Did you know the purpose of the physical training (PT) test is for commanders to assess the physical fitness of their units!? That’s it! It’s not for promotion points or rankings on some OML. It’s not for (insert any other reason here). And to that, the Army has established training guidance known as AR 350-1. In it are listed the Army Warrior Tasks (AWT), a series of tasks that the Army has determined must be performed in order to fight and win our nation’s wars. So, it only makes sense that the PT Test would be designed around assessing a Soldier’s ability to complete these events.
But whoa! The CrossFitters, staff weenies, and politicians got ahold of the PT test and gave us the current nonsense that is the ACFT (soon to be the AFT). True story, the ACFT says that planking helps Soldiers complete tasks like climbing a rope. I can’t make this stuff up. No one has ever climbed a rope in the planking position because of physics (hence the baller thumb nail picture above), but I digress…
In the RAND study produced, it even says that Army wanted a PT test that most Soldiers could pass. This defeats the whole purpose! It’s not about passing. It’s about establishing a base line standard to assess if Soldiers are fit enough to complete the AWTs. Then the Army doubled down on this failed policy and made the test gender and age normed. This made the point scale worthless as two people could run their two miles in the exact same time, and yet have two completely different scores. If two people both run two miles in 20 minutes, their cardiovascular fitness is the same! Does anybody else not see this!? It doesn’t matter if their old, young, male or female. For one person to score 100 points and another person to score 60 points for running the exact same time is ludicrous (not to be confused with Ludacris who is a rapper)!
If the Army truly wanted to solve the fitness test and model it after completing the AWTs, then it would use the PT test that is used during the Expert Infantry Badge (EIB) testing. This consists of the following:
- 1 mile run
- 30 hand release pushups
- 100 meter sprint
- Lift 16 sandbags onto a 66 inch platform
- 50 meter framers carry with two 40 pound water cans
- 25 meter high crawl
- 25 meter three to five second buddy rush
- 1 mile run
By the way, all events must be completed within 27 minutes and 30 seconds. Now that’s a combat PT test! The only thing that would make it better is if you then had to go shoot with your weapon and hit a certain number of targets. Also, Soldiers wear their ACUs with body armor and Kevlar helmet (just like they would in combat). Which makes total sense!
But the Army wants to wear poor quality workout clothes and do a test that requires no actual combat stuff. So, putting my relative pea sized brain to this problem, I was able to come up with a solution based on [gasp] SCIENCE. Here’s what should be the Army’s physical fitness test in all its glory!
Event Minimum Maximum
Pushups 30 70
Pullups 01 20
Sprint Drag Carry 1:30 3:00
Note, that there is no age or sex listed in the scoring criteria. That is because this PT test is age and sex neutral. You simply execute the fitness event to the best of your ability and the system generates a score that assesses your relative fitness. Although these events may not correlate directly to AWTs, they do correlate directly to overall physical fitness.
The uniform for this PT test will still be the Army’s Physical Fitness Uniform, although everything could be done in ACUs.
My sprint drag carry is also modified using different equipment. The drag will be two 5-gallon water cans (filled with water) on a SKEDCO (standard army casualty litter). The carry will consist of two 5.56 ammo cans filled with gravel to simulate a load. What is great about this is that the Army (in theory) should not have to purchase additional equipment and all of the equipment is stuff Soldiers already have to use anyway.
Because the purpose is for commanders to assess the relative fitness of their units, commanders should still come up with individual events based on the MOS of the unit. For example, a transportation company could have tire flips or rolls as part of their test. This baseline test assumes everyone is a rifleman first and must be prepared to fight regardless of MOS, age, rank, or sex.
But what about the 2-mile run!? What about long-distance fitness!? I’m glad you asked. Once or twice a year (depending on the compo), all Soldiers will be required to complete a 6-mile road march, with 25 lbs. ruck weight (must be a military issued backpack/rucksack), in under 1 hour and 48 minutes (18 mins per mile). This will be graded as a Pass/Fail event. As one of the most common objections to the 2-mile run was “when am I ever going to run 2 miles in combat [he, he, he]”, this event will assess a Soldiers long distance cardiovascular fitness in the most Army way.
So, there you have it! If you could only take away a few things from this article it should be this:
- The whole purpose of the PT test is for commanders to assess the fitness of their units.
- We should only be doing the EIB style fitness test, as it is the only one that relates to AWTs which is the whole purpose of what we should be doing as Soldiers.
- There should be no age or sex differences in the scoring as it makes the score meaningless.
Love this article? Great! Let me know and I’ll produce more. Hate this article? Well, it’s probably ‘cause you suck at PT. Why don’t you go ahead, respond, and let me know why I am wrong.
*This article was written by FUBAR 6. All opinions expressed in this article are that of the author. This article is not endorsed by the Department of Defense, the United States Army, or any other state or government agency. Comments to the author can be submitted below.