How a Maintenance Company Maximized H2F
A Case Study in Using Alternate PT Schedules to Fully Utilize Embedded Resources
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The 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Liberty, North Carolina has a robust and involved Health and Holistic Fitness (H2F) program. Their highly engaged team of professionals, including strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, orthopedic specialists, and dieticians rounds out an unmatched resource to support Soldier health and wellness across the brigade. It is the people that truly make this team unique, and how the units have leveraged this resource that puts the “Spartan” Brigade H2F team at the pinnacle of Soldier support and development. With ongoing investment from this team, who has remained open to supporting a myriad of new concepts, they have helped us tailor training to complement the mental and physical demands of our maintenance company’s unique mission, develop science-based and progressive physical training sessions, and worked to develop cutting-edge programs that are forging healthier, knowledgeable, confident, and lethal Soldiers.
As a Maintenance Officer within a highly deployed Air Defense Artillery Battalion, I have the privilege of leading a unique team of Soldiers that stretches over 10 Military Occupational Specialties (MOSs) of maintainers/sustainers. Their all-consuming daily mission requires creativity and persistence to ensure our Soldiers’ health, well-being, and personal/professional development are cared for as much as we care about their ability to accomplish the mission. That is where I found the H2F team could become an invaluable “ally in the trench” for creative solutions and programs.
Earlier this year, our team shifted into a high operational tempo (OPTEMPO) that resulted in long hours of work in the motor pool, one that often yielded to missed physical training in an attempt to maximize usable work hours. After weeks of sporadic workouts, I wanted to try something different that maximized work hours' duration without compromising our team’s daily fitness. With the support of our chain of command, we pitched an idea to our H2F strength and conditioning coach to alter physical training hours for our team, breaking ranks from the usual 0630 workouts to an 1100 training session. This allowed us to start work earlier in the day, created an uninterrupted duration of working hours (critical for our line of work), and space for a workout at a natural breaking point in the day- one that gave Soldiers time for training and enough time to still conduct hygiene and grab a meal at the Dining Facility (DFAC). When I sat down with my company’s strength and conditioning coach about the plan, I requested that we shorten our time from 1 hour to 40 minutes without compromising on the physical benefits. I said, “I need us to create workouts that maintain fitness, provide a window for Soldiers to blow off some steam, and minimize wasted time. I’m not looking for our team to hit personal records (PRs) over the next few weeks, but enough to get the benefits of a workout. Morning PT isn’t working out for our unit right now, but I’m not willing to say we don’t work out at all.” Coach Brad Ramey, the Echo/1-7 ADA strength and conditioning coach was up for the challenge and built out high-intensity conditioning and strength circuits that packed a punch for a 40-minute workout. He had a workout set up daily in the brigade’s gym and nearby area and was ready to help get the team on task the moment we showed up.
This trial period of midday PT proved interesting. Soldiers were engaged, put out maximum effort, and were physically challenged by the intensity. Where I was most interested to see the effects of this alternate plan was the afternoons. The midday workout did not add to the normal afternoon exhaustion, rather it increased cognitive focus, improved mood, and supported comparable work output to that of the mornings. The Soldiers often stopped me in the bay midafternoon, smiling about the intensity of our pre-lunch workout and the cohesion they felt with the maintenance platoon having this special time to sweat and struggle together.
As the late spring/early summer weather shifted environmental work conditions from inconvenient to impactful, I sought to balance the weather changes with the change in PT schedule and work hours. After a string of heat-related injuries in the first few weeks of truly hot and humid weather, I requested for the H2F dietician to come down to the motor pool for a class on heat acclimatization, nutrition, and hydration. Our maintainers have a very physical job that takes place in the elements, and a maintenance bay during a hot and humid summer increases the already dangerous workplace. The request was met with immediate support. More importantly, it provided a first-hand experience for our H2F team to see the daily physical demands of our Soldiers who have a uniquely different mission than the rest of the Battalion. The dietician stood there sweating with my team as she described practical ways to properly fuel and hydrate in that weather, warning signs of early heat injuries, and ways to recover and rest. We have since had the dietician teach classes to our company prior to events like the Army Combat Fitness Tests (ACFT), finding her to be an invaluable resource to support our team’s well-being.
Arguably the most exciting outcome of our relationship with H2F was the development of a PT Leader program. H2F teams provide professional knowledge and coaching to Soldiers and chains of commands that were previously lacking. To truly educate and arm leaders, our company chose to formalize a program in which we can train a select group of Soldiers on fitness plan development and coaching skills. The Echo “Eclipse” Maintenance Company created the “Eclipse PT Leader Program”. Open to Soldiers of all ranks, the program appoints interested Soldiers to direct and coach daily PT sessions, under the supervision and guidance of our company strength and conditioning coach. To ensure these Soldiers are not blindly executing, our coach leads weekly classes for the leaders, deep diving into the physiological science, coaching skills, energy systems, neural and muscle interactions, strength and conditioning progression, and modifications for Soldiers on profiles. Even our most junior Soldiers serving as PT Leaders show up early to work every day to set up a comprehensive workout, own the “floor” with confidence and presence during a workout, and shift their diction to use proper cue words to correct Soldiers on things like body position or form.
As H2F teams find their way into lower-level echelons across the force, all level leaders must find ways to integrate those advisors into the unit. They remain the professional experts who have the knowledge and bandwidth to focus on a key part of a Soldier’s readiness-physical training. Their teams have a breadth of knowledge and resources to support the Soldier-athlete concept, support health, and teach, coach, and mentor leaders.
Melissa A. Czarnogursky is an Active Duty First Lieutenant Army Ordnance Officer at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. A prior-enlisted Active Duty Army Field Artillery Noncommissioned Officer, she has spent years in uniform building, developing, and leading teams through garrison, training, and deployed environments, including taking two teams through competition at Headquarters Department of the Army level for the Army Award for Maintenance Excellence (AAME). She received her commission from Seton Hall University as a cross-town student with a B.A. in Psychology and a Minor in Cognitive Science from Montclair State University.
“I’ve been in uniform for over 10 years, and seeing what H2F can bring to a unit left me feeling that the Army got something really right here. Never in my career have I felt like people cared about my fitness and health the way they do now. Gone are the days of my 1SGs taking us on long runs and directing push-up/sit-up drills until we could not feel limbs. Training is progressive, science-based, and planned. Even after getting surgery on my wrist following a nasty break during an obstacle course, I wanted to continue doing PT with my Soldiers. My coach made sure he had ways to modify workouts for me so that I didn’t miss time sweating with my team.”