"gender-neutral physical standards for all soldiers "

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

The current standard, male or female, has no bearing on combat reediness [sic].

True. That is why its called the Army Physical Fitness Test, and not the Army Combat Readiness Test. Its goal is to measure general fitness, not a soldier's performance in simulated combat physical requirements.

I would like to see the run standard replaced with a ruck standard...It is a pass/fail no points either you meet the standard or you do not. Why do you ask? Simple. You dont usually go into combat running in PT gear and running shoes. You usually have weapon, helmet ruck etc etc. It's the whole train like you fight crap I heard about in the 1980's I guess.

I haven't seen many soldiers carry an Olympic bar, dumbbells or a bench on a patrol, either; does that mean soldiers shouldn't use those tools to improve their fitness when not performing combat operations?

I'm not sure the push up and sit ups are a gret standard either. Great for training during PT but does not equate to combat very well unless I am missing something.

I think what you might be missing is the difference between physical training and combat readiness. There are plenty of 'vintage' guys here that ran miles upon miles in flat-insole combat boots for daily PT. Ask them how their knees and backs are doing nowadays. Training as one fights is a good goal for certain training, but not all types of training. Look at the Marines--they've recognized that a general physical fitness test is not always a good indicator of combat related physical tasks. Did they do away with the general fitness test? No, as they understood that assessment is also important, so they created a different test to measure this new metric. You have to use the right tool for the job.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

Do you know why the Army picked 2 miles as the run? Because that is the blast zone of a nuclear weapon.

I was tracking with you right up to this point.

Source for this tidbit?

TR

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

I think you missed my point. As I said push ups and general PT is great for training. I am a big fan of weight training as well. My issue is that in today's Army your running ability is what everyone cares about yet many of these "PT studs" do not hold up in combat according to the Armys own report that is why they were going to change it. They didn't for political reasons. As for running miles upon miles in boots that is plain stupid as well. What I AM saying is do more ruck marches with gear along with the running pushups etc etc in PT gear. At the end of the day we are training to fight and our test should reflect that ie ruck march not PT run unless we are training to drop our weapons and run away from the battle.

Do you know why the Army picked 2 miles as the run? Because that is the blast zone of a nuclear weapon.

Push-ups have been part of Army PT for a very long time, to include the post-WW II fitness test. The reason they were retained in the '46 test is because it was thought that the movement was very similar to that used to get up out of the prone firing position--a combat-relevant task.

As for adding combat-related physical tasks to PT such as ruck marching, there's nothing stopping a unit from doing just that. The APFT is the minimum PT requirement; if a unit wants to raise the standard, they certainly can.

As for the idea of fragile "gazelles", I recall seeing squads and fire teams of Rangers from 3/75 running like their hair was on fire and their asses were catching all over Benning during morning PT in the mid-90s, and most of those studs could ruck like machines just as readily. Being able to break 12:00 on the 2-mile didn't seem to hinder many of my peers in the Q course, Ranger School or later on in combat with SOF units, either.

Some of the folks that designed the 3-event PT test were guest lecturers when I was completing the Master Fitness Trainer course. The main reason for the switch from the 5-event test to the 3-event test, according to them, was to reduce the dependency on specialty equipment or courses (think horizontal ladder, run-dodge-jump lanes) so that the test could be administered nearly anywhere, and to improve throughput. I don't recall any of them correlating the 2-mile run distance to a nuke blast, though; like TR, I'd be interested to hear your source for that.

[sf11b_p]

Heh... gender-neutering.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

Do you know why the Army picked 2 miles as the run? Because that is the blast zone of a nuclear weapon.

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

I can't remember exactly where I heard it. Somewhere in the Army.

Hunh?

I guess our DNA* test developed 600m up-wind minimum for a SADM wasn't known to whomever you got that heard it "somewhere in the Army" factoid...

As far as the 2 miles goes, the determinant was (like a stress test for cardiovascular functioning) to test one's cardiopulmonary fitness by achieving a certain level of functioning and holding it over a period of time vs how fast someone could run somewhere; running was an easier way to do it than having everybody go to the gym and use an exercycle or to the hospital for an annual stress test.

And as far a the APFT goes, the Army has nearly always had a variety of mission specific fitness programs and tests beyond the one every clerk at HRC is supposed to pass once a year, and the norm used to be that it was the individual soldier's responsibility to understand, achieve, and maintain the fitness standards demanded of his/her chosen career field.

Richard

* Defense Nuclear Agency

[Razor]

If you preface everything in your last post with "In my experience...", then that'll be fine, because your use of "many soldiers out there", "gold standard", "in today's Army" certainly don't appear to apply universally, both in GPF and SOF.

[98G]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

The 18-21 run time for females to score 100% is 15:36 yet a male in the same age group scores only a 61% at that same run time.

As you know, as a PT guy, in today's Army PT score are the be all end all of a soldiers performance by many a command. Saying things are equal is PC bullshit. IMHO the system could be greatly improved and needs to be.

I've been out for awhile, but as a female, I can tell you that, in my experience, serious female soldiers ignored the "female" standards and just aimed at max'ing the men's standard. Any soldier should want to be in shape. Today I just go for men's minimum so I don't get too out of shape too fast.

Candidly, I am not sure how many women can meet the men's standards. While I think women who qualify should be able to serve in a unit, I also know the practicality of trying to accommodate 1-2 women who meet the standard into a unit. Dropping the standards is a bad idea on so many levels, it doesn't need repeated yet again. Sad for not only the guys -- the qualified women will resent it as well.

As far as NCO evaluation driven by PT scores, that was not the case -- also in my experience. We had MOS, PT then marksmanship. If language skills were weak, or you could not carry your radio and gear, no one cared what your PT score was. You were shipped out to Ft Hood to paint rocks.

Of course, this was almost 30 years ago. Yikes!