Tactical athlete and physical fitness of a soldier or police officer

Who is a tactical athlete?

The term tactical athlete refers to a person whose physical performance directly affects their ability to perform their duties. This includes soldiers, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and members of other professions in which strength, speed, endurance, or the ability to work under pressure can determine the outcome of the entire situation.

However, the term athlete can be misleading. A soldier or police officer is not an athlete in the classical sense of the word. An athlete knows the date of the competition, the rules, the environment and the approximate duration of the performance. He can plan his preparation accordingly, reduce the load before the competition, prepare his nutrition and warm up before the start. Service performance often does not offer such conditions.

A police officer can sit in a vehicle for hours and in a matter of seconds, sprint, climb stairs, overcome an obstacle, and then work in contact. A soldier may need to quickly change position after a long move with equipment, transfer supplies, help a wounded person, or continue a task without full rest. No one asks if he had a perfect night, if his legs are sore from the previous day, or if he is in the best part of his training cycle.

It is this unpredictability that sets the tactical athlete apart from most athletes. The goal is not to win in one discipline. The goal is to be usable for a wide range of tasks over the long term.

A specialist and a person ready to serve

A strength athlete may dedicate most of their training to maximal strength. An endurance athlete may tailor their training to running performance. A sprinter needs a few seconds of maximal power and a long recovery between attempts. A tactical athlete must handle some of all of these demands.

He must be strong enough to lift, pull, and carry. He needs aerobic capacity for long work and faster recovery between intense periods. He must be able to accelerate, brake, and change direction. He also needs local muscular endurance, a firm grip, a stable core, and tissue resilience for repeated work in gear.

He doesn't have to be the best runner, the strongest person in the gym, or the fastest sprinter. But he must have a balanced profile without a weakness that would immediately stop him in his duty.

Imagine two members who have to carry an eighty-kilogram person. Both can handle the task. The first one uses almost all of his strength. The second one uses about half of his capacity. The result of one attempt is the same, but their preparedness is not the same. The second person is more likely to repeat the task, maintain the technique, and be able to continue the next activity.

Physical reserve

I refer to this difference as physical reserve. It is the space between the difficulty of a task and a person's maximum capacity. The larger the reserve, the smaller the percentage of capacity a member has to use for one step, one lift, a short sprint, or a load transfer.

But the reserve must be available in real performance. A strong person without fitness may handle the first task easily, but will quickly lose performance. A great runner without strength will reach near his maximum when working with a heavy load. A person with good strength and fitness who cannot tolerate equipment or long periods of time on his feet may fail due to back, feet or shoulders.

That's why I monitor readiness as a whole. I'm interested not only in maximum performance, but also in its cost. How quickly a person recovers their breath after effort. Whether their movement doesn't fall apart under fatigue. How they react to further training or service. Whether their performance increases in the long term, or only alternates short-term improvements with pain and exhaustion.

The difference between a soldier and a police officer

Soldiers and police officers share a common foundation, but their training cannot be identical. Military tasks often involve longer movements, field work, carrying larger amounts of material, and long-term tolerance of external stress. A police officer often alternates between long periods of calm and sudden escalation. He or she needs to accelerate quickly, brake, move up stairs, work in contact, and manipulate people or loads.

However, there is no single profile even within a single unit. An infantry soldier has different needs than someone in a technical or administrative position. A regular patrol has different requirements than a riot or intervention unit. In addition, an applicant for service faces specific admission tests and a deadline by which he must build up his readiness.

Therefore, quality training doesn't start with a sentence about how many times a week you want to exercise. It starts with a question about what you really need to master in your job or in a selection process.

Hard training is not automatically quality training

In the tactical fitness world, readiness is often confused with exhaustion. Ballistics training, long circuit training, running with a backpack, or hundreds of reps can all feel tough and authentic. But toughness alone does not tell you whether the training is developing the right ability.

Every unit should have a clear goal. Am I developing maximum strength, speed, aerobic capacity, sprint repetition ability, exercise tolerance, or a specific work skill? How will I know that the ability has improved? What kind of fatigue am I creating and what awaits me on duty in the following days?

If there is no answer to these questions, training may be challenging, but its benefits are uncertain.

What does it mean to be prepared?

A prepared tactical athlete meets the required tests with a margin, handles key work tasks and can maintain his performance over the long term. He is not constantly injured or chronically tired. He can adjust the load according to the service and does not need several ideal weeks to be able to perform usefully.

This is also the main idea of the Tactical Ready Method. Training is not just about producing impressive numbers or feeling like you did your best. It is about increasing the ability to safely and repeatedly perform the real task.

During my ten years of service in the Army of the Czech Republic, I saw strong soldiers without fitness, good runners without the necessary strength, and people who passed the test but could not handle the long-term workload. Later, as a Strength and Conditioning Coach, I combined this experience with the principles of strength and conditioning training into the Tactical Ready system.

In the next article, I will explain why physical tests alone are not enough to assess true readiness and why there is a difference between meeting the minimum and creating a reserve.

A call for further work

If you are serving in the military or police, or are preparing for an entrance exam, course, or selection process, and want to improve your physical fitness, write to me about online coaching. Together we will determine what is really limiting you and tailor your training to your goal, service schedule, and current performance.