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07-20-2010, 11:36 AM
Soldiers want more combat-relevant PT test
By Joe Gould - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jul 19, 2010 14:53:12 EDT
The Army plans to overhaul the 30-year-old Army Physical Fitness Test and soldiers couldn’t agree more: “Army Strong” should be even stronger.
Dozens of readers responded to an Army Times request for opinions about how to change the Army Physical Fitness Test. They took aim at the test’s three components — push-ups, sit-ups and a timed two-mile run — and weighed in on adding pull-ups and battle rattle.
“Army fitness has gone to an all-time low, I believe. In order to better assist the present and incoming soldiers in their efforts to become physically fit, there needs to be a combination of functional movements,” Staff Sgt. Jimmy W. Creech, of Redstone Arsenal, Ala., said in an e-mail.
Here’s what soldiers said they want changed:
• Add pull-ups.
• Add crunches.
• Dump sit-ups.
• Add shuttle runs or a road march.
• Work out in combat gear, instead of PT clothes.
Shortly after Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling assumed command of Initial Military Training, he told Army Times in October that he planned a re-examination of the APFT, calling it “the worst test for physical capabilities that you can imagine.”
Training and Doctrine Command is working to revamp the PT test, untouched since 1980, as it rolls out a revised, more combat-focused physical training doctrine. The new doctrine, the first since 1992, is part of a multiphase effort that will culminate in a new PT test sometime after 2011.
“That’s the future; we have to align the assessment with the tasks that soldiers have to perform so that the commander has a better tool in preparation and planning of their unit programs,” Frank Palkoska, director of the U.S. Army Physical Fitness School, told Army Times in May. An Army spokeswoman said the Army is “a long way away from talking possible changes to the test,” adding that a rollout of the new test won’t come until late winter or early spring.
The current PT test, despite its age, continues to drive fitness training.
“That’s kind of a flaw with the system right now because the test is driving everything,” Palkoska said. “We primarily train for the assessment.”
Soldiers and fitness experts polled by Army Times proffered their own ideas about updating the test.
Soldiers take the test annually and before attending some Army schools. A minimum score of 60 per event is required. Scores are based upon how many sit-ups and push-ups are done in two minutes and on the soldiers’ performance on a two-mile run. Scores are scaled by age — giving older soldiers a break.
“The PT assessment right now — sit-ups, push-ups and running for two miles — that isn’t a real assessment of what soldiers will be doing in theater,” said 1st Lt. Anthony L. Baiocco, a company executive officer with the 1-24 Engineer Battalion, Fort Jackson, S.C. “The basic principle is ‘train as you fight, fight as you train,’ but PT-ing alone won’t affect our ability to handle the rigors of the combat environment.”
Fitness columnist Ken “Sgt. Ken” Weichert said Army PT doctrine and testing have been outpaced by training advances in the civilian world and it is past time for the Army to catch up.
“They’re usually 10 steps ahead of anything the military is doing, simply because they’re more educated and more current, and more practiced in safety techniques,” said Weichert, a veteran of the operations Iraqi Freedom and Desert Storm.
“They’re going in the right direction,” Weichert said of the Army, “It’s just that they’re taking too long to put the information out.”
The Russian way
Hertling wrote a monograph at the School of Advanced Military Studies in 1987 that advocated an occupational PT test resembling the Russian military’s to better match battlefield skills.
According to Andrey Patenko, a former Soviet drill sergeant, the test when he served from 1986 to 1988 was a tough, multipart affair taken every three months.
The Russian test included an obstacle course, a six-mile run in 20 pounds of combat gear, chin-ups while carrying ammunition, a rope climb without using legs, a grenade throw and a hand-to-hand combat drill.
“In Russia, we have an expression, ‘If you can’t do it, we teach you. If you don’t want to, we make you,’ ” said Patenko, now a Pennsylvania fitness trainer. “They make you work, especially in special operations units. And when we were in war with Afghanistan, we took training very seriously, especially units that would go and fight, like you guys do right now.”
Patenko conceded that technology has changed the battlefield, and that some combat training should be reserved for specialized units, but he said soldiers need to be fit whether they are patrolling in full gear or staring at a computer screen.
“I know I have a friend who just stays on a base and just looks at a screen, and he’s physically conditioned even though he’s on his ass all day long,” Patenko said. “They can fall asleep if they physically, mentally don’t prepare.”
Push-ups and pull-ups
Generally speaking, the good, old-fashioned, push-up escaped readers’ criticism, perhaps for the same reason many said they want to add pull-ups. Both are body-weight exercises that could prove a good gauge of a soldier’s ability to pull himself over an obstacle or carry a wounded buddy.
“The third event should still be push-ups because the strength you need to get out of a foxhole or push off the ground, and quickly get out of prone and get running, is going to take the same muscular strength from the chest, shoulder and triceps muscle groups,” Weichert said.
Weichert suggested that if a soldier cannot perform a single pull-up, simply hanging on the bar would demonstrate the back and arm strength needed for combat.
He said he likes the Army’s combat-oriented fitness test of 1946, which offers exercises like squat jumps, which resemble the motions involved in jumping out of a truck for, say, a search and seizure.
“I’ve seen some of the people who have hopped out of their truck before, and if they land in a squat, they’re not jumping up because they couldn’t get out of the squat,” he said.
A pain in the back
One popular idea was trading sit-ups for crunches, which soldiers felt would lead to fewer back injuries.
“A lot of Army soldiers are experiencing back injuries for one reason or another, but can be largely attributed to the sit-up event,” Creech said. “The sit-up event being changed would decrease the number of back injuries and provide a better assessment of one’s functional ability.”
Sgt. 1st Class Christopher S. Young, of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Light), said much the same in an e-mail: “Keep the push-ups in, have crunches put in to save the lower back.”
According to Dr. Richard Guyer, a co-founder of the Texas Back Institute, flexing forward puts an unhealthy strain on the weakest portion of the back, more so for sit-ups than crunches. The motion strains the lower spinal disks and risks herniation, particularly in those genetically predisposed to back injury.
“Crunches are a nice compromise,” Guyer said. “When I say crunches, you’re coming up, but you’re not going through a 90-degree or 90-plus-degree range of motion of your trunk perpendicular to the floor.”
A tougher run
There was consensus that the run needs to be more tactically relevant, but no common idea about just how. Some felt combat situations demanded more sprinting, others favored long, endurance-testing runs or marches.
“If you have to run two miles in combat, there’s a huge problem with your air support,” Weichert said. He suggested a six-minute shuttle along a standard distance.
Special Agent Huascar Cruz, of Plainfield, N.J., said in an e-mail that the run should be replaced by two intervals of sprints and speed walks to better test cardiovascular fitness and endurance.
Creech proposed making the run more tactically relevant by cutting it from two miles to one mile and raising standards for time: “In combat a soldier is generally not required to run two miles but would need to move quickly under fire or when the occasion occurred,” he said.
However, 1st Sgt. Leonard Kacuba, of the 2-10th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, said he favored a long run over shuttle runs or ammo can lifts, which he said are fine, but only for training.
“I do not care how many ammo-can lifts or shuttle runs you do. At 10,000-plus feet in the mountains of Afghanistan, you need cardio endurance,” Kacuba said.
Maj. Andrew P. Clark, of Vienna, Austria, proposed a 12-mile tactical foot march similar to the Expert Infantryman Badge march as the APFT’s final event. A soldier would carry basic combat equipment that would weigh at least 20 percent of the soldier’s body weight, but not less than 35 pounds.
“A 100-percent score would result from covering 12 miles in three hours or less,” Clark said in an e-mail. “Passing with 60 points? Four hours.”
Boots on the ground
Several said wearing boots, a combat uniform, and possibly a rucksack or body armor, throughout the test would better replicate fighting conditions.
Baiocco, who is working toward a personal training certificate, said he would like to see a run in full gear.
“How often, when you are conducting a mission, are you in PT shorts and a PT shirt? Rarely, never,” he said. “If you’re in combat gear and you’re doing the training that would be a good assessment of how you’ll perform over there [in combat].”
Weichert suggested the test could be taken in a set mix of PT gear and the uniform pants, but said practicing PT in full gear in order to prepare for deployments was a good idea.
“If someone comes back to you and says, ‘My back can’t take that,’ guess what,” he said, “you better be able to take that when you’re overseas.”
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/07/army_pt_test_071810w/
By Joe Gould - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jul 19, 2010 14:53:12 EDT
The Army plans to overhaul the 30-year-old Army Physical Fitness Test and soldiers couldn’t agree more: “Army Strong” should be even stronger.
Dozens of readers responded to an Army Times request for opinions about how to change the Army Physical Fitness Test. They took aim at the test’s three components — push-ups, sit-ups and a timed two-mile run — and weighed in on adding pull-ups and battle rattle.
“Army fitness has gone to an all-time low, I believe. In order to better assist the present and incoming soldiers in their efforts to become physically fit, there needs to be a combination of functional movements,” Staff Sgt. Jimmy W. Creech, of Redstone Arsenal, Ala., said in an e-mail.
Here’s what soldiers said they want changed:
• Add pull-ups.
• Add crunches.
• Dump sit-ups.
• Add shuttle runs or a road march.
• Work out in combat gear, instead of PT clothes.
Shortly after Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling assumed command of Initial Military Training, he told Army Times in October that he planned a re-examination of the APFT, calling it “the worst test for physical capabilities that you can imagine.”
Training and Doctrine Command is working to revamp the PT test, untouched since 1980, as it rolls out a revised, more combat-focused physical training doctrine. The new doctrine, the first since 1992, is part of a multiphase effort that will culminate in a new PT test sometime after 2011.
“That’s the future; we have to align the assessment with the tasks that soldiers have to perform so that the commander has a better tool in preparation and planning of their unit programs,” Frank Palkoska, director of the U.S. Army Physical Fitness School, told Army Times in May. An Army spokeswoman said the Army is “a long way away from talking possible changes to the test,” adding that a rollout of the new test won’t come until late winter or early spring.
The current PT test, despite its age, continues to drive fitness training.
“That’s kind of a flaw with the system right now because the test is driving everything,” Palkoska said. “We primarily train for the assessment.”
Soldiers and fitness experts polled by Army Times proffered their own ideas about updating the test.
Soldiers take the test annually and before attending some Army schools. A minimum score of 60 per event is required. Scores are based upon how many sit-ups and push-ups are done in two minutes and on the soldiers’ performance on a two-mile run. Scores are scaled by age — giving older soldiers a break.
“The PT assessment right now — sit-ups, push-ups and running for two miles — that isn’t a real assessment of what soldiers will be doing in theater,” said 1st Lt. Anthony L. Baiocco, a company executive officer with the 1-24 Engineer Battalion, Fort Jackson, S.C. “The basic principle is ‘train as you fight, fight as you train,’ but PT-ing alone won’t affect our ability to handle the rigors of the combat environment.”
Fitness columnist Ken “Sgt. Ken” Weichert said Army PT doctrine and testing have been outpaced by training advances in the civilian world and it is past time for the Army to catch up.
“They’re usually 10 steps ahead of anything the military is doing, simply because they’re more educated and more current, and more practiced in safety techniques,” said Weichert, a veteran of the operations Iraqi Freedom and Desert Storm.
“They’re going in the right direction,” Weichert said of the Army, “It’s just that they’re taking too long to put the information out.”
The Russian way
Hertling wrote a monograph at the School of Advanced Military Studies in 1987 that advocated an occupational PT test resembling the Russian military’s to better match battlefield skills.
According to Andrey Patenko, a former Soviet drill sergeant, the test when he served from 1986 to 1988 was a tough, multipart affair taken every three months.
The Russian test included an obstacle course, a six-mile run in 20 pounds of combat gear, chin-ups while carrying ammunition, a rope climb without using legs, a grenade throw and a hand-to-hand combat drill.
“In Russia, we have an expression, ‘If you can’t do it, we teach you. If you don’t want to, we make you,’ ” said Patenko, now a Pennsylvania fitness trainer. “They make you work, especially in special operations units. And when we were in war with Afghanistan, we took training very seriously, especially units that would go and fight, like you guys do right now.”
Patenko conceded that technology has changed the battlefield, and that some combat training should be reserved for specialized units, but he said soldiers need to be fit whether they are patrolling in full gear or staring at a computer screen.
“I know I have a friend who just stays on a base and just looks at a screen, and he’s physically conditioned even though he’s on his ass all day long,” Patenko said. “They can fall asleep if they physically, mentally don’t prepare.”
Push-ups and pull-ups
Generally speaking, the good, old-fashioned, push-up escaped readers’ criticism, perhaps for the same reason many said they want to add pull-ups. Both are body-weight exercises that could prove a good gauge of a soldier’s ability to pull himself over an obstacle or carry a wounded buddy.
“The third event should still be push-ups because the strength you need to get out of a foxhole or push off the ground, and quickly get out of prone and get running, is going to take the same muscular strength from the chest, shoulder and triceps muscle groups,” Weichert said.
Weichert suggested that if a soldier cannot perform a single pull-up, simply hanging on the bar would demonstrate the back and arm strength needed for combat.
He said he likes the Army’s combat-oriented fitness test of 1946, which offers exercises like squat jumps, which resemble the motions involved in jumping out of a truck for, say, a search and seizure.
“I’ve seen some of the people who have hopped out of their truck before, and if they land in a squat, they’re not jumping up because they couldn’t get out of the squat,” he said.
A pain in the back
One popular idea was trading sit-ups for crunches, which soldiers felt would lead to fewer back injuries.
“A lot of Army soldiers are experiencing back injuries for one reason or another, but can be largely attributed to the sit-up event,” Creech said. “The sit-up event being changed would decrease the number of back injuries and provide a better assessment of one’s functional ability.”
Sgt. 1st Class Christopher S. Young, of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Light), said much the same in an e-mail: “Keep the push-ups in, have crunches put in to save the lower back.”
According to Dr. Richard Guyer, a co-founder of the Texas Back Institute, flexing forward puts an unhealthy strain on the weakest portion of the back, more so for sit-ups than crunches. The motion strains the lower spinal disks and risks herniation, particularly in those genetically predisposed to back injury.
“Crunches are a nice compromise,” Guyer said. “When I say crunches, you’re coming up, but you’re not going through a 90-degree or 90-plus-degree range of motion of your trunk perpendicular to the floor.”
A tougher run
There was consensus that the run needs to be more tactically relevant, but no common idea about just how. Some felt combat situations demanded more sprinting, others favored long, endurance-testing runs or marches.
“If you have to run two miles in combat, there’s a huge problem with your air support,” Weichert said. He suggested a six-minute shuttle along a standard distance.
Special Agent Huascar Cruz, of Plainfield, N.J., said in an e-mail that the run should be replaced by two intervals of sprints and speed walks to better test cardiovascular fitness and endurance.
Creech proposed making the run more tactically relevant by cutting it from two miles to one mile and raising standards for time: “In combat a soldier is generally not required to run two miles but would need to move quickly under fire or when the occasion occurred,” he said.
However, 1st Sgt. Leonard Kacuba, of the 2-10th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, said he favored a long run over shuttle runs or ammo can lifts, which he said are fine, but only for training.
“I do not care how many ammo-can lifts or shuttle runs you do. At 10,000-plus feet in the mountains of Afghanistan, you need cardio endurance,” Kacuba said.
Maj. Andrew P. Clark, of Vienna, Austria, proposed a 12-mile tactical foot march similar to the Expert Infantryman Badge march as the APFT’s final event. A soldier would carry basic combat equipment that would weigh at least 20 percent of the soldier’s body weight, but not less than 35 pounds.
“A 100-percent score would result from covering 12 miles in three hours or less,” Clark said in an e-mail. “Passing with 60 points? Four hours.”
Boots on the ground
Several said wearing boots, a combat uniform, and possibly a rucksack or body armor, throughout the test would better replicate fighting conditions.
Baiocco, who is working toward a personal training certificate, said he would like to see a run in full gear.
“How often, when you are conducting a mission, are you in PT shorts and a PT shirt? Rarely, never,” he said. “If you’re in combat gear and you’re doing the training that would be a good assessment of how you’ll perform over there [in combat].”
Weichert suggested the test could be taken in a set mix of PT gear and the uniform pants, but said practicing PT in full gear in order to prepare for deployments was a good idea.
“If someone comes back to you and says, ‘My back can’t take that,’ guess what,” he said, “you better be able to take that when you’re overseas.”
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/07/army_pt_test_071810w/