Enhanced Physical Readiness

The Enhanced Physical Readiness program originates from the Human Performance, Training and Education thrust ONR’s Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism Department, which aims at developing expeditionary warfighters who are physically, mentally and emotionally ready to deploy anywhere in the world on short notice. They will serve within their team or take on leadership roles as needed and complete their mission efficiently and effectively under any extreme conditions.

This program has three goals:

1. Adapt and develop physical conditioning strategies that minimize injury, maximize home station performance gains and enable sustainable physical performance throughout deployment
2. Develop nutritional and pharmacological methods for enabling optimal physical performance and recovery in extreme, austere environments
3. Develop and demonstrate modeling and simulation tools that enable acquisition professionals and unit commanders to evaluate mission performance impacts of equipment choices and distribution.

This program is unique in that it will address the need for scientifically valid, individually optimized physical conditioning programs that maximize resilience to injury while supporting all combat tasks under all conditions. This program will also provide advanced knowledge of physiological challenges related to thermal, altitude and fatigue-limiting factors. Finally, simulation-based decision aides will be developed to facilitate effective warfighter decision-making with regards to equipping and replenishment strategies and mission pacing.

There is a strong pull from both the Training and Education Command Physical Readiness Performance Office as well as the Program Management Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad for these knowledge products and decision-making aides. Although it is a young program, significant progress is already being made to identify biomarkers that predict heat stress, investigate supplements for decreasing fatigue, develop models to characterize the warfighter as a system, and much more.