Just as any athletic team can benefit from sport-specific training, tactical professionals can benefit from occupational task-specific training as well. Combining pushing, pulling, pressing, and total body movements into complexes may help mimic the demands and movements of job tasks that tactical personnel may encounter.

Tactical professionals are often met with jobs that require long periods of sedentary time. This article provides practical strategies for how to minimize the negative impact of chronic sitting for the tactical professional.

Chronic fatigue, stress, sleep deprivation, unhealthy diets, and pain can be commonplace in most departments. The tactical facilitator should try to keep their action plans simple and achievable to help prevent injuries and optimize performance.

From the 2019 Tactical Annual Training, Rob Orr, co-lead of Bond University’s Tactical Research Unit, explains how the backs of tactical personnel can be compromised. He also details the systems that affect the back and how to construct programs to optimize physical conditioning and reconditioning.

Cal Dietz, Head Olympic Strength and Conditioning Coach for the University of Minnesota, explains how training is a process that takes time. He shares his insight into the most applicable adaptation and the most effective applications for tactical performance at the 2019 NSCA Tactical Annual Training.

Tactical operators face many challenges in relation to their job and need to be able to move optimally in order to avoid injuries. The tools provided in this article may assist in helping to develop the ability to improve thoracic mobility in tactical operators.

From a strength and conditioning perspective, how should a tactical athlete be reintegrated when they return to a kinetically operational workplace after time away?

In this session from the 2015 NSCA TSAC Conference, Matt Wenning explains the sumo deadlift, a foundational exercise for maximal strength development and a tool that is essential to the tactical population due to its movement pattern. The ability to learn proper technique and progressions with this exercise can help to improve a tactical athlete’s performance and decrease the likelihood of injury because it trains major muscle groups and multiple joints at the same time.

Jon Carlock, MS, CSCS, *D, spoke at the 2013 TSAC Conference about pulling movements for the tactical athlete.