[CSB]

Don't confuse the "testing" part with the "training" part.

Those with gray hair will remember the FIVE event PT tests of old, with (depending on the particular year):

- The one mile run (in boots and fatigues).
- The hand grenade throw.
- The fireman carry.
- The low crawl.
- The inverted crawl (crab walk).
- The horizonal ladder (monkey bars).
- The "Run, Dodge & Jump."
- The push up.
- The sit up.
- The two mile run.


There were a number of problems that developed with the older PT test categories:

- The test did not demonstrate physical fitness, even thought it was a combat
skill (i.e., the hand grenade throw, which was for distance and accuracy).

- The test demonstrated a combat skill, but was detrimental to the health of the solder being tested: the fireman's carry, the low crawl.

- The test measured physical fitness and/or a combat skill, but was too
dependant on the individual fort/post/school facility equipment design:

= the run, dodge and jump ... Look in some of the older references, sometimes the ditch was lined with sandbags, other times it was cast in concrete, the soil around the barriers ranged from soft sand, to packed earth (with grooves to help push off), to grass.

= the horizonal ladder (some had rotating bars, some had fixed bars; some had thin bars, some had thick bars). In the summer, the bars could get too hot to touch; in the winter, your skin could freeze to the bar.

So the Army came up with a simple three part test that could be given anywhere in the world, at any school (including ROTC), at a training facility, even in a combat zone. It required no specific equipment, no facilities, just flat ground.

It's not perfect, but it is a valid test of general physical fitness.

Of course Special Forces / Ranger / etc. have additional requirements (such as the swim tests, or rucksack marches) unique to the needs of combat arms. But the APFT is designed to be universal, a lowest common denominator for physical testing of boths genders, in all MOS's.