Fitness: Corps Focuses on Strengthening Marines, Spouses

The Marine Corps wants its Marines to be healthy and happy so they can main-tain their effectiveness as the world’s greatest warfighters.

One way they are accomplishing this is by embracing the Marine Corps Total Fitness concept being implemented at the new Warrior Athlete Readiness and Resiliency [WARR] Center at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Semper Fit Director of Strength and Conditioning Nick Gounaris sat down with Marine Corps Association’s Behind the Camouflage podcast hosts Marta Sullivan and Heather Escamilla last October to talk about the important mis-sion of keeping our Marines—and their families—in tip-top shape.

Marine Corps Total Fitness means focusing on four areas of health: physical, mental, spiritual and social. The WARR is intended to be a one-stop shop where strength and conditioning coaches can help Marines get physically stronger but also serve as conduits for them and their spouses as they navigate life’s com-plexities as a military family. Instead of just working out and going home, the Marine can speak with members of Ma-rine Corps Community Services onsite or get in touch with them via their coaches. “I always look at our strength and con-ditioning coaches as point guards,” Gounaris said. “…When we bring the Marines in for PT. I need to have my strength and conditioning staff around the Marine Corps understand the support and capabilities that are offered. So they need to understand who the financial people are. They need to understand who FAP is, and they need to have a relation-ship with them.”

To take it one step further, Gounaris has encouraged staff from MCCS to dress in PT gear at the WARR Center to make them more approachable to the average Marine.

The idea behind building a stronger, tougher Marine originally took root in WARR’s predecessor—the High Inten-sity Tactical Training program or HITT. HITT focused primarily on improving a Marine’s physical strength and condition-ing. Because Marines can often be found in the gym, Gounaris believes the WARR Center is the perfect spot to build a Ma-rine’s total fitness. The trust built between Marine and coach is part of the social aspect of total fitness.

“We’re going to have the biggest re-lationship and probably the best relation-ship with the Marines because the fitness centers are the most frequented facilities on base,” Gounaris said.
During the podcast, Gounaris used an example of how financial stress can weaken the warfighter and how a collec-tive approach can help address that problem.

“Lance Corporal Smith just bought his first vehicle, and he bought a Dodge Charger. He’s paying 20 percent on it. That’s a problem, and that’s going to create stress. So that’s financial stress. But the body doesn’t decipher between financial stress and going to war stress.

It’s going to be the same response. So if we’re not taking a look at the financial side, we’re missing the boat here. Now the same applies for the family. If you have problems at home, it could be credit card. It could be your kids are struggling in school and that needs to be addressed. So then as strength and conditioning professionals or the other staff that we have, … we can facilitate that communication and that connection.”

The WARR Center at Camp Lejeune was born out of devastation from Hur-ricane Florence in 2018, a powerful storm that badly damaged the fitness center on base. The total fitness concept was then integrated into the new WARR Center, which opened last April.

According to Brad Brimhall, Semper Fit Branch Head, the Corps is also in the process of reconfiguring nearly 50 on-base gymnasiums across the country to model after the WARR Center. The new and improved gyms will emphasize free weights and open training areas as opposed to machines like treadmills and ellipticals. The idea is to better tailor workouts to the individual needs of the Marine or spouse, said Gounaris.

“You’d be better served to train in a way that’s going to enhance performance,” Gounaris said. “ … Performance for a Marine could be hopping off of a seven-ton [truck], rucking 15 miles and then go fight the bad guys. But for a spouse it could be you have a kid in your left arm and you’re picking up something from on top of the freezer with your right arm, and you got to go do something on the ground. So sitting and getting on the elliptical, I’ll bet it is going to be good for cardiovascular training. [But] there are more optimal ways that we can do fitness.”

Brimhall said walking into the WARR Center is not unlike walking into a training facility at a major Division I football program like the University of Alabama. Units on base sign up for group classes that focus on a variety of fitness aspects including strength, speed and endurance while spouses and individual Marines can utilize the center on their own time.

“We are giving the same capabilities that we give to college and professional athletes,” Brimhall said. “ … But unlike professional or college athletics, the family members also get to use the benefits.”

And for spouses on base who see their loved ones deployed, Gounaris believes that these centers will be especially helpful when times get tough because there will be a built-in social network at the facilities.

“I want the spouses to handle adversity, because inevitably they are the support system,” Gounaris said. “They are going to have to manage what’s back home.”

Authored by: Kipp Hanley

Executive Editor’s note: To hear more about Semper Fit’s options for Marine spouses, listen in to season two of the Behind the Camouflage podcast, begin­ning in January. For a complete schedule of episodes, visit: https://www.mca-marines.org/behind-the-camouflage-podcast-2/

Leatherneck will continue to bring readers content for and about Marine families—active­duty and veteran—in the Behind the Camouflage department. We’d love to hear your feedback and story ideas at [email protected].

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