Heart-rate monitors help PT flunkers

[unhappycamper]

As airmen prepare for the tougher PT test, some bases have issued heart-rate monitors to those who are struggling to get a passing score.


Heart-rate monitors help PT flunkers
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 14, 2009 6:41:10 EST

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska — Airmen who fail their physical training test here are lucky — yes, lucky.

The base’s health and wellness center is one of only a handful across the Air Force that gives a heart-rate monitor to PT flunkers to help them get in shape. The Air Force couldn’t give an exact number of bases distributing the monitors but singled out Elmendorf and Aviano Air Base, Italy, as two that are taking extraordinary measures to help airmen boost their PT scores.

Every base has heart-rate monitors — the number depends on the base’s size — to administer a bike test for airmen who have a medical waiver for the 1.5-mile-run component of the PT test, but bases aren’t required to lend the monitors to flunkers. The Air Force Instruction, however, does require every airman who fails the PT test to participate in the service’s fitness improvement program and monitor his heart rate — usually by taking his pulse — as part of that program.

Elmendorf’s fitness experts have 200 heart-rate monitors, all the $270 RS400 model made by Polar USA, to distribute as part of the base’s year-old Downloadable Heart Rate Program. Right now, 169 of the monitors are on loan.

The Downloadable Heart Rate Program augments the AFI-mandated Fitness Improvement Program, targeting airmen who score fewer than 69 out of the possible 100 points on the PT test and need to reduce their abdominal circumference (by 4 inches for men and 2 inches for women), cut their run time by three minutes, increase their maximum oxygen capacity score by five or bring down a body mass index above 30.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/12/airforce_heart_rate_121409w/