Your Grandfather Was Tougher Than You

Earlier this month, the Art of Manliness published an article about the Army Ground Forces Test -- the formal fitness test used by the U.S. Army during World War II. To whip soldiers into shape for combat, the Army had incorporated a physical development program into its basic training course, and beginning in 1942, participants were tested to determine the program's effectiveness.

The test included squat jumps, sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and a 300 yard run. The emphasis was on functional fitness and giving American GI’s the strength, mobility, and endurance they would need to tackle real tasks on the battlefield.

In 1946, a Physical Training School was created at Fort Bragg with the mission of exploring how to take the goal of functional fitness farther. The training program developed at the school and the fitness test were codified in the 1946 edition of FM 21-20, the Army’s physical training manual.

Basically, Grandpa was doing CrossFit before it was cool.

Visit the Art of Manliness for details about the test's standards and scoring, and see how you match up. But one thing's for sure: The Army's current physical fitness standards aren't what they used to be.

[Previously: Too Fat For Fighting?]

In Defense of CrossFit

Last week, Wired published a piece about the military's review of whether CrossFit, P90X and Insanity are -- as some believe -- too tough for our troops. Well, it looks like our CrossFitting peers in the armed services have something to say about that.

“I wish that the Army would come and study me,” a servicemember posts on CrossFit’s message forum. “At my current base, the fitness center is starting to push back against the many crossfitters…I find this attitude infuriating. Our Base has a 25% PT [physical training] fail rate. I wonder how many crossfitters are failing.”

...

“Every Soldier does Crossfit or they get their nuts smashed,” reads another comment on CrossFit’s forum from a company commander at Schofield Barracks, who cops to “puk[ing] my guts out” doing their first-ever CrossFit workout in Iraq heat. “I’ve noticed marked improvements in their performance, a lower injury rate, and an increased ability to perform at a higher level of physical intensity in full kit.”

“For those of you that are in the military,” the commenter adds, “stand up and help revolutionize the way we conduct physical training.”

Lesson: Push-ups and sit-ups won't cut it any more. (Unless you want your nuts smashed.)

(Source: Wired)

The Big 3: Too Much For Our Troops?

The U.S. military's concerned that our soldiers aren't physically prepared for CrossFit, P90X and Insanity workouts:

More troops than ever are flipping tractor tires, lobbing 50-pound kettle bells and conquering the Three Bars of Death in an effort to become “tougher, faster, hard-bodied freedom fighter[s].” But some of them are also working out until they puke, faint or suffer permanent organ damage. Now, a team of medical researchers have a message for recruits: you’re probably not fit enough for CrossFit.

Ditto for P90X and Insanity. Together, the brutally intense fitness regimes are “the big three” being studied and evaluated in a review of high-intensity fitness programs by the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

CHAMP's examination of "the big three" workout programs is just beginning, but researchers are hoping to publish results and recommendations in the next few years. Already, there are signs that fitness is on the decline in the military, which doesn't bode well for the formal incorporation of CrossFit, P90X or Insanity into our uniformed services' PT programs.

Thirty-five percent of American youth are unfit to serve because of health problems. Compared to the Army’s new new training regime, which wants troops to embrace yoga and calisthenics, start slow to avoid injury and sweat their way to basic fitness levels, CrossFit’s standards seem all the more extreme.

“Certainly, we are addressing a perceived lack of fitness among recruits,” [CHAMP medical director Col. Francis] O’Connor says. “People are doing too much, too soon, too fast. Participants [in high-intensity programs] need baseline strength and flexibility, and they simply aren’t prepared.”

But from my (admittedly limited) vantage point, all the CrossFitters with military backgrounds I've come across are insanely fit. I work out twice a week with a fortysomething Lieutenant Colonel in the Marines, and he routinely shreds our WODs. I've got to think that kids half his age are able to kick butt, too.

(Source: Wired)

Too Fat for Fighting?

The U.S. Army's physical training (PT) program's been revamped: "That familiar standby, the situp, is gone, or almost gone. Exercises that look like pilates or yoga routines are in. And the traditional bane of the new private, the long run, has been downgraded." The new PT regimen incorporates "more stretching, more exercises for the abdomen and lower back," and "more agility and balance training."

Why the change?

[T]he program was created to help address one of the most pressing issues facing the military today: overweight and unfit recruits.

“What we were finding was that the soldiers we’re getting in today’s Army are not in as good shape as they used to be,” said Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who oversees basic training for the Army. “This is not just an Army issue. This is a national issue.”

Excess weight is the leading reason the Army rejects potential recruits. And while that has been true for years, the problem has worsened as the waistlines of America’s youth have expanded. This year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled “Too Fat to Fight.”
“Between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent,” the report concluded.

Though the Army screens out the seriously obese and completely unfit, it is still finding that many of the recruits who reach basic training have less strength and endurance than privates past. It is the legacy of junk food and video games, compounded by a reduction in gym classes in many high schools, Army officials assert.

As a result, it is harder for recruits to reach Army fitness standards, and more are getting injured along the way. General Hertling said that the percentage of male recruits who failed the most basic fitness test at one training center rose to more than one in five in 2006, up from just 4 percent in 2000. The percentages were higher for women.

Military recruiters are already stuggling with the fact that "up to 9 million Americans ages 17 to 24 -- or nearly 27 percent of the prime military recruiting age demographic -- are 'too fat to serve in the military,'" so I suppose it stands to reason that the Army feels that it's necessary to soften up its PT requirements. But are stretching and yoga sufficient to get our soldiers ready for combat?

(By the way, in case you're interested, here's a description of the Army's current fitness test, and a calculator that scores your results.)

(Source: NYT)