text: New Army Training Program - AskMen
  Now's The Time To Toughen Up: The Brand-New Army Workout
  The other thing we did was make it progressive in an effort to reduce injury risk. In Basic Combat Training, for example, we've had a 60% reduction in injuries, and there's a cost-benefit relationship here because every day a soldier is not in training is a day wasted.
  As you indicated earlier, any time you can improve the specificity of training and testing, you're improving the quality of your program. What were some of the changes you made to the Physical Readiness Tests?
  RL: Sure. For starters, we changed the push-up test from two minutes to one minute and no longer allow the soldiers to rest within the set. If a soldier rests for more than two seconds, the test is terminated. We really want to measure that muscular endurance, not the soldier's ability to recover.
  In lieu of the sit-ups, we recognize that sit-ups are prone to causing injuries at the lower back, and because we do PT at 5:00 in the morning, the body isn't fully warmed up. We've known for quite some time that this isn't the best test. We also don't like the crunch because it's so hard to measure, but we've added the rower for one minute, which tests a similar ability.
  We added a 60-yard shuttle run, which involves running five yards and back, 10 yards and back, and 15 yards and back as quickly as possible. This is the first time we've really addressed agility. This is very similar to what we ask soldiers to do in combat.
  The forth event is a standing long jump. We think this is the best and most cost-effective measure of lower-body power, which is what enables soldiers to execute things like climbing up walls or mountains and carrying heavy sacks for prolonged periods of time.
  The last thing is that we've taken the two-mile run and cut it down to 1.5 miles. Our thought process there is that, according to the experts, we can learn all we need to know about the soldier's cardiovascular fitness and ability to process oxygen at this shorter distance, and it takes a little less time to conduct.
  It seems like, even with the improvements, the new tests are still in line with the cost-benefit of the original tests set up in 1980.
  RL: I'm glad you pointed that out. We feel that a better measure of upper-body strength is actually a pull-up, rather than a push-up. However, if we make it a pull-up, we need to build safe pull-up bars all over the Army. We do have some, but we don't have many in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we want to be able to do this PT all over the Army. Sometimes it's necessary to take a slightly sub-optimal option in the interest of maintaining consistency throughout the Army.
  That's a great point. I think it's important for people reading this to understand the scale that you have to consider when designing these tests and the PT.
  RL: We're making this for a 1.1-million-person Army. It makes us different than other armies in the world; it makes us different from other services in the United States. And with our National Guard and with our U.S. Army Reserve Units, we are spread out over the entire United States, not just in single locations where it would be very easy to build a couple pull-up bars.
  If I understand correctly, these tests haven't yet been fully implemented. Have you started with the pilot testing yet?
  RL: That's right. Starting about six weeks ago and going through the end of September, our goal is to test 10,000 soldiers on this new PT test. We're testing active and reserve soldiers, males and females, soldiers from all age groups and different levels of experience because we won't have a scale yet. If you were to ask me how far a 29-year-old needs to jump to pass the test, I can't tell you that. That's the purpose of the pilot, to describe the bell curve and tell us what "excellent" and "needs improvement" look like. So far, we've tested about 3,500 soldiers, and by the end of September, we'll have tested 10,000. Of course, we know that in a couple years we'll have to adjust these standards because we expect that, as soldiers begin to better prepare for the tests, the bell curve should shift to the right.
  That's a great point. As experienced and incoming soldiers become more familiar with the tests and take more appropriate steps to prepare for them, it's inevitable that your performance standards will increase. Is there anything else you want our readers to know regarding your new PT initiative?
  RL: As a final point, I'd just like to say that we have some outstanding young kids who join our Army every day. I couldn't be more proud of them. They know they're going into combat, and that's different than it was when I joined 30 years ago. And they join anyway. What we owe them is the very best training that we can provide to prepare them for combat, and with this new PT program and test, I'm confident that we're providing them the training they deserve.