By Rob Shaul, Founder
MTI engineers two types of fitness programming, Base Fitness and Mission/Event-Specific Fitness.
Base Fitness is the foundational fitness a tactical athlete needs to perform his job repeatedly, under fatigue, over time. The majority of a tactical athlete’s training year should be dedicated to building and maintaining Base Fitness. When programmed correctly, Base Fitness prepares the athlete for roughly 90% of mission-direct physical demands, and it becomes the foundation for mission/event-specific programming when a timeline and standard appear.
Just as important: Base Fitness is not general conditioning. Tactical occupations have repeatable demands that most “general fitness” programs ignore—high relative strength, sprint-repeat work capacity, loading tolerance, and chassis integrity chief among them.
Base Fitness is not identical across all tactical athletes. A patrol officer does not need the running and rucking endurance demanded by a Green Beret. A military diver cannot ignore swimming capacity. A wildland firefighter has an uphill movement demand that most tactical athletes will never touch.
The Tactical Base Fitness Attributes
Most tactical occupations share five major attributes: Relative Strength, Work Capacity, Chassis Integrity, Tactical Agility and different modes of Endurance.
Every tactical athlete needs the first three. Most tactical athletes need tactical agility. Endurance is always occupation-dependent, and it must match the mode demanded by the job.
Relative Strength
Relative strength is strength per bodyweight. Tactical athletes don’t need to be as strong as possible. Overemphasis on strength training comes at a cost of other required fitness attributes – especially endurance and work capacity. In terms of relative strength, what we’re after is the strength needed for job performance – with a focus on the “combat chassis” (legs and core), plus a strength “buffer” which helps greatly with durability. Are you strong enough? Take the MTI Relative Strength Assessment.
Work Capacity
High intensity, variable, relatively short (up to 30 minutes) physical efforts which most closely mirror the physical demands of the most intense tactical operations – i.e. fire fights, suspect apprehension, fire knockdowns, personnel rescue, etc. Work capacity is where it all comes together – Relative Strength, cardio, strength endurance, mental fitness. We use strength and conditioning and sport specific gym training to build horsepower (strength, sprint cardio) and staying power (strength endurance, mental fitness, endurance cardio) for work capacity development.
Sprinting ability, and repeat sprint conditioning, under kit load, is a primary work capacity fitness demand for tactical athletes. As we’ve evolved, our work capacity conditioning has become much more sport specific, and now sprints, shuttle sprints, and sprint repeats loaded and unloaded are a work capacity training mode of emphasis.
Chassis Integrity
Chassis Integrity is MTI’s functional core training methodology built around one principle: midsection strength only matters if it transfers to real-world performance outside the gym. The midsection is a “muscle barrel” that wraps around the spine and must transmit and resist force in every direction—flexing, extending, rotating, and locking down under load—so athletes can carry, lift, drag, and move heavy, awkward objects without collapsing or leaking power. Unlike old-school, ground-based core training that builds isolated strength without integration, Chassis Integrity trains the torso as the link between lower and upper body using standing and kneeling, load-bearing movements (often sandbag-based) that demand bracing, coordination, and durability under fatigue. Done in long, grind-style circuits, it develops both max-effort strength and strength endurance, protects the spine, and keeps athletes effective when tired—because in the field, the job is rarely a clean rep, it’s sustained performance under weight, instability, and stress.
Tactical Agility
MTI’s Tactical Agility is mission-direct movement training built to prepare tactical athletes for the unpredictable, high-stress movement demands of real operations—not sport-style agility drills. It trains the patterns most commonly required in fights, pursuits, rescues, and chaotic environments: sprinting from patrol pace, hard deceleration (“sprint-to-stop”), rapid level changes and position transitions (prone/kneeling/standing), obstacle avoidance and navigation, elevation changes, multiple crawling styles, and dragging while staying low. The goal is familiarization under realistic conditions, so athletes don’t face these movements for the first time in full kit during a real call-out. MTI achieves this using a small number of high-transfer drills that combine multiple movement demands in one evolution (ex: sandbag crawl, serpentine, 10/20/10 variations, shuttle + burpee box jump), then integrates them into warm-ups, fatigue-state mini-events, and work capacity sessions, sometimes with loaded implements (vest/ruck) where appropriate—prioritizing movement quality, control, and repeatable performance under fatigue over flashy speed.
Endurance – Rucking
Rucking endurance is mode-specific and essential for tactical athletes who must move under load for patrols, infil, approaches, and extended movements in kit. Because transfer from other endurance modes is limited, the best way to improve rucking performance is to ruck. We train it with two complementary methods: short, fast interval work to improve speed over ground, and long, steady efforts to build a ruck-specific aerobic base that makes the athlete’s “slow mode faster.” Beyond conditioning, rucking carries a major tactical/chassis strength demand—legs and midsection under load—and develops the joint and connective tissue durability (hips, knees, ankles) required to stay effective and unbroken during long, loaded movements.
Endurance – Running
Running endurance is included because it’s a foundational garrison fitness demand for many military and wildland firefighter environments, and it’s also a highly deployable endurance mode—simple, accessible, and requiring no equipment. While endurance is still mode-specific, we’ve found running to be the most transferable endurance baseto other tasks like rucking and uphill movement under load, making it valuable even for athletes who rarely move unloaded in the field. Running also complements ruck-based training by building aerobic capacity without the additional joint stress of load, allowing athletes to maintain and improve endurance while still supporting rucking performance and meeting run-heavy assessment requirements.
Endurance – Uphill
Uphill endurance is a base fitness demand for athletes whose job requires sustained climbing under load—especially Wildland Firefighters and Wilderness Professionals (rangers, game wardens, backcountry responders), and to a lesser extent urban firefighters working stairwells in high-rise suppression. This mode is highly specific: it’s not just “cardio,” but graded movement under bodyweight + kit, where legs, lungs, and chassis are forced to work together while fatigue accumulates. We train uphill endurance with both short, hard uphill intervals to build speed and surge capacity, and long, steady uphill efforts to develop a durable aerobic base and the strength endurance needed to keep climbing efficiently without breaking posture or pace.
Endurance – Swimming
Swimming endurance is mission-direct for water-based tactical athletes, and it’s trained the same way we train rucking: a blend of speed-over-ground intervals for performance and long, steady efforts to build a swim-specific aerobic base. Because the mission often includes fins and dive work, a meaningful portion of swim endurance training should be done in fins to maintain the hip flexors and lower legs for SCUBA demands. The goal is simple: repeatable, efficient movement in the water—fast when needed, and durable over distance and time.
The Six Types of Tactical Athletes
1) Tactical Land
Who they are:
Land-based tactical athletes whose mission sets include sustained movement under load and endurance under volume. This includes Army and Marine infantry and SOF units without a water-based mission set. It also includes rural/open-country tactical law enforcement teams—like Border Patrol BORTAC deployed to remote areas—where mission sets can involve extended movement and rucking.
Base Fitness emphasis:
Tactical Land athletes fail under load and over time. When their fitness breaks, it breaks on long movements, sustained efforts, and repeated exposure to heavy kit.
Base Fitness demands:
•Relative Strength
•Work Capacity (multi-mode, sprint-repeat bias)
•Chassis Integrity
•Tactical Agility
•Running Endurance
•Rucking Endurance
2) Tactical Water
Who they are:
Tactical athletes whose job includes water-based mission demands—tactical or rescue—and therefore requires swimming fitness. This includes Navy SEALs, Air Force CCT/PJs, MARSOC, Marine Raiders, and other units with real water requirements. It can also include law enforcement and Homeland Security teams with maritime or rescue obligations.
For Tactical Water athletes, the pool, open water, and fins are not optional. These athletes can’t “get away with” swapping swim fitness for rowing or assault bike work. They need real, mode-specific swimming endurance.
Base Fitness demands:
•Relative Strength
•Work Capacity
•Chassis Integrity
•Tactical Agility
•Running Endurance
•Rucking Endurance
•Swimming Endurance
3) Full-Time SWAT / SRT (Urban)
Who they are:
Full-time urban tactical teams with little to no rucking requirement. SWAT/SRT demands are typically short-duration, high-output, and chaotic. This population lives in the hard minutes: sprinting, lunging, fighting, dragging, hauling, climbing, reacting, and recovering quickly.
Base Fitness demands:
•Relative Strength
•Work Capacity
•Chassis Integrity
•Tactical Agility
•Running Endurance (short-duration emphasis)
4) Law Enforcement Patrol / Detective
Who they are:
Patrol officers, deputies, detectives, and corrections officers. Front-line law enforcement officers share the base tactical requirements: they need relative strength, work capacity, chassis integrity, and tactical agility. Their job regularly demands sudden pursuit, physical confrontation, and the ability to stay effective under adrenal fatigue.
These athletes do not require long endurance. But they do benefit from short running endurance—two miles or less—because shorter threshold intervals (400-800m repeats) transfer directly to suspect pursuit demands.A practical example: a one-mile assessment paired with 400-meter threshold intervals not only improves the run score, it also trains a mission-direct distance.
There is also one demand here that matters in a way it does not for most tactical athletes: Upper-body mass and presence can influence deterrence. A bigger chest and arms can change how a criminal approaches an interaction before a fight ever begins.
Base Fitness demands:
•Relative Strength
•Work Capacity
•Chassis Integrity
•Tactical Agility
•Short-Distance Running Endurance (≤ 2 miles)
•Upper-Body Hypertrophy
5) Law Enforcement Corrections
Who they are:
Full-time Corrections Officers working at city and county jails, and state and federal prisons. They share the relative strength, work capacity, chassis integrity, tactical agility, and upper body hypertrophy Base Fitness demands with LE Patrol and Detectives. However, their job has no real extended running fitness demand, so no need for programmed endurance. Short sprint distance can be trained via work capatiy and tactical agility.
As well, the nature of Correctional Officer work and the hands-on handling of inmates creates a required Base Fitness training attribute for grip strength training beyond what other tactical athletes build through strengh, work capacity and chassis integity work.
Base Fitness demands:
•Relative Strength
•Work Capacity
•Chassis Integrity
•Tactical Agility
•Upper-Body Hypertrophy
•Grip Strength
6) Urban Fire Rescue
Who they are:
Urban and town-based firefighters deploying from fire houses. Urban firefighters carry more load than many realize. Bunker gear plus breathing apparatus can weigh upwards of fifty pounds—and heavier when wet. They also face short-duration, high-output events under urgency, followed by prolonged incidents with incomplete recovery.
Depending on their environment, firefighters may also have a stair-climbing endurance demand—especially in larger cities.
One Base Fitness demand unique to Urban Firefighters is extended, moderate-pace multi-modal stamina. A unique element of fighting urban fire is the limitations of the breathing aparatus. Urban Firefighters must moderate their physical exertion to perserve the air they have in their SCBA bottle. If they run out of air because they are unfit, or pushing too hard, they must remove themselves from the fire to replace their air bottle.
As a result, veteran firefighters know to moderate their pace, and control their breathing to perserve their air. This fire fighting at a moderate-pace on a large, complicated fire, can extend to hours with multiple 15-30 minute extended, moderate pace, multi-modal efforts with short breaks between to repace air bottles. We call this fitness demand a Multi-Modal Grind, and it’s one of the Base Fitness attributes we program for urban firefighters.
Base Fitness demands:
•Relative Strength
•Work Capacity
•Chassis Integrity
•Tactical Agility
•Short-Distance Running Endurance (≤ 3 miles)
•Stair Climbing Endurance under load
•Multi-Modal Grinds
7) Wildland Fire & Wilderness / Backcountry Professionals
Wildland firefighters and wilderness/backcountry professionals—rangers, field biologists, game wardens—have endurance demands that many tactical athletes never touch.
Their work requires extended uphill hiking under load, long movement days, and constant trunk strength under fatigue. Their endurance is also terrain-dependent: uneven ground, sustained climbs, unstable footing, and long durations matter.
Unlike urban tactical populations, these athletes do not typically require true tactical agility—hard change-of-direction, level changes, and pursuit-based movement in kit. They do, however, require movement skill, balance, and awareness on rough terrain. That is not best trained through “tactical agility drills.” It is trained through smart endurance exposure, chassis integrity, and real-world movement under load.
Base Fitness demands:
•Relative Strength
•Work Capacity
•Chassis Integrity
•Trail Running Endurance
•Rucking Endurance
•Uphill Hiking Under Load
Summary
The goal here isn’t about building a perfect taxonomy. The aim is to present training focus for tactical athletes, and preventing wasted training. Too many tacfical athletes under-train because their programming is misaligned. They are training hard—but not training professionally for the mission-direct fitness demands of their job.
If tactical athletes train the wrong endurance mode, they don’t get better at the right one. If they avoid rucking because unit physical therapists say it’s “dangerous,” they get injured when rucking becomes unavoidable. If they train like a general fitness athlete, they stay generally fit—and professionally unprepared.
Base Fitness should match the mission-direct demands of the tactical job.
Questions You May Have
1) Why classify tactical athletes at all?
Tactical fitness is not one job. There are shared demands across the tactical world, but there are also critical differences. If you don’t separate athlete types, you’ll either train everyone like a military athlete and waste time, or train everyone like patrol and under-prepare them, or train everyone like SWAT and ignore endurance realities.
2) Why train Base Fitness most of the year?
Most tactical work doesn’t come with seasons. Most tactical athletes need to be capable year-round, not just at a peak window. Base Fitness is what keeps them ready for unknown demands without burning them out.
3) Why separate Work Capacity and Endurance?
Because they show up differently and fail differently. Work capacity is high-output effort (generally 30 minutes or less) or repeated efforts with incomplete recovery. It matters most in the most dangerous moments: pursuit, movement under fire, fights, rescues, and high task density.
Endurance is sustained effort over longer durations. It matters when time becomes the stressor: long movements, prolonged incidents, extended operations, long days. Both matter. They are not interchangeable.
4) Why include upper-body hypertrophy for patrol/corrections?
Deterrence matters for these tactical athletes. Presence changes behavior. Bigger, stronger-looking officers are often treated differently before the fight starts. This doesn’t replace fitness or skill, but it’s real-world leverage—and Base Fitness programming should acknowledge it.
5) Doesn’t deterence also matter for Military Athletes? Why not train upper body hypertrophy for them?
Not in the intimate way is does for Law Enforcement who often work in groups of just 1 or 2. Military athletes work in larger groups, and their numbers have a deterence effect. As well, excess upper body mass negatively impacts military athlete endurance as it’s just extra weight added to their already significant equipment-based load carriage requirements (body army, ammo, med kits, radios, rucks, bivy gear, etc.)
6) What if I’m between categories?
Then program for your most likely demands—not the most extreme ones. If you’re rural patrol and regularly operate in the backcountry, your endurance needs may resemble Tactical Land more than Urban Patrol. That isn’t a contradiction. It’s honest job analysis.
7) What if I’m patrol but also on a part-time SWAT team?
Train for your primary job demands first. Follow patrol/detective Base Fitness, then pivot into event-specific SWAT prep when selections, schools, or training cycles demand it.
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Questions, Comments, Feedback? Email rob@mtntactical.com
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