Who Trains the Mind at the Armory? What the Army's H2F Rollout Means for the Guard
Reviewed by Marc Ó Gríofa, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Neurova Labs
The Army has spent the last several years putting a simple idea into its force structure: a soldier's mind can be trained, and someone should be assigned to do the training.
In March, the Army's Directorate of Prevention, Resilience and Readiness wrote that “targeted cognitive training is an effective tool for building a stronger, more resilient military.” The Army has backed that position with people and buildings. The open question, and the Army has named it in its own words, is how that capability reaches a soldier who drills one weekend a month at an armory two hours from the nearest installation.
That question belongs to every Guard formation, and it is worth answering practically.
What has the Army built for cognitive training?
The Army has built Holistic Health and Fitness performance teams with cognitive performance specialists, Ready and Resilient Performance Centers at 31 locations, and a train-the-trainer model for resilience skills. Holistic Health and Fitness, or H2F, places domain experts inside brigades, and cognitive performance specialists sit on those teams beside strength coaches, dietitians, physical therapists, and athletic trainers. An August 24 Army update reports 90 performance teams fielded or in process in the Regular Army, with smaller support units next in line for area support teams in fiscal year 2027.
The performance centers are staffed by performance experts who teach mental skills, stress management, and performance under pressure.
Underneath both sits the train-the-trainer model, which trained more than 49,000 Master Resilience Trainers through an 80-hour course in the decade to 2020, according to an Army report that year.
Taken together, that is a clear institutional view. Cognitive performance is trainable, it belongs next to physical fitness, and it scales when trained facilitators carry it into units.
Why is cognitive training hard to deliver to the Guard?
Performance teams and performance centers are built around installations and full-time formations, and a Guard member touches military health and training infrastructure roughly 38 days a year. The other 327 are spent at a civilian job, at home, and in a hometown that may be far from any post.
The Army knows this. Announcing plans to extend H2F to the reserve components, Lt. Gen. David Francis told Army Times that “the real challenge in delivering this capability will be how we do that with our dispersed units.” The same report described an Army National Guard pilot planned for fiscal year 2026. The Army Reserve, per the August update, is building a hub-and-spoke model with mobile teams that travel to dispersed soldiers during training assemblies.
Those are serious efforts, and they will take years to reach every formation. A readiness NCO planning next quarter's training schedule needs something that works at the armory now.
Why does cognitive training scale through facilitators?
A skill spreads through a force fastest when a unit's own people are certified to deliver it, and the Master Resilience Trainer program already proved that principle. Specialists are few and cover large formations, so the reach at company level comes from facilitators who drill with the company and can run a session on a Saturday in whatever room the unit has.
Cognitive training fits that model well. A structured session with a clear sequence, a trained person running it, and a repeatable cycle is something a unit can own. Clinical care is a different job, and it stays with clinicians. Training a skill between those appointments, and in the months when no appointment exists, is the gap a unit can fill with its own people.
What should a Guard leader ask before choosing a program?
A Guard leader weighing a cognitive training program should get plain answers to five questions before anything else.
Who runs a session, and how long does it take to certify them?
How much space and time does one session need, and does it fit a drill weekend schedule?
Does it require a clinician in the room, or a referral to start?
What data does it collect, and does it need a network connection?
How does the unit know whether anyone is actually completing it?
A program that cannot answer those five in the first meeting is asking the unit to take on work it did not budget for.
How does Neurova Labs deliver Neurova Academy at the unit?
Neurova Labs provides Neurova Academy, a facilitator-led cognitive training program that a unit runs with its own certified facilitators, on its own schedule, in about a square meter of space per participant, with no clinical infrastructure required.
Facilitator certification is delivered remotely, so a unit can certify people it already has. A cycle runs five consecutive days: an introductory day, then four days of training, one session of about thirty minutes each day. Sessions move from physical activation through rising cognitive demand and close with guided breathing and a deliberate downshift. The program runs offline and collects no personally identifiable information in normal use.
For formations that want a physiological measure alongside completion and self-report, Neurova Labs offers an optional 22-marker panel measuring RNA gene expression from whole blood, run through iXpressGenes, a CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited laboratory.
Neurova Academy is in use today with the Ukrainian military, with Cleveland Police in the United Kingdom, and in veteran clinics in Utah and Idaho.
We see this as a complement to what the Army is building. When an H2F team or a mobile spoke team reaches a Guard formation, a unit that already has certified facilitators and a training habit will be ready to use it.
What is left for a Guard leader to decide?
What remains for a Guard leader is logistics: who runs the session, in what room, on which weekend. The Army has settled the argument about whether the mind is trainable. Those are questions a Guard unit can answer for itself this fiscal year.
To bring Neurova Academy to your unit, visit neurovalabs.com.
About Neurova Labs
Neurova Labs is a veteran-led neurotechnology company based in Salt Lake City. Its program, Neurova Academy, is a facilitator-led neuro-immersive brain training program designed to support focus, stress regulation, and mental endurance, with no clinical infrastructure required. Programs can add an optional 22-marker panel measuring RNA gene expression from whole blood, processed by iXpressGenes, a CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited laboratory. Neurova Labs works with military units, first responder agencies, clinics, and community organizations. Learn more at neurovalabs.com.
Media contact: nathaniel.free@neurovalabs.com.
Neurova Academy is a general wellness and cognitive training program. It is not a medical device and is not offered to diagnose, treat, cure, or mitigate any disease or condition, including concussion, traumatic brain injury, or CTE. Laboratory testing provided by iXpressGenes, a CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited laboratory. References to Department of the Army programs and publications are for commentary only and do not imply endorsement of Neurova Labs by the Department of War, the Department of the Army, the National Guard Bureau, or any federal entity.
Comments