Photo By Cpl. Andrew Garcia | U.S. Army 1st. Sgt. Amy Davis, a Combat Medic with the Medical Department Activity,...... read more read more
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The Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) System represents the Army’s largest investment in its most valuable resource – its people. To prepare for Multi-Domain Operations, we must holistically invest in Soldiers to equip them with the physical supremacy, decision dominance, spiritual strength, and emotional resilience to win our nation’s wars. The Army’s H2F System is a transformational performance readiness system, and its updates span across doctrine, organizations, training, materiel, leader development, personnel, facilities, and policy (DOTMLPFP).
Army Senior Leaders have committed to the H2F System by resourcing brigade-level H2F Performance Teams consisting of physical therapists, occupational therapists, registered dietitians, athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and cognitive performance specialists. In FY21, 28 active-duty brigades received H2F Performance Teams with the goal to field a total of 110 brigades by Fiscal Year 2030.
H2F is a performance optimization system designed to enable Soldiers to accomplish the mission, win quickly, and return home healthy. Success hinges on creating cultural change in the way we train and care for our Soldiers. This change includes physical training, and extends to integration into collective task training and field exercises. The H2F System involves understanding the principles of sports science and applying it to tactical training to optimize individual Soldier readiness and unit performance. H2F creates an environment that makes proper behavior and decision making the most likely choice.
Army Senior Leaders have approved of 16 metrics to assess this “Whole of Army” approach. One of the purposes of this article is to review these new metrics. Secondarily, this article will highlight areas that leaders can engage to help the Army achieve these goals. Success of the H2F System will be dependent on leaders creating the cultural change required for this vision to become reality. As Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston has stated “H2F represents a cultural change for My Squad. Soldiers must optimize physical, nutritional, sleep, spiritual, and mental readiness in order to master the fundamentals of being a Soldier.”
Performance Metrics:
The heart of the H2F System is improving how we physically train to fight and win our Nation’s wars; training that helps ensure Soldier’s make the right decision, at the right time, in the right location to help achieve mission objectives. There are four performance metrics related to Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) performance, weapons qualification, body composition, and functional training.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #1: ACFT Performance. A foundational component of the H2F System is to incorporate the best sports science to improve power, strength, endurance, agility, and speed. The ACFT is designed to measure our ability to meet the physical demands of the future battlefield. As unit physical training becomes more holistic, ACFT pass rates and scores will increase. For units that have not received H2F Performance Teams, there is no reason for leaders to wait. Units can start implementing the new unit physical training programs outlined in FM 7-22 and ATP 7-22.02, to improve the quality of physical training, and to refine reconditioning and other special conditioning programs.
Leaders can implement incentive programs to help accelerate adoption to the ACFT. The old Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) programs of “90-90-90” or the “300 Club” may not be as helpful to improve ACFT performance as these historical incentives focus on top performers. Implementing incentives that are focused on a Soldier’s individual improvement (i.e. 40 point increase in ACFT score) can help drive increased performance across your formation. Additionally, providing an unit incentive (i.e. 4 day pass) based on increasing the overall unit ACFT average score can help encourage coaching, teaching, and mentoring across the unit.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #2: Weapons Qualification. The incorporation of mental readiness into H2F incorporates a broad range of skills like tactical breathing, resilience, decision-making, and management of activation levels. The goal is to take mental readiness training outside of the classroom and integrate it into collective task and field training exercises. One example is the integration of mindfulness. In a study conducted by Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, researchers found that Soldiers who practiced mindfulness on a regular basis scored at least 20% higher on weapons marksmanship under stress compared to those who did not. If your unit does not have an expert in mindfulness, you can leverage the “Tactical Breather”, “Breathe2Relax”, or other mindfulness based apps for free. Additionally, you can ask your Occupational Therapist, Behavioral Health experts, or Cognitive Performance Specialists on your installation to provide education and training on how to leverage mindfulness to improve marksmanship.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #3: Body Composition. Nutrition readiness is another essential component of the H2F System. The goal is for Soldiers to establish and maintain a healthy eating pattern, to fuel properly to meet their task or mission requirements. Leaders can support nutritional readiness in garrison by advocating for an increase in healthy eating options for Soldiers. In the field, leaders can develop a Warfighter Fatigue Management Annex that outlines a plan focused on nutrition, hydration, and sleep. It may include integrating M.O.R.E. rations, which provides food-on-the go options that are energy dense and deliver caffeine, electrolytes, and amino acids to optimize performance.
The H2F System metric associated with body composition is a reduction in Soldiers who do not meet the Army Body Composition Program (ABCP) standards. Instead of being reactive to the ABCP (waiting for someone to fail the program), leaders, in concert with H2F and installation registered dietitians, can implement programs to identify Soldiers at-risk for failing the ABCP. By proactively identifying at-risk Soldiers, units can create an opportunity to prevent Soldiers from becoming an ABCP “no-go”. H2F and installation dietitians, and the Army Wellness Center (AWC) staff have the knowledge, skills, and experience to help Soldiers proactively integrate fueling for performance.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #4: Functional Training. Holistic investment in Soldiers health and readiness leads to higher graduation rates at military schooling (i.e. Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder). H2F Performance Teams will work closely with unit leaders to integrate physical and non-physical training into existing training opportunities to ensure H2F principles are not just a “classroom” drill, but are applied to enhance Soldier performance in a field setting. In an article by Dr. Lieberman and colleagues, at the end of a 3-day exercise with restrictive sleep and limited nutrition, errors in marksmanship increased by 220%, errors in decision making increased by 86%, and reaction time decreased by 22%. Although there are many benefits to train for austere environments, one of the goals of the H2F System is to implement the best sports science to help mitigate those risks, optimize performance, and delay culmination due to fatigued warfighters.
Medical Metrics:
Eight of the 16 metrics focus on improving the health and medical readiness of Soldiers. This list includes improvements in medical deployability, decreases in attrition due to injury, decreases in limited duty profiles, decreases in permanent profiles, decreases in referrals to the network, decreases in medical expenses, decreases in suicide attempts and decreases in substance abuse and tobacco use.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #5: Musculoskeletal Conditions. Over half of all Soldiers are injured any given year; resulting in about 10 million limited duty days. By placing more injury experts into our units, we can improve the medical metrics related to musculoskeletal conditions through early identification, early access, and early intervention. We know rapid entry into rehabilitation allows for rapid reintegration back to the unit after injury. A system that focuses on “prediction, preemption, and prevention” will optimize both health and performance.
Similar to collegiate and professional sports, the H2F System presents an opportunity for the unit leaders, the Soldier, and the performance readiness staff to form a triad early after injury. Informed and engaged leaders matter. Early communication about the injury, risk, and return to duty will facilitate early access to medical care while optimizing reintegration after injury.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #6: Behavioral Health. Profiles for behavioral health are the 2nd leading cause for limited duty days. Soldiers must realize they are the most important weapon system on the battlefield, and that seeking care early is a sign of responsibility and strength. From a leadership perspective, the goal is to better integrate unit and installation assets to optimize performance, grit, and resilience. These include embedded behavioral health, Military and Family Counseling Program (MFLC), chaplains, Army Community Services (ACS) and other installation resources. The Installation Director of Psychological Health can help leaders synchronize these resources.
Retention, Attrition, and Quality of Life Metrics: Less than 1% of Americans qualify and volunteer to serve our nation. Four metrics focus on reenlistment rate of first term Soldiers, first term attrition, initial entry attrition, and overall quality of life. A robust H2F System that holistically invests in Soldiers and their families will help improve reenlistment rates while decreasing attrition.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #7: Leadership Matters. Effective and positive leaders enable Soldier health and readiness. Supportive leaders can mitigate the likelihood of Post-Traumatic Stress, even in high combat settings. When the first line officer and NCO are viewed as ineffective and toxic, psychological problems have been found to be almost 23%. When only 1 of those 2 first line leaders are ineffective, psychological problems decrease to 12-13%. When both the officer and NCO first line supervisor are effective the rates drops to under 6%. Leaders that embrace the importance of health, resilience, sleep, operational stress control, and family support result in better Soldiers and ready units. Leaders that fully embrace the cultural changes outlined in the H2F System, People First Task Force, and Quality of Life Task Force will help retain America’s finest.
Acceleration Leadership Challenge #8: Sponsorship. There is an old saying that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. The stronger a unit’s sponsorship program, the faster you can integrate new Soldiers into your team. As Soldiers arrive, leaders can ensure that finances, housing, transportation, access to food, childcare, and healthcare are addressed. Do you take time to ensure single Soldiers are integrated into B.O.S.S.? Are you ensuring spouses are integrated into Family Readiness Groups and connected to spouses with similar career goals to help facilitate spouse employment? General Wickham once stated “The Army enlists soldiers, but it re-enlists families.” Ultimately, a strong sponsorship program can help decrease attrition and increase retention by focusing on putting people first.
In conclusion, H2F is a system focused on improving Soldiers physical, cognitive, spiritual, nutritional and emotional health, performance, readiness, and overall well-being. While the staffing, equipment, and facility changes are being rolled out, leaders can start implementing the tenets of the H2F System now. As leaders, you can accelerate improvement in these 16 key metrics outlined by Army Senior Leaders by creating the cultural change required for the H2F System to flourish. The 8 “acceleration leadership challenges” shared in this article are to point out how small changes can make a big difference in changing the culture on personal health and readiness in the Army. We end with a simple question – what are you doing to help accelerate the Army’s efforts to truly put people first?
Authors:
Lt. Gen. R. Scott Dingle is the U.S. Army Surgeon General and Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Command. He has commanded and served in key leadership and staff position at every level, most recently as deputy surgeon general and deputy commanding general (Support), Medical Command. He is a Distinguished Military Graduate of Morgan State University, Baltimore, and holds master’s degrees from Central Michigan University, the School of Advance Military Studies, and the National War College.
Maj. Gen. Lonnie G. Hibbard is the Joint Director of Operations, United Nations Command/Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea. He recently served as the Commanding General for the Center for Initial Military Training, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and Senior Army Element Commander, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College and a bachelor’s degree in Airway Science and Aircraft Systems Management from the University of North Dakota.
Col. Kevin A. Bigelman is the Holistic Health and Fitness Director assigned to U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command’s Center for Initial Military Training. His most recent assignment was Deputy Director, Department of Physical Education, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY. He holds a PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Georgia and a MS from Indiana University in Applied Sports Science.
Col. (Promotable) Deydre Teyhen is the 20th chief of the U.S. Army Medical Specialist Corps and the deputy chief of staff (G-1/4/6) for U.S. Army Medical Command. She most recently commanded the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, and the U.S. Army Health Clinic, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. She holds two doctoral degrees from University of Texas and Baylor University, Texas; and two master’s degrees from U.S. Army War College and Baylor University, Texas.
| Date Taken: | 10.08.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 10.08.2021 11:17 |
| Story ID: | 407017 |
| Location: | WASHINGTON, DC, US |
| Web Views: | 6 |
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