Army Revises Training to Deal With Unfit Recruits

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

FORT JACKSON, S.C. — Dawn breaks at this, the Army’s largest training post, with the reliable sound of fresh recruits marching to their morning exercise. But these days, something looks different.

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.

This is the Army’s new physical-training program, which has been rolled out this year at its five basic training posts that handle 145,000 recruits a year. Nearly a decade in the making, its official goal is to reduce injuries and better prepare soldiers for the rigors of combat in rough terrain like Afghanistan.

But as much as anything, the 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.”


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/us/31soldier.html?_r=1&hp

[TheDebbieDee]

1. I went to basic at Ft. Jackson in '82 and spent another week

there while waiting to deploy to Saudi Arabia just before the beginning of Desert Storm. Even back then fitness buffs complained that there were better, healthier ways of acheiving fitness than the push-up, sit-up and two-mile run.

But their suggestions of aerobic dancing and other activities were never really seriously considered by the higher-ups in my unit!

[sce56]

3. In 85 I went to BNOC and the new excercises FM was just coming out so we learned the

new stretching and started to do the aerobic exercises. Big change from the old run dodge and jump,crab crawl etc that we were tested on ever since I went to basic in 74.

[pasto76]

2. word

the situp is explicitly used to test abdominal muscle and hip flexor strength...inferred core strength. 2 mile run is about aerobic endurance...this Iraq veteran thinks thats pretty goddamn important though - I had to run my ass off long ways plenty of times.
10 years in the making sounds good. There are definitely better PROGRAMS out there than what I did in basic in 95. I like change that is about making things better.

[atreides1]

4. I enlisted in 1978

Our PT test consisted of 6 parts: push-up/sit-up/horizontal ladder(monkey bars that rolled)/inverted crawl(crab crawl)/run, dodge, and jump/2 mile run.

When the army went to just push-up/sit-up/2 mile run, it was great.:D