Research

By Rob Shaul We are pleased to officially announce the development of the Mountain Tactical Institute. The Mountain Tactical Institute (MTI) is the research and development arm of Strong Swift Durable, and represents our continued effort to provide innovative, thought leading solutions to mountain and tactical professionals. MTI’s research initiatives will include human performance but also expand […]

  By Dr. Kristen Ouellette and Rob Shaul The goal of our Ruck Deep Dive waa to develop the most effective, efficient, and least impactful methodology to train for rucking performance. Key to developing this methodology is identifying what fitness and other attributes have the most impact on rucking performance. Going into this pilot study, we […]

  By Dr. Kristen Ouellett and Rob Shaul   We developed The Alpinist Project  as a physiological and fitness testing tool for high level and professional alpinists. The tests occurred over two days, with the physiological testing day 1, and Alpinist Fitness Assessment on Day 2. Five athletes were tested; four men and one woman. […]

By Rob Shaul Several studies have been conducted on Firefighters’ work-related fitness demands. Below is a summary of some of the more interesting findings.   Which Fitness Assessments Translate Best to Job-Related Tasks? In 2004 researchers at Arizona State University partnered with the Phoenix Fire Department to identify which fitness assessments best predicted performance on […]

By Rob Shaul Our Ruck Deep Dive work has continued this past month. We’ve conduced VO2 Max tests unloaded, and loaded (45 pounds and 60 pounds) with five lab rats and have some very preliminary findings based on this limited, non-scientific work: Athletes with high aerobic fitness do well on short, hard event Athletes with […]

By Rob Shaul There has been little research completed on mountain athletes in general and even less on “Alpinists.” We will work to change that over two days of testing in May or early June and are naming this effort “The Alpinist Project.” We’re starting with two studies. The first study focuses on professional and […]

  By Rob Shaul   Background With this Mini-Study, we were interested in developing the most efficient method for rapidly egressing from a patrol vehicle to get into a firing/protective position. Think of a patrol officer having to exit his vehicle to return fire and/or give chase. We want to take a deep dive on […]

by Jordan Smothermon In the previous report three weeks into our study, we outlined the stark risks female adolescent athletes face in suffering knee injuries, causes of these risks, and the methodology and reasoning of our Athena training program. Now, after completing 6 weeks, a final reassessment and analysis of the results are being conducted. […]

By Jordan Smothermon   We’ve begun investigating the relationship between strength and strength endurance required for different types of holds in climbing. Our question was simple: does the strength endurance for one type of hold correlate to another type of hold?   Mini-Study Design In our first investigation of a small sample size, we looked […]

By Rob Shaul In November 2015, I began working with two groups of alpinists on pure climbing events. I designed “event-specific” training plans for each, including initial assessments, and this started me thinking about what an “Alpinist Fitness Assessment” would look like. By “Alpinist” I’m speaking here in terms of an athlete who climbs high, […]