Photo By Sgt. Maj. Casey Lohman | Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Morris, H2F-Integrator, teaches a class on building resilience...... read more read more
The Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) System has revolutionized how the Army prepares Soldiers for ground combat. Through Field Manual (FM) 7-22, H2F outlines how units can effectively implement a human performance program for any unit across the Total Army.
Based on its agile nature and early return-on-investment metrics, the Army has decided to resource every active duty component brigade with human performance teams filled with subject-matter experts and every command in the U.S. Army Reserve and Army National Guard.
"Since 2018, the Army National Guard (ARNG) and the U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) have been conducting pilots on how best to implement H2F across their components", said Lt. Gen. David Francis, Commanding General of the Center for Initial Military Training, the Army's Proponent for H2F. "Beginning in Fiscal Year 2026, the Department of the Army will field six pilots between the two components to help us refine what the embedded human performance teams will look like for our COMPO 2 and 3 teammates".
The Army's H2F Academies have seen a rapid uptick in attendance to meet the significant demand for H2F-trained individuals. Split across four locations, the H2F Academies train and certify H2F-Integrators to serve as the unit-level subject-matter experts for the five tenets of H2F for units without embedded performance teams. To support the high demand signal in the reserve components, roughly 25% of all trained H2F-Integrators come from Mobile Training Teams (MTT) outside the Army's normally scheduled programming.
Units across the Army Reserve that were not selected to participate in the pilot are not waiting for their human performance teams to be fielded; they're empowering their H2F Integrators to implement H2F by maximizing civilian-acquired skills within their units to meet their commander's intent.
Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Morris serves as the lead H2F Integrator for the 9th Mission Support Command (MSC), an Army Reserve Command headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. The units inside the 9th Mission Support Command forces cover seven time zones, ranging from Alaska to Saipan.
As a geographically dispersed unit, the 9th MSC has more hurdles than a traditional Army Reserve unit. "In the early implementation process, we quickly found that our Soldiers valued a sense of community and the ability to connect," said Morris. "This sense of community greatly empowered the H2F System because it improved our organizational readiness, buy-in, and cohesion across our organization".
"The 9th MSC Command Teams knew they wanted to employ the H2F system across their formation and allow soldiers within their formation, who through their civilian acquired skill sets were already subject matter experts in the five readiness domains, to how they could implement across their formations", said Morris.
One developed course of action was an entire drill day focused on the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT). H2F-I's took the test alongside their Reserve Soldiers and, upon completion, dove into classes highlighting all five domains of the H2F System. "Taking the ACFT alongside our Soldiers provided an opportunity for our H2F-I's to prove they were subject-matter-experts in the physical domain before explaining how important the other four domains are to Soldier Performance", said Morris. "This enabled our SMEs to have buy-in from their Soldiers immediately, based on the positive results of the class, and the initial findings of the importance of community led the 9th MSC command team to allow Soldiers' family members to join".
Since the establishment of H2F, the Army has recognized that the embedded human performance team model that works within Active Duty footprints may not be feasible for the ARNG and USAR. The ongoing pilots and grassroots efforts are confirming that it is essential to establish centralized locations where Soldiers can be advised by human performance subject matter experts either virtually or in person.
"We are 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 Gen. James Mingus, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.
As the Army determines funding and the implementation timeline for the rest of the Army to be fielded with human performance teams, resources are available for units to leverage, such as the H2F website, where units can learn best practices from currently resourced Brigades across all five domains.
To learn more about the resources available, visit https://h2f.army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 03.19.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.19.2025 13:22 |
| Story ID: | 493223 |
| Location: | HONOLULU, HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 71 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, H2F Integrators a Force Multiplier for Geo-Dispersed Units, by Hunter Rhoades, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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