Performance vs. Longevity for the Warrior-Athlete
The following is adapted from Honed by Mike Simpson, MD.
In June of 1984, I walked out the front door of my parents’ home in California and got into a car with the Army recruiter who drove me to the processing center to enter the United States Army. Had you asked me that day if I was embarking on a journey to live life as a warrior, I would have said, “Yes,” but I honestly didn’t really know at the time what that meant. The life of a warrior isn’t just about being proficient in weapons and tactics, nor is it as simple as being physically fit, although all of those things play a part.
The word “warrior” gets thrown around a lot in this day and age. Much like the word “hero,” the word “warrior” has come to mean virtually anyone working towards a goal. The flip side of the coin is that some people have attached negative connotations to the word “warrior,” seemingly lumping it into the same category as “war monger.” When the United States Army initiated a new public relations campaign that involved referring to soldiers as “warriors,” a certain segment of over-sensitive and under-educated staff officers launched a movement aimed at convincing the Army to abandon the term. They stated (incorrectly) that warriors were the equivalent of mercenaries, who lacked the discipline and adaptability of soldiers. Bullshit. (To be fair, they were correct in stating that not all soldiers are warriors. In truth, only around ten percent of the military can be considered warriors.) Around the same time, certain local municipalities throughout the U.S. sought to ban law enforcement officers from attending what was referred to as “warrior training,” which some government bureaucrats naively postulated might cause police officers to act as if the neighborhoods where they worked were war zones filled with bloodthirsty terrorists. Again: bullshit.
What neither the politicians nor the staff officers understood is what it is that truly makes someone a warrior. In simple terms, a warrior is someone who lives by a code. This code has come to be known as the warrior ethos. A warrior is selfless and places the safety of others over his own personal well-being. Likewise, he places the success of the mission over his own needs and comforts as an individual. A warrior is honorable and protects the weak. Most importantly, a warrior dedicates himself to becoming the best possible version of himself that he can be and does not shirk from the difficult tasks involved in the realization of that goal. A warrior does not make excuses, and he doesn’t quit when things become difficult. That is the mentality of a warrior.
You may be thinking that the term “warrior” doesn’t apply to you, but I believe it does. Allow me to illustrate.
If you approach health and fitness as a “hobby” or as a “chore” then you will never be 100 percent committed to the task. But if you approach it as a warrior, dedicating yourself to putting in the hard work required to maximize your physical fitness, you will be able make it the centerpiece of your lifestyle. By embracing the warrior ethos and placing the mission of optimal health and wellness ahead of other pursuits, you can unlock your life as a warrior-athlete.
Just as a warrior keeps his weapon, his equipment, and his body in battle-ready condition at all times, so a warrior-athlete places supreme importance on every aspect of his physical fitness. To be a warrior-athlete means leaving all excuses behind and realizing that your health and wellness are your responsibility and yours alone. It means leading a life of continued self-improvement, striving to be the best possible version of yourself that you can be, not just for today, but for a lifetime.
In 2016, I retired from the United States Army with 32 years of active service. Half of that time, the first half, had been spent as an operator in Special Operations Forces (SOF). Largely because of how I lived my life during that first half of my career, I received a 100 percent disability classification from the Veterans Administration (VA) upon my retirement. Missing cartilage and torn ligaments in both knees, an unhealed 30-year-old fracture in my left foot, four herniated discs in my spine, two bad shoulders, and numerous other chronic injuries — these internal scars serve as testimony to the manner in which I sacrificed my body at the altar of mission readiness. As I stated earlier, the mission is everything, and accomplishing the mission is paramount, even at the expense of personal injury.
When I began my military career in the 1980s, physical fitness was very much geared toward short-term mission accomplishment at the expense of the long-term health and longevity of the individual soldier. Indeed, soldiers were, in fact, looked upon as expendable commodities. As harsh as that sounds, it was true and still is to some extent. The main focus during that period was on the ability of the unit and the individual to conduct the mission at hand right now. No consideration was given to the long-term effects of a fast-paced and extremely intense training regimen over time. The result was that many soldiers of that era would be combat ineffective by their late 30s. This was a byproduct of a focus on performance optimization for the short term and was compounded by the fact that there was very little applied science as it related to physical fitness. This problem was not limited to the military but was also prevalent in professional sports of the era. This was a time when professional sports teams would conduct “no water” practices in the hope that they could condition players to perform efficiently with less hydration. Although techniques such as this seem ludicrous in retrospect, they were not at all uncommon at the time. From the level of the high school gym teacher up to the most elite military unit and professional sports team, most of what was done in the name of physical conditioning and strength training was based on tradition and anecdotal evidence as opposed to scientific data. Even though the application of science in the field of functional fitness has greatly advanced over recent decades, a common pitfall that still prevails is the focus on performance optimization at the expense of longevity optimization. Allow me to explain.
The term performance optimization refers to training with the focus of maximizing athletic performance in the short term. Probably the most classic example of this would be a professional fighter undergoing a “fight camp” in the lead up to a professional bout. Militarily, this is best demonstrated in the form of a pre-deployment/pre-mission training cycle. Regardless of whether we are referring to a professional sports contest or a military operation, the goal is the same: conduct training that is as intense and realistic as humanly possible, with the goal of “peaking” in a narrow time window, which corresponds with the event in question. Anyone who has ever trained for any type of athletic competition is familiar with terms that coaches and trainers use, such as “ramping up.” Although this training method may reap dividends on the playing field and even on the battlefield, it extracts a heavy toll from the warrior–athletes themselves. There’s an old saying — “pay now, or pay later” — and certainly many of us know what it is like to “pay later.”
When we are young, we feel that we are invincible. Injuries do not slow us down as much, and recovery times are much shorter. Our bones, joints, and soft tissues are much more forgiving of the mistakes we make and the punishment that we inflict upon them. This is essentially like living life on a credit card. A credit card with an extremely high limit and very low monthly payments but with an interest rate that compounds annually and continues to grow. By the time we reach middle-age, we will have amassed a crushing debt that is impossible to get out from under, if we have been continually living off of this “credit card.”
In our youth, there is always that tendency to want to train just a little bit harder. We are constantly focused on short-term goals: the mission, the competition, losing the weight, getting in shape for the summer, or whatever it might be. Because we are not thinking about the future and are blinded to the long-term effects of our behavior, we often take shortcuts, and we often push too hard.
When I was in the Ranger Battalion, we were preparing for an upcoming training deployment, which I knew would entail a lot of long-range movement while carrying a heavy combat load. To better prepare myself and the Rangers under my supervision, I increased the days per week that we conducted road marches as a form of physical training. Additionally, I added extra weight to my own rucksack so that I would be better conditioned to carrying heavy loads. It was during that training that I started to notice a persistent pain in my left foot, especially when road marching on hard pavement. Years later, I discovered that I had caused a stress fracture in a bone and that, because I continued to walk on it without seeking medical attention, it never got a chance to heal. This was also the period of time when I started to notice numbness in my left arm any time I would wear my rucksack for an extended period. It wasn’t until my retirement physical that I discovered I had permanent nerve damage in my arm, likely secondary to the amount of time I spent wearing a heavy rucksack. Unfortunately, sacrificing my body on the altar of performance optimization was not limited to my younger years. (In other words, I am a slow learner.) On a training cycle leading up to my deployment to Iraq in 2010, I spent extended periods of time wearing my Kevlar helmet with night vision goggles attached during nighttime training iterations. This was necessary, not only to get me accustomed to the added weight but also to help me overcome the claustrophobia and lack of depth perception while performing intricate tasks under NVGs. When I initially started to feel neck pain, I attributed it to muscle soreness from the weight of the helmet and NVGs. It wasn’t until I got an MRI a few years later that I discovered I had actually herniated two of the discs in my cervical spine.
Indeed, virtually all of my chronic injuries can be traced to periods during my career when I tried to push just a little bit harder, when I tried to take shortcuts and ignored the pain signals my body was sending to me. In all of these instances, I was focused on the mission. I was focused on being ready “right now” and not concerned about any of the long-term effects that my extremely rigorous training might cause.
However, the damage inflicted in the name of performance optimization isn’t limited to musculoskeletal injuries. Pushing too hard can mean damage due to secondary factors (such as severe dehydration, heat stroke, etc.) and can result in permanent damage to vital organs. The focus on performance optimization can cause someone to give in to the temptation to use performance-enhancing drugs. Do not be confused; that term isn’t limited to substances such as steroids but can also mean the abuse or misuse of stimulants such as caffeine or nicotine to stay awake longer, train harder, and move farther faster. Addiction/dependence on caffeine and nicotine is widespread in the military and can often be traced to the first few years of a soldier’s initial enlistment. It was during Ranger school that I myself became dependent on chewing tobacco to stay awake and alert during periods of sleep deprivation. What started out as a “crutch” to keep from falling asleep ultimately became a 14-year habit that was extremely hard to break and damaged my gums to the point of requiring oral surgery. I was fortunate to not develop mouth cancer or any other serious long-term effects of my habit. Later, during my residency training as a new physician, I became dependent on energy drinks to keep going during long shifts. I developed headaches and discovered that my blood pressure was frighteningly high. I came dangerously close to having a stroke or doing permanent damage that could have adversely affected me for my entire life.
Both high-performance athletes and military operators also have trouble sleeping. In the case of athletes, it can be caused by over training and diet, as well as stimulant use in the form of caffeine or pre-workout formulas. For operators, it is due to multiple factors, compounded by the fact that most tactical missions are conducted at night, meaning that the mission sleep cycle occurs during the day. As inadequate sleep can become an impediment of performance optimization, those who have difficulty sleeping will often seek out ways to improve their situation. Bodybuilders have been known to resort to extreme measures, such as taking the drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), which has been linked to long-term cognitive damage. Although not as extreme as GHB, the military community has a high degree of prescription sleep aid use. These medications are also not without risk of long-term problems. On a personal level, I have an extensive history of sleep difficulty, and during my operational years often had to utilize prescription sleep aids to get enough sleep to maintain mission readiness.
As you can see, many of the characteristics of performance optimization involve “running the engine in the red.” Although this can certainly get you there fast and keep you in the race, it is unsustainable for indefinite periods and ultimately can lead to breakdown and disaster. Unfortunately, it sometimes is a necessary evil. One could ask, “How can you attain your long-term goals if you don’t set short-term goals to get you there?” In spite of the impression that I may have given you, I am not saying that performance optimization is something to be shunned or avoided. On the contrary, performance optimization is something that you should strive for, but you should seek to do so intelligently and with minimal long-term cost. Remember, as a warrior-athlete, your health is the most important weapon in your arsenal, and you want to maintain it not just for the battle of today, but for every battle yet to come.
The flip side of the performance optimization coin is longevity optimization. Longevity optimization focuses on what is needed holistically to maintain the best overall health and fitness well past what would be considered the warrior-athlete’s “prime.” Optimizing longevity means recognizing that life is a marathon, not a sprint. Optimizing longevity means avoiding injury and not sacrificing long-term health for the sake of short-term goals. It means maintaining mission readiness at an acceptable level, if not a peak level, then for extended periods. Think of it as the reliable automobile that you drive for years as opposed to the sports car that you “run in the red” until it breaks down. This doesn’t mean that optimizing longevity comes only at the exclusion of optimizing performance. On the contrary, the two can and do go hand in hand.
For more advice on physical fitness after 40, you can find Honed on Amazon.
Best known for his role as an investigator on the History Channel’s docu-reality series Hunting Hitler, Mike Simpson has served over three decades in the military as an Airborne Ranger, a Green Beret, and a doctor of emergency medicine assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
Trained as a demolitions expert, SWAT sniper, high altitude low opening (HALO) parachutist, civilian paramedic, Special Forces medic, operations and intelligence sergeant, and board-certified emergency medicine physician, Mike now uses his extensive knowledge of training and medicine to help men over forty achieve peak physical condition.
