When I was a young Army officer with ridiculously low body fat, I once lost our unit's physical fitness 'Iron Man' competition (not an Iron Man race, but rather the top aggregate score in the military's three fitness tests) to an overweight woman in her mid-30s despite being dominant in each event.
Army Physical Fitness tests, being so heavily weighted by age and gender, need a makeover, I remember laughing at the time. And she was embarrassed by the silliness of it all as well.
It seems that the Army has finally listened, 25 years later - they aren't completely throwing out sit-ups, push-ups and the two-mile run with scoring weighted by age and gender, but they are at least making one test look more like an actual mission environment.
If you've been in the Army you know that 90% of the Army does not really need to run on a balance beam while carrying 30-pound ammo boxes but the idea is that everyone may have to perform in a combat situation at some point and it won't involve doing sit-ups. The good news? We have finally reached equality when people are not being given special exemptions for gender and are just going to be matched to the jobs they are physically able to do. The Army is still cracking down on dietary and fitness issues overall, but the new training is designed to give some level of preparation for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The beta programs are at Fort Jackson, Fort Leonard Wood,Fort Benning, Fort Sill, Fort Bliss, Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis and at the Army's military academy at West Point and could be adopted Army-wide after reviews later this year.
But specific gender and age standards are still being worked out, said Frank Palkoska, head of the Army's Fitness School at Fort Jackson. So maybe at 45 I can still outscore a 22 year old.
