Showcase

United States Marine Corps

Reconnaissance Marines are elite operators trained to work at the interface between land and water. They found that an unacceptably high percentage of aspiring Recon Marines were failing the pool tests. In the words of one of their instructors, “Water is a great leveller.”

‍In a pilot study with the US Marine Corps, we trained Marines using a combination of techniques in our Resilience by Design program, such as breath-hold techniques, relaxation, and perception changes. The result was significantly increased water survivability.

A number of features of standard military training inadvertently encouraged low breath-hold times. The training was viewed as a “stress test,” rather than a “relaxation test.” With as little as a few hours of aquatic survival training, all the marines improved their static breath-hold capability.

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Key statistics

United States Marine Corps‍

• Over the course of 5 days, the average breath-hold improved by 147%
• One marine improved maximum breath-hold times from less than 30 seconds to greater than 3 minutes — an increase of 671%
• For one recruit who failed a fully clothed underwater swim test, distance improved 140% after approximately five minutes of coaching.

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