetera, et cetera.

Preston:

And so I'm…

Preston:

This is a long way of saying I started to meet some folks that wanted to

Preston:

say, "Hey, Preston, we really need to teach folks that are doing CQB

Preston:

or CQC or hostage rescue visioning."

Preston:

And what you also need to know if you don't know this work is that

Preston:

you have somebody at a closed door.

Preston:

On the other side of that door are bad guys, and they've got to open that

Preston:

door, called breaching, and they've got to come through and navigate that.

Preston:

And I've got some HP going, "They need to vision that."

Preston:

And I was like, "Yeah, but this is not track and field.

Preston:

They're not…

Preston:

It's gonna be different every time."

Preston:

And then they would try to duct tape their answer to be like,

Preston:

"Yeah, but they could vision this."

Preston:

And I'm like, "Yeah, but then you're loading their working load memory.

Preston:

I don't need them thinking.

Preston:

I need them not thinking."

Preston:

And then we would get into these arguments and they're like,

Preston:

"You're not in human performance."

Preston:

And I was like, "I'm not saying visioning is bad," right?

Preston:

"I'm not criticizing your field of study.

Preston:

I'm saying this is a misapplication of something that works really well

Preston:

on track and field," to your earlier comment, "and will not in fact work here.

Preston:

And in fact, it's choreographing.

Preston:

You're increasing the likelihood they'll get shot in the face, which I'm against."

Preston:

So just so we're, what we know we're for and against And so we would get into an

Preston:

argument, and they'd be like, "All right, educator guy, go back to your lane."

Preston:

And I'd be like, "Okay."

Preston:

And so I say all of that to bring it back because that's how I literally

Preston:

got there and got to meet you and Harry and other people, because I was getting

Preston:

increasingly frustrated at these bumper sticker solutions these men and women

Preston:

would have, with great confidence, but they wouldn't do the extra questioning

Preston:

to apply it to a specific context.

Preston:

And so I'll just say all that back to you.

Preston:

You can also fix anything you believe I said wrong.

Chris:

No, I love it.

Chris:

I completely agree with everything you just said.

Chris:

There are things that we do in sport.

Chris:

Again, we go back to the cyclical, predictable periodization

Chris:

for physical training.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

When you're trying to get someone to go faster or lift

Chris:

heavier, you have a progressive load.

Chris:

So you will increase either their intensity or the weight

Chris:

that they're lifting or their volume by about 10% a week.

Chris:

That's the general recommendation.

Chris:

In a military context, you've got a program.

Chris:

You can write a program up and it'll look super great.

Chris:

You've got someone doing strength and conditioning . They've got

Chris:

four strength sessions a week.

Chris:

They're hitting about 300 minutes a week of just, resistance training.

Chris:

You've got someone who's doing about 300 minutes of aerobic activity.

Chris:

Some of that, about 20% of that is higher than 80%.

Chris:

The, the other 80% of that is under 80%.

Chris:

Looks beautiful, and then they'll message you and be like, "Hey, by the way, I

Chris:

gotta go to a place and I don't know how long I'm gonna be there, but I still

Chris:

wanna run this ultra in two months."

Chris:

And you're like, "Cool.

Chris:

The ultra's in a really cold place.

Chris:

It's gonna be, like, negative six.

Chris:

Are you going somewhere cold?"

Chris:

" No, it's gonna be, like, 30 degrees every day."

Chris:

"Okay."

Preston:

Yeah, Celsius.

Preston:

"Great."

Preston:

Celsius,

Chris:

yeah.

Chris:

Yeah, 30 degrees Celsius, sorry.

Chris:

You're like, "Cool.

Chris:

All right.

Chris:

Have fun.

Chris:

Let me know how it goes.

Chris:

Message me if you can, and we'll figure out when you get there what

Chris:

your training's gonna look like."

Chris:

And you go from having their long runs that are four to six hours up with a

Chris:

on a mountain, to being an hour on a treadmill and an hour on step-ups just

Chris:

up and down, to build that, that up.

Chris:

And m- maybe they don't even have access to that, right?

Chris:

So one of the coolest parts about working in this environment is, yeah,

Chris:

you have the job, but also a lot of these humans are highly motivated and

Chris:

have really cool goals on the side, like running ultras or competing

Chris:

at national levels in other sports.

Chris:

Or, being chess champions.

Chris:

I don't know.

Chris:

We have these really cool problem sets or puzzles within this

Chris:

human, and it's always changing.

Chris:

And so our ability to have that predictable, cyclical programming, to

Chris:

have that progressive overload, goes out the window very quickly because

Chris:

we just don't have that ability.

Chris:

It's not feasible.

Chris:

And in cyclical, predictable programming, we also are anticipating continuous access

Chris:

to good nutrition, good sleeping hygiene.

Chris:

Most guys, if you recommended that they needed to take a nap in

Chris:

the middle of the day, they'd be like, "What am I supposed to do?

Chris:

Tell the other guys that I just need to take my 15-minute nap?"

Chris:

One, that's a really good way to lose credibility, and-

Chris:

Yeah … and two, if they actually do that, they'll end up dead.

Chris:

Like-

Preston:

Yeah

Preston:

… Chris: really not a winning scenario there.

Preston:

And we are starting to have enough evidence and a large enough body

Preston:

of literature now, I think, that we can start to actually have

Preston:

evidence-based programming specific to the tactical environments,

Preston:

especially the, the MCT environment.

Preston:

We have Teams that have a lot of internal data collection, not just 'cause they've

Preston:

got data collection happening doesn't mean that the analysis is happening.

Preston:

Yeah.

Preston:

That's almost across the board right now, I think that's one of the biggest

Preston:

problems I'm hearing from human performance teams as well as guys.

Preston:

It's W- we have data being collected on everything, but we never get to hear what

Preston:

the data is actually gonna be used for.

Preston:

Is how is that coming back to help us or help the next generation?

Preston:

So that's a whole other conversation.

Preston:

We've interviewed Shaun Huls here on the podcast, and Shaun- at the

Preston:

time was with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cleveland Browns, and I think

Preston:

he's down, I forget what university now.

Preston:

But he's a, a very well-known human performance guy, right?

Preston:

And so when I was talking about the Eagles, he was heading to the Combine

Preston:

where they pick up the new athletes, and he had with him a bunch of binders, and

Preston:

these binders were several inches thick.

Preston:

They were, like, big.

Preston:

And I was like, "What is that?"

Preston:

And he's "This is all the data on each one of these athletes."

Preston:

And I'm like, "What does it mean?"

Preston:

And he looks up and he goes, "I have no idea."

Preston:

And I go, "W- why are you collecting it?"

Preston:

He's like, "Because data's cheap."

Preston:

And I was like, "Ah, but it's also misleading, right?"

Preston:

And so what ends up happening is and one of my big frustrations with a lot of

Preston:

mission critical teams is they'll walk up to me and they're like, "Hey, Preston,

Preston:

the data on this guy is not great."

Preston:

And I was like, "Can you show me the data?"

Preston:

And the data is always something like he has a 7.9

Preston:

on courage.

Preston:

And I was like, first of all, courage doesn't work that way, A.

Preston:

So no.

Preston:

There's no way you would measure that.

Preston:

That's false to begin with.

Preston:

Two, how did you define courage?

Preston:

What are you observing or not observing and then how did you

Preston:

come up with a 10-point scale?

Preston:

What are you doing?

Preston:

Stop doing that.

Preston:

You're making me crazy.

Preston:

And you're like, "And this is why this kid may not get in."

Preston:

Are you insane, right?

Preston:

D- does he still wanna be here?

Preston:

Yeah.

Preston:

Has he gotten through your thrashing?

Preston:

Yeah.

Preston:

So he's not a red, that means he's a green.

Preston:

People often are like, "Oh, candidates are red, yellow, green."

Preston:

That's all bullshit, Chris.

Preston:

Candidates are either red or they're green, meaning they're either

Preston:

red, you can't take them, and if they're not red, they're green.

Preston:

And everyone's like Preston, there's yellow and light green."

Preston:

No.

Preston:

That, you're describing humans.

Preston:

Humans are all light and green.

Preston:

Just everybody who's not a red, meaning they're a sociopath or they're broken

Preston:

or whatever, they're some shade of green, meaning we gotta develop them.

Preston:

That's the point of it.

Preston:

To be like, "Oh, I don't know, he's a yellow.

Preston:

We shouldn't, I don't know if we should take him."

Preston:

No, he's a green because you're saying he's not a red.

Preston:

If he was a red, you'd be like, "We can't take him."

Preston:

And if he's not that, then you should work with him.

Preston:

That's my pet peeve, but these conversations often go because of

Preston:

just really bad data and a lot of it.

Preston:

So they're like, "Oh, we have a lot of data."

Preston:

You have a lot of bad data is what you have.

Chris:

I see this in physical testing

Preston:

Oh, yeah

Preston:

… Chris: all the time.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

It's like, "Yeah this guy can't run, uh, two miles ridiculously

Chris:

fast," a nine-minute two-minute mile.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And you're like, okay Does that, does it really matter?

Chris:

The evidence actually says that so long as he's not a slow runner, he's actually fine

Preston:

Yeah.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

And we can develop that.

Chris:

If you need him to run faster, give us six to eight weeks.

Chris:

So long as he's got a reasonable baseline, we can get him there,

Chris:

or the ability to back squat two and a half times your body weight.

Chris:

Okay, that's great.

Chris:

Do you need him to back squat two and a half times his body weight ever?

Chris:

Probably not.

Chris:

What you're trying to do is get an indicator of are they

Chris:

able to lift heavy things.

Chris:

Then, just get them to lift heavy things.

Chris:

Because honestly, if you're using an exercise as a proxy for an actual

Chris:

task, one, height matters, so short people and tall people use different

Chris:

compensations to complete the same tasks.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

If you talk about males and females, the same thing.

Chris:

They use different muscles to complete the same task.

Chris:

They also depending on their equipment, will also have to, adjust

Chris:

how they move and what muscles are dominant to complete the task.

Chris:

If you get them doing a back squat, if the actual purpose is to identify if they're

Chris:

going to be good at their job, you should probably just get them doing the tasks

Chris:

that they're gonna be doing in the job.

Chris:

And does it really matter if they go over a wall using a press-up

Chris:

or if they swing their leg over?

Chris:

Maybe it does, I don't know.

Chris:

That's your lane, not mine.

Chris:

But if they just need to get over the wall, then maybe that's the green light.

Chris:

And I think we get stuck in this, "They need to be doing

Chris:

40 pushups to be successful."

Chris:

And I'm like, okay.

Chris:

Again I'm not an operator, so I don't know if you really need to do 40 pushups, if

Chris:

that's a rite of passage or something.

Chris:

But if the goal of the pushups is to identify muscular endurance in your

Chris:

upper body, I can tell you that there are much better ways of doing that.

Chris:

And depending on how you're getting someone to do a pushup if you're very

Chris:

strict on their form, you're probably actually putting one of their shoulders

Chris:

in a flexibility activity, and the other one is working pretty hard,

Chris:

and your risk of injury within the group is increasing exponentially.

Chris:

What are you actually testing here is usually what it comes back to.

Chris:

And the data collection I think if we're using physical testing

Chris:

as an injury predictor, that's a very different conversation than if

Chris:

they're gonna be good at the job.

Chris:

Both valuable but very different.

Chris:

And I think that they get confounded quite often, and it's harmful for everybody.

Preston:

I'm gonna say something and then promptly contradict myself, okay?

Preston:

I'm gonna say something I absolutely believe, and say something else I

Preston:

believe, and both will be contradictory.

Preston:

I'm just preparing you and the audience for this ride.

Preston:

If a young person, it happens all the time, 'cause they ne- they, word gets out

Preston:

what teams I work with, and they come up and they say, "Preston I'm getting ready

Preston:

to go out for the Army or the the Navy or the Air Force or FBI or something,"

Preston:

and there's a physical fitness test and they're young and they look at me and

Preston:

I was like, "How are you doing on it?"

Preston:

And they're like, "Pretty good."

Preston:

And I was like, "Triple it."

Preston:

And they look at me like, "What?"

Preston:

Their whole face.

Preston:

And I was like, "Triple it.

Preston:

If you're going to work with the people that you want to work with,

Preston:

you got to get used to suffering.

Preston:

You got to be in a mindset where none of that bothers you, you can do it all day.

Preston:

Right now, you have limits.

Preston:

You think that's the most you can do.

Preston:

You got to get above that."

Preston:

So that's one truth, and I stick by that.

Preston:

Second truth, not once in 20 years of working with the teams have

Preston:

I had a friend of mine come back from combat or surgery or fighting

Preston:

fire or like a high-value target

Preston:

and say, "Things went bad today, Preston.

Preston:

One of the guys, he couldn't get the pushups in," right?

Preston:

He couldn't, he didn't run the mile at the rate we needed him to.

Preston:

Like, That's never once happened.

Preston:

So the contradictory here is I do think that we need things,

Preston:

rites of passage, to test mindset.

Preston:

However, the one thing I know we can actually improve is physical fitness.

Preston:

I can't increase your IQ, your integrity.

Preston:

A bunch of things I can't fix in the time that you have.

Preston:

I can fix physical fitness.

Preston:

So kicking somebody out on a day one physical fitness test 'cause they

Preston:

don't do your pushups is the dumbest use of resources I can think of.

Preston:

And then people lose their minds, people listening to this are losing

Preston:

their minds right now, and they're like, "Preston it's not that.

Preston:

It's a, it's about preparation.

Preston:

It's about mindset- " yeah, sure.

Preston:

But I could also argue, and I could show you why that's

Preston:

also not true to your point.

Preston:

There's a bunch of factors that go in on this.

Preston:

I'm not in any way suggesting obviously we need physically fit people, but I

Preston:

would suggest that physical fitness is one of the things that we could fix.

Preston:

It's the mindset that's the bigger problem.

Preston:

And if you're saying that's what it adjusts for.

Preston:

Now, I'll do one more contradiction.

Preston:

A friend of mine years ago when I was having this argument and

Preston:

I was saying that, "Hey, what about performance anxiety?

Preston:

Maybe they're failing that day one physical fitness

Preston:

'cause of performance anxiety.

Preston:

Maybe that kid's dad's a, a college wrestling coach, and that kid came

Preston:

from the streets, and you're punishing the kid from the streets because

Preston:

they have poor performance anxiety and they didn't grow up with it."

Preston:

And then somebody turned to me and got so mad at me, and he was

Preston:

like, "Preston, what if it's luck?

Preston:

What if that kid is just unlucky?

Preston:

Shouldn't we be selecting for who are lucky?"

Preston:

And I folded because he's right.

Preston:

I can't quantify luck, and I know that luck matters.

Preston:

And so I was like "If that's your reason, at least you have a reason."

Preston:

And that was the end of the argument.

Preston:

The point of all of this ramble is it's complicated.

Preston:

The things that people believe they're testing for often isn't the

Preston:

thing they're testing for, 'cause it hasn't really been interrogated.

Chris:

It's funny, I agreed and disagreed with all of the things

Chris:

that you said, so there we go.

Chris:

I actually get a lot of the people that I'm working with for selections.

Chris:

I'll get them to do the test And then 10 minutes later I get them to do the test.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

And then they'll let me know how they did, and I'll be like, "That's great.

Chris:

Go get a snack.

Chris:

You gotta do the test again."

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

And it's not about actually the numbers that they're getting.

Preston:

That's right.

Chris:

I do monitor, I'm actually very interested in their repeat performance

Chris:

because if they can maintain that repeat performance, if they can get as close

Chris:

to those initial numbers as possible, what I'm looking at is their ability

Chris:

to recover, and that really matters.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

Because I don't know any team who goes in and does a job

Chris:

and then gets four days rest.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

Just one time.

Chris:

You go do one thing, then you get back, "Don't worry, guys,

Chris:

we're on a four-day relax.

Chris:

You just eat, sleep, put your little eye mask on.

Chris:

You're good to go."

Chris:

And so that recovery piece is super important, and the mental conversations

Chris:

that they have to go and do it again.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

That, that's really building important characteristics that…

Chris:

yeah.

Preston:

The first time I ever saw that in action, I know it's used by a lot

Preston:

of teams, was when I was observing the Navy SEALs out in Coronado at BUD/S.

Preston:

And they leave the gate, they go and they run, I don't know,

Preston:

three, five miles, whatever it is.

Preston:

And the if you're not first, you're last sort of situation,

Preston:

and if you're not giving your all, you're out sort of situation.

Preston:

And they do that over and over again for about a week or something.

Preston:

This is well-documented.

Preston:

I'm not giving away any secrets.

Preston:

But on the sixth or seventh or eighth day, when they're all just giving

Preston:

all they have, and they get to the five-mile mark or whatever it is, the

Preston:

instructors keep going, and they lose a percentage of people because they

Preston:

didn't have anything left over to go literally the extra mile or two.

Preston:

And that's what they're looking for.

Preston:

They're looking for mindset.

Preston:

And even if you're dragging, the fact that you're willing to keep going, right?

Preston:

To your point, it's not, most of these things aren't about being first.

Preston:

It's about just will you keep going.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And I think that sometimes we put numbers attached to the minimums.

Chris:

So we need to have 40 pushups, and they need to hit 40 pushups every time.

Chris:

Does it really matter that they're hitting 40 pushups, or does it matter that they

Chris:

are able to repeat and then repeat?

Chris:

I think that personally I would take someone who would repeat every time.

Chris:

But again-

Preston:

Yep

Chris:

outsider looking in.

Chris:

And so that, that's part of the conversation.

Chris:

And then you touched on the using physical fitness as a proxy

Chris:

for hard work or the ability to endure hard things can be great.

Chris:

One of the teams they were telling us about one of their physical testing,

Chris:

and they use VO2 max testing to get people to be, to reach their maximum,

Chris:

and just to be completely exhausted before putting them into scenarios.

Chris:

And I love this because that is a max effort test.

Chris:

They don't actually care what the VO2 max result is.

Chris:

They care that someone is completely taxed out, and then how do they

Chris:

respond to these scenarios afterwards?

Chris:

And there are a number of physical tests or inclusions in selections

Chris:

that are designed to do that.

Chris:

But they don't actually because some people, it'll be close to their 100%

Chris:

maximum effort, and for some people it'll be closer to 70% of their maximum effort.

Chris:

And so by doing this awesome VO2 max test where, if you've ever done one, you feel

Chris:

like you're gonna barf, and then you just keep going, and then you maybe do barf.

Chris:

Some people pass out when they do them.

Chris:

It is agony.

Chris:

And usually a couple minutes later you're like, "Oh, I could've kept going."

Chris:

And everyone who's doing the test is like, " Nope.

Chris:

You were white, and I'm pretty sure you were about to faint."

Chris:

And so this is really it's a really fun test if you haven't done one.

Chris:

You should just do it just to see how you respond.

Chris:

But that would be my recommendation is for teams that are wanting to

Chris:

see how someone actually responds when they're completely physically

Chris:

exhausted, do a maximum test, but don't actually really care about the numbers.

Chris:

Just get them to do, go as hard as they can and then test them afterwards.

Preston:

This actually gets at one of the big concerns I have with HP right now.

Preston:

So one of the things that human performance…

Preston:

And by the way I sound very critical.

Preston:

I'm actually very pro human performance.

Preston:

I'm pro you and everything else.

Preston:

I'm just against the misapplication of it.

Preston:

And so for example, what we know from neuroscience is the brain,

Preston:

specifically the prefrontal cortex, or the parts of your brain that

Preston:

require working load memory, you actually have to rack and stack stuff.

Preston:

Yeah, it needs oxygen, it needs glucose, it needs a bunch of different things.

Preston:

However, other behaviors that are automated, the things that you've

Preston:

turned into muscle memory, right?

Preston:

And that's in the, in sort of the top of your brain stem, your basal ganglia,

Preston:

that's where you're potentiating muscles.

Preston:

It's where you're automating behaviors.

Preston:

If you do VO max and you gas them out, and you just need them to move through

Preston:

a room and demonstrate that they can still perform as per habituated,

Preston:

that makes total sense to me.

Preston:

If you VO2 the max and then have them do a calculus problem, right?

Preston:

Or they have to learn something, or you want them to learn something

Preston:

and retain it, I'm like you're mixing a bunch of things here.

Preston:

People often do this with sleep deprivation.

Preston:

They're like, "We're gonna sleep deprive them, and then we're gonna teach them

Preston:

and see how long they retain them."

Preston:

And I was like you could just get them drunk.

Preston:

How about we just get them drunk and teach them some stuff?

Preston:

And it's this, you're doing the same thing to the brain.

Preston:

Let's just get them liquored up and then teach them calculus and

Preston:

see how they do the next day.

Preston:

So it's one of those things like we have to be more and more specific about

Preston:

what these tests are trying to achieve and what the brain is good at doing.

Preston:

And the shorthand is you can stress somebody and you can teach somebody,

Preston:

you can't do both at the same time.

Chris:

Yeah, that is true.

Chris:

When we talk about burnout, that's the same thing, right?

Chris:

Like burnout Happens when you're chronically exposed to stress, and

Chris:

physiologically it gets you to a point where your hippocampus actually

Chris:

isn't online as much it needs to.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And the hippocampus is involved in memory consolidation and several

Chris:

other aspects related to memory.

Chris:

So we can put them on a VO2 max test, we can get them drunk, as you said, or

Chris:

we can try and teach someone something when they're in physiological burnout.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And all of these, these scenarios are not appropriate learning environments,

Chris:

and you're not gonna get the best out of the candidate and you're gonna lose

Chris:

somebody, I think, that could be great.

Preston:

Yeah, I had a team recently talk me through, and they were having

Preston:

problems 'cause they were losing a bunch of people on a navigation section, and

Preston:

this team, navigation really matters due to the nature of what they do.

Preston:

And I go, "That's really interesting.

Preston:

Do they have prior experience?"

Preston:

"They have a lot of prior experience."

Preston:

I was like, "That makes no sense to me.

Preston:

When are you teaching the course?"

Preston:

And they said, "1:00 AM."

Preston:

I was like, "Ah, okay, got it."

Preston:

Like, all right, let's, why don't we try teaching them at 9:00 AM?

Preston:

Let's see how that…

Preston:

Let's let them sleep, teach them the navigation course,

Preston:

and then see how they do."

Preston:

And they're like "It's supposed to be stressful."

Preston:

And I was like, "Different things, mate.

Preston:

Different things."

Preston:

If you're telling me you need them to learn it, then you need to give

Preston:

them an optimal learning environment.

Preston:

If you need them stress-inoculated for sleep, that's fine, do that.

Preston:

Just don't combine them.

Chris:

Yeah, and the cool thing about learning and stress, when you do something

Chris:

for the first time, you're stressed.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

Depending on what it is, you'll be more stressed or less stressed,

Chris:

but the first time that you do it will be more stressful than any

Chris:

other time you do it afterwards.

Chris:

And so if you're trying to teach someone a new task while exposing

Chris:

them to stress, as we just said

Chris:

why?

Chris:

I don't understand.

Chris:

I'm a highly logical person, so this- … also just really confuses me.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

We can do better, I think- Yeah … is what we're getting at.

Preston:

All right.

Preston:

So I'm gonna take us back to the meta, and then I'm gonna ask you just some

Preston:

questions generally about selection, and then I wanna start talking about

Preston:

specifics about females and what we're learning, and then we'll start to wind up.

Preston:

But I wanna go back to where we started, which is if you look at the

Preston:

pipeline for most of these teams, right?

Preston:

We look at selection and assessment, but if you back up recruitment screening,

Preston:

selection, assessment, training, education, sustainment, and then

Preston:

transition out to something else, right?

Preston:

If you look at all that and then someone's walking up to you and they're

Preston:

like, "I'm thinking about going to X selection," and you're seeing them

Preston:

the front end of this multi-decade pipeline, how are you conceptualizing

Preston:

preparing for a long-term effort?

Preston:

Not just preparing for selection, but preparing for their career, selection

Preston:

being one part of it, but being one, one peak experience among many, right?

Preston:

So how do you conceptualize that when you're working with folks that

Preston:

are going into these pipelines?

Chris:

My first question is why?

Chris:

Why do you wanna go here and why do you wanna go to this team?

Chris:

And usually They have an answer that they've practiced a few times.

Chris:

I'm like, "Okay, but actually…"

Chris:

And so we get into that, and we have some more meaningful conversations,

Chris:

and quite frankly, sometimes it's "Okay just so you know, you've identified

Chris:

that this is why you wanna do that.

Chris:

You know that this team doesn't actually do that, right?"

Chris:

And they're like, "Oh, really?"

Chris:

It's like, "No, you wanna go to this team."

Chris:

When that first conversation happens, it's actually a lot of questioning

Chris:

and kinda- Yeah … digging deeper.

Chris:

My next question is what's your family life like?

Chris:

What are your family goals?

Chris:

And if they wanna be home every night after work and they wanna be able to

Chris:

be there for all of the birthdays and everything, and that's a high priority for

Chris:

them I might share a few of my personal experiences with going to dinner or

Chris:

plans to go to dinner with a group of people, and on the way I get a message

Chris:

and be like, "Yeah, no, gotta go."

Chris:

Or people will wake up on a Thursday morning thinking they've got a full

Chris:

day of meetings, and they're halfway through their workout and they get a

Chris:

phone call, and like their date that they were gonna go on later is now

Chris:

either gonna have to wait an indefinite amount of time or, probably never

Chris:

happen, and their life is just put on hold for an unknown amount of time.

Chris:

Just getting into what it actually means to be in some of these teams.

Chris:

And then once we get through that, and if they're like " yeah, I wanna

Chris:

do it," okay, then we start talking about their history and their sport

Chris:

history is important, their physical training history is important,

Chris:

their nutrition and h- how they're fueling and what they're afraid of.

Chris:

So I'll, we'll talk about their physical stuff, and then just point-blank I'll

Chris:

say, "Okay, what are you afraid of?"

Chris:

And if I asked that question a couple of years ago, people would usually

Chris:

have some pretty good answers, the most common one being fear.

Chris:

I'm noticing that the last I'd say about two years, I haven't had many people

Chris:

actually know what I mean by the question.

Chris:

They're like "I'm not afraid of anything."

Chris:

It's like everyone's afraid of something.

Chris:

So there's a, a lot of reflection that actually has to go into that.

Chris:

Eventually instead of asking what are they afraid of, I've actually switched to,

Chris:

"What's your relationship with failure?"

Chris:

And that seems to be a more effective question for this new group

Chris:

that's coming in for selections.

Chris:

And then we spend a lot of time on that, and I'll intentionally include in

Chris:

programming for opportunities where they will get to learn how it feels to fail.

Chris:

And they'll start to gain some of the, those skills on themselves.

Chris:

'Cause if you've never Not received or succeeded in something that you really

Chris:

wanted, and the first time that's happening is in a selection environment,

Chris:

that's gonna be a pretty hard fall, right?

Chris:

Just allowing that to, to happen a few times before they get

Chris:

there is, is pretty important.

Preston:

Yeah.

Preston:

We, we talk about that a lot, how to recover from error.

Preston:

And both the team's tolerance for it, but the individual's tolerance for

Preston:

it, how to reset, as we talk about.

Preston:

The other thing that's become apparent to me recently, like in the last six or

Preston:

eight months, because of the way that teams are being deployed now, the way

Preston:

they're being built now, is that one of the questions I'm now asking instructor

Preston:

cadre and leadership is: Are you building an individual who can work on a team, or

Preston:

a team guy who can work as an individual?

Chris:

Yeah.

Preston:

And this matters, right?

Preston:

Because to your point earlier, what sports did they play?

Preston:

If they grew up playing rugby, they're very used to being a pack.

Preston:

If they're a golf person or a tennis person or track and field, they're

Preston:

on a team, but not in the same way.

Preston:

They're used to working as an individual.

Preston:

And so to your point, some people will come to me and they'll be like

Preston:

individual players, and they'll be like, "I wanna go join this team."

Preston:

And I was like sure but it sounds like you might be better over here where

Preston:

you're gonna be operating as an i- individual or a twosome most of the time."

Preston:

And they're like, "Yeah."

Preston:

And I was like, "Okay let's put you over there," right?

Preston:

And and same in reverse.

Preston:

"I wanna be James Bond."

Preston:

No, you don't.

Preston:

You wanna be part of a rugby team.

Preston:

So i- so i- it's, those things matter, to your point.

Chris:

They really do.

Chris:

And one of the things that I've observed in this, the last couple of

Chris:

years there's been a really interesting shift of not many people have

Chris:

actually participated in team sports.

Chris:

And I think different countries have had their education systems impacted by this,

Chris:

but in Canada and some states in the United States as well as some areas in the

Chris:

UK, physical education is not mandatory in some school districts anymore.

Preston:

That's right.

Chris:

And funding for sports also has taken a huge hit, and it's

Chris:

having a huge impact on the movement competency of this generation.

Chris:

And the hands and feet skills that come from playing sports, especially like

Preston:

socialization.

Preston:

Yep

Chris:

So there there's that.

Chris:

There's the, you know, working towards a goal-

Chris:

Yep

Chris:

… and failing.

Chris:

Not succeeding, and learning how to work hard for what you want.

Chris:

There's so many great things and lessons that come from sport that we

Chris:

really don't have another opportunity in society to teach these kids that.

Chris:

One of the things that I've started considering is actually encouraging

Chris:

team sport throughout preparation.

Chris:

And the pushback I get, which is completely legitimate, is

Chris:

sports are a huge injury risk.

Chris:

I'm like, Listen, so long as you don't have a compound fracture

Chris:

to your femur, we can rehab that.

Chris:

And the skills that you're gonna be obtaining and growing and being

Chris:

able to practice and play with by engaging in sport will far

Chris:

exceed any injury that you get.

Chris:

Within reason, but, you know- Sure … not including an ACL

Chris:

tear or something like that.

Preston:

But- Or several concussions.

Chris:

Okay, I wouldn't recommend someone goes and plays American

Chris:

football, but- Sorry, guys.

Chris:

Flag football maybe?

Chris:

But no, your guys' brains are too important, and you're about to go

Chris:

into a career where blast exposure and MTBI are, pretty prominent problems.

Preston:

How about rugby?

Preston:

What are your thoughts on rugby?

Chris:

Yeah, I actually think that rugby is great.

Chris:

Rugby is safer than American football.

Chris:

There's a lot of evidence to support that statement, and longitudinal assessments

Chris:

and also the, the force in contact, because people aren't wearing equipment.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

So they're a little guarded, more guarded.

Chris:

I think that rugby is a great proxy for a lot of the skills that we've

Chris:

actually talked about today, and a lot of the teams are talking about.

Preston:

So let's fast-forward.

Preston:

You've now talked to this selection kid.

Preston:

You come back s- five to 10 years later.

Preston:

That person's now done multiple tours.

Preston:

They've been blown up a couple of times.

Preston:

They show up in your office, and you're like, "Hey, Doc, good to see you again.

Preston:

I obviously can't work out the way I did when I was 18.

Preston:

What are your recommendations now?"

Chris:

So at 10 years, they're probably moving into being a

Chris:

Det commander type of role.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

So they're molding into more of a leadership role.

Chris:

They probably haven't taken a knee and actually taken a breath in a long time.

Chris:

So I, before asking them, my my bias will be they're probably physiologically

Chris:

burnt out, and they probably have a lot of injuries that they haven't had time

Chris:

or been given the time to rehab properly.

Chris:

And so usually I'll take them for a walk so that I can also do a, an assessment

Chris:

of how they're moving and just get, get talking with how they're feeling.

Chris:

And I really think that w- we can use that as a touchpoint to identify

Chris:

psychological risks as well.

Preston:

Okay.

Chris:

As someone who usually, they're used to talking about the physical stuff,

Chris:

but I always end up, asking how they're doing and really how they're doing.

Chris:

It gives an opportunity for a checkpoint in that, and then I can tap into the

Chris:

multidisciplinary care that is needed- Sure … for the individual, right?

Chris:

Yep.

Chris:

Because I'm a physiologist and strength and conditioning coach.

Chris:

That is, I am one person that needs to be involved in this.

Chris:

Looping in nutrition is always going to be, regardless if it's g- this

Chris:

person's had no injuries and they're good to go, or they've had considerable

Chris:

injuries the bringing the dietician or the nutrition specialty is really

Chris:

important, as well as the psych depending, just in maybe touchpoint.

Chris:

And sometimes the physicians need to be involved as well.

Chris:

Sure.

Chris:

So it's just having that, that touchpoint just to understand

Chris:

the breadth of what is needed to actually support this individual,

Chris:

and sometimes they don't want that.

Chris:

Sometimes they're just like, "Listen, I've got time to see you," and that's it.

Chris:

And so I- I'll ask permission if it's okay if I consult with- Yeah … with the

Chris:

team, and then it just funnels through me or whatever because I'm one person

Chris:

and my specialties are, quite limited.

Chris:

So we'll have those conversations, and then we'll address the injuries.

Chris:

Usually there's some knee issues usually, so there's neck and shoulders.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

So we'll loop in the, talk to the physios and get a nice little package for them to

Chris:

do as a prep phase for their strength and whatever other resistance training we're

Chris:

gonna be including in their programming.

Chris:

And- Yeah … so it's it's like this multidisciplinary support

Chris:

package that we'll build and

Chris:

slowly start to get back.

Chris:

Two things that I find that the human needs at about that, that

Chris:

10-year mark: It's downregulating their system, so they've been going.

Chris:

They're usually in physiological burnout at that point, so their

Chris:

cortisol response is blunted.

Chris:

So we don't need to be putting them in 100% effort, things that are just

Chris:

jacking up their- Yeah … their stress response even more.

Chris:

Their immune system's probably compromised, so we need to bring

Chris:

them down to a lower intensity to actually support the immune system

Chris:

instead of impede the immune system.

Chris:

And so operating at that 60 to 70% effort just to get them moving again

Chris:

and then also allow their system to regulate and putting more of an

Chris:

emphasis on things like sleep and proper nutrition and just getting the, the

Chris:

basics dialed before we start setting, "Oh I'm gonna be back home more.

Chris:

Maybe I'll just, start running ultras."

Chris:

I've had that conversation so many times, and I'm like let's just give it a couple

Chris:

weeks and we'll see with the ultra."

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And usually it's like, "Oh yeah, now I'm starting to have all of these pains pop

Chris:

up" that, they've been able to ignore.

Chris:

But n- once they slow down, your, system has a chance to do a full body

Chris:

check-in, and it's like, "Oh, actually my knee doesn't really work anymore."

Chris:

" I can't really walk upstairs properly," or, I can't really open

Chris:

a jar 'cause my grip strength is all messed up on my left hand."

Chris:

It's yeah, okay, we probably got some compression around

Chris:

the nerves in your neck.

Chris:

We should probably start looking at that.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

So it goes from that before selection they're just trying to be

Chris:

better than yesterday, and then on course they're just hanging on for dear life.

Chris:

When they get into the stalls you might have the opportunity

Chris:

to work on some mission specific physical training and stuff.

Chris:

But usually it's just try and maintain and survive.

Chris:

And then you get out of that, and it's like, okay, now we've gotta fix all this

Chris:

stuff that we didn't have time to fix, and hopefully keep you well enough that you

Chris:

can be good for yourself but also support your team that you're now responsible for.

Chris:

So it's an interesting conversation.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

But yeah,

Preston:

it's- and but I think the important thing is that it's a

Preston:

conversation, meaning it's not binary.

Preston:

It's not like guys can't walk in and go, ""Oh, can you just give me the pill?"

Preston:

Or, "Can you just give me the one thing I need to do?"

Chris:

Oh, I wish it was that easy.

Preston:

Yeah, I know.

Preston:

You play Cool games, you get cool prizes.

Preston:

You do cool things, you get cool injuries.

Preston:

Okay, so now we're gonna get at some of your core expertise.

Preston:

And I will just let everyone know that as I'm traveling the world right now,

Preston:

one of the conversations I'm in with multiple different countries is the

Preston:

fact that the landscape certainly in special operations and the places that

Preston:

people are going requires discretion, it requires different capabilities, it

Preston:

requires different ways of thinking, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Preston:

And the common denominator here is 50% of the world's population is women.

Preston:

And so we've been leaving 50% of the population out of that equation.

Preston:

And what places like Ukraine and others have taught us is

Preston:

that's a really dumb thing to do.

Preston:

So there's a bunch of teams around the world that are now investigating how

Preston:

to do that, and it comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities.

Preston:

And one of the things that I think is historically dumb, and I think

Preston:

the data supports me on this, is to try to put women in selections

Preston:

that were designed for big dudes.

Preston:

Because that's not actually what we're asking the women to do.

Preston:

And when they say to me Preston, that guy can't carry a 300-pound guy out of

Preston:

the field," I look at the, the speaker and I go, "Neither can you, mate."

Preston:

It's a dumb question.

Preston:

Neither can half of your guys.

Preston:

Stop saying that.

Preston:

It's a dumb statement.

Preston:

There, there are reasons mixed genders in remote places can be problematic.

Preston:

I'm not in any way suggesting it all goes lovingly and supportingly.

Preston:

There are real challenges to overcome.

Preston:

There are also real opportunities that should be investigated.

Preston:

But with that comes the responsibility to make sure that the women are

Preston:

supported correctly, are selected correctly, are trained correctly,

Preston:

and then are deployed correctly.

Preston:

What are the big things that you're seeing as you work with different

Preston:

countries around female selection?

Preston:

What are the big headline items that you want to make sure everybody knows about?

Chris:

The standard, so long as it's based on a task, shouldn't change.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

If the standard is based on a proxy or an exercise to simulate

Chris:

a task, that's a slippery slope.

Chris:

So again, a proxy if we're using an exercise like a back squat to mimic

Chris:

doing a heavy lifting task or to assess lower body strength and the ability

Chris:

to hang off the side of a helicopter for, that's one of the examples

Chris:

that's been given to me of why they include a back squat in their tests.

Chris:

And if That's the case, I have concerns because what we talked about earlier,

Chris:

the way that different bodies go about doing the same task will be

Chris:

different based off of their height their movement pattern competency.

Chris:

So if they played sports versus not, if they've been injured versus

Chris:

not, if they are male or female.

Chris:

And so when we're talking about bringing females into teams and using the same

Chris:

assessments, we need to take a step back and really reflect on is the

Chris:

assessment actually reflective of the job that is going to be asked of them?

Chris:

And if the answer is yes, then continue on.

Chris:

But from What I've seen so far most of the assessments actually

Chris:

will probably need to be refined based off the problem set anyway.

Chris:

And the languaging around the changes to a lot of these assessments

Chris:

will need to be done with care.

Chris:

It might not be the people that are making the change, but culturally the

Chris:

conversation is, "Oh, the standard's changed because they're trying

Chris:

to get more women on the teams."

Chris:

Which is incredibly harmful, not just for any woman that comes through

Chris:

who's then part of the team and people will be like "We changed the

Chris:

standard for them to be here, so are they really part of the tribe?

Chris:

I don't know."

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And it's also just culturally, if a team is changing their standard for a reason,

Chris:

it needs to be broadcast, whether it be for physiological diversity or if it's

Chris:

that the evidence actually supports that this one assessment is actually not

Chris:

relevant to job success down the line.

Chris:

And because we have so much data being collected, quite often we can

Chris:

actually make those associations between what assessments are

Chris:

predictive of success or not.

Chris:

And even then I question that sometimes, but that's okay.

Chris:

Statistics are Easily manipulated.

Chris:

So that, that would be one of the things that I'm seeing.

Chris:

The other is using blanket preparation for selections for everybody, and I

Chris:

think that's problematic, not just for the biological sex conversation,

Chris:

but again, injury history really matters when we're coming into a

Chris:

physical training conversation.

Chris:

If you've torn your ACL, you run differently.

Chris:

Your non-injured leg and your injured leg forever will have different biomechanics.

Chris:

And so the, the muscles that are dominant and where the, the force

Chris:

goes in the joints will also be different from leg to leg.

Chris:

And as you imagine, your legs are attached to your, through your pelvis

Chris:

to your spine, so that puts uneven strain on the muscles in your back,

Chris:

And , can also impact how you throw.

Chris:

So when we're designing physical training programs for something like a selection

Chris:

or an assessment we need to consider a lot of things, not just biological sex.

Chris:

But when we do start to look into the male and female conversation, the

Chris:

physiological adaptations to training, whether it be aerobic training or

Chris:

strength and resistance training, power training, the time for recovery is

Chris:

different between males and females.

Chris:

The types of actual activities that we can be doing as proxies so we

Chris:

don't end up with overuse injuries should also be a little bit different.

Chris:

When we start to talk about the programming to prepare for ensuring

Chris:

someone is reaching their peak performance, or their optimal performance

Chris:

or whatever term you wanna use here, but being better than yesterday, it

Chris:

actually should look quite different between the males and females, and I

Chris:

don't see that happening very often.

Preston:

Can you just speak just what does, what's the data say about time

Preston:

versus recovery versus men versus women?

Chris:

Oh, yeah.

Chris:

So in a strength context, if you put guys through a four-repetition maximum

Chris:

bench press, that's a very common physical fitness test, their maximum

Chris:

strength will have decreased by about 2.5

Chris:

to 3% at the four-hour mark, and at 24 hours, it's actually between 4.5

Chris:

and 5% less than their original maximum capacity.

Chris:

So they recover at 48 hours.

Chris:

At 48 hours they'll be back to their 100% max that they did.

Chris:

Whereas females, if you test them four hours after the 4RM bench press,

Chris:

they're going to hit the same numbers.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And at 24 hours they hit the same numbers again, and then at 48 hours

Chris:

they hit the same numbers again.

Chris:

And so in a testing context, this is great if you're doing repeat testing

Chris:

and you're trying to get someone who's able to operate at 80% of their

Chris:

effort for long periods of time.

Chris:

Females do that physiologically very well.

Chris:

Now, where that comes into the training context, we can actually train females in

Chris:

strength a little bit more aggressively or in a smaller timeframe, that's

Chris:

probably a better way of putting it

Preston:

Yeah

Chris:

than males.

Chris:

So in, in the ideal strength program for a male, we would allow that muscle group

Chris:

to recover for 48 hours before coming back to train it, whereas females, I

Chris:

actually will train them very similar circuits throughout the day, and they

Chris:

will have faster Strength adaptations.

Chris:

Yeah,

Preston:

yeah.

Preston:

It's interesting, right?

Preston:

Because this conversation has always been so politicized, and especially these days.

Preston:

But as a former EMT, I can tell you that when we did medicine,

Preston:

we also did pediatrics, and the reason we did pediatrics is because

Preston:

children aren't small adults.

Preston:

They are physiologically different.

Preston:

Babies are physiologically different than adolescents.

Preston:

So if you try to treat them like an adult, you'll actually cause them harm.

Preston:

The amount that they breathe, their heartbeat, the

Preston:

everything else is different.

Preston:

And so you have talked to me before about the difference

Preston:

between gender and sex, right?

Preston:

And so the physiology of men and the physiology of women, just the

Preston:

obvious stuff of your bones, right?

Preston:

About how we are literally, our infrastructure is different.

Preston:

I was once told, and you said this may not be true, is that the center of

Preston:

gravity on average for women is below the belly button, and men it's above the

Preston:

belly button, which is what I was told.

Preston:

But this may or may not be true.

Preston:

So let's, you can address

Chris:

The, you, little nuances there.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

It really depends.

Chris:

In, in general that is true.

Chris:

Okay.

Chris:

But if you start to look at sport-specific, Oh,

Preston:

okay

Preston:

… Chris: individuals, it actually is slightly different.

Preston:

For swimmers, that difference is actually less or equal.

Preston:

'Cause, yeah, after our conversation I had to check myself.

Preston:

I was like, "Wait a second," and I went and looked it up, and yeah,

Preston:

sport-specific matters in that, that-

Preston:

Okay

Preston:

… Chris: fun factoid.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

But back One more step, the sex and gender conversation is fascinating.

Chris:

So- Biological sex, we're talking about chromosomes, anatomy,

Chris:

how the system functions.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And then for gender, that's how someone interacts with society.

Chris:

I like to say the biological sex is the meat sack, and gender is how the

Chris:

meat sack goes about their life and how they interact and exist in society.

Chris:

And both are actually independently associated with medical and health

Chris:

outcomes as well as performance outcomes.

Chris:

So it really matters if you were raised as a girl or raised as a boy.

Chris:

Our society has very different expectations on physical behavior and

Chris:

emotional behavior for girls and boys.

Chris:

And one of the dominant theories for non-contact ACL tears in sports

Chris:

being more common in girls is because of this phenomenon, and

Chris:

I'll explain that for a second.

Chris:

Girls are typically told to be quiet, contained.

Chris:

If they engage in high-risk physical activity, like trying to climb a

Chris:

tree or they're about to fall off a ladder, adults will intervene.

Chris:

Whereas boys, they're allowed to jump and be loud and climb trees and fall

Chris:

from trees and climb ladders and, "Oh, he's gonna fall, but he'll be fine.

Chris:

He'll just shake it off and rub some dirt on it and keep playing."

Chris:

So there's these really fundamental movement patterns that are developed in

Chris:

those early years and engaging in those high-risk activities that boys get.

Chris:

And girls, unless they go into dance, where dance you are engaging in

Chris:

high-risk maneuvers and having to learn how to fall and how to roll

Chris:

out and how to land from, a, a jump-

Preston:

Gymnastics.

Preston:

Yeah

Preston:

… Chris: fantastic, right?

Preston:

But if you don't engage in those specific activities, girls typically

Preston:

don't actually get the opportunity to develop these movement patterns.

Preston:

And these movement patterns are associated with lifelong health impacts,

Preston:

like learning how to fall as an adult.

Preston:

If the first time that you're learning how to fall is when you're

Preston:

in an osteoporosis program- Yeah

Preston:

at a physio, that, that's not ideal.

Preston:

Usually, everything Is a little bit slower and those later years, your

Preston:

risk of injury is exponentially higher.

Preston:

So there's That gendered conversation of the nurturing of children and

Preston:

that having a direct impact on movement competency and injury risk.

Preston:

And then we also have the nature conversation of physiology,

Preston:

and physiology really matters.

Preston:

Like I was just talking about a biological female will recover

Preston:

their strength faster than a male.

Preston:

Also, we see that in aerobic capacity their ability to operate

Preston:

at a higher intensity for longer.

Preston:

So at that 80% zone for females, they can sustain that for way

Preston:

longer and need a smaller recovery time than males typically do.

Preston:

And please asterisk this by just saying they have optimal

Preston:

fueling, they slept well.

Preston:

Yeah.

Preston:

Their dog didn't just die.

Preston:

There are a lot of factors that can also influence that, but we're just

Preston:

talking about general cell function here.

Preston:

And Males And females have different skeletons, so there are anatomical

Preston:

differences in the cervical spine between males and females.

Preston:

The cervical spine is narrower and more flexible in females, , and

Preston:

we can build that up, we can stabilize that with muscles.

Preston:

But it's going to be more mobile than a male's cervical spine.

Preston:

And so in a whiplash situation, a female's whiplash symptoms will be

Preston:

greater and their likelihood of having more head trauma and maybe dying,

Preston:

which is what came out of research in car accidents, the injury patterns

Preston:

and the severity of injuries were significantly higher in females, and

Preston:

they'd done all of the modeling on males.

Preston:

And but they had to go back and figure it out, and sure enough the cervical

Preston:

spine really is considerably different.

Preston:

And if we apply that to a military context for injury risk, we do see that

Preston:

the cervical spine in females is in certain occupations, especially ones

Preston:

that are under load with helmets and nods and all that the repetitive strain

Preston:

injuries in the females are typically a little bit higher for the cervical spine.

Preston:

And then if we talk about the pelvis, the male and female pelvis is different,

Preston:

and then the female pelvis in those who have not given birth versus females

Preston:

who have given birth is also different.

Preston:

So you've got three categories, if you will, here.

Preston:

And how The pelvis is different and then the femurs fit into the pelvis

Preston:

really matter for movement in that it'll determine how someone runs.

Preston:

So your femur is attached to your knee, and if your femur is in a female

Preston:

is in, down, and forward a little bit the muscles that are dominant

Preston:

in running are actually the outside of the hip, so the hip abductors.

Preston:

Whereas males we see more the hamstrings and the glutes.

Preston:

Where that matters in physical training is the muscles that are responsible

Preston:

for performance in running, we need to use different exercises to actually

Preston:

optimize those and to stabilize those muscles or offset overuse injuries with

Preston:

different exercises for males and females.

Preston:

I could talk about this for a really long time 'cause it's one of my

Preston:

favorite things, but I hope that we're painting a picture of just

Preston:

how different these individuals are and the supports to get them there.

Preston:

But at the end of the day, we actually can get them to do the same thing.

Preston:

It's just how we get there is different.

Preston:

One of the reasons I'm excited about this conversation just globally

Preston:

that's happening is because, a lot of my writing is about going back and looking at

Preston:

selection assessment, looking at some of the myths, looking at some of the things

Preston:

that have been duct-taped over, duct-taped over, duct-taped over, that no one even

Preston:

knows why we're doing them anymore.

Preston:

Some things are awesome, and some things need to be fundamentally re-examined.

Preston:

And I think as we think about this stuff and we talk to experts around

Preston:

the world, the conversation about women isn't just a conversation about women.

Preston:

It's about what questions are we asking and why are we asking them,

Preston:

and how do we actually prepare people?

Preston:

Because for me, people say, "Preston's selection's just fine.

Preston:

We shouldn't change it."

Preston:

And I always look at them and go, "How many funerals have you been to this year?"

Preston:

Because as a person who goes to people's funerals too often, who are

Preston:

operators who don't transition out, and people say, " that's not selection."

Preston:

I'm like, "How do you know that?

Preston:

How do you know that us not figuring out how to bring somebody on board

Preston:

and prepare them for the long haul isn't part of the problem?

Preston:

Shouldn't we at least be having that conversation?"

Preston:

And so what this conversation about women does, one of the things it does,

Preston:

among many, is just get us to look at the whole package again and say, people

Preston:

have the right to pursue happiness all over the world, and they shouldn't have

Preston:

to trade their service to their community to their right to pursue happiness.

Preston:

And so I'm enjoying all of that and I'm very excited about it.

Preston:

As we think about starting to wrap up this Teamcast, I want to come back to

Preston:

The people that are listening, when they're thinking about selection, and

Preston:

assessment, and human performance, what's the one thing you'd get them

Preston:

to start thinking about for Monday?

Preston:

if You could press one button and say, "Here's the thing all of you,

Preston:

if you're in this world, based on my research, should start thinking about."

Preston:

And with that, are there any sort of wrap-up closing thoughts, things

Preston:

you hadn't said that you'd like to?

Chris:

One of the things that has made me better at supporting the

Chris:

males that I support in this space, 'cause honestly, I ran the numbers

Chris:

yesterday, 94% of the individuals that I coach right now are male.

Chris:

By researching females and the reproductive changes that happen through

Chris:

females, I started to consider how human reproduction impacts the male, and

Chris:

there are some pretty big things that happen when someone becomes a parent.

Chris:

Your entire life gets upheaved.

Chris:

And I became really curious about the physiological impacts

Chris:

of becoming a parent on males.

Chris:

And much to my surprise, there's actually a considerable amount of

Chris:

physiological changes that happen to a male in, in that timeframe.

Chris:

But one of the more recent discoveries was I was looking at perinatal

Chris:

depression prevalence in in the UK, and we were s- helping build

Chris:

a project looking at perinatal depression in service women in the UK.

Chris:

And one of the, the conversations that is happening a lot right now is

Chris:

health equity and making sure that medical services to service personnel

Chris:

are equitable and equal for everyone.

Chris:

And so whenever I'm looking at a topic now, I'm like, "Okay what is…

Chris:

What do I need to do for the inverse?"

Chris:

So if I'm looking at something that is male-specific, how do I look at

Chris:

this for females and vice versa?

Chris:

And so looking at this perinatal depression piece for the service women,

Chris:

and was like this is definitely happening in males too or for the non-childbearing

Chris:

parent, and so how do we measure that?

Chris:

And I discovered very quickly that actually in the UK 10% of male partners

Chris:

experience perinatal depression.

Chris:

It's the same screener, the same screen used for women and, or the maternal

Chris:

parent as we use for the paternal parent or a non-childbearing parent.

Chris:

And so this got me reflecting quite, quite a bit on how are we developing supports

Chris:

around the team members becoming a parent.

Chris:

I get asked a lot about the pregnancy policy, and one of the things that

Chris:

happen with some women that serve is they get pregnant and they, they need

Chris:

to take time to, raise their baby and take care of themselves for that.

Chris:

But also, the partner is also very much involved in this, and so it becomes

Chris:

not a maternity leave conversation, but a, a parental leave conversation.

Chris:

It really highlighted to me that we don't have sufficient mental health support

Chris:

within most of the teams for parents, whether it be a, a mother or a father.

Chris:

So now when someone tells me that they're having a kid, I'm excited for

Chris:

them, and I'm also very upfront about the physiological changes that they're

Chris:

going to be experiencing, and it being a high-risk time point for depression.

Chris:

And if they've had depression in the past or mental health issues that

Chris:

they've been navigating, to just be aware and that there are resources

Chris:

available, and if they ever wanted to just talk about it, reach out.

Chris:

And that would be one thing that I think that we all need

Chris:

to do better at addressing is becoming a parent is really hard.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And just because you didn't birth the child doesn't mean it's not challenging.

Chris:

And it is a high-risk time point and I think we need to do a

Chris:

better job at talking about that.

Chris:

And how training and human performance plays a key role in that as well.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

To the human performance teams, we should all be thinking about how we

Chris:

can work better as a team and who the teammates are in human performance.

Preston:

Yeah.

Chris:

I think that leadership is part of the human performance conversation.

Chris:

The member is central to the human performance conversation, but so is

Chris:

medical, so is psych, so is mental performance, so is nutrition, so is

Chris:

the strength and conditioning coach, so is physio, so is the rehab team.

Chris:

And maybe you've got an AI teammate as well, right?

Chris:

And so who is on your team, and then how are you communicating and

Chris:

ensuring that the member is actually central to the human performance team?

Chris:

And I think that team will actually look different depending on where they're

Chris:

at in their career as well as where they're at just personally as a human.

Preston:

I know we are closing, but just on that oftentimes when

Preston:

I'm going to teams I have to remind people of some hard truths.

Preston:

And so for example, with selection, I have to start off now, I hadn't used to

Preston:

have to do this, but I have to do it now.

Preston:

I go, "Guys, the whole reason we're doing this is that you have to produce

Preston:

X amount of people at the end of the year or your team is in decline."

Preston:

We can't talk about culture, we can't talk about any of it if we don't hit those

Preston:

numbers because that's what matters, and that's a hard truth we have to talk about.

Preston:

And then the second thing I often have to talk about with people,

Preston:

whether it be people like me or psychologists or HP or anybody, is

Preston:

you're in support of the operators.

Preston:

The operators are not in support of you.

Preston:

If you stop coming, the operators still will come.

Preston:

If the operators stop coming, you will not come.

Preston:

So people get that confused sometimes, and I just wanna make sure we all

Preston:

understand that's why we do the work, that's where the work lies, and if you

Preston:

find yourself getting confused by that, just to remind yourself it's good.

Chris:

I agree.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

We all exist to support the operator in doing what they do and hopefully

Chris:

it'll help them, get to the end of their career in the best shape that they

Chris:

can be, and then they can have a good transition into whatever life they want.

Chris:

To me, that's our biggest responsibility actually ensuring that the human

Chris:

is able to interact with their life while they're working, but also at

Chris:

the end of whatever their career, Yeah

Chris:

looks like,

Preston:

that's a great way to end.

Preston:

And Chris, thank you so much for being here.

Preston:

Thanks for being part of MCTI.

Preston:

I look forward to future conversations.

Preston:

And I wanna thank everybody for listening, and I'll see you at the next Teamcast.

Preston:

Thank you again for listening to our Teamcast.

Preston:

If you found value in this discussion, the best way to support our work

Preston:

and ensure you don't miss future episodes is to subscribe and

Preston:

leave us a quick rating or review.

Preston:

That'll help us reach more people who need to hear these conversations.

Preston:

For more on Mission Critical Team Institute, including all of our episodes

Preston:

and show notes, visit missioncti.com.

Preston:

You can also connect with us on LinkedIn.

Preston:

And if you're a mission-critical team looking to learn more about

Preston:

our programs, reach out directly to our director of operations, Ms.

Preston:

Janese Jackson, at janese@missioncti.com.

Preston:

That's J-A-N-E-S-E@missioncti.com.

Preston:

Until next time.

Preston:

Thanks.

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About the Podcast

Teamcast
Mission Critical Team Institute Teamcast
Dr. Preston Cline, Dr. Dan Dworkis, and Harry Moffit of the Mission Critical Team Institute share research and explore the questions vexing the most elite teams in the world, from Special Operations soldiers to Firefighters, from Trauma Medics to Professional Athletes, and from Astronauts to Tactical Law Enforcement.

About your hosts

Coleman Ruiz

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Co-Founder and Director of Performance, Mission Critical Team Institute

Preston Cline

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Co-founder and Director of Research and Education at the Mission Critical Team Institute
Senior Fellow, Center for Leadership and Change Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania