The H2F System is comprised of five critical elements: governance, program, equipment and facilities, personnel, and leader education.
These elements are essential to the future success of Army readiness. They ensure and sustain Soldier readiness.
These elements are driven by three governing principles:
- Optimization
- Individualization
- Immersion
This chapter discusses the principles and elements of the H2F System.
The H2F System formalizes the way the Army trains, develops, and cares for Soldiers.
This shift marks a change that will continue to evolve over the next twenty to thirty years.
The H2F System builds both the underlying capability and capacity within the Soldier.
Similar to professional athletes, Soldiers will optimize their individual performance potential and well-being by becoming stronger, faster, and more ready in both the physical and nonphysical domains.
Stronger individuals ultimately produce stronger teams.
It integrates the domains of H2F into tactics, techniques, and procedures that represent a cultural shift from a focus on physical readiness to an expanded readiness paradigm that includes how Soldiers think, feel, and interact with their environment.
An understanding of the Soldier has always been essential in the history of warfare.
This doctrine describes the system of training and testing that prepares the Soldier for 21st century warfare.
The H2F System directs the training of the whole Soldier—the body and the brain—using the most modern and best methods.
This doctrine explains the “how” and the “why” of the Army’s approach to developing Soldier readiness—the foundation of every unit’s ability to deliver overmatch on the battlefield.
It combines the sciences of health and fitness with the art of coaching and mentoring for individual program development, goal setting, motivation, and team building—the capabilities that provide the basis for collective proficiency.
Commanders and other leaders ensure adherence to H2F doctrine through unit training plans and the priorities and execution of collective training to maximize the operational readiness of the unit.
The principles that drive the H2F System are optimization, individualization, and immersion.
OPTIMIZATION
Optimization of the training program leads to the most rapid improvement in foundational Soldier readiness in the initial phase and the building of high levels operational readiness in the sustaining phase.
Throughout a Soldier’s career, optimal programming has the secondary effect of preventing degradation in performance and behavior that might negatively impact readiness.
H2F doctrine recognizes that Soldier readiness depends on the proper combinations of physical fitness (such as strength, speed, and endurance) and foundational health (such as the cardiovascular, respiratory, immune, and hormonal systems) that are optimized through careful attention to nutritional readiness, mental readiness, spiritual readiness, and sleep readiness.
Nutrition—the food, beverages, and supplements in a Soldier’s diet—provides the nutrients needed to meet the physical demands of training and combat.
Soldiers must also maintain mental readiness—the exceptional mental flexibility and endurance, outstanding self-initiative and superior judgment required in combat.
Spiritual readiness supports individual and collective readiness as Soldiers negotiate challenging moral and ethical situations in training or operational environments.
Finally, proper sleep sustains brain function, cognition (thought processing), the immune system, and recovery after physical activity.
INDIVIDUALIZATION
For most of its history, the Army has used an industrial-scale approach to physically train its formations.
The optimal physical fitness of the individual was constrained by the need to raise the fitness of the whole.
H2F doctrine shifts the focus to individualized training programs with continuance of training in a collective setting.
From 2020, the Army will train the whole of each individual Soldier to ensure the readiness of the Army.
The H2F System supports that approach with expert H2F performance teams, equipment, and facilities.
It uses the best exercise science and best coaching practices to assess each Soldier and customize to his or her needs.
Each Soldier, regardless of physical condition, has his or her own program.
A periodized, purposeful physical training program implemented across the enterprise allows Soldiers to move from one duty station to another without interruption in their readiness training progression.
Training schedule development for individual Soldiers and units is a complex process.
Several variables impact the ability to apply one training schedule across all of the Army.
These variables include how units fill, the length of the training cycle, time until deployment, cadre-to-Soldier ratios, shift work, availability of H2F personnel, equipment and facilities, military occupational specialty (MOS)-specific training, and environmental (austere, hot, cold, and seasonal) considerations.
The H2F System will provide the best training approaches to accommodate these variables and implement rational, optimized programs.
IMMERSION
Immersive programming owned by and delivered in the unit builds cohesion, ésprit de corps, and trust.
Within a standardized system (where unit readiness resources and outcomes are similar across the enterprise), different unit needs drive variations in the training program to meet the demands of resource constraints, organizational changes, and new mission sets.
H2F doctrine links physical and mental training domains, and does so in a system staffed and equipped at levels equivalent to those found in elite performance settings.
The facilities, equipment, personnel, and leader education elements described in this doctrine make the performance readiness training experience an immersive one.
Immersive training makes the best choice the only choice.
It provides the most comprehensive pathway to optimize lethality and ensure overmatch in multi-domain operations.