Blogs
New Fitness Initiative for Navy
David Zickl
Last week, an article in Athletic Business featured the United States Navy's announcement of their newest fitness and nutrition initiative—Navy Operation Fitness and Fueling Series (NOFFS)—at the Navy Fitness Conference in Orlando, Florida. The Navy’s new program, which is aimed at improving the health of sailors while at sea, was developed in collaboration with Athletes’ Performance. “It was an honor for Athletes’ Performance to be part of creating this forward-thinking Navy program,” says Kevin Elsey, curriculum manager and performance specialist with Athletes’ Performance. Read about the program in the excerpts below, or click here for the full article.
On the program’s structure:
NOFFS comprises 90 exercises in all, detailed on laminated cards for ease of use, that are designed to replicate the lifting, pushing, pulling and carrying duties the sailors perform during their daily routines. (The exercises, also available on CD, will be shot on video for online consultation.) Priority has been given to exercises that utilize the equipment most commonly found on vessels (benches and dumbbells) and in the Navy’s Fit-Kits (bands and straps), as well as to those that can be performed in very confined spaces. The exercise style is atypical for most military personnel, representing a departure from the linear movements favored by denizens of traditional weight rooms.
"A lot of times, people don't know what else to do," observes Elsey. "Go to the gym, and the most popular things you'll see people doing are push-ups, some sort of bench press, bicep curls, maybe some sort of squat, and loads of sit-ups. If there's a leg press machine, they'll jump on that because it's easy and they just know how to do it. That's the traditional view—train the body in isolation, and work on a specific muscle group. But think about what we do, day in and day out, and the demands we put on our body—it is important to prepare our body to move the way we're going to move."
On the program’s injury-prevention benefits:
A primary impetus for the program as a whole is the prevention of sports and physical training-related injuries, which the Defense Safety Oversight Council in 2006 tabbed as the area in which the Department of Defense could achieve the greatest reduction in lost duty days. (Running, another staple of military workouts, was found by the Joint Services Physical Training Injury Prevention Work Group to offer the highest risk of injury.) The problem, again, is not that military personnel are out of shape, but that the current training regimen is flawed. The culprit, according to anecdotal evidence and a growing body of research, may be a lack of efficient movement skills even among the physically fit.
As Elsey puts it, "If you just do a push-up or bench press all day long without incorporating any sort of mobility, stability or upper-body pulling movement patterns, your body is going to get out of balance. Your shoulders will begin to roll forward, placing them in a poor position to function, your chest is going to overdevelop and your back is going to get weak." Before you know it, he says, you're injured and in physical therapy.
Stay Connected
Related Content
Blogs
In the News
Galatasaray SK Wins 18th Turkish Super Lig Title
Galatasaray SK finished first in the regular season and became the Super Lig champions for the 18th time.