Photo By Lt. Col. Randy Ready | Panelists take part in a Holistic Health and Fitness panel during the Association of...... read more read more
WAHINGTON D.C. – The Army announced they are expanding the number of Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) Performance Teams to be fielded throughout the Army based on the initial return on investment and feedback from Soldiers and leaders.
Army Vice Chief of Staff James Mingus, speaking at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C. on October 15, said they will expand the number of teams from the original 111 brigades to the entire Army, to include the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.
“The [Chief of Staff of the Army] and I looked at each other as like, is this an Army program or not?” asked Mingus. “The answer is it's an Army program, this is for the entire Army, so we're going to figure out how we lay that in so that everybody can have the benefits of what Holistic Health and Fitness can bring to them.”
H2F Performance Teams are interdisciplinary teams of subject matter experts that provide injury prevention and human performance optimization at the brigade-level. They include physical therapists, dietitians, occupational therapists, athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and cognitive performance specialists.
While acknowledging there is a financial cost to fielding and sustaining these teams, Mingus emphasized it is an investment in the health and welfare of Soldiers and helps make them stronger, more resilient warfighters.
“You've got to be able to get to the fight, you've got to be able to win the fight, and you've got to be able to get home from the fight, and that's what H2F is about,” said Mingus. “We know that the return on investment, just from a financial perspective and the data that we have thus far, it's paying for itself.”
Mingus mentioned the National Guard and Reserve, just by their nature of being part-time, bring some unique challenges in implementing H2F, particularly their geographic dispersion and limited touchpoints with their Soldiers, but he made it clear they are included in this expansion.
“We are absolutely committed to making sure that our Guard and Reserve folks are taken care of, because when they go [deploy], they got to be just as strong and fast as everybody else,” stated Mingus.
Lt. Gen. David Francis, the Deputy Commanding General for U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and Commanding General for the U.S. Army Center for Initial Military Training, mentioned the Guard and Reserve have been running pilot programs since 2018 on how to best implement H2F across their formations. The results of the pilots informed a plan for the Guard and Reserve to start fielding their own H2F Performance Teams starting in Fiscal Year 2026.
“We think we'll have by FY30, we'll have a team in every one of the 54 states and territories to act as a central hub for that expertise with a reach back capability for those in the Guard,” stated Francis. “For the Reserve, by FY30 we'll have 28 H2F teams assigned around regional commands that again will have that same effect.”
On the active-duty side, Francis said they are looking at every installation to determine the resources they will need, while also taking into account units that may be geographically dispersed across multiple installations, such as Multi-Domain Task Forces.
“We're looking at the population of that installation and figuring out the best way to do that, so it'll either be an H2F team assigned to a brigade or an area support team that'll handle multiple smaller units,” said Francis.
Francis mentioned the initial planning factor for the composition of these new teams is to provide the same ratio of subject matter experts that provided the initial return on investment from the first 28 brigades that were fielded, which included less musculoskeletal injuries, quicker return to duty, higher ACFT scores, lower substance abuse profiles, and more Soldiers qualifying expert on rifle marksmanship.
The ratios would be based on the size of the unit or units the area support team covers. Francis mentioned this includes one athletic trainer per 600 Soldiers and one strength and conditioning coach per 300 Soldiers.
“While you will see a diversification of the size of a team, that ratio is what we're really focused on because that's what resulted in the return on investment that we saw,” said Francis. “As we go through and field different units, different compos, that's how we're approaching the problem because we don't want to lose the essence of what H2F is, which is a multidisciplinary team that is executing the training for brigades and or like size units.”
Francis also mentioned other initiatives the Army is working to help Soldiers and units implement H2F, to include the use of wearables and developing an H2F Data Management System that would allow Soldiers to see their performance across the five readiness domains and get feedback from subject matter experts while also allowing leaders to assess their unit’s readiness.
“We need a data centric tool for our commanders to assess the health of their units and apply resources where they think they need to be able to meet their mission sets,” said Francis. “We're looking at an H2F Management System that will incorporate all of these things that enable us to take data from Soldiers and allow leaders to have a dashboard to see the health of their unit.”
The Army is also developing an H2F Advisor course, which Francis compared to being a unit master gunner for H2F.
While the H2F Academy at Fort Jackson has transitioned the old Master Fitness Trainer course into the H2F-Integrator course, with Soldiers being trained in all physical and non-physical domains, the H2F Advisor course looks to be several weeks long and will go further in-depth on each of the domains, preparing Soldiers to advise their command teams on how to employ H2F assets based on the unit’s mission or challenges they are facing.
While the Army is working on several initiatives and looking to expand H2F Performance Teams, Mingus and Francis both emphasized that Soldiers, leaders and units should not wait to start implementing H2F.
Francis mentioned the H2F Academy and their four satellite locations with the Guard and Reserve can train over a thousand H2F Integrators each year and the Army recently launched an H2F website (https://h2f.army.mil/) that provides Soldiers and leaders resources in all five domains.
Soldiers and leaders can also leverage existing resources on their installations, such as the Armed Forces Wellness Centers or Ready and Resilient Centers.
“What you do throughout H2F, that's what you do every day. How you train, how you eat, how you sleep, all those things are what you do every single day,” stated Mingus. “You can begin to implement this now. Do not wait.”
| Date Taken: | 10.21.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.21.2024 13:46 |
| Story ID: | 483582 |
| Location: | WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, US |
| Web Views: | 155 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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