I Hung Around the Air Force’s Human Performance Specialists And Boy Do I Feel Inferior

"I knew that I was in trouble when I saw the mannequin. It’s ripped with the abs of Brad Pitt in Fight Club, and despite the lack of legs it’s the most intimidatingly conditioned dummy I’ve ever seen.

The musclebound torso before me wears nothing but a wrist band and a chest strap supporting a sensor the size and shape of a hotel soap bar. The gear measures the human body’s performance—more specifically, the exertions of young airmen at the U.S. Air Force Special Warfare Training Wing. The dummy is used to introduce them to the equipment they will wear when they run and workout, producing data that will scrutinize them like they’ve never been scrutinized before.

The mission at this facility at Lackland Air Force Base is deceptively simple: to get trainees ready for their first special operations training class, an unforgiving session called Assessment and Selection. Airmen must pass A&S to do Air Force jobs that involved deploying with ground forces. Think of pararescue operators who leap out of aircraft or tactical controllers who call in close air support. Popular Mechanics got a behind-the-scenes tour of this facility, which is applying the technology used in professional athletics to military training".