Kathleen Oswald is a Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a Master's in Exercise and Sport Science and is earning her Ph.D. in Cognition and Instruction. She works at Peterson Space Force Base and is the first human-performance professional with a cognitive performance background to work with Space Force Guardians. Before that, Kathleen worked under the Cognitive Performance Specialist at the 10th Special Forces Group. By integrating tactical professionals into the design process of her exercises and workshops, she leveraged their expertise to optimize her coaching to help Special Forces operators improve their performance in some of the most challenging aspects of their jobs, such as CQB training. Her Ph.D. work in Cognition and Instruction allows her to research optimal programming for cognitive performance, develop a cognitive performance program for the US Space Force, and improve her abilities to teach, coach, and mentor the human performance professionals who serve our nation’s military. Aside from her work with the Special Forces and Space Force communities, Kathleen is also an ultramarathon runner, competing in races at 50k, 50-mile, 100k, and 100-mile distances. She is also a nationally qualified powerlifter.You can get in touch with Kathleen and learn more about her work on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katoswald/Timestamps:00:00:22 Intro to Kathleen Oswald00:01:43 NSCA Tactical Annual Training Session00:03:15 Cognitive Function and Cognitive Skills00:04:24 Ensuring Skills Training Transfers to the Real World00:06:22 Examples of Decision-Making Scenarios 00:08:06 Training for Selection Courses00:10:07 Adding Incremental Difficulties During Training00:11:39 Sponsor Note: Our Book, “Building the Elite” and Mentor Course00:12:25 Training Via Stress vs. Skill Mastery00:14:31 Assessing Technical Skills vs. Testing the Skills00:17:45 Knowing When to Display Certain Attributes00:18:52 Evaluating What Someone Is Made of00:20:47 Concocting Tests for Perseverance00:22:10 Performing with Severe Gastrointestinal Issues00:25:28 Addressing Imposter Syndrome00:28:25 Why Younger Generations May Struggle with Self-Regulation00:31:16 Training in Silence00:32:23 Being Perpetually Distracted00:34:07 Evaluation in the Shoot House00:39:35 Video Training Scenarios00:41:16 Rapidly Presenting Critical Decisions with Perceptual Learning 00:44:23 Comparing Different Levels of Skill 00:47:15 Changes in Eye Movement as Skill Progresses00:49:38 Emotional and Stress Regulation Assessments00:53:04 Does Your Fear Response Help or Hurt Your Performance?00:56:20 How Do You Determine What Foundational Training to Implement First?01:00:31 Tech Gadgets for Cognitive Skills Training01:03:49 Improving Cognitive Skills on Your Own01:06:32 Best and Worst Advice Ever Received01:09:26 Outro

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