Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Treat Aviators Like Athletes: Human Performance and the OODA Loop | Kevin Bernstein, MD
Description
Where does recovery fit in the plan, brief, execute, debrief cycle? CAPT (Sel.) Kevin Bernstein, MD, is building human performance optimization into naval aviation to answer it.
Bernstein is the Navy sports medicine physician building a human performance program for naval aviation at Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic, after tours with Naval Special Warfare Group Two and Navy football. Fifteen commodores signed a requirements letter asking for the program. His picture is simple: an aviator coming off a demanding flight might conduct their debrief in compression boots, a massage chair, or a sauna, the same way a quarterback who ran the triple option ends up in the training room.
Trey Warren, PhD supplies the problem. After a hard landing, maintenance inspects the jet. Nobody inspects the crew. Retired Rear Admiral Mark Leavitt notes that an aviator's medical record at retirement runs about an inch thick, against three or four inches for everyone else. At Training Air Wing Six, the human performance team can keep an aviator flying and has no authority to down one.
Brian "Ponch" Rivera hears representative design in Bernstein's platform-specific training, lines up plan, brief, execute, debrief against the flow cycle, and argues naval aviation already owns the playbook. Clips from Guido Bernacchi on chair flying, Kegan Gill on G and helmet load, Mark "Slider" Keller, and Cynthia Fluck.
Also covered: alcohol as a readiness threat, sleep and crew rest, nutrition, spine preservation and Pilates, creatine, moving away from anti-inflammatories, and why psychedelic-assisted therapy deserves study.
KEVIN BERNSTEIN, MD
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbernsteinmd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/navysportsdoc/
Stay connected with No Way Out and AGLX
X: @NoWayOutcast | @PonchAGLX
AGLX: https://www.aglx.com/no-way-out/