True North Plus (TN+): How the Air Force’s Human Performance Program Compares to Army H2F and USSOCOM POTFF
Updated: Oct 8
For decades, military readiness was often discussed through relatively simple questions.
Can the service member deploy?
Can they pass a fitness test?
Are they medically qualified?
Can they perform their assigned duties?
Those questions still matter, but they are increasingly insufficient for the demands of modern warfare.
The human being operating an aircraft, maintaining a weapons system, analyzing intelligence, moving cargo, defending an installation, conducting rescue operations, or supporting combat operations is also a performance system. Physical fitness matters, but so do sleep, nutrition, psychological readiness, cognitive performance, injury resilience, recovery, stress management, and the environment in which that person works.
That is where True North Plus (TN+) has the ability to change the course of Air Force Readiness to achieve optimized lethality.
In January 2025, then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin signed Program Action Directive 24-04, authorizing the consolidation of two major Air Force prevention and readiness programs, True North and Operational Support Teams (OSTs), into True North Plus (TN+). The Air Force Surgeon General was assigned responsibility for executing TN+ functions aligned under Air Force Medical Command (AFMEDCOM). (Air Force Medicine)
As of August 2026, that transformation is still underway. AFMEDCOM announced that True North Plus is expected to reach full operational capability in October 2026. More than 400 Department of the Air Force commanders and program personnel participated in implementation town halls in July, and the current transition phase is realigning True North and OST personnel under a common unit manning document while the legacy programs continue operating independently until integration is complete. (Air Force Medicine)
That makes this an important moment to evaluate TN+. Not because the program has failed, although the transition has been far from perfect. Quite the opposite.
True North and OST demonstrated that bringing qualified professionals closer to Airmen can reduce barriers to care, address problems earlier, improve access, and make human performance services more relevant to operational units. True North has reported substantial improvements in access to mental-health care through embedded providers, while OSTs have brought physical therapy, strength and conditioning, psychology, social work, injury prevention, and other capabilities directly into operational environments. (Air Combat Command)
The more important question now is what comes next.
The Department's emerging Warfighter Performance Optimization (WPO) approach encompasses nutrition, sleep, mental health, medical readiness, cognitive performance, brain health, physical fitness, and human-performance research. At the same time, the Air Force's Culture of Fitness initiative is trying to move physical readiness away from preparing for a periodic fitness test and toward year-round conditioning and operational readiness. (Military Health System)
That creates a larger strategic question for the Air Force:
Should True North Plus primarily be a system that keeps Airmen medically ready, or should it evolve into the Air Force's comprehensive system for optimizing the human weapon system?
Those missions are related. They are not identical. And understanding the dichotomy between the two may determine whether True North Plus becomes another successful prevention program or the foundation of a genuine Air Force human-performance enterprise.
What Is True North Plus (TN+)?
True North Plus is the Air Force's consolidation of the legacy True North and Operational Support Team programs into a single enterprise resource intended to improve warfighter readiness, resilience, prevention, and human performance. TN+ combines the embedded behavioral-health and spiritual-support capabilities associated with True North with the multidisciplinary physical and psychosocial readiness capabilities developed through OST. The program is being implemented under Air Force Medical Command, with full operational capability planned for October 2026. (Air Force Medicine)
The logic behind the merger makes sense. Human performance does not exist in isolated domains. An Airman experiencing chronic sleep deprivation may have worse physical performance, cognition, mood, appetite regulation, and recovery. An Airman with persistent back pain may exercise less, sleep worse, experience greater stress, and become less confident performing occupational tasks.
Poor nutrition can affect training adaptation, body composition, energy, recovery, and concentration. Psychological stress can affect sleep, relationships, physical activity, and job performance. A strength coach cannot independently solve all of those problems. Neither can a psychologist. Neither can a physical therapist. Neither can a physician.
Human Performance works best when specialists operate as an integrated system. Which unfortunately, the greater enterprise is still far from solving from a larger programmatic perspective…
For readers new to this field, What Is Human Performance? provides a broader explanation of why physical, cognitive, psychological, occupational, and lifestyle capabilities should be treated as interacting parts of the same performance system.
True North Plus potentially gives the Air Force an organizational framework to do exactly that, but to understand where TN+ could go, we first need to understand where it came from.
The Two Programs That Created True North Plus
True North Plus is not being built from scratch. It inherits two programs with different histories, capabilities, and organizational cultures.
True North: Bringing Support Into the Unit
The legacy True North program was primarily designed around resilience, mental health, spiritual support, early intervention, and reducing barriers to help-seeking. Instead of expecting an Airman to recognize a problem, find a clinic, make an appointment, and voluntarily enter a traditional healthcare environment, True North moved support closer to the Airman.
Mental-health practitioners and Religious Support Teams became part of the unit environment.
That seemingly simple organizational change matters.
Air Combat Command describes True North as embedding mental-health practitioners and religious support teams within high-priority units to optimize human performance, enhance well-being, engage Airmen and families early, normalize help-seeking, and decentralize access to support. (Air Combat Command)
In 2024, ACC reported that the average wait for an embedded True North provider was approximately one week or less and said the program had increased access to care by about 300% within the populations discussed. (Air Combat Command)
That does not mean every mental-health outcome improves by 300%. It means access improved dramatically, and access matters.
One of the most important lessons from True North is therefore not limited to mental health:
Where you place expertise can be almost as important as whether the expertise exists.
An installation can technically have excellent resources available while Airmen rarely use them. Distance matters. Scheduling matters. Trust matters. Knowing the provider matters. Understanding the mission matters.
When a psychologist, social worker, chaplain, strength coach, physical therapist, or dietitian understands the unit's actual environment, their recommendations can become more relevant. True North demonstrated the value of embedded human performance before the Air Force formally combined these capabilities under TN+.
Operational Support Teams: Bringing Performance Into the Workplace
If True North brought behavioral health and resilience closer to Airmen, Operational Support Teams expanded the embedded model into physical readiness and musculoskeletal health.
The Air Force established the OST concept to address major readiness problems such as musculoskeletal injury and mental-health concerns. Air Force reporting has described OSTs as multidisciplinary teams that can include physical therapists, psychologists, social workers, strength and conditioning specialists, and team specialists. (Air Force Medicine)
The model is intentionally operational. Rather than sitting inside a clinic waiting for an injured Airman to arrive, OST professionals can enter the workplace. They can watch how maintainers move equipment. They can see what Security Forces Airmen experience while wearing body armor. They can observe the physical demands of logistics operations. They can talk directly with commanders and supervisors. They can identify patterns instead of treating isolated cases.
That is a significantly better format than the traditional healthcare system, which let’s be honest… Has only been focused on surveillance, not optimization.
Traditional healthcare often begins after something has gone wrong. Human Performance asks whether the system can identify and modify the conditions contributing to the problem before performance is lost.
Earlier OST models demonstrated that philosophy clearly. At Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, for example, an OST included physical therapy, psychology, nutrition, exercise physiology, and human-performance integration capabilities, with personnel embedding in units rather than remaining clinic-based. (Air Force Medicine)
Air Force reporting in 2022 also noted that installations with OSTs had experienced a 25% reduction in military treatment facility appointments for musculoskeletal issues, although that observational program result should not be interpreted as proving that OST alone caused the reduction. (Air Force Medicine)
More recent examples show the model continuing to evolve.
At Hill Air Force Base in 2026, the OST expanded beyond its traditional high-risk-unit rotations through a hybrid model intended to make services available installation-wide. The current core team consists of two strength and conditioning specialists and a physical therapist, while additional capabilities, including mental health, chaplain support, and an installation dietitian, are drawn from other base agencies. (Air Force Medicine)
That example is important for a reason we will return to later. The Air Force has access to many of the professionals required for holistic health. The question is whether those professionals are structurally integrated into the human performance team itself.
Why Combining True North and OST Makes Sense
On paper, combining the programs addresses a longstanding problem in health and performance: fragmentation. Consider one hypothetical Airman working rotating shifts in aircraft maintenance. The Airman develops lower-back discomfort. Training decreases because exercise hurts. Sleep quality deteriorates because shift work and discomfort interfere with recovery. Body composition begins changing. Energy falls. The Airman starts relying heavily on caffeine. Work stress increases. Motivation declines. Eventually the Airman fails part of a fitness assessment.
What is the problem? It is Musculoskeletal? Fitness? Nutrition? Sleep? Behavioral health? Occupational?
The answer may be all of them. Sending that Airman to five separate offices without coordination treats the symptoms as independent problems.
An integrated human-performance model instead asks:
What is limiting this Airman's ability to perform, recover, adapt, and remain mission-ready?
That is the philosophical opportunity behind True North Plus.
The Air Force's original TN+ announcement explicitly described True North and OST as programs intended to optimize human performance and create a high-functioning, resilient culture. The merger is intended to create a larger network of support capable of enhancing operations and enabling the fight. (Air Force Medicine)
That language matters, because if human performance optimization is genuinely the objective, TN+ has to become more than a collection of healthcare and helping resources. It has to become a performance system.
From Medical Readiness to Warfighter Performance Optimization
This distinction may be the most important concept in the entire conversation around TN+.
Medical readiness asks: Can this Airman safely perform the mission?
Human Performance Optimization asks another question:
How capable can this Airman become?
Imagine two Airmen.
Both are:
Deployable
Free of major injury
Within medical standards
Passing the fitness assessment
From a traditional readiness perspective, both may appear similarly prepared.
But one may:
Sleep seven to eight hours consistently
Strength train three times per week
Have strong aerobic fitness
Maintain healthy body composition
Eat appropriately for operational demands
Recover well
Handle stress effectively
Possess high muscular strength
Maintain excellent cognitive performance under fatigue
The other may:
Barely pass the fitness assessment
Sleep five hours
Experience chronic pain
Depend heavily on stimulants
Have poor nutritional habits
Possess little physical reserve
Struggle under sustained workload
Both may technically be medically ready. They are not equally optimized. That difference is the space where military Human Performance Optimization exists.
Warfighter Performance Optimization Changes the Conversation
The Department's current Warfighter Performance Optimization – Total Force Fitness framework explicitly brings together domains that historically could be treated separately.
Current Military Health System WPO resources include:
Nutrition
Sleep
Mental health
Medical readiness
Cognitive performance
Brain health
Physical fitness
Human-performance research
Research and development (Military Health System)
This is much closer to how human performance actually works. The brain does not stop affecting the body because a program office separates mental and physical readiness.
Sleep does not stop influencing injury risk because sleep education belongs to a different agency.
Nutrition does not stop affecting physical fitness because the dietitian works somewhere else.
Organizational charts are necessary for managing people. They do not represent human physiology. The warfighter remains one interconnected system. That is why TN+ potentially matters far beyond the merger of two Air Force programs.
True North Plus could become the Air Force's operational delivery mechanism for Warfighter Performance Optimization.
That would be a much larger mission.
What Human Performance Optimization Actually Looks Like
Human Performance Optimization is sometimes reduced to strength training. That misses most of the concept. A comprehensive military Human Performance system should consider at least:
Physical capacity
Strength, power, aerobic fitness, muscular endurance, mobility, occupational conditioning, and movement capability.
Injury resilience
Reducing preventable musculoskeletal problems while improving rehabilitation and return-to-duty processes.
Performance nutrition
Fueling training and operations, improving recovery, supporting healthy body composition, maintaining energy availability, and educating Airmen about practical nutrition.
Sleep and recovery
Managing fatigue, shift work, circadian disruption, travel, operational tempo, and recovery opportunities.
Cognitive performance
Attention, reaction time, decision-making, memory, vigilance, and maintaining performance under fatigue.
Psychological readiness
Stress management, resilience, behavioral health, coping strategies, emotional regulation, and early access to care.
Spiritual and social readiness
Purpose, relationships, unit cohesion, family support, and access to confidential spiritual care.
Occupational performance
Understanding the actual physical and cognitive demands of an Airman's job instead of assuming that general fitness automatically translates to mission capability.
This is why Human Performance HQ consistently emphasizes mastering the fundamentals rather than chasing isolated optimization tools.
Hydration matters, for example, because dehydration can affect both physical and cognitive performance. Readers interested in that physiology can explore Hydration and Physical Performance and How Fast Does Dehydration Happen?
Creatine is another example. The evidence supporting creatine benefits for repeated high-intensity exercise, strength, and training adaptation can matter to military populations, but creatine does not compensate for poor sleep, inadequate nutrition, weak conditioning, or inappropriate training.
The same principle applies at the organizational level. One outstanding strength coach cannot compensate for an incomplete performance system.
True North Plus and the Air Force Culture of Fitness
The timing of the TN+ transition is especially important because the Air Force is simultaneously trying to redefine fitness.
The Department of the Air Force launched its Culture of Fitness initiative in 2025 after reviewing existing fitness programs and identifying opportunities to improve well-being and operational readiness. The initiative emphasized physical and medical readiness, regular unit conditioning, leadership accountability, and a broader culture built around fitness rather than periodic test preparation. (Air Force)
New Air Force Physical Fitness Assessment standards took effect July 1, 2026. The current program includes biannual testing, a two-mile run or HAMR option for cardiovascular assessment, strength and endurance components, and reintegration of waist-to-height ratio into the PFA. (Air Force)
But the most important part of the Culture of Fitness initiative is not the test.
It is the word culture. A culture cannot be created by changing scoring charts. It cannot be created by ordering Airmen to exercise more frequently, and it cannot be sustained by teaching people how to pass a fitness test twice per year.
The Air Force itself describes the fitness program as encouraging year-round physical conditioning involving aerobic fitness, strength, flexibility, and healthy eating to improve health, productivity, and readiness. (Air Force)
That mission overlaps directly with TN+. This creates a significant opportunity.
TN+ Could Become the Engine Behind the Culture of Fitness
Imagine an installation where commanders do not have to invent fitness programs independently.
Instead, a True North Plus human performance team works with the unit.
The strength and conditioning specialist evaluates the occupational demands of the Airmen. The physical therapist analyzes injury trends. A performance dietitian evaluates common fueling and body-composition challenges. Mental-performance professionals teach strategies for stress, attention, and performance under pressure. Behavioral-health providers intervene early when clinical support becomes appropriate. Religious Support Teams address spiritual readiness and confidential support.
Human-performance specialists analyze fitness and readiness data. The team then helps the commander build an intervention around the actual needs of the unit. That could mean a maintenance squadron receives a different program than Security Forces. An intelligence squadron could receive a different intervention than logistics. Aircrew may require different fatigue-management strategies than daytime administrative personnel. A rescue unit may need different physical preparation than a cyber unit.
That is what performance optimization looks like.
Not: “Everyone needs the same workout.”
But: “What does this mission demand from the human being, and how do we prepare that human being to meet those demands repeatedly?”
Fitness Testing Is Not the Same as Human Performance
A fitness assessment is useful. It establishes minimum standards and gives leaders a scalable method of assessing certain physical qualities.
But a PFRA cannot tell a commander everything about an Airman's readiness.
A two-mile run does not directly measure:
Maximal strength
Occupational lifting capacity
Heat tolerance
Sleep debt
Reaction time
Decision-making under fatigue
Nutritional status
Injury risk
Recovery capacity
Mental resilience
Job-specific physical capacity
That does not make the PFRA bad. It means we should understand what it measures. The Air Force's current Culture of Fitness language emphasizes preparing Airmen for peak operational readiness, not simply generating better test scores. (Air Force) True North Plus gives the service an opportunity to operationalize that distinction.
From Passing Standards to Building Physical Reserve
One of the concepts I emphasize in Human Performance is reserve capacity. Imagine that a mission requires an arbitrary 60 units of physical capacity.
One Airman has 65. Another has 90. Both can complete the mission under normal conditions. Then the environment changes. Sleep decreases. Temperature increases. Equipment gets heavier. Operations continue longer than expected. Stress increases. Recovery opportunities disappear.
The Airman operating close to their maximum has little reserve. The Airman with greater capacity has room to absorb the additional demand.
That principle applies to:
Strength
Aerobic fitness
Sleep
psychological resilience
cognitive performance
nutrition
recovery
Military readiness cannot assume ideal conditions. Warfighters need enough reserve capacity to continue performing when conditions become less than ideal. That is why Human Performance Optimization is different from minimum-standard compliance.
The Ariel Hernandez Perspective: What Embedded Human Performance Gets Right
My perspective on True North Plus comes from more than reading Air Force policy. I have spent more than a decade working in Human Performance, including supporting military and tactical populations throughout Special Warfare and other embedded programs.
The biggest lesson I have learned is surprisingly simple: Human Performance works best when practitioners understand the mission before trying to change the Airman.
It is easy to sit outside an operational unit and tell someone to sleep more. It is different when you understand that person works rotating shifts. It is easy to prescribe a textbook workout. It is different when you understand the Airman wears heavy equipment for hours or spends the workday performing repetitive tasks. It is easy to tell someone to eat healthier. It is different when you understand what food is actually available during their shift.
Embedding professionals changes the conversation.
Instead of asking: “Why isn't this Airman following our recommendation?”
The team can ask: “What about this environment makes the desired behavior difficult?”
That shift, from blaming individual behavior toward understanding the human and the system, is one of the strongest aspects of both True North and OST. And it is worth preserving as True North Plus develops.
Where True North Plus Is Right Now
It is also important not to evaluate TN+ as though the final system already exists.
It doesn't.
As of August 2026, AFMEDCOM stated that full operational capability is planned for October 2026. During the current implementation phase, existing True North and OST programs continue to operate independently while personnel are administratively realigned under a single unit manning document. (Air Force Medicine)
That means current installation examples tell us a great deal about the capabilities TN+ inherits, but they do not necessarily establish what every mature TN+ team will ultimately look like.
This distinction matters when discussing potential gaps.
For example, Hill AFB's current OST includes two strength and conditioning specialists and a physical therapist, with mental health, chaplain, and dietitian support coming from other installation resources. (Air Force Medicine)
At Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a previous OST configuration included a physical therapist, strength and conditioning coach, clinical social worker, clinical psychologist, and team administrator. (Air Force Medicine)
Other historical OSTs have used different combinations.
So the issue is not simply whether the Air Force employs a particular professional somewhere.
The more important organizational question is: What capabilities should be standardized inside a premier Air Force Human Performance system?
That brings us to the most important comparison.
The Next Question: How Does TN+ Compare With Army H2F and USSOCOM POTFF?
The Air Force is not developing True North Plus in isolation. Across the military, several organizations have already invested heavily in multidisciplinary Human Performance Optimization.
The Army's Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) system has built performance teams around Soldier readiness.
USSOCOM's Preservation of the Force and Family (POTFF) program has spent years integrating specialized professionals around Special Operations Forces performance, readiness, and career longevity.
The Navy is now piloting its own Human Performance Optimization model.
The Space Force has pursued a Holistic Health Approach.
The Marine Corps continues developing Total Fitness and Human Performance capabilities.
Each organization serves a different population and operates under different resource constraints. A conventional Air Force installation should not simply copy a Special Operations model designed for a much smaller and differently resourced force.
But comparisons reveal something important: organizational design communicates what an institution believes Human Performance actually is.
Who leads the team?
Which professionals are considered essential?
Where does nutrition sit?
Who owns performance data?
How are civilians developed?
What does career progression look like?
Does the commander receive healthcare information or actionable performance information?
Are success metrics based on appointments and injuries, or do they also include strength, physical capacity, nutrition, sleep, mission performance, and readiness?
And perhaps most importantly: Does the organization exist primarily to treat problems, or to systematically develop higher-performing warfighters before those problems occur?
That is where the comparison between True North Plus, Army H2F, and USSOCOM POTFF becomes particularly valuable.
How True North Plus Compares With Army H2F and USSOCOM POTFF
True North Plus does not need to become Army H2F. It does not need to copy USSOCOM's Preservation of the Force and Family program. And the Air Force should not assume that a model designed for Special Operations Forces can simply be scaled across an entire service.
Different missions require different solutions.
But there is enormous value in examining how other military organizations have answered a fundamental question: If people are critical to combat capability, how should an organization be structured to systematically improve their performance?
The differences are revealing.
The Army describes Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) as its primary investment in Soldier readiness and lethality. In August 2026, the Army further aligned H2F with its warfighting-development structure by transitioning proponency to the Maneuver Center of Excellence under the new Transformation and Training Command. (Army)
USSOCOM describes POTFF as a performance- and readiness-focused system built around embedded specialists and multidomain cross-functional teams. Its stated objective is optimizing SOF readiness, longevity, and performance throughout a Special Operations career. (SOCOM)
True North Plus is taking shape differently. AFMEDCOM describes the program as the integration of True North and Operational Support Teams, with current implementation consolidating personnel and administrative structures ahead of full operational capability planned for October 2026. (Air Force Medicine)
All three models care about readiness, but the organizational architecture surrounding readiness is different, and that deserves attention.
TN+ vs. H2F vs. POTFF: The Big Picture
Capability | Air Force True North Plus | Army H2F | USSOCOM POTFF |
Primary orientation | Prevention, resilience, readiness and Human Performance | Soldier performance, readiness and lethality | SOF performance, readiness and career longevity |
Embedded model | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Strength & conditioning | Inherited from OST capability | Core H2F capability | Core physical-performance capability |
Physical therapy | Inherited from OST capability | Embedded | Integrated performance/rehabilitation capability |
Behavioral/mental health | Major inherited True North capability | Mental-readiness capabilities | Integrated behavioral/psychological performance support |
Registered dietitian | Installation/support availability can vary; not consistently described publicly as a standardized core TN+ position | Embedded H2F Performance Team capability | Nutrition integrated into holistic performance |
Cognitive performance | Potentially supported through broader resources | Cognitive Performance Specialist | Explicit cognitive-performance domain |
Spiritual readiness | Strong True North heritage | H2F spiritual domain | POTFF spiritual domain |
Program identity | AFMEDCOM-aligned integrated support | Unit-centric Human Performance system | Performance-based SOF enterprise |
Current maturity | Transitioning toward FOC in October 2026 | Mature and continuing to expand/evolve | Mature SOF-specific system |
The comparison should not be read as a ranking. H2F serves the Army, POTFF serves a specialized SOF population, and TN+ is being built around Air Force requirements.
But the table highlights a critical issue: H2F and POTFF are explicitly organized around performance.
That distinction can influence everything downstream, from staffing and facilities to career development and what leaders consider a successful outcome.
Army H2F: Human Performance Built Into the Unit
The Army's H2F system is perhaps the clearest conventional-force comparison for True North Plus.
H2F organizes Soldier readiness across five domains:
Physical
Nutritional
Mental
Sleep
Spiritual
But the important part is not simply having five domains.
The Army has increasingly built an organizational structure around delivering them.
An August 2026 Army H2F organizational update describes H2F Performance Teams as being embedded directly within brigades and specifically identifies physical therapists, strength coaches, cognitive performance specialists, occupational therapists, registered dietitians, and athletic trainers as part of the embedded model. (Army)
That changes how nutrition, strength and conditioning, rehabilitation, and mental performance are treated. They are not simply services somewhere on the installation. They become part of the performance infrastructure surrounding the Soldier.
The Army has gone even further by developing dedicated Soldier Performance Readiness Centers. Army guidance describes these facilities not as conventional gyms or medical clinics, but as unit-owned performance environments designed for integrated physical and mental conditioning. (Army)
That organizational philosophy matters. A Soldier does not necessarily need to become a patient before interacting with the system. The system exists to develop performance.
Why H2F's Embedded Dietitian Matters
This is one area where the comparison with TN+ becomes especially important.
Nutrition directly influences:
Body composition
Energy availability
Muscle recovery
Strength development
Bone health
Cardiovascular health
Hydration
Sleep
cognitive performance
training adaptation
heat tolerance
long-duration operations
Yet nutrition frequently occupies an awkward space inside military organizations.
It is universally acknowledged as important, but access to a registered dietitian may occur through a separate clinic, health-promotion program, referral pathway, or installation resource.
That is different from making the dietitian a member of the Human Performance team.
Army H2F does the latter. Its current embedded Performance Team model specifically includes registered dietitians alongside physical therapists, strength coaches, athletic trainers and cognitive-performance professionals. (Army)
The distinction may sound administrative. Operationally, it can be significant. Imagine a strength coach identifies a group of Airmen repeatedly losing energy late in training.
Without embedded nutrition expertise, the response may be: “You should eat better.”
An integrated performance dietitian can instead examine:
Meal timing
Carbohydrate availability
protein intake
hydration
electrolyte replacement
caffeine
supplement use
total energy availability
shift schedules
dining-facility access
body-composition goals
The problem becomes measurable and actionable. For readers interested in the performance side of this relationship, Human Performance HQ's Hydration and Physical Performance, Pre-Workout Hydration, and Creatine Benefits articles explain how seemingly basic nutrition strategies can influence training and recovery.
The broader point is simple: If nutrition is a core determinant of warfighter performance, performance nutrition should be treated as a core capability rather than an optional referral resource.
The Navy Is Moving in the Same Direction
The Army is not the only useful comparison.
The Navy's emerging Human Performance Optimization work is particularly interesting because it demonstrates that other services are also experimenting with explicitly performance-centered multidisciplinary teams.
That matters because the broader Department-level Warfighter Performance Optimization – Total Force Fitness initiative now organizes resources around nutrition, sleep, mental health, medical readiness, cognitive performance, brain health, physical fitness and Human Performance research. (Military Health System)
The direction is becoming increasingly clear. Human Performance is expanding beyond physical fitness.
The future military performance team is likely to operate at the intersection of: medicine + exercise science + nutrition + psychology + cognition + sleep + data + operational leadership.
TN+ has the opportunity to build around that reality.
USSOCOM POTFF: Performance as the Organizing Principle
USSOCOM provides a different benchmark. POTFF operates within a highly specialized population with mission demands and resources that are not directly comparable to the conventional Air Force, but its philosophy is instructive.
USSOCOM explicitly identifies three core POTFF tenets:
Performance and readiness focused
Embedded specialized professionals
Multidomain cross-functional teams (SOCOM)
That language is important. POTFF's stated mission is to optimize and sustain SOF mission readiness, longevity, and performance. In other words, performance is not merely an outcome of healthcare. It is the mission of the program.
USSOCOM's 2025 SOF Renaissance strategy similarly describes POTFF as one of the command's premier performance-based programs and discusses embedded Human Performance professionals as part of the broader SOF talent lifecycle. (SOCOM)
This provides another useful lesson for True North Plus. Medical expertise should absolutely exist inside Human Performance, but Human Performance itself is larger than medicine.
Seven Lessons TN+ Can Take From Other Military Human Performance Programs
Rather than asking which military program is "best," a more productive question is what structural lessons TN+ can use as it matures.
1. Human Performance Needs an Operational Identity
Airmen should understand TN+ as something that helps them perform, not simply somewhere they go when something is wrong. That distinction changes participation. It changes commander engagement, and it changes culture.
2. Performance Nutrition Should Be Embedded
Nutrition is too closely connected to physical readiness, recovery, body composition, cognition, and Culture of Fitness objectives to remain peripheral. A registered dietitian does something fundamentally different from general nutrition education.
3. Multidisciplinary Teams Need Accountable Leadership
A collection of specialists is not automatically an integrated team.
Someone must own:
Strategy
priorities
resource allocation
integration
commander communication
analytics
professional development
program outcomes
4. Civilian Experts Need Career Progression
Civilian professionals often provide continuity while military members rotate. If highly capable practitioners reach a career ceiling inside Human Performance, the organization risks losing expertise precisely when those people become most valuable.
5. Commanders Need Performance Data
Attendance is not performance. Briefing 500 Airmen may demonstrate reach. It does not establish that readiness improved.
6. The Air Force Needs Human Performance Education
Army H2F has deliberately invested in developing internal H2F knowledge rather than relying exclusively on external specialists.
TN+ could similarly help build leaders and Airmen who understand basic principles of strength, recovery, nutrition, sleep and performance.
7. Success Must Extend Beyond Fitness-Test Scores
A higher PFRA score can be useful. But operational Human Performance should eventually include measures such as injury burden, lost-duty time, strength, aerobic capacity, occupational performance, sleep, nutrition behavior, recovery and commander-defined readiness outcomes.
The AFMEDCOM Question
This brings us to one of the most sensitive, but important, questions surrounding True North Plus.
Should an Air Force Human Performance program live primarily inside a medical command?
There are compelling reasons for AFMEDCOM involvement.
Medical ownership provides access to:
Clinical governance
Credentialing
Physical therapy
Behavioral healthcare
medical records
patient-safety systems
rehabilitation
healthcare expertise
Those are substantial advantages, and AFMEDCOM is currently responsible for implementing the consolidation, with TN+ scheduled to reach full operational capability in October 2026. (Air Force Medicine)
The concern is not that medicine does not belong in Human Performance.
It absolutely does.
The question is whether a medical organizational model is broad enough, by itself, to govern the entire Human Performance mission.
Medical Readiness and Performance Optimization Are Different Problems
Traditional medicine generally begins with questions such as:
Is something wrong?
What is the diagnosis?
How do we restore function?
Is the Airman medically qualified?
Performance science also asks:
How do we make an already healthy person stronger?
How do we improve aerobic capacity?
How do we optimize nutrition?
How do we increase occupational capacity?
How do we improve recovery?
How do we maintain cognitive performance under fatigue?
How do we develop physical reserve before the mission becomes more demanding?
There is enormous overlap. But they are not identical disciplines.
Consider an Airman with:
No injury
No mental-health diagnosis
No medical limitation
A passing fitness score
Poor sleep
Low strength
mediocre aerobic fitness
inconsistent nutrition
low physical reserve
From a healthcare perspective, there may be nothing to treat.
From a Human Performance perspective, there may be enormous opportunity.
This is why TN+ may ultimately benefit from a hybrid governance philosophy: Medical integration without making Human Performance synonymous with medical readiness.
The Civilian Talent Management Problem In Department of Air Force True North Jobs
This is where organizational structure intersects with workforce strategy. High-performing Human Performance programs depend heavily on specialized civilians.
Strength and conditioning professionals, physical therapists, athletic trainers, dietitians, exercise physiologists, psychologists, occupational therapists, researchers, and program managers may spend years developing expertise.
The Department of the Air Force already recognizes the importance of retaining this kind of institutional expertise.
Its current Civilians We Need Career Model deliberately uses dual pathways designed to develop both enterprise leaders and functional experts. AFPC describes career broadening opportunities for GS-12 through GS-14 employees and strategic leadership opportunities for GS-13 through GS-15 civilians. (Air Force Personnel Center)
The DAF previously explained the philosophy even more explicitly: it needs both enterprise leaders and people with deep technical expertise and institutional memory. (Air Force Personnel Center)
That principle should matter to TN+.
Does True North Plus Need a GS-13 Civilian Human Performance Program Director?
This is a proposed organizational solution rather than a description of current Air Force policy. But it deserves serious consideration. Imagine a highly capable Human Performance professional enters the Air Force as a GS-11 or GS-12.
Over time, that person:
Earns graduate education
Gains advanced certifications
Builds commander relationships
manages multidisciplinary teams
develops programs
interprets research
manages resources
mentors junior staff
understands Air Force systems
accumulates years of institutional knowledge
What happens next?
If there is no senior technical leadership pathway within Human Performance, promotion may require leaving Human Performance. The organization has unintentionally created an incentive for its most experienced practitioners to take their expertise elsewhere.
Potential destinations include:
Army H2F
USSOCOM POTFF
collegiate athletics
professional sports
private Human Performance
other federal organizations
healthcare administration
That creates a talent-management problem. The Air Force spends years developing expertise and then potentially provides no corresponding senior technical position in which to use it. A GS-13 installation Human Performance Program Director could help address that gap.
What Would a Civilian Human Performance Director Actually Do?
This should not simply be another administrative layer.
The role should own integration.
A Human Performance Program Director could be responsible for:
Installation Human Performance strategy
Commander consultation
TN+ team integration
performance metrics
resource allocation
workforce development
continuing education
quality assurance
research translation
partnerships
program evaluation
implementation of enterprise initiatives
long-term continuity
Military officers rotate. That is part of military development.
A senior civilian technical leader can provide continuity across those rotations.
That person can remember:
Why a program was built
Which interventions worked
Which commanders supported them
Which metrics mattered
Which mistakes were already made
How previous policy changes affected implementation
That is institutional memory, and institutional memory has operational value.
Importantly, creating a senior civilian pathway would also align with the DAF's stated civilian talent-management model, which explicitly values both enterprise leadership and deep functional expertise. (Air Force Personnel Center)
Why the Dietitian Gap Matters Just as Much
A Human Performance program without embedded performance nutrition has a major capability limitation. That does not mean Airmen have zero access to dietitians. They may have installation resources, but access and integration are different.
A dietitian sitting inside the Human Performance team can participate in:
Unit needs assessments
training planning
body-composition interventions
recovery programs
heat preparation
shift-work strategies
supplement education
commander consultations
interdisciplinary case discussions
Culture of Fitness initiatives
Army H2F's current organizational model explicitly embeds registered dietitians alongside other performance professionals. (Army) That is important because military nutrition is becoming more complicated, not less.
Airmen are navigating:
Weight-loss drugs
supplements
creatine
energy drinks
extreme diets
intermittent fasting
body-composition requirements
shift work
heat exposure
high caffeine intake
social-media nutrition advice
Telling people to "eat healthy" is not an adequate performance-nutrition strategy. Neither is expecting strength coaches to operate outside their professional scope.
If the Air Force wants a Culture of Fitness, it also needs a culture of fueling.
A Proposed Next-Generation TN+ Team
Not every Air Force installation requires the same staffing.
Mission, population, occupational demands and risk should influence manpower, but a mature installation-level True North Plus Human Performance team could potentially include:
GS-13 Human Performance Program Director
Strength and Conditioning Specialists
Physical Therapist
Athletic Trainer
Registered Dietitian/Performance Dietitian
Mental Health Provider
Cognitive Performance Specialist
Human Performance/Exercise Physiologist
Chaplain/Religious Support integration
Human Performance Data or Program Analyst
Additional disciplines could be incorporated where mission demands justify them. The goal should not be to build the largest team possible. It should be to create the smallest multidisciplinary team capable of addressing the major determinants of mission performance for that population.
The Human Performance HQ W.A.R.F.I.G.H.T.E.R. Framework
So how should the Air Force evaluate whether TN+ is becoming a genuine Human Performance system?
I propose ten questions.
W — Warfighter-Centered
Does the program begin with mission demands?
The objective is not simply improving health. It is improving the health and capability required to execute the mission.
A — Accessible and Embedded
Can Airmen interact with professionals where they actually work and train?
True North and OST have already demonstrated the value of embedding expertise.
R — Readiness Measured
Can the program demonstrate outcomes beyond participation?
Measure:
Injuries
lost-duty days
strength
aerobic fitness
physical function
healthcare utilization
occupational performance
commander-defined readiness
F — Functional Integration
Do specialists operate as one team?
Or are they simply different resources listed on the same slide?
Integration requires shared objectives.
I — Individualized
Different Airmen have different jobs.
A maintainer, pilot, defender, cyber operator and pararescueman do not have identical performance requirements.
Programming should reflect that.
G — Governance With Clear Accountability
Who owns the outcome?
A multidisciplinary program needs a leader with authority to coordinate personnel, resources, strategy and evaluation.
H — Human Performance Expertise
Are professionals qualified in the disciplines they represent?
Human Performance cannot become a label placed on generic wellness programming.
T — Talent Development
Can talented practitioners build careers inside the program?
This includes:
Continuing education
advanced certification
mentorship
promotion
leadership
technical advancement
E — Evidence Driven
Does the program change when evidence changes?
Human Performance professionals should translate current research into practical interventions rather than relying on tradition.
R — Responsive to Commanders
Ultimately, military Human Performance exists to support mission execution.
The commander should be able to ask:
"What is limiting my people?"
And the Human Performance team should be capable of providing a meaningful, evidence-based answer.
What Should TN+ Actually Measure?
This may ultimately be more important than the organizational chart.
Organizations optimize what they measure.
If TN+ primarily measures:
Appointments
classes
briefings
encounters
referrals
then activity can become the objective. Those metrics still matter, but Human Performance needs outcome measures.
A mature system could examine:
Musculoskeletal injury rates
lost-duty days
profiles or limitations
strength development
aerobic capacity
fitness-assessment trends
occupational task performance
return-to-duty timelines
sleep behaviors
nutrition behaviors
body-composition trends
healthcare utilization
unit availability
retention
commander-defined mission metrics
Imagine two TN+ teams.
Team A briefs 2,000 Airmen.
Team B briefs 800 but reduces preventable injuries, improves strength, increases aerobic capacity, improves sleep behavior and returns injured Airmen to full duty faster.
Raw participation would make Team A appear more productive. Performance outcomes might tell a very different story.
The Ariel Hernandez Perspective: Access Is Not the Same as Integration
One of the most important distinctions I have learned working in military Human Performance is that having resources available is not the same as having a Human Performance system.
An installation may already have:
A dietitian
physical therapists
mental-health professionals
chaplains
fitness staff
strength coaches
health-promotion resources
On paper, nearly everything is available, but the Airman still experiences those capabilities separately.
The commander experiences them separately, and the professionals may rarely sit together and ask: What is limiting this unit's performance, and what are we going to do about it together?
That is integration.
True North Plus has the opportunity to solve that problem, but consolidation alone does not guarantee integration. Putting True North and OST positions under one administrative structure is the beginning.
The more important transformation is creating:
Shared objectives
shared data
shared planning
shared accountability
common professional standards
leadership continuity
measurable performance outcomes
That is where TN+ can evolve from a program into a system.
True North Plus and Warfighter Performance Optimization
The timing could not be better.
The Department's current Warfighter Performance Optimization resources explicitly span nutrition, sleep, mental health, medical readiness, cognition, brain health, physical fitness and Human Performance research. (Military Health System)
That framework effectively acknowledges something Human Performance professionals have argued for years: Readiness is multidimensional.
The Air Force now has an opportunity to connect three major initiatives:
True North Plus provides embedded expertise.
Culture of Fitness provides a service-level push toward continuous physical readiness.
Warfighter Performance Optimization provides the broader multidisciplinary framework.
If properly integrated, these do not need to become three disconnected initiatives. They could become parts of the same system.
The Future of Air Force Human Performance
The future should not be a choice between healthcare and performance.
The Air Force needs both. Medical professionals protect the force. Human Performance professionals develop capacity. Sometimes those responsibilities overlap completely. Sometimes they do not.
The opportunity is to build an organizational model that recognizes the difference. AFMEDCOM can provide clinical governance, credentialing, rehabilitation expertise, behavioral healthcare, patient safety and medical integration.
A mature TN+ performance structure could simultaneously provide:
Commander-facing Human Performance leadership
Strength and conditioning
performance nutrition
cognitive performance
sleep optimization
performance analytics
occupational assessment
civilian talent development
research translation
That is not an argument for dismantling the current model. It is an argument for allowing the model to mature. True North Plus is not even scheduled to reach full operational capability until October 2026. (Air Force Medicine)
The appropriate question is therefore not:
Has TN+ succeeded or failed?
It is:
What should TN+ become next?
Final Perspective: From Healthy Enough to Optimized
The Air Force has spent decades developing extraordinary aircraft, weapons, sensors, communications systems and technology.
Those systems receive:
Preventive maintenance
diagnostics
upgrades
specialized technicians
performance testing
lifecycle management
Human beings deserve the same seriousness. Not because Airmen are machines, because they are considerably more complicated.
A warfighter's performance can change because of:
Sleep
stress
injury
nutrition
hydration
fitness
relationships
workload
pain
motivation
environment
leadership
True North Plus brings many of the professionals capable of addressing those factors closer together. That alone makes TN+ an important step forward, but the next evolution should be more ambitious.
The goal should not simply be keeping Airmen healthy enough to perform the mission. The goal should be developing Airmen with enough physical, cognitive, psychological, and occupational reserve to perform when the mission becomes harder than expected.
That is Human Performance Optimization, and that is where True North Plus could become one of the Air Force's most important readiness capabilities.
FAQs
What is True North Plus in the Air Force?
True North Plus (TN+) is the Air Force's integration of the legacy True North and Operational Support Team programs into a consolidated readiness and Human Performance capability. True North historically emphasized embedded mental-health, resilience and spiritual support, while OST brought capabilities such as physical therapy and strength and conditioning closer to operational units. As of September 2026, the program is still transitioning, with AFMEDCOM reporting planned full operational capability in October 2026. (Air Force Medicine)
What is the difference between True North and True North Plus?
True North was primarily an embedded resilience, behavioral-health and spiritual-support model. True North Plus combines that foundation with capabilities inherited from Operational Support Teams, creating a broader multidisciplinary approach to readiness and Human Performance. TN+ therefore has the potential to address physical, psychological and occupational performance through a more integrated structure rather than treating those areas as independent programs.
What professionals are on a True North Plus team?
TN+ is still being implemented, and publicly documented legacy True North and OST staffing has varied by installation, so it would be inaccurate to describe one universal team configuration before the mature model is fully fielded. Inherited capabilities can include strength and conditioning, physical therapy, behavioral health, social work, chaplain support and Human Performance functions. The larger strategic question is whether future TN+ structures should standardize additional capabilities such as performance dietitians, cognitive-performance specialists, athletic trainers, data analysts and senior civilian program leadership.
How does True North Plus compare with Army H2F?
Both programs use embedded multidisciplinary capabilities to improve readiness, but their current organizational models differ. Army H2F explicitly embeds Performance Teams at the brigade level that can include physical therapists, strength coaches, cognitive-performance specialists, occupational therapists, registered dietitians and athletic trainers. (Army) TN+ combines two Air Force programs with strong prevention, behavioral-health, resilience and musculoskeletal-performance capabilities, but it is still transitioning toward its mature structure, making direct one-for-one comparisons premature.
How does True North Plus compare with USSOCOM POTFF?
POTFF is designed specifically around the unusual operational demands and career lifecycle of Special Operations Forces, so its resources should not automatically be treated as a template for the conventional Air Force. USSOCOM nevertheless provides an important organizational benchmark because POTFF explicitly defines itself as performance- and readiness-focused, uses embedded specialized professionals, and organizes them into multidomain cross-functional teams. (SOCOM) TN+ could adopt similar principles of integration while scaling staffing and resources appropriately for Air Force missions.
Why should True North Plus include registered dietitians?
Nutrition influences body composition, recovery, training adaptation, bone health, energy availability, cognition, hydration and occupational performance. An embedded performance dietitian can work directly with strength coaches, rehabilitation professionals and commanders instead of functioning only as an external referral resource. The Army currently embeds registered dietitians within H2F Performance Teams, illustrating one way nutrition can be treated as an operational performance capability. (Army)
How could True North Plus improve Air Force Human Performance?
TN+ could continue evolving through stronger multidisciplinary integration, standardized performance-nutrition capability, senior civilian Human Performance leadership, clearer career pathways, commander-facing analytics, and outcome measures that extend beyond healthcare utilization and fitness-test scores. Those changes would align naturally with the Department's broader Warfighter Performance Optimization framework, which currently includes nutrition, sleep, mental health, cognition, physical fitness, medical readiness and Human Performance research. (Military Health System) The goal would not be replacing AFMEDCOM's medical expertise, but creating a system in which medical readiness and performance optimization reinforce one another.
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Research and Department of War Resources
Air Force Medical Command — True North+ Implementation Update (2026). AFMEDCOM reports that TN+ is scheduled to reach full operational capability in October 2026 and explains the current manpower realignment of True North and OST personnel. (Air Force Medicine)Read the AFMEDCOM True North+ update
Military Health System — Warfighter Performance Optimization: Total Force Fitness. The current framework includes nutrition, sleep, mental health, medical readiness, cognitive performance, brain health, physical fitness, and Human Performance research. (Military Health System) Explore Warfighter Performance Optimization
U.S. Army — H2F System Update: Organization (2026). The Army describes its embedded brigade model and identifies physical therapists, strength coaches, cognitive-performance specialists, occupational therapists, registered dietitians and athletic trainers within H2F Performance Teams. (Army) Read the Army H2F organizational update
U.S. Army — H2F Proponency Transition (2026). The Army describes H2F as its primary investment in Soldier readiness and lethality and documents its transition into the Army's evolving warfighting-development structure. (Army) Read the Army H2F proponency update
U.S. Army — H2F Facilities and Soldier Performance Readiness Centers (2026). The Army describes SPRCs as specialized, unit-owned performance environments rather than conventional gyms or medical clinics. (Army) Read about H2F performance infrastructure
USSOCOM — Preservation of the Force and Family. POTFF defines its mission around SOF mission readiness, longevity and performance and identifies embedded specialized professionals and multidomain cross-functional teams as core principles. (SOCOM) Explore USSOCOM POTFF
USSOCOM — SOF Renaissance. USSOCOM's strategy describes POTFF as a premier performance-based program and places embedded Human Performance professionals within the broader SOF talent lifecycle. (SOCOM)
Air Force Personnel Center — Civilian Career Management. The Department of the Air Force's Civilians We Need model provides dual development pathways emphasizing both enterprise leadership and functional expertise, including development opportunities for GS-12 through GS-15 personnel. (Air Force Personnel Center) Explore DAF Civilian Career Management
Air Force Personnel Center — Civilians We Need Career Model. DAF describes its civilian talent strategy as developing both enterprise leaders and technical/functional experts while retaining institutional knowledge. (Air Force Personnel Center) Read about the DAF civilian talent-management model
