Like any professional team, the Oklahoma Army National Guard is always seeking new ways to better itself, or increase it’s readiness, in order to maintain an advantage. The individual Soldier is the most important component of maintaining this edge. In 2020, the U.S. Army published the Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) System which revolutionized how it looks at individual and unit readiness and provides a framework for leaders to increase their abilities.
The H2F system is the Army’s primary investment in Soldier readiness and lethality. It seeks to optimize physical and non-physical performance, reduce injury rates, and improve rehabilitation after injury, ultimately increasing the overall readiness of the total Army.
The system empowers and equips Soldiers to take charge of their health, fitness, and well-being to optimize individual performance while preventing injury and disease. H2F is an enterprisewide readiness system that combines all aspects of physical and non-physical human performance optimization under a single governance structure to enable commanders (CDRs) to improve Soldier health and fitness.
This system encompasses five domains:
1. Physical Readiness — The ability to meet the physical demands of any duty or combat and accomplish the mission.
2. Nutritional Readiness — The ability to recognize, select, and consume the requisite food and drink to meet the physical and non-physical demands of any duty or combat.
3. Mental Readiness — The ability to meet the mental demands of combat or duty position.
4. Spiritual Readiness — The development of personal qualities needed to sustain a person in times of stress, hardship, and tragedy.
5. Sleep Readiness — The ability to implement the requisite sleep principles and behaviors to support optimal brain function.