MTI’s Law Enforcement Athlete Programming Philosophy

By Rob Shaul, Founder

When I started my gym in 2007 the intent wasn’t to train tactical athletes. The goal was to design professional-grade programming for mountain guides, ski mountaineers, and alpinists who lived, worked and played in Jackson, Wyoming. The existing strength and conditioning models — bodybuilding, CrossFit, traditional strength work — did not transfer to the demands of mountain sports. None prepared athletes for steep ascents under load, long-duration fatigue, or eccentric control on the descent.

From that problem came MTI’s first programming framework — the First Principles:

Identify the fitness demands of the mission or event.
Identify the exercises that best train those demands.
Define the end-state performance goals.
Reverse-engineer progressions to achieve those goals.
Test, assess, and refine through direct application.

In 2009, as U.S. troops with deployment orders to Afghanistan reached out to me for help preparing. Their pre-deployment PT had failed. They could not move efficiently in the mountains, carry their load, and sustain effort day after day. Afghanistan’s mountain patrols were smoking them.

The result was the Afghanistan Pre-Deployment Training Plan — a six-week program built from mountain programming principles: step-ups, Leg Blasters, sandbag get-ups, shuttle sprints, and rucking progressions. It was designed to be completed anywhere, by any soldier with minimal equipment. Thousands of service members and dozens of battalions used the plan before heading downrange.

Soon after, Patrol Officers, Federal Agents and full time SWAT/SRT members began reaching out to me to design programming for Law Enforcement Athletes. I started with Base Fitness (day-to-day) programming, which soon expanded to event-specific programming for PFTs, Academies, and SWAT/SRT selections.

Law Enforcement Athlete Fitness Demands

High Relative Strength

The ability to move one’s body and load efficiently. Relative Strength is strength per bodyweight. MTI’s tactical strength programming emphasizes the legs, hips, and core — the “combat chassis.” Excess mass is a liability; functional strength is an asset. Relative dStrength forms the base of all other fitness attributes.

Work Capacity

The ability to sustain short, high-intensity efforts under load. This includes firefights, breaching, casualty movement, and high-output tasks that blend power, cardio, and mental composure. Work capacity training is where strength and endurance converge under pressure. For LE Athletes, our work capacity programming prioritizes sprinting and sprint repeats.

Endurance

Short endurance (1-3 mile running) for Patrol/Detectives and longer endurance, including rucking for full-time SWAT/SRT.

Tactical Agility

Combat movement is unpredictable, loaded, and directional. MTI’s Tactical Agility framework develops tactical agility — acceleration, deceleration, and redirection under load — built for combat, not sport.

Chassis Integrity

Chassis Integrity is MTI’s proprietary functional core strength and strength and endurance training methodology. No one trains the mid section like MTI. Chassis Integrity prioritizes movement patterns – extension, flextion, rotation and anti-rotation – over muscles. Exercises are done primarily from standing or kneeling to “integrate” the full “combat chassis” – thighs to shoulders, into the training. Core training isn’t an afterthought at MTI, it’s consiciously programmed every cycle and shares equal important with strength, endurance and work capacity.

Upper-Body Hypertrophy

Only for Patrol/Detectives … upper body mass (big chest and arms) can be a powerful deterrent for bad guys.

Stamina & Durability

The best thing fitness programming can do to protect a tactical athletes from injury is to make him or her physically-fit for the mission-direct fitness demands of the sport. Injuries happen when the mission demands 4,000 feet of vertical climbing and descent with a 50-pound pack and the athlete hasn’t trained for it. MTI programming is engineered to prepare you for the specific fitness demands of your mountain sport or event, and in doing so, make you durable. Fitness = Armor.

The ability to recover and maintain performance across long events or repeated efforts. Stamina includes both physical recovery and what we call attitude stamina — the ability to keep moving, stay composed, and maintain tactical focus when physically depleted.

Mission-Direct Programming

MTI’s LE Athlete programming is mission-direct: built from the demands of the job backward.

We do not design for entertainment or aesthetics. Every session, circuit, and progression must transfer to performance outside the gym. We train for movement under load, performance under stress, and recovery under fatigue.

Strength is foundational. We build it with classic barbell lifts, strongman implements, bodyweight movements and sandbags. Core training is integrated, not isolated — developed through MTI’s Chassis Integrity methodology, which blends total-body, rotational, and anti-rotational strength from standing and kneeling positions.

Endurance and work capacity are treated as separate but complementary systems. Running, rucking, and for certain operators, swimming, are trained as distinct modes, each with targeted progressions for aerobic base, interval speed, and connective tissue strength.

Our Fluid Periodization model allows multiple fitness attributes to be trained simultaneously in our base fitness programming. Strength, endurance, work capacity, chassis integrity and tactical agility are built and developed together, adjusted by operational season and training cycle. Random training has no place here.

The Burden of Constant Fitness

LE Athletes don’t have an offseason. Their readiness must be constant. This “burden of constant” fitness is factored into MTI LE programming.

We design training that builds and sustains readiness over time, cycling intensity and emphasis to prevent burnout and maintain progress. Recovery weeks and variations in focus — from strength to endurance to chassis work — are programmed deliberately.

This structure preserves not only physical performance but long-term motivation. It ensures LE operators can maintain mission readiness year-round without compromising durability or the training becoming stale.

Research, Testing, and Evolution

MTI is a strength and conditioning research lab, not a commercial fitness brand.

Every plan we publish is tested in-house by MTI coaches and athletes before it reaches the field. We test what we write. We iterate on what we learn. Over one hundred in-house studies have been conducted measuring programming effectiveness and transfer to mission performance.

Field feedback from operators, units, and leaders informs every update. Many of our cornerstone plans — including the FBI SA PFT Plan and others are now in their fourth or fifth versions. Each iteration refines the programming, sharpens the method, and increases its direct applicability.

Programming at MTI is not fixed. It is an evolving craft — continually tested, revised, and improved.

2 Types of Programming, 2 Ways to Purchase

We have two types of programming: (1) “Base Fitness” and (2) Event-Specific Fitness.

“Base Fitness” is our day-to-day programming for LE athletes who aren’t training for a specific event or mission – like a selection, PFT or deployment. MTI’s Base Fitness programming and plans for military athletes concurrently trains strength, work capacity, endurance (run, ruck), chassis integrity and tactical agility and is designed to meet 90% of a Patrol Officer’s or SWAT operator’s mission-direct fitness demands.

MTI’s “Event-Specific” fitness programming is laser-focused on preparing the athlete for the fitness demands of a specific event such as a PFT or selection (SWAT). Event-Specific programming is designed to “peak” the military athlete’s fitness for the event and ideally is completed in the weeks directly before.

Finally, there are two ways to purchase access our programming.

Purchase and Individual Training Plan (see links above)
Subscribe. With a Subscription you get access to our daily training sessions for Military, Law Enforcement, Fire Rescue, General Fitness and Mountain Athletes, as well as access to 450++ Individual Training Plans and 8 daily programming streams.

The MTI Ethos

Mission first. Every rep must serve performance outside the gym.
Craftsmanship. Programming is built, tested, and refined, not copied.
Accountability. We test every plan ourselves.
Rapid Iteration. If it doesn’t work, we change it.
Quiet professionalism.

Questions?
Don’t know where to Start? Looking for a specific plan or guidance for a goal?
Please email me directly, rob@mtntactical.com. I personally answer dozens of athlete questions weekly.

MTI’s Law Enforcement Athlete Programming Philosophy

Law Enforcement Athlete Fitness Demands

The Burden of Constant Fitness

Research, Testing, and Evolution

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