Purpose: The purpose of this project is to develop a strength training and conditioning program for a hypothetical tactical athlete that you will create. This is a practical, hands-on project. Students will be required to utilize research and practice to design a comprehensive training program.
Choosing your athlete: Each student will create a tactical athlete that they will write a program for. When you create your athlete, you need to include the following:
1) Tactical occupation – Be specific. For example, don’t just say soldier. There are very different occupations within the military and you need to specify exactly what the job duties of your athlete are. See chapters 17-19 in your text book for an examples of various tactical professions.
2) Age
3) Gender
4) Full-time vs Part-time – A part-time volunteer firefighter will likely have very different job demands and time available to train than a full-time firefighter.
5) Health and injury history
6) Training goals – Why is your athlete training? Is he/she trying to pass a physical fitness test to start their career (police academy, army ranger school, etc.)? Are they recovering from an injury? Are they just trying to improve their physical conditioning to perform their job better?
Target Audiences: As a tactical strength and conditioning professional you will be responsible for your athlete’s strength and conditioning needs. The athlete should be able to take your program and perform it exactly as you want it performed.
Products:
1. S&C program manual that could be handed out to personal fitness instructors, tactical athletes and command staff
2. a 3000-4000 word document explaining the S&C program and the rationale for the decisions made. The project needs to be professional (i.e., clear, concise, and aesthetically pleasing). You will be provided with a rubric prior to your final submission so you will understand how you will be evaluated.
Basic Structure:
1. Design a complete strength and conditioning program manual that includes the following components:
a) 16 weeks of actual workouts in a format that is immediately useable (i.e., you could give it to a tactical athlete od there training instructors and (s)he could implement the program
b) 16 week plan broken down into macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles
c) Training sessions should include dynamic warm-up, plyometrics, speed and agility, resistance training, conditioning, flexibility/mobility, prehabiltation work, etc. Furthermore, specific details such as exercises, sets, reps, distances, loads, time, and other factors you deem important should be included.
2. In the paper that accompanies the manual you should provide reasons to support your decisions. Knowledge sources should come from physical research and practical experience. Paper should include each of the following sections:
a) Introduction – give a brief history of your athlete (profession, age, gender, injury history, training goals, etc.)
b) Needs Analysis – Conduct a needs analysis of the tactical profession of your athlete. Be specific.
c) Testing battery – Develop a proposed testing battery based on the needs analysis of the profession. Defend why you chose the tests that you did.
c) Periodization – Describe the periodization plan that you used and defend it. Describe how the macrocycles, and all the microcycles are structured and the goal for each phase of the program. Explain the sets and reps chosen and how that fits with the goal of each phase.
d) Exercise selection – Describe the exercises that were selected in each phase of the program and explain why they were chosen. This should include all aspects of the program (warm-up, speed/agility, resistance training, conditioning, etc.)
e) References – In your manual include a reference page with at least 8 references (not including your textbooks)(all should come from peer-reviewed references and at least 3 sources should be original research (such as the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Police Quarterly, etc.), and the others can be from professional journals (such as the Strength and Conditioning Journal) that influenced the development of this program in the back of the manual.