More thoughts on SWAT testing

I received another message literally days after the first question on operator training. This one was in reference to testing procedures. This is unedited and may be a bit all over the place, but hope you can pick out the good stuff out it.

For an actual testing process, I would use some form of obstacle course that involves what you'll see 90% or more of the time. The old school o-courses aren't actually all that bad. The problem with a realistic test is to be efficient, the varibles won't always end of successful. Say you start with a few exercises to get the adrenaline stimulation up, then have a ballistic micro-fight, the variables of a fight could shift the results of the operators performance.

Maybe have a combination of exercise based testing(40 yard sprint, long jump, metcon workout, power clean, etc) in combination with an o-course and some scenario's. But the last two would take a bit of resources and time to put together.

For just exercise route, concentrate on a few things. Athleticism, power, coordination, mental agility/toughness. The secret service has a kettlebell snatch test that has absolutely nothing to do with your physical ability, it's to see how tough you are mentally, as many snatches as possible in 10 min. Athleticism is huge. A guy can be strong as hell, but if he can't coordinate his movements and have the ability to quickly recover from a mistake, all the strength goes to waste. Power. When it's go time, it's all about being in Grog smash, face ripping, bad guy slinging, Testosterone rage. Adrenaline can get you there, but training power will get your body to do it efficently. Coordination, you gotta be able to do multiple things at once sometimes.

Does that make sense?

The Secret Service Snatch Test actually works almost all of these. I would toss in a long jump, short sprint, maybe an agility ladder/course and some form of weighted pullups(full kit).

So for small area and resources do the SSST(that's the acronym you'll find it under on the kettlebell forums) and pullups in kit(I'd do pullups before the hands get tore up). For a bit more space and resources, a 40 yard dash followed by an agility drill, then the SSST, but this time instead of pullups have a 6' wall and see how many times back and forth you can get over it in a set period of time, say two minutes, again in full kit. Give about 2-5 min rest in between each event. And of course feel free to toss in some tactical skills or scenario's, just remember variables are going to influence it, so it may be best to just be part of the test but not necessarily pass/fail.

Hope that answers your question a bit better. Look around the dragondoor forums. Before crossfit, Pavel and the kettlebell were the dominating force for tactical tests. There might be a few gems hidden in there. Not sure if you met Jeff Martone at DARC, but hit him up, he's got a lot of good stuff as well.

Here is my follow up reply to a few more points

I think the SSST is basically 10 min, as many snatches as you can do. You can set it down, you can use whichever hand you want. Pretty much you can do whatever you want but quit. Here's an article on the SSST http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/369/


Here's a link to a phone interview with Dan John. I was the guy asking about the military/law enforcement question But overall, he's got a ton of knowledge on this stuff. http://kettlebellinterrogations.com/dan/call.html

One thing to be aware of with standardized testing is it can be gameplayed just like IPSC shooting or football combine. With the SSST and wall climbs, I think there will be enough carry over that even if you do gameplay it, it will still make you a better operator.

Something to look into for your agility drill, is find some Parkour(The crazy dudes jumping and climbing buildings) exercises and use a circuit of those. It'll transfer into the tactical arena very well on top of assessing agility skills.

One thing to watch for is maybe reversing the order to have range first, then scenario's, then physical. With kettlebell snatches your hands get pretty chewed up and wouldn't be very conducive to shooting well Also when you think of training, you generally want to try and train the most neurologically demanding first, then as the skill gets easier it gets pushed down the priority list. I know crossfit has kind of tossed that idea out the window, but their focus is general fitness, not specific skills training.

Glad I could help out. Feel free to paraphrase this and push it out if you think others would benefit from it.

Thoughts on SWAT conditioning

I recently received a message asking about strength and conditioning for law enforcement, speciffically a SWAT breacher. Below is my reply on my thoughts on it.

Hey (insert silly false name here to protect identity), first off thanks for protecting your local citizens every day. It's a job not many respect until they need you.

Here's my philosophy on Law enforcement training in general. For a patrol officer, the most common thing they will be doing is slinging people not objects. You already do MMA, just make sure you include grappling of your choice that meshes with your dept policies and programs. So that could be considered your strength work. Now for operator duties you'll need a little bit extra juice for breaching, crarrying around extra weight, assaulting objectives, mental clarity for long periods during a stand off, etc. For that you can work in any quality strength program. Joe DeFranco, Jim Smith/Diesel Crew, Dan John, Alwyn Cosgrove, Charles Staley are all excellent choices.

Again for patrol officers, the grappling will be sufficient conditioning and very specific. To expand for you team role add in a crossfit metcon or some kettlebell snatch work twice a week. Also some sledgehammer work laterally against a target about the same height as your average door breach along with some med ball twisting throws should work some nice specificity into your hoolie work, when dynamic breach isn't acceptable.

So putting it all together, couple different ways. cycles of four days of ramping intensity, I've found to work better than any other protocol I've used. It will force you to recover so you can actually go all out on your high intensity days. Each cycle of four days consists of a day each of no intensity, low intensity, moderate intensity and high intensity.

On the no intensity days, do a ton of joint mobility work, you can also think of this as the 'off' day. But it's not off, it's active recovery.

You'll follow this up with a low intensity day. On this day practice your tactical skills, dry fire or live fire if possible, and also use this day to work on your flexibility. PNF, dynamic flexibility, foam rolling or yoga type stretches are all good here. Think of this as your active recovery day, feel free to break a light sweat, but nothing above 60%. Concentrate on opening up your upper back, pecs, shoulders and hip flexors as those are the most tightened by body armor and sitting in a patrol car.

Next on your moderate day is either your strength or conditioning work. Whichever you feel is currently the better of the two, you'll place here and they can be flip flopped every few weeks if needed. Usually most place their strength here, preferably full body work. Deadlifts, squats, weighted pullups, gymnastic skills or any other difficult strength/strongman work you like here. If you do any sparring or want to take your body for a test drive in some form of competition, approximately 4-6 hours after your moderate workout is the opportunity.

Last is your high intensity day and most will place their conditioning here. If you decide on one of the programs from the guys I listed you may have to put your strength here because many of them are just too intense to have anything follow them. But for conditioning a high intenisty metcon of at least 20 min can go here. About once a month or so ensure to get a longer metcon or a weighted hike for some mental challenge. And of course you can put any kettlebell conditioning work here as well. I like the snatch VO2 protocol.

If you prefer 5 day/week cycles, not to fear. Just do your moderate on Mon and Thurs. High on Tue and Fri. Mobility and active recovery/flexibility improvement on Wed.

Just kind of my philosophies on things. Let me know if you need anything else at all or have any questions.

Nathan

Something I forgot to mention is make sure your training does not interfer with your job performance. Some sore muscles may not slow you down too much on the exterior, but it's not worth risking not knowing how it's actually affecting you on the inside.