Registration is open for an Association of the U.S. Army Hot Topic on holistic health and fitness.
Scheduled for Dec. 4 at AUSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, the theme for the daylong Hot Topic is “The Foundations of Holistic Health and Fitness.”
Featuring a keynote address from Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus, the event will delve into how the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness program is changing the culture of fitness across the force. By integrating five domains of fitness—spiritual, physical, mental, nutritional and sleep— the program helps produce a sound lifestyle foundation that can optimize soldier performance.
Hosted in coordination with the Army chaplain corps, the Hot Topic will explore this integrative approach to soldier readiness and examine how partners in industry and academia can support the Army in strengthening the five domains of Holistic Health and Fitness.
In addition to Mingus, Lt. Gen. David Francis, commanding general of the Center for Initial Military Training, and Maj. Gen. William Green, the Army’s chief of chaplains, also are scheduled to speak.
There will be panel discussions on the spiritual readiness domain, the physical and nutritional readiness domains and the mental and sleep readiness domains.
Panelists include Col. Doug Ball, chief of the personnel branch in the Office of the Army Chief of Chaplains; Anthony Scroggins, an executive coach and performance psychologist in the chaplain’s office; Lt. Col. Brenda Bustillos, chief of the soldier performance division in the Office of the Army Surgeon General; Kate Colvin, a cognitive performance specialist in a Holistic Health and Fitness Integration Team; and Mark Casper, president and CEO of Tech for Troops.
For more information or to register, click here.
Online registration is open until 5 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 2. On-site registration opens at 7 a.m. Eastern Dec. 4.
There is no cost for members of the military, government civilian personnel and the media.
There will be a media roundtable with Francis and Green during the event.
The Holistic Health and Fitness program, which also puts teams of nutritionists, physical therapists and other experts with units across the Army, is the “largest investment in soldier readiness” the Army has ever undertaken, Francis said earlier this year.
Mingus agreed. “We cannot afford not to do this, because what it is giving back to the Army in terms of soldier lethality, readiness and everything else, it is paying for itself,” he said during an AUSA event earlier this year.
While the Army Fitness Test measures a soldier’s fitness at a particular time, Mingus noted, the Holistic Health and Fitness program goes to the root of bolstering soldiers’ readiness by promoting regular health and fitness habits with the help of nutritionists, physical therapists, strength and conditioning coaches and more.
“Never have we had a program that got after the holistic components of mind, body, soul, sleep and nutrition,” Mingus said. “It takes all those things together in a meaningful way to allow that soldier to be better, faster, stronger. … It’s about lethality, it’s about being able to do your job better, about being better than your adversary.”
