Page 96 - Mind, Body & Spirit Number 104 2020/21

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The new Common Military Syllabus (CMS) 21 has now been fully trialled at the Army Training Centre Pirbright (ATCP) since October 2020 and will go ‘live’ as of April 2021. How does the new CMS differ from the old one? CMS21 will be in line with and completely adhere to the Army Physical Training System (APTS) whilst using industry innovation to empower both the instructors and recruits with the aim of producing a better recruit to Initial Trade Training (ITT).
The underpinning lines to take from Commander Initial Training Group was to develop a Soldier that ‘Joins well, Trains well and leaves well’ and for the P&RTC staff who developed the Physical Development (PD) element of CMS21 the start point was; the second that the potential recruit was successful at their relevant Assessment Centres (AC), to the end point when they subsequently leave Basic Training (BT) and move onto ITT.
Join Well
Pre - conditioning programme – A training gap was identified from when the potential recruit was successful at their AC and the period between starting BT. This is a PD programme that has been designed to provide preconditioning in the areas most susceptible to injury, mainly the hips, knees and ankle joints whilst developing a base level of aerobic endurance. The programme is an extension to the 14-week physical training plan that will be delivered during BT and will be accessible to all successful AC potential recruits via the DLE.
Pre-Learning Package – The pre-learning package is a series of low-level PowerPoint presentations designed to better inform and therefore empower the potential recruits in areas of PD. The reliance is on the users ‘thirst for knowledge’ and coupled with the pre-conditioning package will hopefully deliver a better recruit to BT establishments. The pre-learning package is accessible as a link within the pre-conditioning package.
Train Well
Wearable tech - The Oura Ring is a wedding-band-like sleep tracker that also collects various biometrics, the associated app uses this data to build three scores: Sleep, Activity, and Readiness. When used in conjunction with the competence app it allows the AAPTIs to see the following data: activity, distance travelled, intensity, sleep, step count and heart rate. Pre-armed with this information it empowers the AAPTI to make slight changes to a lesson to better individualise the recruits experience, whilst also ensuring the various KLPs are met.
Competence App - The competence app has recently been introduced into the 3rd CMS21 trial pilot, this has been incorporated into PD sessions to assess performance, signs of progress and to closely monitor health metric data with the latter being the responsibility of the empowered recruit to input of an evening. This app allows you to understand an individual’s performance on a larger scale thus allowing the AAPTI to understand the bigger picture of nutrition, sleep and all aspects of health and wellbeing that can influence optimal performance.
The ability of the app to offer a scoring system in PD lessons has allowed instructors to quickly asses an individual’s level of proficiency and any areas for improvement. By doing this we can then streamline the levels of ability into specific groups, this then gives us to time to focus on the individuals that may need the extra coaching.
Prowise - By implementing the Prowise technology it has not only been beneficial for the instructors, but also a great incentive for the recruits. The Prowise can be utilised as a 4IC, while time is spent demonstrating a movement pattern, a group of recruits can observe the same movement on the Prowise board therefore taking into account different learning styles. These informative videos highlight the muscle groups, and a slow breakdown on how to conduct the movement. By the time that the instructor arrives with this group to teach them, time can be utilised to perfect the movement. Looking at the benefits for recruits, the Prowise can aid as pre and post learning device. Before any strength and conditioning lesson, the recruit can study all the movement patterns, which will be covered
Leave Well
Data Collection – An area was identified within CMS 18, the previous training syllabus, that summative testing although recorded internally to the centre and onto FISS, the recruit did not have this data personally available to them to be able to better inform ITT. It was decided that as part of CMS21 not only normal summative testing data would be recorded but extra data would be also such as, strength scores and maximal aerobic speed distances. This data would not only be recorded on FISS where applicable, but the recruit would leave with their information so that not only ITT would be better informed but the recruit felt more empowered.
ARMY TRAINING CENTRE (PIRBRIGHT) COMMON MILITARY SYLLABUS 21
Sgt (SI) R Davies RAPTC
Pre-conditioning/Learning Programme