Try to contact Eric Reid from this forun. He's an army guy and I think that his current handle is "EricMPro".

Good christ. All the Army is going to have is some busy, well intended folks that have advice circa 1960. He needs to look to the civilian world for useful info and support. The level of knowledge in the Army re. PT (physical training, not physical therapy) is farcical. There will be no useful Army resources re. fitness. The military medical system is mostly oriented and weeding out malingerers. It has no idea how to support an athlete. There are Army nutrition types, but they are rare, and the're oriented on fatbodies, and making powerpoint slides re. dining facility ops.

Re. bike fit. The Army isn't into "fit". I wouldn't trust them to make a recommendation re. shoe size, much less bike fit.

Most military folks in the DC area work long hours. Will likely be a challenge to find time to train. Don't expect anyone in uniform to have any clue at all as to what he's in to. That's a big deal because it means that boss, coworkers and subordinates won't be all that supportive. The idea of being obsessed by a hobby is outside of the experience of military types. Military types spend all their time doing military stuff so they aren't much for outside hobbies, much less something as obsessive as triathlon. It's not that they repress outside hobbies, it's just that the idea of having one is kind of outside of their world. They won't understand.

Those years that I wore green and simultaneously trained like crazy, were years that I had an easy job. There aren't too many easy jobs for folks dressed in green (tan?) so that kind of thing is a rarity.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Thanks for replying and insights. Thanks for your service. Did mine in '69-71.

Is this a US Army perspective?

Im a ex British Army PTI seems to be a whole world of difference, im prety sure any UK Army PTI could knock this bloke a training programme up that would complement the compulsery PT he'd be doing with his Platoon.

There are plenty of people in the DC area similar to him who have done what he wants to do. The best bet for him is to engage with the DC community and find someone who has.

It's not the Army perspective I work with on a daily basis. I'm Air Force stationed with the Army and have been shocked in the last 5 years at some of their initiatives to get past the PT mindset of years past in order to prevent injuries and build functional strength. Our unit has access to an exercise physiologist and a physical therapist all the time. I'd never expect the Army to fit me to a bike or write my training program, but they certainly don't inhibit my training. Long hours, but time dedicated to PT every day.

Bottom line: there's a vast spectrum of "Army" from shift jobs to guys who work 18+ hours a day and guys who avoid PT to guys who are pushing to KQ. If this guy had the initiative to go through Ranger school, he can train for a half using the assets available at work to augment his training, but they'll never provide all the appropriate training for him.

Jackets. Yes, it's a US Army perspective.

Friflorida. Certainly not all experiences will be exactly the same, but you are far more optimistic than I.
I could be told that my unit had access to an exercise physiologist and physical therapist "at all times", but I could then find that in order to actually spend 30min with them I'd have to go thru 3months of foolishness. I could make an appt a couple weeks out that would result only in me wasting half a day for a conversation with some youngster with a checklist. Passing thru that gate would allow me to make an appt a couple weeks out to see a doc. But that appt would get confused so I wouldn't see the doc for a month. Then I'd be told that the exercise physiologist is primarilly focused on <whatever> so isn't available. So I'd make a stink and badger enough folks to get an appt a month out. Once I see the guy I find that he's some fat doughy guy with some booklearning and has only very general answers to my specific questions. I leave the office, that it took me 3months to enter, thinking that the average experienced triathlete is vastly more knowledgeable about the things I care about, then the generic Army exercise physiologist.

I peaked in triathlon in the mid 90's. I was the top US finisher in the '94 triathlon military World Championships, yet the next year I couldn't get in to see an ortho to save my life. I pressed on my chain of command to help me out but they just had no life experience that could help them relate to "elite athlete. Competes internationally. Lets support him". I could see it in their eyes that they just did not understand.

Out of desperation I called up the Army guy that recruited me for the triathlon Worlds, because he ran the Army Olympic Training Team, or whatever they're called. The only way I got to see the Ortho was that guy in DC called the commander of my local medical facility to ask them if they could see their way fit to treating me different from the average malingerer. I then got 5min of Ortho time from a guy that was clearly pissed off to be late for his golf match. It took him that long to say "that's an odd place to have pain" and dismissed me. Over and over again I tried to get help, but it was all to no avail. There was wasn't enough WWW back then to figure it out myself. That was the end of me being a top amateur competitor, and yes, I'm bitter about it. 5yrs later, after I'd finally left active duty, a civilian ortho correctly diagnosed the problem as upper hamstring (insertional) tendonitus. Took that guy only a couple minutes of conversation to figure it out. In 5min the civilian ortho figured out my career ending problem that the Army medical system on 2 major bases couldn't diagnose in 4yrs, primarily because they couldn't be bothered.

The Army doesn't understand athletes. It's outside of their world.

That military medical system problem is only one of multiple stories. In '91 I was able to see an ortho only because he was a buddy of a buddy. He was convinced that the way to relieve my patella pain was to scrape the cartilage off of it's underside. Unless there was flat-ass no alternative, I wouldn't go to a military medical facility for a hangnail.

PT. If you're fit, Army PT is a complete waste time. All it does is make you grumpy and tire you out just enough to make it less likely you'll be motivated to do a real workout later in the day. So you lose 2hrs of sleep and go stand in the mud while the cold rain falls on you. You do a few pathetic exercises and then go jog a bit in formation. For someone highly motivated to seriously train, Army PT is torture. I was a company commander for 18months. I was determined to fix our farcical PT program. But the inertia of "complete waste of time PT" is so powerful that even small improvements require supervision so aggressive that you inevitably piss off most of the NCOs. And the moment you are gone, so are the improvements.

The pushback I got for my attempts to improve Army PT for my company went all the way up to the division commander. The Division Cmd Sgt Maj didn't like the way I had changed the company's running routine so got his boss, the Commanding General involved, who then called my boss. Sigh. That's Army PT.

Caveat. I left active duty in '98, and left the Guard/Reserve in '05 so all my doom and gloom is pretty outdated.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

IME, not much different than dealing with the civilian medical system. Most docs and pts aren't prepared to deal with athletes, just sick people.

The difference is that as a civilian, I'm not trapped into a single terrible bureaucracy that has no experience with athletes. If I have an fitness related issue, I can find an ortho, chiropractor, or physical therapist with an established reputation for treating athletes. In the civilian world there is no "Sorry CPT, but the MedAc Commander doesn't feel that your complaint warrants an appointment with the base Ortho. He's a busy guy."

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

So, RG's perspective was probably valid back in the Cold War mentality Army. Things are a lot different today. Sure, Army PT is still pretty easy if you are race fit. It is not designed to train you for a race. It is designed to get a Soldier to meet basic combat standards.

If your nephew is in DC, he will likely find plenty of military athletes. The Pentagon has a pool. Lots of people train during their lunch hours or before work. Most of the senior officers are very supportive of the staff officers/NCOs trying to keep very fit. Don't have him look to military resources for training advice, though. Have him look for other Service Members who train and race. There are a ton of them. He will find the time if he wants to do so.

BTW, my statement is from recent experience. Still in, still training, and still racing. My bosses are very supportive, especially after you show them the benefits of having a crazy amount of endurance.

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