MOPs & MOEs

Epizode

• 
  Army Fitness Drama 20.09.2026 1h 26min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comArmy Fitness Drama, R2 Gets Cut, and the Job Board Blows UpDrew is sick. It's not COVID. Apparently nobody cares about COVID anymore, which was news to him. Regardless, this week had more going on than either of them planned for.What we get into:The R2 contract got cut to shreds. A lot of people who work in Ready and Resilient performance centers found out they were losing their jobs, which is genuinely rough — and made worse by the fact that their employer almost certainly saw it coming and didn't say anything. Drew and Alex both feel for the folks caught in that. Alex is also pretty skeptical of the R2 program in general, and he explains why without holding back. The PT test rumors. The Vice Chief of Staff and Sergeant Major of the Army said it was all fake news at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference. Alex's take: that's not true, and it's fine to backtrack when you see the reaction, but let's not pretend it wasn't a thing. The specific rumor — remove the deadlift, remove the sprint drag carry, speed up the run times until it's basically the APFT — is what we're working with. And if your new Army fitness culture mirrors the Air Force fitness culture, Alex has some thoughts on that.The deadlift should stay. The National Guard lieutenant who was considered one of the fittest soldiers in his state, by APFT standards, who threw out his back deadlifting 65 pounds on day one of the master fitness trainer course. Every soldier at some point picks up and carries heavy awkward stuff in chaotic environments. Testing that is not optional.The sprint drag carry is in a weird gray area. A lot of people online are saying it's the most operationally relevant event. What they mean is it has the highest face validity — it looks the coolest and most military. Whether that's the same thing is a longer conversation.The closer lands on something worth sitting with. Alex argues that no amount of data will fix the perception that human performance is a luxury program. What will fix it is senior leaders who experienced H2F firsthand — as battalion and brigade commanders — moving into higher positions and advocating from personal experience rather than a PowerPoint.And on the job board: we launched a talent network this week, the R2 situation sent a wave of people to it, and it turns out cognitive performance is the discipline least likely to have salary listed. Zero out of 61 jobs. Zero.Mentioned in this episode:MOPs & MOEs job board — mopsnmoes.com/jobsAlex's R2 blog article Jón Páll Sigmarsson — there's no reason to be alive if you can't deadliftGeneral Frost — early ACFT and H2F rolloutLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  How to be a Hybrid Athlete with Alex Viada 13.09.2026 1h 46min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comWhat Is a Hybrid Athlete, Actually? — Alex Viada, Complete Human PerformanceAlex Viada was doing this before it had a name. Before the Instagram accounts, before the HYROX boom, before hybrid athlete became a personality type — he was showing up to 5Ks looking wrong and bike races looking wrong and figuring out the methodology anyway. Drew and Alex sit down with him to actually define the thing, argue about HYROX, and talk about what any of this means for the tactical population.What we get into:What a hybrid athlete actually is — and isn't. Alex Viada's definition has held up for over a decade: an athlete who competes in two or more sports whose training adaptations do not specifically support each other. That's it. It sounds simple until you try to apply it, which is where things get interesting.HYROX is not a hybrid sport. Viada has been saying this for a while and he explains why clearly here. When your training specifically supports a single score, you're not a hybrid athlete — you're a sport-specific athlete whose sport happens to involve multiple modalities. How we got here—Drew traces the arc from early 20th-century generalists to the hyper-specialization of the modern era, and Viada confirms it: the mentality that lifting makes runners slow and running makes lifters weak was the dominant paradigm well into the 2000s. The hybrid idea was partly a rebellion against being told to just pick one thing.The interference effect — probably the most practically useful 20 minutes of the episode. How to think about concurrent training, why the order of sessions matters, how much strength work you can do without compromising endurance adaptation, and why the answer is usually more than people think.The military connection — what the tactical population actually needs from a hybrid framework, why the current physical fitness testing paradigm pushes people toward exactly the wrong kind of specialization, and how Viada thinks about programming for people who need to perform across a wide range of unpredictable demands.Metcons — Viada is not a fan. Zero spice on the spice level. Mentioned in this episode:Ultimate Hybrid Athlete — Alex Viada, available on AmazonComplete Human Performance — completehp.comAlex Viada on Instagram — @alex.viadaLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroicViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  The Illusion of Certainty with Franco Impellizzeri 06.09.2026 1h 32min

  If you're the kind of dedicated follower who listens to our episodes right when they release our All Access Bundle is currently on sale for 25% off with code LABORDAY2026!MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comThe Illusion of Certainty — Franco ImpellizzeriDrew published the Death of Periodization article. It made its way to Franco Impellizzeri — one of the most cited researchers in sports science — who emailed back with some thoughts. One thing led to another. This is the conversation that followed.Fair warning: this one's heady. The real ones will hang around.What we get into:Coaching is a prediction problem. Not in the sense that you know what's going to happen, but in the sense that designing a training program is always an attempt to predict what will. Franco's framing here is deceptively simple, and it cuts straight to the heart of why periodization debates tend to go nowhere: if you can't articulate what you're predicting and why, you don't have a program. You have a habit you're attached to.The state of sports science is messier than the people citing it tend to let on. Franco has spent 20 years studying the quality of research itself — not just the findings. His conclusion: uncertainty in most studies is far larger than what gets communicated on social media. The Nordic hamstring curl debate is a good example of this. The acute-to-chronic workload ratio is probably the most widely cited injury prevention metric in sport right now. Franco was also involved in some of the most critical analysis of it. The data that most directly undermines the ratio is sitting in the same studies that supposedly support it — and almost nobody mentions it because it doesn't fit the model people already believe in.Brandolini's Law: refuting nonsense takes far more effort than producing it. Franco has a more colorful version he prefers, which he shares on air. Drew and Alex have both started using it to explain most of what they observe on the internet.The Nielsen running study makes an appearance in the closer. Doubling your longest single session run roughly doubles your injury risk. Doubling your weekly running frequency without spiking individual session length has essentially no effect on injury risk. Alex has been carefully managing his weekly mileage for months and is not thrilled about this information.Mentioned in this episode:Franco Impellizzeri — University of Technology SydneyNielsen et al. — How Much Running Is Too Much?Brandolini's LawThomas Kuhn — The Structure of Scientific RevolutionsDrew's Death of Periodization — mopsnmoes.com/articlesSean Bean's Get Birding podcast — for when you need to decompressLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic → https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation?attrib=565490-podViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Our Favorite Exercises 30.08.2026 1h 38min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comOur Favorite ExercisesNo guest this week. Just Drew and Alex talking about the exercises they actually love, the ones they've quietly stopped programming, and the ones they think the military is completely sleeping on. It goes longer than expected. There's a lot of meat on this bone.What we get into:The barbell reverse lunge keeps showing up in everything Drew writes. There's a reason for that. Single leg work in general gets way less credit than it deserves in the tactical space, and this episode makes the case pretty thoroughly.Pull-ups are everyone's favorite measure of upper body fitness and almost nobody programs them correctly. Volume, frequency, the way units approach it — there's a lot to fix here.Running is the exercise everyone programs wrong. Not because they're running, but because they're running the same pace, same distance, same everything, every single week. Alex also makes an extended argument for trail running that he was technically not supposed to provide context for but did anyway.The Turkish get-up debate — Drew wants more military coaches using them, Alex would rather see a sandbag get-up, and both agree it's the kind of exercise that tells you a lot about a coach based on how they react to it.Jump rope somehow never comes up in these conversations and probably should. Ido Portal shows up briefly. Crawling gets discussed. Nobody is fully sure where movement culture ends and content begins.The episode closes with a rapid fire round — seven questions, no context allowed. Most overrated exercise. Most underrated. Exercise everyone programs wrong. Exercise that changed your coaching. One you used to love but gave up. Ugly but effective. Exercise you wish more military coaches used. Both of them say bench press is overrated and are not happy about it.Mentioned in this episode:Ido Portal — movement, crawling, linen clothing, possibly JesusRobert Forstemann — the cyclist with the legsCoach Kelleher up in Alaska — rucking conditioning, Jacob's LadderMilitary Athlete / Rob Shaul — sandbag get-upsWednesday leave — take it. This is a public service announcement.Long and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic All-Access Bundle — all of our programs, rehab plans, and more, all in one place!Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Value Capture: When Metrics Take Over with C. Thi Nguyen 23.08.2026 1h 32min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional spaces organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comWhy Gamification Is Ruining Military Human Performance — C. Thi Nguyen, philosopherDrew and Alex have been talking about Goodhart's Law, McNamara's Fallacy, and the tyranny of metrics for a while now. This week they bring in a philosopher who gave them the language to finally explain why — C. Thi Nguyen from the University of Utah, whose work on games and gamification is the missing piece of that conversation.What we get into:Value capture in military human performance — when a unit starts chasing PT scores instead of physical readiness, when a strength coach starts optimizing athlete data instead of athlete outcomes, when a commander starts managing the metric instead of the mission. Value capture is the mechanism behind all of it. It's what happens when a simplified number colonizes your decision-making and you slowly forget what you were actually trying to accomplish.The quantified self problem — HRV, sleep scores, readiness metrics, wearables. All genuinely useful. All capable of becoming the thing you optimize instead of the thing they were supposed to measure. The difference between a tool that informs your judgment and a tool that replaces it is one of the most important distinctions in human performance right now.Why gamification is different from games — games are voluntary, finite, and you walk away from them. Gamification takes the reward loop of a game and attaches it to things that used to have richer value. The PT test was never supposed to be the game. It was supposed to tell you something about readiness. The moment it became a scoreboard, it stopped doing that.The promotion system as a game — what happens to an organization when the people who are best at optimizing the visible metrics rise to the top, and whether military culture has the tools to value what the metrics miss.Echo chambers and epistemic cowardice — why Nguyen's work applies directly to military organizations where rank creates enormous pressure to smooth out disagreement, and what that does to the quality of decision-making over time.Mentioned in this episode:Games: Agency as Art — C. Thi NguyenGoodhart's Law and the Core Four — see previous episodeThe Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game — C. Thi NguyenLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic All Access Bundle — all of our training programs and rehab material in one placeViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Juiced Up: Talking Testosterone with Barbell Medicine 16.08.2026 1h 47min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comTestosterone — What's Actually True — Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum, Barbell MedicineThe DOD just mandated testosterone testing across the force. Alex posted about it. The internet lost its mind. So Drew and Alex went and got one of the most knowledgeable people in the field — Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum of Barbell Medicine — to actually explain what's going on.What we get into:Are testosterone levels really dropping? The short answer is probably not in the way the internet says. The long answer involves a testing methodology problem — older immunoassay tests read artificially high compared to the more accurate mass spectrometry tests that replaced them around 2000. When you only use mass spec data across 100,000 people and 30 years, there's no decline. The real culprit, to the extent there is one, is obesity — specifically visceral adipose tissue, which BMI is terrible at detecting.The DOD testosterone testing mandate — what it actually says, what it doesn't say, and why the Army endocrinology community is about to have a very bad time. Jordan breaks down the difference between having a low lab number and actually having testosterone deficiency, why both criteria have to be met before treatment makes sense, and why testing people without symptoms is going to generate a flood of unnecessary clinical encounters.TRT — who actually benefits, what the evidence says, and what it doesn't. The difference between restoring someone who is genuinely deficient to a normal level versus using it as a performance enhancing drug. What happens to your natural production when you go on exogenous testosterone. Why fertility consequences are a real concern and not being talked about enough in the military context.Lifestyle first — sleep, obesity, alcohol, and opioids are the four biggest modifiable drivers of low testosterone, in that order. Fix those before anyone puts a needle in you. Jordan's framework for the workup and when treatment actually makes sense.The history of testosterone — it started with a French physician injecting himself with ground-up animal testicle extract in the 1800s. It ends with Drew and Alex's Fitness Aptitude Test, which Jordan correctly identifies he would lose on the five-mile run.Mentioned in this episode:Signal: What Your Testosterone Is Telling You About Your Health — Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum and Dr. Austin Baraki, Barbell MedicineTravison 2007 study — the original birth cohort testosterone decline studyBarbell Medicine — barbellmedicine.comDepartment of War testosterone testing mandate — referenced throughoutLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  The History of Exercise is Weirder Than You Think 09.08.2026 1h 20min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comThe History of Exercise Is Weirder Than You Think — Bill Hayes, Author of SweatBill Hayes spent four years chasing the history of exercise across ancient Greece, Renaissance Italy, Kansas City, and the Vatican — and somehow ended up writing the most entertaining book about working out that's ever existed. Drew and Alex sit down with him to find out what he learned.What we get into:Gloios — ancient Greek athletes would scrape the sweat and oil off their bodies after competing, funnel it into a jar, and sell it at the gymnasium for medicinal purposes. Warts. Hemorrhoids. The price depended on how good the athlete was. Christiane Amanpour interviewed Bill on CNN and said nothing had ever seemed so gross to her. She was correct.Exercise began as war training — tenth century BC, not that different from what we do now. Running, endurance testing, strength work. Sparta was the only place that let women train. The Olympic Games formalized competition in the eighth century BC and athletes became cultural heroes — which is why their sweat was worth buying.Bill's dad was a West Point swimmer, Korean War vet, Purple Heart recipient who lost an eye in combat. Bill chose poetry over a military career — an act of rebellion he's pretty honest about. But his dad dragged him to the Spokane Athletic Club every Sunday after church, and that's where the love of exercise started.Girolamo Mercuriale — a Renaissance physician who wrote the first systematic text on exercise, De Arte Gymnastica, in 1569. Bill tracked down a transcription of his manuscripts in a library in Kansas City, Kansas, that hadn't been checked out in 35 years.The Vatican Library story — Bill had a Guggenheim Fellowship and letters of recommendation and still got interrogated in a small room because he didn't have a PhD. He got in. Everything he needed was already in Kansas City.Staying in it across a lifetime — injuries, aging, motivation, and the underrated importance of rest. Bill has herniated discs, a severed rotator cuff, and is still going. The answer isn't finding the perfect program. It's just not stopping.Mentioned in this episode:Sweat — Bill HayesGirolamo Mercuriale, De Arte Gymnastica, 1569Isthmia, Olympia, Delphi, Mycenae — Bill's Greek road trip following the original athletic circuitThe Metropolitan Museum of Art — has a strigil and gloios pot on display if you want to see it in personLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  The Core Four 02.08.2026 58min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comThe Core Four — Four Cognitive Traps Killing Military Human PerformanceDrew and Alex gave a standing-room-only breakout at the H2F Symposium on this. Now they have time to actually unpack it. Four heuristics that show up everywhere in military human performance — and in every human-run organization. You can't escape them, but you can at least recognize them. What we get into:Goodhart's Law — when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. The AFT was designed to signal readiness. The moment it became an incentivized metric, people started optimizing the score instead of the fitness. Same thing happened in Vietnam with body counts. The cure: use multiple metrics, reward more than test scores, and acknowledge what the assessment was actually supposed to tell you.McNamara Fallacy — only what can be quantified matters. The first step is measuring what's easy. The second is disregarding what can't be measured. The third is assuming the unmeasurable isn't important. The fourth is deciding it doesn't exist. Sound familiar? Social cohesion, trust, culture, the music playing in the gym — none of these show up on a dashboard. All of them matter enormously. Every minute a coach spends measuring is a minute they spend not coaching.Hammond's Corollary — what gets measured gets managed, but what most needs managing isn't always measurable. The soldier with a perfect AFT score who can't pick up a ruck without throwing out his back. Fitness versus capability. Athleticism versus fitness. You know it when you see it — and just because you can't put it on a graph doesn't mean it doesn't exist.Nazareth syndrome — no man is a prophet in his own home. The one place Jesus got the most skepticism was Nazareth, because they knew him as the carpenter. The embedded human performance team dealing with real constraints gets ignored. The outside consultant with slick branding and a two-day seminar gets the senior leader's full attention. You can't eliminate this one — but you can use it to your advantage.Mentioned in this episode:Drew's article — The Death of Periodization at mopsandmoes.comChris Frankel — assessment framework: camera, map, crystal ball, engineVF Ridgway, 1956 — the actual origin of "what gets measured gets managed"Justice Potter Stewart, 1964 — the porn quote. You know it when you see it.The Tyranny of Metrics — Jerry MullerLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroicViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  The Death of Periodization 26.07.2026 1h 29min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comThe Death of Periodization — Drew and Alex Go to WarDrew wrote an article called "The Death of Periodization," posted it on LinkedIn to see what would happen, and then got into fights with people on Instagram for a week. This episode is the full breakdown — what periodization actually is, why it doesn't work for tactical populations, and what to do instead.What we get into:Defining the thing first — because not a single person in the online discourse could do it. The NSCA definition: the logical and systematic process of sequencing training interventions to achieve peak performance at appropriate time points. Every version of periodization, whether block, linear, nonlinear, conjugate, or West Side, shares the same five assumptions. The most important one: that biological adaptations follow a predictable course. They don't.Why periodization is a Soviet export — and what that means. Most of the foundational periodization literature is mapping sports science onto communist economic planning. General adaptation syndrome is not a predictive model. It's a descriptive model. Hans Selye never explained what makes something stressful, never told you how much stress causes adaptation, and never specified when the resistance phase begins or ends. Also, his exhaustion phase was death. Not fatigue. Death. The field of stress physiology left him behind decades ago.The Milo and the bull problem — and why progressive overload is almost universally misunderstood. Milo didn't get stronger because the bull got bigger. He was able to lift the bigger bull because he got stronger. The causal arrow runs the other way. What to do instead — navigating versus forecasting. Shorten the prediction window to what the environment actually allows you to control. A week at a time. The low-hanging fruit problem. You've got people debating intricately periodized strength plans for soldiers who are failing a two-mile run where the passing standard is a ten-minute mile pace. That's what this conversation is really about.Also in this episode:Joey Chestnut vs. Usain Bolt in the Glizzy Gauntlet — one hot dog, then a hundred meters. The Army's new testosterone testing program — rapid fire thoughts, concerns about fertility consequences, and thoughts and prayers for military endocrinologists.Mentioned in this episode:Drew's articles — The Death of Periodization and The Art of Training at mopsandmoes.comJohn Kiely — Periodization Theory: Confronting an Inconvenient Truth; Periodization ParadigmsThomas Kuhn — The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, paradigm shiftsFranco Impellizzeri — operational frameworks and self-fulfilling prophecy in periodizationMatt Clark — Eight Myths Weaken Combat ReadinessLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  The Fittest Middle School in America 19.07.2026 1h 23min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comThe Best PE Program in America Nobody's Heard Of — Prescott Junior HighSomewhere in Modesto, California, middle schoolers are running sub-five-minute miles, doing a thousand push-ups unbroken, and earning colored trunks through a fitness program that's been running since the 1970s. Drew and Alex sit down with Garrett Beal and Jason Avalar, the PE teachers keeping it alive.What we get into:The program traces back to Mark Wilson, who saw a La Sierra documentary on TV in the seventies, pitched his superintendent, flew out to observe, and came back and built something that's now outlasted everyone who started it. Twenty different physical fitness tests. A colored trunk system where gray is where everyone starts and purple is where almost no one finishes. Records on the wall dating back to 1974 that still haven't been broken.How the point system works — every kid tracks their own progress, logs every test, and gets graded on improvement not just raw performance. Stars for progress, colored trunks for excellence. A 300-pound kid with a perfect attitude and an A in PE because he showed up and worked every single day.The PE assistants — eighth graders who apply in writing, get selected on citizenship and leadership not athleticism, and can lose their shirt for bad grades or bad behavior. Some of the shyest kids in school become the ones leading warm-ups for forty classmates.The records. A girl who ran a 12:27 two-mile as an eighth grader. A boy who did a thousand push-ups unbroken, in perfect form, over an hour. An eighth grade girl who did 143 push-ups and 36 bar dips in a single session. A kid who did 6,500 sit-ups starting at 9am.The mud obstacle course on the last dress-out day of the year. Bear crawls, hurdles, a mud pit, lame dogs, and a fire hose at the finish line.Why this would be nearly impossible to start from scratch today — and why admin support, teacher commitment, and parent buy-in are the three pillars that have kept it alive for fifty years.Alex's commitment on air: connecting Prescott with the folks working on the Presidential Fitness Test rollout. These kids will not struggle.Mentioned in this episode:La Sierra High School PE program — the original inspirationPrescott Junior High Instagram — @prescottstandardLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic All Access Bundle - All of our training, injury prevention, AFT improvement, and moreViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Army Body Composition Policy: Changes Effective Immediately 12.07.2026 1h 16min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comThe Army Just Changed Body Composition Standards. Here's What It Means.Army Directive 2026-13 dropped on the seventh. Drew and Alex break it down — what changed, what was lost, who's affected, and why some very fit people are about to have a very bad time.What we get into:Waist-to-height ratio is now the only authorized standard. Height-weight screening tables are gone. Secondary methods like DEXA, BodPod, and InBody are gone. The AFT fitness exemption is gone. If your waist divided by your height is 0.55 or above, you are out of compliance. Everyone. No exceptions.Why the research actually supports waist-to-height ratio — as a population-level screening tool, not an individual-level diagnostic. The same literature that backs it up also says it should trigger further assessment, not be the final word.The fitness exemption was one of the most progressive things the Army had ever done on body composition. If you performed above a certain threshold, your body composition didn't matter. That's gone now.Commander's discretion replaces the old progression model. No more monthly measurements, no more defined progression requirements. Whether you're making progress and how long you stay enrolled is entirely up to your chain of command.Who's getting tripped up: postpartum women, shorter stockier men with wide torsos, and apparently some serious competitive athletes in very military-relevant sports.Alex's hot take: this feels like malicious compliance by the Army. They spent years and serious money on the Army Comprehensive Body Composition Study. This directive undoes a lot of that work with a two-page memo.No separations will be completed for 180 days while the Army conducts an assessment. Drew and Alex are collecting stories — if this new standard is catching fit soldiers, they want to hear from you.Mentioned in this episode:Secretary Hegseth memo — Military Fitness Standards, September 30 2025 → https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2025/09/30/9c939542/military-fitness-standards-osd010715-25-fod-final.pdfUnder Secretary memo — Additional Guidance on Military Fitness Standards, December 18 2025 → https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/12/2003855613/-1/-1/1/ADDITIONAL-GUIDANCE-ON-MILITARY-FITNESS-STANDARDS.PDFArmy Directive 2026-13 — Army Body Composition Program → https://home.army.mil/carson/8117/8345/8209/ARMY_DIR_2026-13_ABCP.pdfArmy DVIDS video — Army Updates Body Composition Program → https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1013878/army-updates-body-composition-program-abcpLong and Strong / Workhorse — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic → https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation
• 
  You Probably Don't Need Electrolytes with Dr. Alan McCubbin 05.07.2026 1h 20min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comYou Probably Don't Need Electrolytes — Dr. Alan McCubbinAlex posted something skeptical about electrolyte supplements and people lost their minds. So he went and found one of the leading researchers in the field. The answer was pretty much what he suspected.What we get into:Why the post-COVID boom in daily electrolyte supplementation is largely commercially driven — and how the "water doesn't hydrate you" marketing message gets built from a study done on people who were already fully hydrated and didn't need the water they were drinking in the first place.Why milk scored higher than water on the beverage hydration index, and why that has almost nothing to do with electrolytes and almost everything to do with gastric emptying rate — and why adding solid food to the equation makes the type of drink you consume essentially irrelevant for fluid retention.The actual threshold for when sodium supplementation starts to matter: more than four continuous hours of exercise, replacing at least 70% of fluid losses, with total sweat losses of around five liters or more. If that's not you, it's probably not your problem.Why urine color and urine specific gravity are measures of what your kidneys are doing, not direct measures of hydration — and why they're particularly unreliable during or immediately after exercise.The five-hour treadmill study — nine ultrarunners, either replacing 100% of sodium losses or zero, completely blinded. No difference whatsoever in temperature, heart rate, thirst, RPE, or fluid intake. They lost eight to nine percent of their total body sodium and nothing happened.Why sweat testing technology is outpacing the research on what to actually do with the numbers it produces.Season to taste — for anything under four hours, just pick what tastes good and helps you drink an appropriate amount of fluid.Mentioned in this episode:Waterlogged — Tim NoakesThis Is Your Mind on Plants — Michael PollanBeverage Hydration Index study, 2016Lawrence Armstrong — assessing hydration status, the elusive gold standard, 2009Lewis James, Loughborough University — placebo-controlled hydration researchFueling Endurance — Alan's podcast for runners, cyclists, and triathletesLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroicViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  How We'd Fix Military Human Performance 28.06.2026 1h 44min

  If We Built It From Scratch — Drew and Alex Redesign Military Human PerformanceNo guest. No plan. Just Drew and Alex with keys to the kingdom. If you handed us the whole thing tomorrow, what would we actually change?MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at https://teamworks.com/Also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at https://account.trainheroic.com/create-accountWhat we get into:Coach pay comes first. The DOD is on track to become the largest employer of strength and conditioning professionals in the world, which means contracting companies will be too. The contracting model is a race to the bottom on price, with staff salaries absorbing the cuts. That has to change.The five pillars get a rebrand — move, eat, think, recover, connect. Why dropping a dedicated spiritual pillar doesn't mean spirituality doesn't matter — it just means it's woven into everything else.Branding and marketing are undervalued. Embedded human performance has to compete for attention in a way that S1 never does. Drew's pitch: hand the whole thing to an ad agency and see what happens.The personal services contract problem, explained plainly. Coaches meet every FAR criterion for personal services but get treated as non-personal services. Cleaning this up would mean better pay, better working conditions, and actually being able to choose who you hire.GS billets for lead coaches — at minimum the lead strength coach and athletic trainer should be government employees with real career progression, same pay grade as the PT and dietitian.The coach-NCO relationship. Coaches exist to transport people from A to B — that's literally where the word comes from: a 15th century Hungarian horse-drawn carriage. Some coaches are getting fired for leading PT sessions. That's insane.Extender courses are teaching the wrong things. Periodization and physiology when people actually need interpersonal skills and session flow management.Data — stop making it the mission. Just watch what happens to the numbers that justified these programs in the first place.Wearables — a closet full of devices, service members pick what they like, a small subset of data flows to the HP team for trend monitoring and outlier detection, nobody touches a custom military interface.Policy — the Randolph Sheppard Act of 1936 and military dining, credentialing through MTFs vs operational leadership, and why language in DODI 1308.03 may have killed the original ACFT.Mentioned in this episode:Ben Bergeron — move, eat, think, recover, connect frameworkKat Oswald — recent podcast guest, helped implement the five factors at Alex's day jobRachel Chamberlain — community-based blueprinting, podcast appearance incomingDODI 1308.3 — DOD physical fitness and body composition program instructionRandolph Shepherd Act, 1936 — federal law governing vending and dining on government propertyLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Navy Human Performance Is Coming with CDR Kevin Bernstein 21.06.2026 1h 30min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comNavy Human Performance Is Coming — Commander Kevin Bernstein ReturnsKevin Bernstein is back for round two, fresh into a brand new role as Director of Human Performance for naval aviation on the East Coast. He's six weeks into building something the Navy has never had: a real program of record for the sailors flying, fixing, and fighting from carriers and squadrons across the fleet.What we get into:Why Navy's body composition data is the worst of any service, and why basic readiness tasks like firefighting and damage control on a ship demand a level of fitness the current PT test doesn't measure.The staffing model Kevin's building, borrowed from what's already worked at Naval Special Warfare — sports medicine physicians, physical therapists, strength coaches, dietitians, and cognitive specialists all under one roof, no turf wars, all reporting to the operator's needs.Why staffing needs differ wildly by platform — fighter jets versus cargo aircraft versus rotary wing all create different injury patterns and demand different specialists, and Kevin's building ratios around that instead of a one-size-fits-all model.The credentialing fight nobody talks about — whether embedded providers get privileged through the local hospital or through service leadership that actually understands the mission, and why that distinction will shape every branch's human performance program going forward.Scope of practice in the field — Kevin's blunt take on doing an ultrasound exam in a squadron space versus a sterile OR, and why "industry standard" sports medicine practice shouldn't get flagged just because it's happening outside a hospital.The Federal Acquisition Regulation deep dive — Drew and Alex make the case for a personal services contract exemption for strength coaches, and Kevin confirms he's quoting the same FAR language in the contracts he's writing right now.The actual rollout plan — POM-29 request for 73 new billets, a phased approach starting with strike fighter wings, and a realistic timeline stretching from 2028 to 2033.A surprisingly deep tangent on Pilates, Joseph Pilates' origin story rehabbing WWI soldiers, and why it might become part of the Navy's spine preservation programming.Mentioned in this episode:WPO — Warfighter Performance Optimization, the Pentagon-level effort referenced throughoutVice Admiral Vi and Rear Admiral Hancock — instrumental in standing up the human performance center at Camp Lejeune's School of Infantry EastLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Psychopaths, Purpose, and the Price of Vulnerability with Newton Cheng 14.06.2026 1h 38min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comPsychopaths, Purpose, and the Price of Vulnerability — Newton Cheng ReturnsNewton's back for his fourth appearance. Fresh off 17 years at Google, a keynote at the H2F Symposium, and a hospital room that reordered his priorities entirely. This one goes well past fitness.What we get into:What Newton saw at the H2F Symposium that Google never gave him — a room full of people who had dedicated their careers to a mission with no big financial payoff at the end, and actually meant it.Corporations as machines — why purpose-driven language at large companies eventually stops holding water, and what the difference looks like when the mission isn't profit.Strategic vulnerability — it's not open sharing, it's context-dependent and calculated. Vulnerability builds trust unless it reveals incompetence at a core responsibility. That distinction matters a lot in the military.The senior NCO who posted his failed two-mile run on social media — Drew, Alex, and Newton work through whether that was useful vulnerability or a self-own.The psychopathy of organizations — Newton's framework: psychopaths rise because they feel nothing, emotionally repressed leaders accumulate moral injury until they go toxic, and emotionally integrated leaders are the best case but the rarest outcome.Lying to Ourselves — the 2015 paper on dishonesty in the Army profession, and new data showing that reported unit readiness is moderately negatively correlated with actual performance at combat training centers.We're here to love and take care of each other, and that's it — Newton's first principle, arrived at in a hospital room after his daughter's leukemia diagnosis. She's doing well.Mentioned in this episode:Incorruptible — Eric Reese's new book on corporate governance and why even purpose-driven companies abandon their idealsLying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession — Leonard Wong, 2015A Clearer Mirror: The Promise of Combat Training Center Data — sent in by Lieutenant Colonel DaweThe Art of Community — Charles Vogel, former podcast guestAntoine de Saint-Exupéry — if you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect woodLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic → https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation?attrib=565490-webViews expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Why Physical Therapists Believe Weird Things with CDR Mark Riebel 07.06.2026 1h 30min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comWhy Physical Therapists Believe Weird Things — Commander Mark RiebelNuclear submarine officer turned PT for Marine Raiders. This week Drew and Alex sit down with Commander Mark Riebel to talk therapeutic skepticism, why smart people believe dubious things, and what the research actually says about the modalities that dominate clinical practice.What we get into:Confirmation bias in the clinic — why providers remember the wins and discount the losses, and how that quietly keeps bad interventions alive longer than they deserve.The fiduciary vs. the crypto salesman — two models of patient care, and why putting the patient in charge of their own pain is both better medicine and better therapy.Dry needling, cupping, scraping, foam rolling, therapeutic ultrasound, KT tape — what the evidence actually shows, what's placebo, and why that distinction matters more than most providers want to admit.Citation for the discussion of treatment effects vs placebo and other factors: Ezzatvar, Yasmin, et al. "Which portion of physiotherapy treatments’ effect is not attributable to the specific effects in people with musculoskeletal pain? A meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials." journal of orthopaedic & sports physical therapy 54.6 (2024): 391-399.Trigger points, PRI, FMS, pose method — a tour through the tribes of physical therapy and how to think critically about any system that markets itself as the answer.The Future Sailor Preparatory Course — what it looks like, why it matters, and an honest conversation about the physical readiness of the recruiting pool.Weighted pull-ups post bicep repair, rear foot elevated split squats, and John's admirable hamstring appreciation — the after party delivers.Mentioned in this episode:Mark specifically recommended this ESPN video for a discussion of how nocebic language affects healthcare outcomesTherapeutic Skepticism — APTA talk by Mark Riebel and colleaguesCunningham's Law — the best way to get an answer on the internet is not to ask the question, it's to post a wrong answerBarbell Medicine — referenced on pesticide/produce misinformation researchFuture Sailor Preparatory Course — modeled off the Army's Future Soldier Preparatory CourseArmy Baylor — where Mark completed his DPTWest Point Sports Medicine Fellowship — where Mark learned to critically analyze research rather than chase magic tricksCharles Vogel, The Art of Community — former podcast guest, on how social spaces are engineered against genuine connectionLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic → https://marketplace.trainheroic.com/workout-plan/team/leg-tuck-nation?attrib=565490-web Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  The Weird Pillar — Spiritual Fitness, Moral Injury, and the Stuff We Can't Measure with Libby Alders 31.05.2026 1h 28min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comThis week Drew and Alex sit down with Libby Alders — chaplain, researcher, library technician, and self-described tri-vocational nerd — to actually figure out what it is, why it matters, and why the military keeps trying to slap a number on something that might not need one.This one goes deep. Grab a coffee.What we get into:What spiritual fitness actually means — Libby breaks it down to four things: knowing what you believe, understanding that beliefs should evolve, being able to coexist with people who believe differently, and being able to recognize harmful or radicalizing ideologies when they show up.The Spiritual Fitness Survey — an 18-question tool with three subscales: horizontal (community and belonging), mixed (purpose and meaning), and vertical (relationship to the transcendent or divine). Moral injury versus PTSD, and why the difference matters for who you call. Libby's shorthand: shame points toward moral injury and the chaplain. Guilt and fear point toward PTSD and psych. Why the research on religion reducing PTSD risk might be missing a confounding variable — moral injury. If the thing that gives your life meaning is also the thing that got violated, you don't have a protective factor. You have an opening.The 724th Special Tactics case study — how Libby and former podcast guest Chris ran focus groups instead of surveys, built a communication tool instead of a formal metric, and ended up with leadership asking to do their own version because the unit couldn't stop talking about it. Capability-based blueprinting — what it is, why more of the military should use it.The interdisciplinary team problem — why nobody knows when to call the chaplain, why over-specialization and over-generalization are both failure modes, and what "informed consumer" training actually looks like in practice.The table theology tangent — why the ritual of eating together is a human performance intervention that no macro calculator captures.Mentioned in this episode:Dr. Harold Koenig, Duke University — geriatric psychiatrist and pioneer in spirituality, religion, and health researchDr. Warren Kinghorn, Duke — another key name at the intersection of mental health and spiritual healthCapability-Based Blueprinting — developed within CHAMP, Dr. Chamberlain's workMatt Larson — former podcast guest, moral injury talk from the H2F Symposium coming soon to the MOPs & MOEs InstagramCharles Vogel, The Art of Community — former podcast guest, Yale Divinity School; the ritual of meals chapter alone is worth the readAllen Frances, Saving Normal — Drew and Alex's white whale guest. Chaired the DSM-IV committee. By DSM-V, had renounced the whole enterprise. If you know him, please help.Rants and Rituals — Libby's upcoming podcast. No one take that name.Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Navy SEAL Fitness at 50 Years Old with Jamie Monroe 24.05.2026 1h 26min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at teamworkstactical.comWe are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at trainheroic.comFit at 50 and Back in the Teams — Jamie Monroe ReturnsJamie Monroe commissioned as a Navy SEAL ensign at 50 years old. That sentence alone is worth an episode. But what Drew and Alex actually get into is bigger than the headline — it's about the lies we tell ourselves about aging, what it really takes to stay ready across decades, and why identity might be the most underrated performance variable in the building.Drew and Alex also open with results from a poll that surprised everyone — including them.What we get into:How a poll asking which soldier is more operationally effective — perfect fitness score with bad sleep and stress, or minimum passing score with great relationships and recovery — came back 90% in favor of option two. And what that says about what the military actually measures versus what it probably should.Jamie's road back in — the heart murmur that got him medically declined years ago, the DCO process, three interviews, a full MEPS physical, the SEAL Physical Screening Test, and finally commissioning in front of 70 friends and family at 50 years old.Why identity is the most underrated longevity tool — Jamie has never called himself old and broken, and he credits that framing as much as any training protocol for why he's still in the game.The simple running framework that actually works — two easy runs, one tempo, one long run, 15 to 20 miles a week. No pose method required. Just run.What fitness culture looks like inside the SEAL teams now versus two decades ago — less about getting jacked, more about the HYROX athlete profile. Strong runners who can also move weight. And pull-ups that actually count.A full breakdown of every major service fitness test — what Jamie likes, what he'd cut, and why the Marine Corps three-mile run might be the most honest single measure of fitness across any branch.The FAT — Drew and Alex's Fitness Aptitude Test — one rep max deadlift, AMRAP pull-ups, five-mile run. Jamie grades it live, makes some edits, and floats a Cooper Test–style 20-minute max distance format that might actually be the move.Old generation versus new generation — who's actually fitter? Jamie gives a straight answer.Mentioned in this episode:ReadyFit — Jamie's AI-powered military fitness testing app using computer vision to automatically score reps, currently in testing with units at Holloman AFBEasy Day Sports — Jamie's event production company, including a recent 5K for the Dallas Cowboys over Draft WeekendThe Red Bull Catcher Race — the only race where the finish line chases youDSI Human Performance & Biosystems Summit — DC, coming up soon. Alex will be there Thursday.Long and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on TrainHeroic →Want to help get Bryson DeChambeau on the show? Jamie's working on it.Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Dad Bod vs Father Figure 17.05.2026 1h 19min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at ⁠⁠https://teamworks.com/⁠⁠We are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at ⁠⁠https://account.trainheroic.com/create-account⁠The Father Figure vs. The Dad Bod — How Parenthood Changes Your Relationship With FitnessFor the first time ever, it's just Drew and John. No Alex, no guests — just two dads talking honestly about what happens to training when kids show up and life gets real.This isn't a "here's how to stay jacked after having kids" episode. It's more honest than that. It's about shifting your entire reason for training, giving yourself permission to let go of who you were in the gym before kids, and why the example you set matters more than any number on the bar.Drew is a single dad to a five-year-old girl. John has a three-year-old daughter and an eight-month-old son. Both of them have figured some of this out the hard way.What we get into:How both of their relationships with fitness completely changed after having kids — and why that's actually a good thing.Why Drew stopped caring about PRs and started doing yoga in the garage with his daughter.John's 12-and-a-half-year streak of daily pushups, the Hugh Jackman Wolverine program, and what 11 days of keto on coconut oil actually feels like.The girl dad angle — setting the standard for the type of person your daughter grows up to value, and why that starts now.Why being "there" after a brutal training session isn't the same as being present.Facing your own mortality when you become a parent — and why that's less dark than it sounds.The stroller as a training tool, hiking in dresses, and using your kid as a weight because she thinks it's hilarious.The Open by Andre Agassi, early sports specialization, and why making fitness fun early beats everything else.Mentioned in this episode:Mass Hysteria by Michael Blevins — All In Performance, required reading for girl dadsThe Open by Andre Agassi — John's current read, highly recommendedLong and Strong — the Mops and Moes training program on Train HeroicPhil Collins, Tarzan, Brother Bear, Robin Hood, The Wild Robot — Drew has opinionsWant a program that fits real life — not a perfect schedule that doesn't exist?The Mops and Moes bundle on Train Heroic is built for people with actual constraints. Flexible, auto-regulated, and designed to keep you moving no matter what the week throws at you. → Get access here!Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.
• 
  Cognitive Performance Training with Kathleen Oswald 10.05.2026 1h 46min

  MOPs & MOEs is proudly sponsored by Teamworks — the performance operations platform trusted by elite military units and professional sports organizations worldwide. Teamworks brings your scheduling, communications, athlete monitoring, and readiness data into one unified system — so your leaders stay informed, your people stay connected, and your unit stays ready. No more scattered spreadsheets or missed messages. Just one platform built for organizations where performance is the mission. Learn more at ⁠https://teamworks.com/⁠We are also supported by TrainHeroic — the coaching and programming platform built for strength and conditioning coaches who train serious athletes. Whether you're programming for a military unit, a tactical team, or individual athletes, TrainHeroic gives you the tools to build and deliver professional training programs, track athlete progress, and communicate directly with your people — all through one app. Your athletes get world-class programming on their phone; you get the visibility to actually coach them. Start your free trial at ⁠https://account.trainheroic.com/create-account⁠MOPs & MOEs delivers our training through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TrainHeroic and you can ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠get your first 7 days of training with us FREE by clicking here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠To continue the conversation, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠join our Discord!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ We have experts standing by to answer your questions.Cognitive Performance vs. Mental Skills Training — Are We Getting It Wrong?This week Alex and Drew sit down with Kat, a cognitive performance specialist, to ask a question that sounds simple but isn't: are we actually training cognition — or just calling things cognitive training?The answer, it turns out, is mostly the latter. We're buying expensive tech, running chess drills, and staring at doorknobs. And almost none of it transfers to performance when it actually counts.This one gets into near vs. far transfer, why brain training apps don't work the way we think they do, what orbital warfare has to do with any of this, and why expertise might be the best fatigue management tool we have.If you work in human performance, coach athletes, or just want to understand why the thing you're doing might not be doing what you think it's doing — this episode is for you.Mentioned in this episode:Chase & Simon (1973) — the foundational chess study on expert vs. novice memoryNASA Task Load Index (TLX) — search it, bookmark it, the website is genuinely excellentThe Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Mueller — referenced again, still relevant, still not on the podcastThink and Fight Drills / Maneuver Chess — US Naval Institute Press, Marine Corps Times, War on the RocksCognitive Performance Training Level One — listed as a resource on the H2F mental domain page, worth reading criticallyNeuroTracker — they're welcome to come on and make their caseReady to train with a program that actually makes sense?The Mops and Moes bundle on Train Heroic — built around real principles, not gimmicks. Get access here!Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not represent any official organization.