​We can define physical preparation as an all-encompassing approach to preparing tactical operators to perform optimally throughout the course of their career. This covers a broad spectrum of things along the human performance continuum, including:

• Treating sickness and managing long term health conditions

• Rehabbing injuries and addressing return to duty protocols

•  Injury prevention via soft tissue, mobility, and other forms of training

• Movement screening and assessment

• Physical fitness testing relative to occupational duties

• Building a well-rounded and realistic base of physical conditioning

• Integrating strength and conditioning techniques specific to optimally preparing the tactical operator, via both eliminating pain and restriction and improving output specific to tactical demands

• Building a framework and ideology with command staff to educate and integrate injury prevention practices into the agency

The goal is to examine and re-invent “fitness”, we need to broaden our focus and evaluate the concept in terms of tactical readiness and performance. It’s important to understand that while physical fitness movements (push-ups, sit-ups) and running times can be good measures of physical output, they are not direct indicators of tactical performance but rather of one’s level of general physical preparation. General physical preparation (GPP) is the operator’s overall level of conditioning in strength, speed, endurance, and other basic factors of fitness. It is the degree to which we can measure efficient function of the whole human organism, the ability of all the body’s systems to recognize and adapt to a multitude of stressors appropriately.   

GPP is, basically, your level of being in shape to realistically perform your occupational duties. It’s that you can move your body into the positions you need to, and in those positions you can physically handle the speeds, forces, and durations of those activities to successfully complete the tasks. Again, it is not tactics, it is the body’s ability to handle the physical demands of executing the tactics at an optimal level. 

To some degree every tactic involves multiple physical outputs, and a deficiency in one or more of these outputs (mobility, aerobic development, upper body strength, agility/balance, etc) affects the ability to perform them optimally. Therefore, one’s level of general physical preparation (well roundedness in all fitness categories) is directly related to their tactical output; measuring and improving fitness, then, should be viewed as an extension of tactical training rather than something separate.