First Sgt. Mark Haliburton, master trainer of the 289th Military Police Company on the Fort Myer portion of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, said that since implementing the Army's revised Physical Readiness Training Program, they have witnessed a reduction in injuries and a significant increase in Soldiers' fitness test scores.
"We have reduced our injuries in profiles...less than 10 percent, which is better than the Army's standard, which is 10 to 20 percent of Soldiers assigned to a formation being on profile," said Haliburton. "The Soldiers are [now] scoring between 240, 250 and 260 points. Some companies have an average score of 240, 250. [But our] average physical training score of every Soldier is 262, which is the highest average in The Old Guard."
Haliburton said he is excited about what the Soldiers of the 289th have achieved over the last couple of years. He credits the success of the company to the Army's doctrine on physical training.
"Buying into the Army's philosophy of training Soldiers and leaders to prepare and sustain in combat is a winning philosophy," he said.
In 2012, the Army published a document titled FM7-22: Army Physical Readiness Training. The Army implemented this program because Soldiers were overworking their musculoskeletal body parts and because of this, injuries amongst Soldiers were high, according to Haliburton. The document provides leaders with instructions on how to implement the Army's physical training program and how Soldiers are to be properly trained to strengthen particular muscles.
"Soldiers trained through PRT demonstrate the mobility to apply strength and endurance to the performance of basic military skills such as marching, speed running, jumping, vaulting, climbing, crawling, combative and water survival," reads the FM7-22. "These skills are essential to personal safety and effective Soldier performance--not only in training, but also, and more importantly, during combat operations."
To achieve that, instructors were given new standards on exercising that complied with the 2012 PRT revisions, which focus on endurance and mobility, strength and the enhancement of the body's metabolic pathways.
Before implementing the program, Haliburton said Soldiers overextended their muscles; they often ran too far, too frequently (seven to 10 miles, three times a week), overused weights and performed excessive amounts of push-ups and sit-ups for training, which was strategically designed to target Soldiers' muscle groups specifically used during a physical training test.
"Historically, the Army had a problem with leaders who were not properly educated in the art of training their Soldiers to be physically ready," said Haliburton.
Haliburton identified that Soldiers were suffering from back pain caused by wearing law enforcement belts and secondary chase vests. Further, sitting in a patrol vehicle for the majority of an eight-hour shift and poor posture while standing for multiple hours was proving detrimental to Soldiers' physical health, according to a document provided by Haliburton.
The 289th partnered with health professionals with the Andrew Rader U.S. Army Health Clinic, to educate and implement exercises that would help to "protect Soldiers' bodies," according to the same documents provided by Haliburton.
To prevent further injury and to reduce back pain Bonner, Scherer and their team implemented some core stabilizing exercises, also known as lumbar stabilization, that focused on strengthening abdominal and back muscles, according to Bonner and Scherer.
These specific kinds of core exercises, Scherer said, his team often recommends to their patients and that these exercises are used to isolate and to strengthen back and core muscles.
Rader's team and Haliburton tested the Soldiers while going through this phase to see if their conditioning had improved. Bonner wrote in an email that the results revealed that the Soldiers had lowered scores on their outcome measures, which indicated that their overall health had improved and that they had reduced the Soldiers' back pain, which increased mobility, she said. Scherer added that there was also a decrease in Soldiers, NCOs and officers reporting lower back pain related disabilities.
However, despite the success, there is more work to be done, according to Bonner. She told the Pentagram that identifying poor squat and bad running forms is needed and that they would apply the same solutions to those problems as well: "Train the NCOs with a brief, and then do hands on training and activity," explained Maj. Vanessa Bonner, Rader Clinic's assistant chief for physical therapy.
Pentagram Staff Writer Delonte Harrod can be reached at dharrod@dcmilitary.com
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