Winter 2025
Evaluating nutritional needs with technology
Brandon Lee, MS, RD, CSS*D, CCRP

nutrition

Military personnel, police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical services (EMS), commonly called tactical athletes, have physically demanding occupations. These roles often involve rapidly lifting or moving heavy items under intense physical and mental stress and using heavy personal protective equipment (Gonzalez et al., 2022). These factors lead to high-calorie expenditure and unique substrate utilization, necessitating that tactical athletes customize their nutrition for optimal performance in the field.

While the role of nutrition in enhancing tactical performance is well understood, the application of technology in tactical nutrition is a relatively recent development. Technologies such as indirect calorimetry and global positioning systems, traditionally used in collegiate and professional sports, are now being integrated by military branches, law enforcement, fire services, and EMS to enhance tactical athlete awareness, knowledge, and monitoring.

Evaluating an individual’s nutritional needs is a complex, multifaceted process that includes assessments of body composition, nutrition knowledge and behaviors, blood biomarkers, calorie expenditure, and macro- and micro-nutrient intake and losses. The relative importance of these factors in evaluating tactical athletes varies depending on their occupation, physical demands, environmental stressors, and off-duty lifestyle.

Body composition analysis is a crucial area of interest for tactical units, providing vital data for enhancing mission readiness. This analysis, which measures weight, body fat mass, and fat-free mass (including muscle, organ, bone, and other tissues), is typically conducted using bioelectrical impedance analysis or air displacement plethysmography. These tests offer a snapshot of the tactical athlete’s physical health. For instance, Lockie et al. (2022) found that 22% of firefighters are over the healthy range of body fat percentage standards, which could impact their health and readiness for duty. Regular body composition tests, ideally conducted every three to six months, can inform weight loss or gain goals and provide more comprehensive information than a home scale.

Furthermore, calorie expenditure, or burning, is another popular area of focus for tactical nutrition. Different occupations and tasks burn different amounts of calories. Military warfighters can expend up to 2,500-4,500 calories daily depending on their daily physical training and unit mission essential tasks (Nindl et al., 2007; Sepowitz et al., 2017). Metabolic monitors are growing in popularity within the military (i.e., COSMED Q-NRG metabolic monitor). This often requires a face mask or canopy to measure oxygen exchange, providing insight into the individual’s energy needs and macronutrient utilization. Like body composition assessments, calorie expenditure measurements provide baseline data for tactical athletes to make informed nutritional decisions, especially those who enjoy tracking their intake (i.e., MyFitnessPal).

In addition, calorie expenditure can also be measured via global positioning systems (GPS). GPS technology tracks athletes geographically and determines their calorie burning based on distance traveled, speed, weight, and other factors. GPS technology can also provide workload data based on acceleration or rate of velocity. Workload scores can help inform the athlete and their support staff of recovery status and duty readiness. It is recommended that tactical athletes wear devices (i.e., Polar or Garmin watches) that operate at high sampling frequencies (i.e., >10 Hz) to ensure accuracy. While not yet integrated, many professional sports also use GPS devices that have the athlete wear an upper body strap, and the device is located on the upper part of the back (i.e., Catapult).

What about hydration status? Research has shown that cardiovascular health, thermoregulatory systems, and performance are improved when athletes replace fluid losses during exercise (Karpinski & Rosenbloom, 2017). The military occasionally uses refractometers (i.e., HemoCue®) to measure urine specific gravity (USG). USG, though cumbersome and redundant at times, measures the concentration of particles, including wastes and electrolytes, in the urine (Pagana et al., 2022).

Sodium losses are a crucial area of nutritional concern for the tactical athlete. For instance, firefighters are at significant risk of sodium (and fluid) losses during fire suppression activity. They can lose up to 40 oz. of sweat, containing about 2,070mg of sodium, in only 30 minutes of fighting a fire (Walker et al., 2016). These are not just numbers but important factors that every tactical athlete should know. However, these are only estimates, and every body is unique. Nutrition technology such as the Gatorade Gx Sweat Patch may prove helpful for tactical athletes to learn how much sodium they are losing. The patch goes on the upper part of the individual’s arm, and they wear it while executing typical exercise sessions or training simulations.

Tactical athletes who are better educated on healthy eating usually make healthier choices, which can significantly impact their performance. Acevedo et al. (2024) found that Army Reserve Officer’s Training Corp (ROTC) cadets with healthier diets performed better on the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) than those with less healthy diets. The researchers used a self-reported food and nutrition questionnaire to evaluate the cadets’ diets. How can tactical units evaluate their personnel’s diets? First, establishing an electronic system is vital. Systems like TeamBuildr and Teamworks AMS are commonly used in law enforcement and military, respectively. Validated food and nutrition questionnaires can be integrated into these systems. Then, tactical athletes can take the questionnaire by logging in and answering all the questions. Once all the units have completed the questionnaire, a trained sports scientist can aggregate the data and determine statistical means or averages.

» ALSO SEE: Training the tactical athlete’s energy systems

The development of departments and designated staff dedicated to the collection and interpretation of performance data is growing in popularity. For example, the military developed the Optimizing the Human Weapon System (OHWS) and integrated it into systems such as the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) system and the Air Force’s Air Combat Command (Sebastianelli, 2022). These systems provide service members with specialized support and technology to monitor and improve their health and wellness.

Innovations and advancements in sport science and nutrition technology have migrated from sports to the tactical realm. Performance and nutrition technology has come a long way, from a simple focus on understanding the basic physical demands of the sport (or activity) and using that information to develop effective training strategies to now where artificial intelligence (AI) is surging in popularity. As nutrition technology improves, so can tactical athletes.