HARTFORD, Conn — Are you struggling to maintain a proper diet? Do you have difficulty passing the Army Combat Fitness Test? Want to get in better shape but don’t know where to start?

Have you heard of the Fitness Improvement Program?

The Fitness Improvement Program, or FIP, is a new concept in the Connecticut Army National Guard. The program, run by 2nd Lt. Jeremy Slen and Staff Sgt. Ashton Christopher, intends to revitalize Army fitness culture and improve the holistic health of the Connecticut National Guard.

In the past, soldiers that were struggling with their physical fitness or failed to pass their physical fitness tests, resulting in being barred from reenlisting or other career advancement opportunities, were given generic, one size fits all style workout plans. These cookie cutter plans rarely worked. With this new program, the FIP team intends to get to know the soldier, identify the source of their deficiencies and work with them to tackle the issue head on.

To do this, the team brings soldiers in and looks at their nutrition, their spiritual health, and possible risk factors or issues that could be negatively impacting their wellbeing.

“What we really tailor on is focus,” explained Christopher. “Putting our energy into each individual soldier, utilizing motivational interviewing and helping them develop their own plan based off of their life and their environment.”

After the soldiers are mentored by the FIP staff, they are then put into a working group with other soldiers. Here, they can work out and motivate each other while also learning additional tips and tricks from each other.

One such example of success began on Oct. 18th, 2021, Sgt. Isaac Rodriguez of the 1048th Medium Transportation Company, entered his work group of seven. Unable to reenlist for six years like he hoped, and also missing out on a bonus, joining FIP was required for him to continue serving.

“It was during Covid,” explained Rodriguez. “Things were going downhill, it was a really discouraging moment in my life.”

It was so discouraging that Rodriguez nearly left the course not long after it started upon hearing he had to do a preliminary height and weight examination and Army Physical Fitness Test, the standard fitness test for the Army at the time. If a soldier fails either of these tests, they are flagged, and thus, unable to promote, unable to receive awards and unable to reenlist and continue their service. Fail twice, and the Army would begin the process of separating the soldier and discharging them.

“He almost left the course in the very beginning because he didn’t want that [to be flagged and possibly separated] to happen,” recounted Christopher. “But he stuck with it.”

In fact, Rodriguez did fail his preliminary PT test, but that would be one of his last failures before the wind hit his sails. Not long after that test, he began taking his regimen very seriously, losing 4.4 pounds in two weeks during Phase One of the program. About one month after starting, during his first follow up, he lost 7.2 pounds. By his fourth and fifth assessment, near the end of his time with the program, Rodriguez lost 18 pounds. When his time with the program finally ended in January 2022, Rodriguez lost 42.2 pounds, the most significant individual weight loss the program has achieved thus far.

In addition to the weight loss, Rodriguez found a sense of solace through talking to the instructors at FIP. One of the reasons his health declined was due to being caught in the middle of a toxic relationship.

“I got out of a pretty bad relationship, all my stuff in the back seat, it was the break I needed,” explained Rodriguez. “I was really comfortable speaking with them, I didn’t have as much of an outlet back home, they were really understanding.”

This new found peace inspired Rodriguez. He set his sights on becoming a nutritional health coach. His goal: to help others as the FIP team had helped him. In March he signed up for nutritional health coaching classes with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, or IIN.

“After the Fitness Improvement Program, I was motivated to help individuals as a whole because it’s more than just eating right and working out, it’s figuring out how to take things day by day, “ said Rodriguez. “How the program is scheduled, how it’s laid out, yeah there is nutrition and a workout portion, but there’s also a big mental health factor, like resiliency, positive self talk, how important sleep is, coping with stress.”

Those additional skills, like coping with stress, and being able to deal with the good and the bad would soon come in handy as not long after completing the program Rodriguez faced another challenge. Unexpectedly, his cousin passed away from suicide.

This development rocked Rodriguez to the core but he persevered. The lessons he learned from the experience he incorporated into his toolkit. Now Rodriguez, armed with that toolkit, aids his fellow soldiers. Having graduated IIN, he now serves as an instructor part of the FIP team and has instructed two classes since January.

“As an instructor he can relate to the students,” said Christopher. “He knows how to talk to them because he was just there [struggling with his mental health].”

This combination of training and experience has already proved invaluable. Rodriguez has been able to help other soldiers in the program keep their heads above the water and rise above the tide, both with their physical health, and their emotional and mental health.

“I had a soldier come up to me and ask to speak to me offline, they were going through something themselves,” explained Rodriguez. “Due to my resilience, and my cousin passing away from suicide, I had the right words to say, the right empathetic words to say, to help them out in that situation. After we were done talking, I made them work out with me, and I asked them if they wanted to speak to BH [Behavioral Health] and they went and spoke to BH the next day and got some help.”

Being able to make a difference matters to Rodriguez.

“It’s encouraging,” explained Rodriguez. “It’s just heartfelt to know I’m a part of making a change in someone’s life.”

Slen and Christopher are working to be proactive, rather than reactive, by building relations with incoming Connecticut National Guard soldiers, part of the Recruit Sustainment Program, or RSP and with future leaders of the Connecticut Army National Guard, soldiers participating in Officer Candidate School.

New recruits of the RSP are kept in check by the FIP team, who monitor and track their physical fitness levels, creating a baseline which can be used to judge their overall fitness. This baseline is used to judge whether or not they are ready to ship to basic training. Additionally, the recruits will learn more about nutrition and how crucial proper nutrition and healthy diets are to their overall health. For slightly overweight recruits, the team teaches them effective exercise and dietary habits to lose weight and be within tolerance to go on to basic training.

“We work with them to help dial in their diet,” explained Slen. “ A lot of times what we see happen is we enlist a soldier, they have no idea about nutrition or fitness, we send them down to basic training, right then and there that’s where we see that decline back into where they were when they enlisted…so trying to start by building a good foundation for them is what we’d like to do with RSP and we’re working to build more into their curriculum.”

Officer candidates who are struggling physically can also turn to the expertise shared by Slen and Christopher, who guide and build training plans based on the candidate’s branch choice.

Lastly, the team is working with units within the organization to educate and train leaders, so they in turn, will impart this knowledge on their soldiers.

“Our goal over the next five years is developing a fitness program that is working more at the team leader, squad leader level so that we can train them [leaders in the organization] to be those leaders in their units, and their squads and platoons, so that they can actually teach [physical fitness and proper nutrition], so they can actually see the issues,” said Slen. “The biggest problem we find is, if I have a soldier come to me who’s been overlooked for the past five years, it’s very hard for me to get them back on track in two weeks or the three months that they’re with us rather than if somebody is with them every month and they can see those changes, if we get more squad leaders and team leaders in the course, I think we’ll see more success within the ranks.”

If you are interested in enrolling in the Fitness Improvement Program, talk to your unit training noncommissioned officer to be enrolled through the Digital Training Management System, or DTMS.