Posted on 02/06/2019 6:36:57 PM PST by jazusamo
The U.S. Army is developing a more intensive fitness test tailored to combat situations following complaints from commanders of insufficient troop readiness.
Top members of Army brass told The Associated Press that the existing physical fitness tests employed by the Army during basic training do not adequately prepare soldiers for the physical challenges of the battlefield.
A new test that is described by the military as far more physically intensive “may be harder, but it is necessary,” Gen. Stephen Townsend, head of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, told the AP.
“We needed to change the culture of fitness in the United States Army," added Army Maj. Gen. Malcolm Frost, commander of the Army’s Center for Initial Military Training. "We had a high number of nondeployable soldiers that had a lot of muscular/skeletal injuries and medical challenges because we hadn’t trained them from a fitness perspective in the right way."
The new test, developed by Maj. Gen. Frost, does not adjust scores for age or gender, unlike the current test. It also adds exercises including dead lifts, sprints with 40-pound weights, power throws, and a 2-mile run among other new tasks.
“Many folks find it easy to do the maximum standard for the current test,” Frost told the AP. “This new test is gender and age neutral. I cannot max this test.”
The AP reports that the new test will affect every soldier who attends basic training, including those not traditionally in combat roles.
“It breaks the mindset of ‘I am an intel soldier,‘” one military intelligence specialist told the news service. “It changes it to ‘I am a soldier,’ because bullets on the battlefield don’t discriminate.”
The test comes in response to concerns about readiness from top Army officials, who told the AP that as many as 12 percent of soldiers are undeployable due to injuries at any given time.
About one-third of soldiers who enter the service leave before their third year due to injuries, according to Frost, which the Army attributes to insufficient fitness training during boot camp.
“The goal is about a having a more combat-ready army," Frost told the AP.
Get on that disability gravy train.
“A third sounds awfully high. I can’t see how physical fitness training can keep a person from being clumsy and accident prone.”
Although they don’t say it, I suspect that fully 15% of the total Force is released in that time-frame because they’re pregnant. Just an admittedly uninformed guess.
I mean, Obutthead said he wouldn’t want his daughters to be punished with a baby, either.
Women and trannies hardest hit.
Put them on a chain gang. Lots of upper body strength from using that slingblade in the ditches. Learn to jump and run when a snake slithers out or a gator wanders by. Sweat off a lot of weight tamping down those asphalt pothole patches in 100 degree heat.
Does anyone really believe they will change the test? Or fudge it for the special protected classes?
Because physical training increases muscle control as well as strength--not to mention giving you a keener sense of the space around you.
I would think that's something we'd all remember from those awful training weeks before fall sports--after we'd been lounging around most of August. Once you could finally walk again, you'd come out of training feeling like a million bucks and moving way better than before.
Put yours between your legs?
I usually throw mine over my shoulder
So the weight for the deadlift is “dependent on the individual Soldier”.
Oh.
Then there is no standard.
So it’s all talk.
If you could win a War by talking, our Generals would be undefeated.
It sound more towards the Marin Corp philosophy; each Marine is first, a rifleman.
In my Army days, Basic was 8 weeks. Advanced Individual Training (AIT), another 8weeks.
Infantry AIT was tough. Clerk Typist AIT was not.
The new ACFT is going to be hard. The old APFT is just pushups, situps, and a 2 mile run. The new ACFT has a number of additional events. More focus on functional strength rather than just pure running.
So here’s the thing. Standards weren’t lowered on paper during Obama. They were just deliberately not enforced.
Did you run as a unit in formation?
Army OSUT for Infantry has been extended, and Combat Engineer and other MOS recently got extended as well. There’s been a major overhaul to Army initial military training over the last couple of years. It’s more Marine-like, in the sense that the Marines seem to train people more up front, whereas the Army had this attitude of “you’ll learn when you get to your unit.” I’d rather get people squared away up front.
doubt if many men could do that.....
now does this mean that fat bellied guys/gals can't linger in the military for their pension?...that if they are not in solid shape they get booted??...I hope so...
Same for me, it was basically 16 weeks of basic.
when I was in the service, I would have been delighted that a run was ONLY 2 miles.
Dead wrong.
If you cannot do that you do not belong in a deployable specialty at all.
When non-deployable personnel are retained AT ALL they reduce the number of non-combat billets to destress troups in between combat tours.
If they can’t pull their load in combat tours they need to be civilians.
A few weeks with kettlebells can do wonders for coordination.
I like the inclusion of kettlebells. Perhaps the best Russian contribution to physical fitness ever. Just a routine of get-ups and swings can harden a person up pronto. And cheap and unbreakable.
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