VIRGINIA BEACH The Navy plans to incorporate recent scientific advances in the training of top-flight sports athletes into the training of its own elite "combat athletes" -- the SEALs.

At a rare open house yesterday at the SEALs' base at Little Creek Amphibious Base, Navy and University of Pittsburgh officials showed off their joint new laboratory designed to uncover any weaknesses in the SEALs' exercise regimen.

"We're dealing with life or death, and in sports it's about points on a board, but it's really the same thing," said Capt. Chaz Heron, commander of Naval Special Warfare Group Two. "We're trained toward winning."

The Human Performance Research Laboratory, built with a $2.1 million grant from the Defense Department, occupies a nondescript metal Quonset hut at Little Creek, where four of the Navy's five East Coast SEAL teams are based. The lab will employ some of the same methods Pitt has applied to athletes during the past 20 years.

Inside the lab yesterday, a SEAL candidate ran on a treadmill while a monitor covering his mouth measured how efficiently he sucked in oxygen and breathed out carbon dioxide. Elsewhere, a SEAL tested his power in a 30-second "sprint" on a stationary bicycle; another SEAL leaped off a table so that a computer could track the stress of his landing on his feet and legs.

Sports-medicine experts from Pitt and the Navy began testing the SEALs in late February and will test all of them within the next year, the Navy said. The measurements will be compared with those of top triathletes and strength athletes, whose activities demand similar fitness, said John Abt, an assistant professor of sports medicine at Pitt who helped design the SEALs' lab.

Abt said the measurements can be used to pinpoint training practices that end up causing injuries. For example, he said, a weightlifting regimen might develop the front of the shoulder while ignoring the back, creating an imbalance that could lead to injuries to the rotator cuff.

The lab eventually will offer each SEAL a detailed fitness profile and perhaps recommend exercises to strengthen any weak points.

Capt. Heron said SEAL team members often suffer from shoulder injuries, lower back problems and ailments related to heavy running, such as sore knees and torn ACLs.

Part of the reason may be outdated training practices that are part of SEAL tradition but run counter to modern knowledge about athletic training.

For example, Heron said, to strengthen stomach muscles the SEALs have long used "flutter kicks" -- vigorous, repetitive kicks while lying on one's back in the water. But flutter-kick exercises may end up doing more harm to the lower back, he said.

Most SEALs have welcomed the lab and any improvements in training it can bring, said Shawn, a 23-year veteran SEAL who did not give his last name.

In some respects, he said, "SEAL training is based on pain" -- the capacity to withstand injury and exhaustion in order to complete dangerous missions. But pain is not necessarily a suitable goal in a regular exercise program, he said.
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or wgeroux@timesdispatch.com.