SWAT training, and donation requests for gizmos

[Will Brink]

Gents.As mentioned in prior threads I do seminars and such for law enforcement, generally tactical LEO and SOF*. A regional SWAT/RRT team plans to compete in Connecticut SWAT Challenge, which is the 4th largest SWAT competition in the United States.**

I have been put in charge -as Senior PT Advisor -for the team, and am in the process of getting them ready for the match. The PT portion of this match is the toughest in the nation. The events schedule is found here:

http://ctswatchallenge.com/06Events.html

In particular, take a look at the “UNDER ARMOUR/STORM CASE PHYSICAL FITNESS CHALLENGE.” I have been to the other larger challenges, and none of them had a stage like that! That’s one mother-fer of stage right there!

This was the first week, so I was looking to get a baseline with the guys. Nothing high tech or expensive is needed here. A great way to work on functional strength, unbalanced loads, and conditioning, as well as grip strength, is by using sand bags.

Sand bag training is difficult and challenging and is particularly useful to MMA fighters, tactical law enforcement, SOF, strong man competitors, and others, where functional strength is essential. It’s also great for grip strength as there is nothing to hold onto. This type of training is perfect for preparing this team for such a challenge.

In the future, there will be rope climbing, wall climbing (in full tac gear), phone pole lifting, tire rolling, and ever increasing difficulty of combing sand bag training with shooting drills. All designed to increase functional strength, body weight to strength ratio, dealing with unbalanced loads that shift, grip strength, and of course, shooting under great physical stress, as these competitions demand, which attempt to parallel the “real world” for these teams.***

That’s just the PT portion of the training. Additional shooting drills take place separately, and they are well equipped to deal with that part. However, I feel it’s essential to combine shooting with the PT to keep focus on shooting under stress as these competitions generally stress.

As stated, this was a baseline day to where we all stood. The rotation of the day was:

30 pushups, followed by 10 over head presses with 75lb sand bag, run with sand bag, 10 more over head presses, run back to start position, put bag down, run to 7 yard line, and shoot 10rnds to slide lock.

Shooting was scored using an IDPA target, which means center mass and head shots add no time to your score, outside that, it adds time to your score. So, you have to shoot accurately, or your score goes down. They had to do that rotation 3 times.

Second rotation was, chin ups using a rope. Using a rope is very hard on your grip, so that’s why I used it. Right after chins, run to the truck, throw 75lb sand bag over shoulder, run to 12 yard line (I actually moved the red cone back from 7 yards to 12 without telling them to make life harder…) and shoot. Two rotations of that. End of the two rotations, who ever had the slowest times had to do it again! It pays to be a winner if you are on my system…anyway, here is a short vid of the two PT rotations we did today:




Yours truly is in the white shirt and black cap. If looking to add something new to your training, sand bags are a great addition. I could also put together such a PT and shooting day for those interested.


* = http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=34219&highlight=SOF

** = http://www.ctswatchallenge.com/


*** = It should be noted I am not a shooting instructor, but I know enough about shooting to integrate it into the PT sessions that will mimic what they will face in competition. The members of this SWAT team practice their shooting regularly as you would expect.

Week 2 was strong man style training, with 800lb tire flipping, alternating grip chin ups, sled dragging, and other movements designed to greatly improve the type of functional strength and endurance needed for the CT SWAT Challenge, not to mention just good training for tactical LEO’s and SOF.

We did all that at my buddy John’s gym, Excel Sport & Fitness (1)

From there to the range. At the range, additional rotations of running approx half mile in full tac gear, going over 5ft wall, followed by shooting on the move Mozambique Drills and others.

Next week, week 3, we incorporate some of the work done in week one and week two, so it’s going to get considerably harder….

Question and request: I would like to incorporate some of the toys used in IDPA, in particular, poppers that activate a swinger. If anyone could loan me such a gizmo for an afternoon or two, I think it would be highly beneficial to their training.


(1) http://www.excelstrength.com/

 

[law dawg]

Excellent training! I love it when we do some sort of PT (get the heart rate up) and then shoot immediately. Makes it hard as hell, and is fairly close to mimicking the effects of adrenaline. We've had four different courses to date in this type of training, all of varying intensity.

Well done sir!

 

[Will Brink]

Excellent training! I love it when we do some sort of PT (get the heart rate up) and then shoot immediately. Makes it hard as hell, and is fairly close to mimicking the effects of adrenaline. We've had four different courses to date in this type of training, all of varying intensity.

Well done sir!

Thank you sir. I will have much additional video in the future. Can you describe some of what you did in the courses you were involved in minus any PERSEC/OPSEC issues?

 

[jim42]

I am sweating my balls off, just watching .Great endurance training thou.

 

[Will Brink]

I am sweating my balls off, just watching .Great endurance training thou.

In fact, that was the day it was 103f a few weeks back if you recall. To say it was hot, is an understatement....

 

[law dawg]

Thank you sir. I will have much additional video in the future. Can you describe some of what you did in the courses you were involved in?

Simple -

25 jumping jacks, 15 mountain climbers, put together gun and insert loaded mag. Shooting steel and 15 yards (12 targets, saucer cup sized). If one mag wasn't enough (you had exactly the number of rounds needed, miss one and you needed another), you had to load the other mag.

Less simple-

50 yard sprint, 10 pullups, 50 yard sprint back, 25 pushups. Then pretty much a repeat of the above.

Hard-

Sitting in a seat, you have on boxing/MMA gloves. You have two pad holders on either side of you. You have to fight your way out of the seat (pad holders are pushing, slamming you with pads to keep you down). Once up sprint (maybe 10 yards) over to next holder and deliver knee strikes for 1 minute (if you sandbag the timer won't let you move on to next stage). Then one to 1/2 punches on heavy bag for 1 minute. Then elbow strikes for 1 minute. Strip off gloves. There's a table in front of you with 8 different 3x5 cards. Turn one over. There's a color combination on it (say, red, blue, green). Turn the card back over and look at targets. Find the targets that match your colors and shoot them (about 5 yards away). They're also partially covered up, representing a hostage. Make good shots.

We also did this test after lunch. That morning we'd had our quarterly PT test (1 1/2 mile run for time, max pullups, max pushups and situps in 1 minute). Needless to say we weren't all that fresh.

Hardest-

5 minute round of Bas Rutten's boxing workout. Someone was wearing chest protector and gloves and was our "dummy." After round was over, strip off boxing gloves and put on sims gear (mask, throat protector). Practice breaching one time. Once cleared, at table is a card. Turn it over. There's a math problem on it. Solve math problem (mine was 9 divided by 3). The answer tells you your target numbers. Shoot all targets with that number (3-7 yards away, depending on target). After shooting targets, role players will start popping up. React as threat dictates. If threat presents itself, deal with it. Some will pop up holding hair brushes, cell phones, etc. Try not to shoot them. Others will jump up and attack. Some with knives, some guns. Shocknife is the worst.

The last one was the hardest due to the judgment portions. Plus I suck at math. The next to the last was the hardest physically.

 

[Will Brink]

Simple -

25 jumping jacks, 15 mountain climbers, put together gun and insert loaded mag. Shooting steel and 15 yards (12 targets, saucer cup sized). If one mag wasn't enough (you had exactly the number of rounds needed, miss one and you needed another), you had to load the other mag.

Less simple-

50 yard sprint, 10 pullups, 50 yard sprint back, 25 pushups. Then pretty much a repeat of the above.

Hard-

Sitting in a seat, you have on boxing/MMA gloves. You have two pad holders on either side of you. You have to fight your way out of the seat (pad holders are pushing, slamming you with pads to keep you down). Once up sprint (maybe 10 yards) over to next holder and deliver knee strikes for 1 minute (if you sandbag the timer won't let you move on to next stage). Then one to 1/2 punches on heavy bag for 1 minute. Then elbow strikes for 1 minute. Strip off gloves. There's a table in front of you with 8 different 3x5 cards. Turn one over. There's a color combination on it (say, red, blue, green). Turn the card back over and look at targets. Find the targets that match your colors and shoot them (about 5 yards away). They're also partially covered up, representing a hostage. Make good shots.

We also did this test after lunch. That morning we'd had our quarterly PT test (1 1/2 mile run for time, max pullups, max pushups and situps in 1 minute). Needless to say we weren't all that fresh.

Hardest-

5 minute round of Bas Rutten's boxing workout. Someone was wearing chest protector and gloves and was our "dummy." After round was over, strip off boxing gloves and put on sims gear (mask, throat protector). Practice breaching one time. Once cleared, at table is a card. Turn it over. There's a math problem on it. Solve math problem (mine was 9 divided by 3). The answer tells you your target numbers. Shoot all targets with that number (3-7 yards away, depending on target). After shooting targets, role players will start popping up. React as threat dictates. If threat presents itself, deal with it. Some will pop up holding hair brushes, cell phones, etc. Try not to shoot them. Others will jump up and attack. Some with knives, some guns. Shocknife is the worst.

The last one was the hardest due to the judgment portions. Plus I suck at math. The next to the last was the hardest physically.

Great write up, thanx. I was considering some of the playing card related stuff too in the future. Now if I could just find that extra shock knife I had lying around...

 

[law dawg]

Great write up, thanx. I was considering some of the playing card related stuff too in the future. Now if I could just find that extra shock knife I had lying around...

Shocknife is no joke. People tend to not give enough respect to rubber knives. Pull that Shocknife out and hit the button, though, and people jump. They react and then some.

The cards are great because they demonstrate how difficult to think it is when stressed. Memory becomes problematic. As does simple math.

 

[Will Brink]

Shocknife is no joke. People tend to not give enough respect to rubber knives. Pull that Shocknife out and hit the button, though, and people jump. They react and then some.

No doubt's about that. Seems people take sims seriously also as they hurt like a bastard on uncovered areas. Some of the SOF guys I know use no face protection at all. Some ugly bruises I can tell you!

The cards are great because they demonstrate how difficult to think it is when stressed. Memory becomes problematic. As does simple math.

I have done the card thing, and done one with different colors balls (no jokes please!) placed under cups, that were re arranged, then you chose a cup to look under. Color you get is the targets you shoot at, etc. Really screws you up good. Specific to the match, probably not useful to these guys, but as a general training tool, very much in line with their job recs no doubt.

 

[Negotiator]

Will - do you cover any of the psychological issues of stress and decision making under pressure? Sounds like that would a useful to the SWAT folks - at least to give them an understanding of the basic underlying mechanisms and traps.

 

[Will Brink]

Will - do you cover any of the psychological issues of stress and decision making under pressure?

Not my area of expertise really. They're in the wrong line of work if they need to get that info from me

Sounds like that would a useful to the SWAT folks - at least to give them an understanding of the basic underlying mechanisms and traps.

No doubt! That would be more of a classroom lecture, that then might be tested on the range/in training to show practical applications to their job.

 

[Will Brink]

Excellent training! I love it when we do some sort of PT (get the heart rate up) and then shoot immediately. Makes it hard as hell, and is fairly close to mimicking the effects of adrenaline. We've had four different courses to date in this type of training, all of varying intensity.

Well done sir!

Here's is a short vid of the work that was done on week 2. Today was strong man style training, with 800lb tire flipping, alternating grip chin ups, sled dragging, and other movements designed to greatly improve the type of functional strength and endurance needed for the CT SWAT match, not to mention just good training for tactical LEO’s and SOF. Put this up on my photobucket account below

We did all that at my buddy John’s gym, Excel Sport & Fitness (1)

From there to the range. At the range, additional rotations of running approx half mile in full tac gear, going over 5ft wall, followed by shooting on the move Mozambique Drills and others. I didn't get any vid due to heavy rain however.

Nest week, we incorporate some of the work done in week one,(2) and week two, so it’s going to get considerably harder….yours truly is in the black polo shirt and tan cap

(1) http://www.excelstrength.com/

 

[Negotiator]

Not my area of expertise really. They're in the wrong line of work if they need to get that info from me



No doubt! That would be more of a classroom lecture, that then might be tested on the range/in training to show practical applications to their job.

I would be happy to provide the classroom lecture. My rate are reasonable

 

[Will Brink]

I would be happy to provide the classroom lecture. My rate are reasonable

I would be all to happy to pass on the info if you wish or can supply contact info .