Tag Archive for: Military

Craig Pickering

Craig Pickering’s top reads of 2025

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2025 was an interesting year for me from a reading perspective – I shifted to consuming more fiction books than ever before (more on this later). Overall, I started 34 books in 2025; this is less than my target of 52, but I think it reflects the stage of life I am at – with two young kids, it’s becoming increasingly common for me to fall asleep having read just a few pages. I’ve also got much better at stopping books that I’m not enjoying or don’t find relevant; when this happens, I can ask ChatGPT for a summary of the main topics, and get some podcasts from the author to understand the key arguments, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out. Below are my best reads from 2025 – hopefully you find some inspiration from them!

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Craig Pickering

Craig Pickering’s top reads of 2024

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As I wrote last year, I’m now the dad to two young girls, so finding time (and energy!) to read widely is becoming a challenge! Alongside this, I had the dual stressors of preparing a relay team to compete at the Olympic Games, and of being the Team Leader at the World Under-20 Championships. To provide some escapism from life, in 2024 I focused more on narrative non-fiction books, where I could get lost in the story as opposed of trying to focus on learning something specific. Fortunately, I did still manage to work my way through some more typical “learning” books, which provided some useful snippets for me to take into my professional life. Below, then, are my best picks from this year.

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Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 293: Inside the academy (with Taylor Lorbiecki)

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Coaching at a military academy presents some unique challenges. In addition to preparing athletes to compete at a high level in their sport, strength coaches are also involved in the physical education program, basic training, and more. On this week’s episode coach Taylor Lorbiecki joins us to talk about some of her creative solutions she’s implemented at the Air Force Academy.

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Craig Pickering

Sports Science Monthly – April 2020

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Every month we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. Coaches often turn to other fields to learn from and a recent trend is looking at the military. To start off this month’s edition we break down some of the key topics the US military is looking at in terms of enhancing performance. Then we look at athlete leadership, parental priorities for athletes, bias in injury prevention strategies, LTAD, and more. Read more

Mike Bahn

5 keys to a successful debrief

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A key component of a successful high performance program is the ability to identify obstacles that are limiting performance and then implementing solutions to overcome (or avoid) those obstacles. Regardless if you are an operator (an athlete or coach for example), director or in management, all are searching for processes to improve performance in an ethical and measurable manner. When such obstacles are clear and the resulting payoff of overcoming those obstacles in substantial, targeting such “low hanging fruit” should be an immediate goal. Read more

Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 113: The Stronghold (with Adam Kuehl)

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In some sense athletes have an easy job: what they need to do is defined by clear rules, which allows coaches to make a solid game plan and training plan. But what happens when you throw the rulebook away? On this week’s episode former world-class discus thrower Adam Kuehl talks about his transition to training soldiers in the special forces. How do you prepare for an uncertain environment? How do you got about preparing athletes mentally? Tune it to listen to these topics and more. Read more

Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 100: The Century

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It has been two years since we started the HMMR Podcast and for our 100th episode we decided to switch things up a little. Rather than discuss training, we’ve invited on previous guests Dan Pfaff, Gary Winckler, Derek Evely, and Glenn McAtee to discuss some of the passions that drive outside of coaching as well as how that might connect to coaching. Read more

Martin Bingisser

HMMR Podcast Episode 97: Extreme Ownership

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A central tenant of strong leadership is being invested in and taking ownership of your team’s tasks. Coaches are in a leadership role, but unfortunately not all coaches are strong leaders. This week’s episode looks at the book Extreme Ownership by former Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin and discusses what ownership means, what it is made of, and lessons coaches can use to improve their leadership. Read more