Army Revises Training to Deal With Unfit Recruits

[mike r]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/us/31soldier.html

August 30, 2010
Army Revises Training to Deal With Unfit Recruits
By JAMES DAO

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.” 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...

[rfranklin]

1. They would have plenty of fit recruits if they were drafting them...

like they did forty years ago.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Nah I saw this oh fifteen years ago

wiht my volunteers.

We had to have a PT... and just like the US Mexico has the same problem.

Of course things like adding gym classes, instead of taking them away... and encouraging activities outside, when parents are afraid of their shadows... does not help.

[rocktivity]

3. Better that the Army revise their RECRUITING

if too many unfit ones has become that big a problem.

:eyes:
rocktivity

[hedgehog]

4. The Army ruined my FIL's knees by having him do deep knee

bends in basic training 50 some years ago. They made him a deal, if he didn't complain about it, they would discharge him instead of sending him to Korea.

[happyslug]

5. Can't find the new Manual on line, did find the 1992 manual

Here is the old manual (1992 release):
http://www.hooah4health.com/4you/FM2021-20.pdf

Can not find either manual (The 1992 or the new fitness manual) on the army Document site:
http://www.apd.army.mil/

Department of defense Forms management:
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/infomgt/forms/formsprogram.htm

[mzteris]

6. anyone know what the "chow" is like these days?

Are they modernizing the diet, too?

And while I'm asking, does anyone know if they accommodate special diets? Like vegetarian or vegan, kosher, etc?