It is obvious why high-level athletes have a team of professionals helping them achieve their goals and allowing them to stay on top of their game for as long as possible. They are reliant on their physical, mental, and emotional abilities and therefore seek guidance and support from strength coaches, psychologists, nutritionists, therapists, athletic trainers, and more.  At the highest levels, no stone is left unturned and no resource is denied in hopes of a winning outcome.

This begs the question, how do we best care for the people who are protecting us? How do we ensure that the small percentage of people who are willing to risk it all to save our lives and property are properly trained, treated, rehabilitated, and educated so that they can not only have long, prosperous careers but meaningful and fulfilling lives? Are they worthy of the same types of resources that are provided to athletes? At Work Right, we believe the answer is a resounding “YES!!” 

“Tactical Athletes are those uniformed men and women who serve our communities and nation in the realms of law enforcement, firefighting, emergency services, and military operations. They are ordinary people who at a moments notice must be capable of responding to extraordinary situations”

While their athletic abilities may not be on par with the elite athlete in sports, the outcome of their performance is often dire and always more important. Their physical and mental health should be treated with at least the same voracity that we give traditional athletes.

I’m extremely excited to be joining the Work Right team to help lead their efforts towards caring for tactical athletes. As a former US Army Captain who had the opportunity to deploy to Iraq and serve our great country, I feel a strong pull to help establish programs caring for those who continue to serve us. 

The US military is actually leading the way on this. For a long time, the Special Operations section of the military has had human performance resources on par with those found in professional sports. Now, the military is beginning to apply these same resources to the regular units as well. This is the direction Work Right wants to lead the civilian sector towards.  We aim to provide the most intelligent, lean, and effective programming possible for departments employing civilian emergency responders. The reality is that the civilian sector will have to do much more with much less when compared to federally backed military units, but we will not settle for less in terms of outcomes. 

More is not always better when it comes to delivering excellent care and resources. Applying proactive tracking and analytics allows for the application and deployment of resources that are needed and not excess is paramount.  Throwing expensive human resources at issues not relevant to individual departments is a problem in and of itself.  We aim to identify and provide everything that is needed and nothing that is not. 

This year has really shown how much we rely on tactical athletes, emergency responders specifically, to keep us safe while dealing with a widespread health crisis and incredible civil unrest. The physical toll on these men and women is great, the mental stress is incredible. We owe it to those who sacrifice so much for so little to be as proactive as possible and reactive when necessary to provide the best physical and mental health services available. We can and must do better and the team at Work Right is looking forward to pushing the industry forward.

Kyle Sela, DPT, OCS, SCS, FRR, CSCS