A Fitness Fad. With Guns.

New York Times

30-04-2025

A slurry of snow and sleet was battering the Nevada Firearms Academy and Range, a rugged expanse of dry soil and sagebrush about 25 miles outside downtown Reno. It's rarely so cold in this part of the high desert basin — hovering in the high 30s just past dawn on a Saturday morning — and it almost never snows in April. But for the roughly 200 men and women arriving for the weekend's Tactical Games, the inhospitable weather only added to the experience.
A brawny man decked out in camo fatigues and body armor laughed as he wiped mud from his AR-15-style rifle, saying he could not tell if it had become colder or if he'd just gotten wetter.
The Tactical Games is a multiday competition that tests fitness and marksmanship, often simultaneously. Competitors, outfitted in military gear and wearing 15-pound weighted tactical vests, spend two days sprinting, climbing, jumping, lifting barbells and shooting, all while enduring the elements — usually the extreme heat and humidity of Texas, Arizona or South Carolina, but sometimes, as on this weekend in Nevada, a wet desert squall.
One event finds the competitors heaving 80-pound sandbags over obstacles and clambering over a 6-foot wall. Another has them burning calories on stationary bikes before throwing themselves to the ground and taking precision shots at targets on a distant hill. It's part 'American Gladiators,' part Call of Duty.
Founded in 2018 by Tim Burke, a 23-year veteran of the U.S. Army and a former Green Beret, the competition was originally designed as a relatively simple way to test accuracy under fatigue: When your heart rate is elevated from physical exertion, it can become harder to concentrate and more difficult to aim a gun.
'Anybody can stand on the range and shoot accurately at rest,' Mr. Burke said in an interview in 2021. 'But if we get your heart rate and your respiration rates up, and now we ask you to do a fine motor skill. That's where talent, that's where skill sets get built.'
The tournament has evolved over the years, with a renewed emphasis on the spectacle of a challenging, adrenaline-pumping sport. All weekend long, Limp Bizkit songs blared over loudspeakers as spectators — mainly the families of the competitors — whooped and hollered, cheering on the athletes as they grunted and groaned through grueling ordeals.
The sport is still immersed in the world of military and law enforcement, with many competitors hailing from the Armed Forces, Homeland Security, various local police departments and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And while it has expanded beyond that core group, almost everyone who participates, as Nick Thayer, the owner of Games, put it, are 'people who do real work for a living,' like firefighters, teachers and nurses.
Mr. Thayer, a United States Coast Guard veteran with a background in field engineering, discovered the Tactical Games as a competitor in 2020, and was instantly addicted. 'I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen,' he said, adding an expletive for emphasis.
The company changed ownership a number of times in its early iterations, and Mr. Thayer took over, first as president in 2022 and then as owner the next year. His wife, Amanda, also works for the company, and the two now run more than a dozen weekend-long events in cities across the United States. They will host an event in Poland this September, and Mr. Thayer said they planned to expand further next year.
'The last time we came to Nevada, we had flooding,' he said as he walked the grounds in the rain. 'We can't catch a break here.'
The Tactical Games' approach to fitness is reminiscent of Hyrox, the popular fitness race in Europe that has been gaining popularity in the United States. Like Hyrox, the Tactical Games borrows movements from CrossFit, including barbell cleans, rowing, biking, running and deadlifts, and is ideally suited to athletes with a broad base of fitness. Many of the people competing in Nevada this weekend trained at CrossFit gyms, and Mr. Thayer himself was a CrossFit coach in New Orleans for seven years. (He said he expressed interest in partnering with CrossFit in 2023, but nothing came of it.)
One of this weekend's participants was Pat Nuanez, a 60-year-old product manager for a defense contractor who heard about the Tactical Games in 2021, when someone at his CrossFit gym urged him to give it a try. He knew it would be up his alley. 'I worked as a cop for a little while, and I love guns,' he said, speaking up to be heard over the incessant sound of rifle and pistol fire. 'I went in with a heavy plate carrier, the wrong gear, an ancient rifle, iron sights, my old police gun — and I loved it.' Since then, he's participated in 10 events.
The Tactical Games has role-play elements, with participants crawling around in the dirt in fatigues and body armor, and the competitions also give firearms enthusiasts a chance to nerd out and show off their expensive gear. The event's former slogan was 'the closest thing to war without getting shot at,' though that kind of language has been toned down in an effort to make the experience seem a little less extreme.
Like shoot-em-up games and paintball matches, the Tactical Games taps into an enduring mystique: It makes being a soldier feel like an irresistible thrill.
But it is Mr. Thayer's ambition that the role-playing aspect of the Tactical Games is the sugar that helps competitors swallow their medicine: The goal is for cops and soldiers to exercise more.
'The more we can get them interested in health and wellness, the better,' he said. Healthier cops, in Mr. Thayer's view, make smarter and safer decisions in the field.
Ehea Schuerch, a corrections officer from Washington who works in bookings at the Spokane County Jail, came to the Tactical Games through functional fitness, having competed at the CrossFit Games. She agreed with Mr. Thayer that the skills she honed at the competition were transferable to her day job, and she said that she was always urging 'cops from surrounding departments to get into this because they'll get 10 times better at their jobs than they ever thought they'd be.'
But, Ms. Schuerch added, the Tactical Games can also be good for civilians — especially women. 'This is opening up a whole new world to women,' she said. 'I didn't grow up around guns, and if I hadn't worked in corrections, I probably wouldn't have done this. But now I can go to my girlfriends and be like, 'Hey, want me to teach you something?' It's empowering.'
Mr. Thayer said the early days of the Tactical Games had a somewhat Wild West approach to the marksmanship component. 'It was probably one of the most unsafe things you've ever seen,' he said with a laugh, describing an easygoing atmosphere in which competitors would walk around with loaded guns and point firearms at one another. The present-day iteration is a lot less cavalier, with gun safety being the organization's top priority and disqualifications happening even for seemingly minor infractions.
During an interview in his trailer, Mr. Thayer took a phone call from one of the other organizers who wanted a ruling on whether someone should be disqualified: A competitor had moved to draw a pistol before the charge line at one of the stations, but was stopped by a range officer before it was taken out.
That competitor was allowed to stay, as no infraction had been committed, but five others were not so lucky: In the heat of the moment, eager to win, they drew too soon. 'These guys tried to shave a second or two off their time,' one of the organizers warned a later heat before an event station. 'And now they're no longer competing this weekend.'
Even with its focus on safety, the very nature of the Tactical Games, which highlights firearms and unapologetic militarism, can feel politically charged. Asked about that, Mr. Thayer was somewhat evasive. 'I wouldn't say that was a concern,' he said. 'We are apolitical as a sport. Obviously, I'm a huge advocate for the Second Amendment. But not just gun ownership — responsible gun ownership.' He repeatedly emphasized that the community was open-minded and welcoming to people of different political stripes.
Still, the impression of a certain kind of American bravado was hard to ignore. Two members of the U.S. Border Patrol manned a recruitment booth throughout the weekend and at previous events, the Army had recruiting desks set up, too. 'You get young people that are motivated and willing to go out and do hard stuff — that's kind of a great candidate pool for them,' Mr. Thayer said.
But the community itself was, as Mr. Thayer promised, kind and welcoming — the overall vibe was of a family barbecue, and despite the lousy weather, everyone was in good spirits.
'The name can be deceiving,' Ms. Schuerch said. 'Tactical Games sounds aggressive, but it's a really chill, good community. Quality people.'
Bob Porzio, a 59-year-old doctor from California, echoed the sentiment. 'There's no group of people I'd rather have in my foxhole,' he said.
The sun finally started to peek out from behind voluminous gray clouds late in the afternoon on Sunday, as the Games drew to a close and the awards for the top competitors were handed out. (The winners received new rifles.) Though still chilly, the grounds remained busy with people volunteering to help break things down in what felt like one last rallying cry of camaraderie.
'I have a question, Nick,' one of the competitors asked loudly as the day came to an end. 'What is it with the Tactical Games and Nevada and crazy weather?'
Mr. Thayer cracked a charismatic smile. 'We're never coming back,' he laughed.