I see a lot of post on here regarding the desire to have access to more complex, professional, sophisticated physical fitness training plans.

99% of the time I agree, and I have always strived to bring that to the table when it comes to training options for my team and to my guys.

I believe it’s my responsibility to provide the resources either mental, physical or intangible, such as rest days and or sleep if I’m going to have high expectations.

But I do wanna bring up a small counterpoint, even if it’s just for discussion purposes .

Two years ago I noticed my company was struggling greatly with it’s running.

I started reaching out to online resources and local colleges.

Ended up getting a division one running coaching team to volunteer their services for an afternoon.

Gave people free time off from PT if they wanted to go see stride, enhancement, and running analysis coaches at the local SOF health and fitness center.

Early releases from work if people went to track to work on individual training plans.

Even gave people options to take rest days from PT, if they felt they needed it in order to avoid over training.

After 3 months, had a group of soldiers ask to come speak to me. Behind closed doors, I was asked to kill the running program.

I remember asking, ah damn am I pushing people too hard?

Their response was just , “We don’t want to be that hard” “ we pass now, that’s enough “

Apparently folks were happy to pass the PT test run, but didn’t really see the point of spending any additional effort on it after that.

I don’t remember the exact numbers but the large majority of the people passing were passing by seconds.

My feelings were a bit hurt especially as I was putting a lot of time into the program. So I killed it and we continued to be a just barely performing group.

I bring this up, for no real reason, maybe just for discussion but sometimes I’m reminded of it and how bothered I was at the time.

That’s all.