There must be a minimal fitness standard for all, because the enemy will not discriminate due to sex, age, or race. Everyone has the equal opportunity to be a liability to his or her team (resulting in death of others) if they're not in physical condition when and if that moment occurs.
The current fitness standards for women may be appropriate if they do not go into combat arms; however, if women get into combat arms then they must meet appropriate fitness standards. I have worked with some exceptional women who are much more athletic than many of the males I worked with, to include some of those males in Special Forces, so if the desire and dedication is there, they are quite capable of meeting a much higher standard of PT than the standard specified by the Army now. However, most will never be as strong as men due to genetic differences.
Getting to your point on what should we test? There are a lot of informed opinions out there, so I will only speak from the Army view. I never understood why the Army tests push ups instead of pull ups like the Marines. Pull ups develop a functional strength useful for climbing and grip strength which is useful for pulling a downed man, carrying a litter, etc. Even over 50 y/o I can still knock out over 80 push ups, but the correct response is so what? To what end? The only function push ups have is to pass the P.T. test.
Sit ups are open to debate, but if you ever carried a heavy rucksack up a mountain you know it stresses your ab muscles. How to devleop and test the ab muscles is open to considerable debate.
The two mile run is probably appropriate for the rear echelon Army, but for combat arms I'm not so sure. Years ago one of my Vietnam Vet team sgts gave us what we would call a functional PT test today based on his experiences with SOG in Vietnam. We had to be able to run one mile in less than 6:30 to test anerobic conditioning. The theory was you had to be able to break contact with the enemy, which met holding a fast pace for up to one mile to get to a PZ. We then did max pull ups and dips followed by a 500m swim. That evening we did a 7 mile run with a 35lb pack to simulate the weight of your LBE (I know we have a ton of body armor now), and carried a metal rod (approximately 12lbs) to simulate your rifle. This was to test your muscular endurance using the same muscles you would use during patrol. The test was a team event only, it didn't count for our actual fitness test, but much more importantly I think it contributed to our combat fitness level than the Army PT did. Of course I'm talking about the current Army PT test, the old 5 event PT test was better.
I believe a PT test should measure functional fitness based on your projected mission. I would support a different PT program for those training to fight in Afghanistan than those going to Iraq for example, but we'll never get there because the big military likes its cookie cutter approach to life, even if it isn't appropriate, it is still the Army way. However, just as my Team Sergeant did you can go above and beyond. Good luck when trying to do so with some of the computer cupcakes entering the military today.
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