(air official chatters) Roger, 48 07 approaching runway Seven Bravo. - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new Information Operations Technical Training School. - First Command, simply must arm our Airmen to outthink, outperform, out partner, out innovate any potential adversary. - Air Force basic military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - The First Command, "The Air Force Starts Here". (intense music) (upbeat music) - Hey, hey everybody. Welcoming episode 36 of the podcast today. Thanks for the subscribes, stream or download, however you might be listening in, wrapper on Spotify, Google Play, Apple Podcasts, so no matter where you are, you can give us a listen. If you have some extra time and want to throw us a review, we certainly would appreciate that as well. I'm Dan Hawkins from the AETC public affairs team and your host for this professional development podcast, dedicated to bringing Total Force Airmen insight tips tricks and lessons learned from the recruiting training and education worlds. Great episode today as I got the chance to remotely sit down with the team from the 323rd Training Squadron known as the Mustangs in the 37th Training Wing out at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, and we talked about the evolution of the way Basic Military Training is executing physical training. Lieutenant Colonel Ray Vann, Tech Sergeant Sarah Mitchell and Tech Sergeant Kenneth Snow talk about how, in partnership with the 559th Medical Group's Sports Medicine Team, they created, tested and are currently implementing Basic Military Trainings' first High Intensity Interval Training program called the HIIT program. I've also heard it referred to as the Cardio Interval Training program, but it's a pretty unique and innovative program that's gonna provide more diversity than the baseline BMT exercise program of the past and presents an opportunity to increase physical fitness assessment scores for our trainees while simultaneously mitigating the risk of injury to the trainees as they're coming into a brand new environment. And to me, this is a really great story of how innovation doesn't always have to be technological in nature. We often hear the stories about the use of virtual reality or artificial intelligence devices as a big part of our innovation ecosystem but sometimes we don't have tangible stories of how process and applying what we've learned to our education and training landscape, in this case from a physical training perspective, are transforming the way we learn and cultivating an environment of excellence as we ensure that our Airmen are lethal and ready to go out into that technical training environment from BMT. And so we get great backstory from Sergeant Mitchell on how she is as part of the Gateway Wings 2019 initiative to provide opportunities for Airmen to get certified in cross-training instruction, utilize that training to mold a bigger picture program for dynamic alternative workout options for the BMT trainees. And Sergeant Snow is gonna talk about how the program is being administered in the unit and also talk about plans for Cardio Interval Training to expand across the BMT enterprise as a whole, as well as the idea or the potential at least, for expansion into the Second Air Force technical training arena and Colonel Vann gives a great strategic site picture on why these programs are so important in the BMT enterprise. And it's really just another great example of how the 37th Training Wing is training to win every single day and the Warhawks are taking care of business out at JBSA-Lackland. So away we go, episode 36 of "The Air Force Starts Here", hits the ground running, right now. (intense music) - Well, hello, my name is Ray Vann. I've been in the Air Force about 27 years. I'm a prior enlisted Airman. I was 10 years in service before I commissioned. I'm currently the Squadron commander of the 323rd Mustangs and my background, I'm an ICBM operator by trade. - And Sergeant Mitchell, how long have you been with the 37th Training Wing? - Hello, my name is Technical Sergeant Sarah Mitchell. I've been with the 323rd Training Squadron for almost two years. My background prior to becoming an MTI, I am an IDMT by trade and I have a total of 14 years and serving currently. - And Sergeant Snow, I know you're the supply NCO when you're doing a lot of training, but how long have you been in the Military Training Instructor community? - Oh, yes, hello, I'm Technical Sergeant Kenneth Snow. I've been a Military Training Instructor since April of 2018. Then at the 323rd Training Squadron in my entire time. I took the reins of the PT Supply NGO, at the turn of the calendar year of 2020. So I've been running the program ever since. - And Colonel Vann, so, PT at BMT, it's obviously a huge part of developing the Airmen we need and providing Airmen that foundation of physical fitness and health as they make their transition from being a civilian to a full fledged Airman in the United States Air Force. And there were changes in all of BMT in late 2018 and some elements of PT were part of that, but could you talk a little bit about the physical fitness program and physical training at BMT as a whole and why it's so important? - Absolutely. Part of the foundation of our trainees is being able to establish that camaraderie and that understanding, that what we are is a fighting force. The Air Force requires of us to be physically and mentally fit and we do everything we can to try and begin that process here for them by instilling the foundation of warfare we use as we progress on. The old days, even the 2018 update, was very similar to the prior years and you'd be hard pressed to find any Airman nowadays that said, yup, I did the same training program for PT that I did when I was in Brunswick. Everybody developed something different because while that PT program works to begin to instill that discipline, it was a little bit antiquated and kind of just the way we've always done it. So part of what we did was look at how do we increase that exercise regimen and increase that cardiovascular extension of what they can do here with us without impacting them in a negative way by increasing more running, because obviously if you run too much, now you start to work with injury rates. So that's what drove that initial change and PT here in BMT is huge. It allows the trainees to bond with each other and allows their MTIs to bond with their trainees. There's nothing quite like watching trainees, you can see their MTI out there pushing the ground right there next to them and trying to motivate them through it. - And so your Squadron, the 323rd Training Squadron, was a huge driver in making this change, and I know that both Sergeant Mitchell and Sergeant Snow had huge roles. So Sergeant Mitchell, I wanted to ask you first, what was that initial driver like when you went to go get your Level 1 certification and how did that kind of spark a fire to change the physical fitness program? - Oh yes, I believe that with any new knowledge you wanna pass it on. So with the opportunity for us to get that Level 1 certification, we brought it to the Squadron and developed a program in-house to see how everything would turn out. And we had great results as far as in like attendance, the type of workout, and so we are starting to see change throughout the Squadron with just a little bit of nausea we came back with. So then from there, we use the driving force as far as trying to develop a program and implement it into BMT, once the, you could say essentially the COVID happened. But the program was already starting to become in place. We were trying to develop work out essentially, that would help increase that Cardiovascular Interval Training in them, because we wanted to help do different types of workouts that they weren't repetitively injuring themselves. Because commonly, like for me as a Military Training Instructor, you see a lot of training injuries from them running repetitively, like doing the same type of workouts. So if I could break down a little bit of the workout before in BMT, they would have one strength day and it was the same type of strength day. Then the next day they would have a run day and it was 26 minute run on the track. Just run for 26 minutes throughout the whole time and then the next day they'd have the same strength day. And then the next following day, a run day again. So we saw a lot of injuries from that repetitive impact and like no time to heal. That was a great opportunity for us to actually use our skills and the knowledge that we learned, to try to develop a program that would better enhance both workouts in general, and then of course their conditioning and injury. - So Sergeant Snow, I turn to you and say, what is a typical PT session now look like in terms of over the stretch of a week, for example, for BMT, as opposed to the old way, which was sort of repetitive. - Yes. So a normal week but before all of this change was, you'd have PT at six o'clock in the morning. Half the Squadron would be doing the 26 minutes sustained run around the track and the other half of the Squadron would be doing the strength card on the other part of our workout area. Now since we've implemented this program, we alternate for the first two weeks of training here, we don't do any running. We just strictly adhere to a strength card and then we use Cardio Interval Training card that we came up with. After the initial two weeks, we implement the run again, so they will be doing a run day, a Cardio Interval Training day, a strength day, a run day, a Cardio Interval strength day, and they alternate between the two different cards, you know before we used to have one card for strength and you do those same exercises. Now we have an A card and B card though. On Monday we may do the A card, like we're not gonna do the A card again, probably till Friday or Saturday. So it's just a different, we work different parts of the body throughout the week. It maybe arms one day and then next time it might be lower extremity. - Yeah and what really makes this so unique is this started at the Squadron level and, you know, turned into innovation coz Colonel Vann, I'll ask you, you know, this started out as something to actually help your Squadron members, the instructors, not necessarily the students at BMT. And so can you kind of talk to the timeline and then how it all kinda came together that it was decided, hey, this might work for our students. - Well, absolutely. So we got a request out of the Wing like late last year that said, hey, we're willing to send folks to this Level 1 fitness training. We think it's gonna be beneficial for units if you'd like to do that. And so we sent two of our brightest folks over there who were very interested in, you know, sports medicine and exercise. And so they came back and what we said was, alright, let's take that knowledge and create a working program for our Squadron or (mumbles) so that they can have a different way of working out together. It got our MTIs together a little bit and gave us some quality Squadron time together, right? So after the first couple of weeks of doing that, it was very easy to see that this workout (mumbles) but the same old sore knees and achy body parts wasn't quite (mumbles) It was more of the sore muscles really (mumbles) and it kinda made me take out an injury myself. And as an old guy, I like to not get injured anymore, right? So it was really nice to see the Squadron working together and it took probably about a month and a half of us doing that before we started talking about like, hey, we could take this and transition it into a program to give cardio training to our trainees and took away one of those run days. So we keep up the cardio, but we take away one of those impactful days because like Sergeant Mitchell said, "at the end of our cycle, we always have trainees on crutches," because you know, most trainees don't have to run 26 minutes, every single, you know, every other day, right? That just doesn't happen to most people out there nowadays. So we looked at it, we took that program and we started working it between probably December and January. By January, we already had a plan we liked. And then obviously February COVID hit, everything started to lockdown and this new regimen gave us the opportunity to take care of two things. We had always intended on backing off some of the run coz we wanted to just diminish some of those repetitive use injuries. So we always intended on doing that. But now we looked at it with that COVID lens of, you know, well now we've got a separate trainees and we don't want big hordes of trainees running around a track for 26 minutes. There's 14 days of basic kind of, Squadron level quarantine, that we don't intermix or intermingle even our own flights. So this program allowed us to keep that cardio training working, keep them separated from each other for the first 14 days to ensure nobody was sick, and then we could begin running. The benefit that came out of that was that now these trainees spent two weeks working their lower body, their upper body, it's really a full bodied workout with the variety that's in the program, and allowed them to strengthen their bodies so that when we did start them running, we didn't see a lot of those similar injuries starting out the gate from people that had really never run before. - Yeah and Sergeant Mitchell or Sergeant Snow, I'm curious, how was the transition getting all of the MTIs on board and changing, really kind of in a pretty fast fashion, these types of changes in the curriculum for physical fitness? - Yeah, so it was a hard learning curve coz we all get taught one way and majority of the Squadron at that point in time was relatively been here for a while or doing the same PT program. So initially we came up with the plan and right before we picked up, we had in-house trainings. So we had all the instructors come in, in PT gear on a Saturday and we were out at the PT pad and we had all the instructors in conjunction with our physiologists out there, to go through each exercise and tell us how to do each exercise and what to look for. And how do we teach that to a trainee, being in that we were also being taught at the same time. So it was like, we were learning as we were doing. - Yeah and so I'm really curious. I know, you know, you don't operate in the BMT bubble by yourself at the 37th Training Wing, you obviously get a lot of support from Joint Base San Antonio and the 502d Air Base Wing, but also the 59th Medical Wing, and so Colonel Vann, what was the 59th's role in supporting this initiative as you look to potentially expand it? - We cannot thank and be grateful enough to them as mission partners and what they've done to help this program move forward. Once we developed the program, we had it written up, we were doing it for our own folks in the Squadron, but us as permanent party doing it is different than instilling it on trainees. So at that point, we reached out to the 59th Medical Group and the sports physiologist and we said, hey, we would like to show you this program we've developed, we'd love to get your take on what you think of it and whether or not this is something we can implement and start trying to do with our Squadron and being that we wrote it, we said, hey, we will happily be the first beta test to see how it goes. Come to find out that they had already been looking at updating the PT guide and using some more up to date training programs to help people get more fit. So when they came over, a lot of the things that we were doing, they were completely onboard with. But they gave us that medical background and that medical review to ensure that none of the exercises we had put together were gonna injure anybody. They made adjustment, they fine tuned some, they added a couple, they removed a few, and so it was amazing to see that entire team, the 59th and the 737th, we all came together and sat at this table and we had this big document in front of us and together we developed. And I'm talking about in a room, we're all sitting there and there's people that are like, alright, hold on, this is the way that would look. And they're jumping on the floor, and they're doing the exercise in front of all of us and we're all going, yeah, that's what we're thinking. And so together, the teamwork to make this thing happen was monumental. Again, things like this don't normally happen as quickly as this happened. So there was a lot of folks that they wanted to make sure we had the right data, because like you said earlier, trying to prevent someone to stop doing something they've done for a very long time is difficult. Especially if you don't have any real data yet to say that we believe this is gonna work, but you gotta show it, right? You got to cap some numbers behind it. - Absolutely. And so I am curious as you talk about data and you know, there's such a reliance now on the need for data driven decision making, and like you talked about in this instance, you don't really have a lot of data except the data from the old way of doing business. So when did you actually really start implementing on a class? And then what has the data shown in the early returns that have you guys really excited about this program? - No, absolutely. So we break it down in basically four areas. We break down each individual portion of the fitness test, which is the pushups, the sit ups and the run, and then we get an overall pass rate based on all of our trainees for our Squadron. So we got approval from the group to go ahead and do a beta test here in the Squadron, and so last cycle, not the current one we're in now, but the one right before this, was the first full implementation, start to finish of the program. And so what we found was, I'm gonna give you some stats on how those numbers went. In the initial PT sit up, sit ups tend to be the biggest struggle that all of our trainees have here. Most people struggle to run, but you know, we always have struggled with the run, but it seems like push ups and sit ups, sit ups are the bigger of the two. So we started at what is normally our normal, we started at 53% for our males and 41% pass rates for our females in that first go around, which is about normal. The next go around right, the second test, they increased to 84% pass rate for the males and 73% pass rates for females, which is a big jump. That's almost on our normal, it's well above actually our normal expectation at that point for sit ups. And when we finished up in the final PT test, our males had a 99% pass rate and our females had a 96% pass rate. Those numbers are well above our normal averages that go anywhere between 88% and 95%. So right away we recognized, wow, even in the sit ups, which is one of the biggest things we have that impacts everybody here, we had big huge strides. (clears throat) Then we went to our pushups. Well on the first test, we normally do pretty good on pushups. The first test, and mind you they're separated in weeks of training, so first week of training is the first test, third week of training is the second test and the fifth week of training is the final test. (clears throat) For pushups in the first week, the males attained a 80% pass rate and the females had of 74% pass rate, not too bad. Second PT test jumps to 93% for the males and 89% for the females. At the end of the test, at the third test, we had a 100% pass rate for our males and 100% pass rate for our females, which I had never seen in the whole year I'd been here, which our entire cycle was able to pass their PT push ups without one failure in pushups. So then of course, everybody's biggest concern with the run. People were really concerned that their run was gonna be impacted coz now by taking away one day, our trainees wouldn't get that opportunity to run and therefore increase their ability to pass. The first test wound up being 51% pass rate for the males and sorry, 67 for males and 61 for females. That's about average. That's where we start normally. The second test, mind you with no running, right? There was definitely no running other than the Cardio Interval Training done in our Squadron. In the second test, they were able to do an 88% pass rate for males and an 87% pass rate for females. The females almost tied the males in pass rates after two weeks of cardio training with no running on the track. So then we jumped to our third week, our final test, the males had a 99% pass rate on their runs and our females had a 100% pass rate on their runs. Again, those numbers are well above the average run time or run numbers for our Squadron on any given cycle. And so the overall pass rates, what we saw was, in the first test overall, we had 37% of the males pass and 36% of the females passing the first test. No running, right, two weeks of just cardio training, our numbers jumped to 74% pass rate for the males and 64% pass rate for the females. As you can see, those numbers correlate each other very closely because the fitness training is the same for both sides. Then you get to our third test. Our males finished up with an overall pass, now this is overall passing the PT test as a whole, to Air Force standards mind you, we used Air Force standards to test this. Our third PT test was a 98% pass rate for the males and a 96% pass rate overall for our females. But those numbers were huge. And it's the added benefit that not only did our fitness, you know, get to be, for us it was better, but we were shooting for maintaining it, right? We were shooting for the same or better or we wound up a lot better. But our injury rate, we had musculoskeletal injuries decreased by 14%. And we had BSI incidences, which were basically bone injuries, right? You're talking the stress fractures and the shin split, those things dropped by 2%. So not only were our trainees as fit or fitter as they've ever been here for us in our Squadron, but we also decreased the amount of injuries in training or going to medical holds, meaning that we're graduating more trainees and putting them in their jobs sooner. - Wow. Those really are some incredible statistics and speak to at least definitely the potential and obviously leadership at the 37th Training Wing and the 737th support this. And I'll turn to you, Sergeant Snow, the implementation now across BMT, it looks like that's something that's gonna happen. What does that look like? - Yes, so I mean, that was only a sample of like 600 trainees, those numbers. So you're gonna expense, make those numbers a lot bigger. We're bringing this from one Squadron to eight other Squadrons. So the numbers are just gonna get better and the trainees are gonna benefit from it. Like we said before, like this training program is something that they can take with them. They can do in their dorms, they can do it at Tech School. They can do it wherever it needs to be done instead of just learning one set of workouts and kinda just leaving it at BMT and moving on. So this is something that's gonna benefit them for the long haul, not just for their seven and a half weeks here at Basic Military Training. - And so, and I'll ask this question of the group, but what is the plan to move it across the BMT campus at this point? - So the plan currently and we've already begun at achieving this, we were able to get this, we briefed our group leadership with the results, we got to turn around and brief it up to the wing commander, who was excited about the benefits and what we've done with the program. We are also able to get a briefing for General Tullos, the second Air Force commander, who was really excited about the program because of the longterm effects that this has overall on our team. And so this is a program that can be utilized across, and obviously that's the General's option to do what's next with it. But for us at the group level, we've already begun implementing across the board. Squadrons that are picking up this week as in getting their trainees assigned to them, are already equally start doing this training as it begins their PT. Our team, and this team involves the 59th Medical Group folks and our Military Training Instructors, our public, our PT supply folks, they've been going basically around Robin to every Squadron and teaching in what's called a training program, it's an IHT, is what we call that. It's basically an In-House Training in which our instructors go and the entire Squadron takes the afternoon or the morning, and they instruct the entire Squadron on how to execute, how to do, what it feels like to do the exercises, what they look like, what they should be watching for and (mumbles) cause injuries in trainees. And so our Squadron has already done that with a couple of Squadrons and by the end of September, all Squadrons would have received that training. Now, not every Squadron kicks up, I'm sorry, at the end of August everybody will have their training, except for one Squadron because they just picked up last week and it'll take a while before their cycle comes back around. But basically from here on out, every Squadron they get new trainees, will be doing the new implemented training program that we started here. The next step out of the gate is at 320th. They picked up this week and they're starting to do their exercises. And then it just rolls from Squadron to Squadron. Our team has stayed ahead of that cycle by doing the training for every Squadron as they get ready to pick up. So across BMT from this point forward, basically everybody will be doing the new fitness program. - Some exciting times, for sure. And I wanted to ask Sergeant Mitchell one last question, and that really is, you know, being on the ground floor and kinda helping develop this initial idea and understanding, you know, that innovation typically does happen at the lower levels, what would you tell other Airmen out there who have an idea, but think, but nobody will probably listen to me, about developing these ideas that really help the Air Force. - So just in my personal experience, one, I'm grateful that my leadership at least took the time to listen. But I do quote a line I'd tell the trainees that I supervised that, a closed mouth doesn't get fed. So if you have an idea, anything small, you want to try something, bring it up to your leadership, bring it up to somebody else, if you're not confident in yourself to mention it to your leadership supervisors, to get that ball rolling, because a small idea plants the seed. And if it's not the idea you were expecting the outcome of at least something else could potentially grow from it. So absolutely, I would say for anyone else like out there who just has like a small idea, like just take what you have and don't be scared to take like extra, like additional classes. Like just imagine had me and Sergeant Roth not signed up to go take the Level 1 course, like where would we have been? Would it have been another program? And it's just interesting. And I love the idea that one small choice really did get the ball rolling and made changes throughout BMT. So I'm grateful for this opportunity, definitely. - Well, I certainly appreciate all of your time and expertise today on the topic. Colonel Vann and Sergeant Snow and Sergeant Mitchell, and thanks for all you do, developing the Airmen we need to fill our Air and Space Forces. - Thank you. - Thank you. We're proud to serve and we appreciate your time as well. (intense music) - Great insight from Colonel Vann and Sergeants Mitchell and Snow, who along with all their counterparts from the 323rd Training Squadron, continue to train to win every single day, transforming civilians into the Airmen we need. And I've just really found it so fascinating how this new fitness training program is being accomplished, despite the challenges of fighting through COVID-19, and everything that that takes every single day. So big thanks to Colonel Vann and the team for taking part in the podcast. We certainly appreciate it. We know they are very busy. As a reminder, you can follow Air Education and Training Command, and the AETC Command Team on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and you can catch up on all the latest news on our website at www.aetc.af.mil. For our entire AETC public affairs team, I'm Dan Hawkins, so long, we'll talk to you next time on "The Air Force Starts Here".