To Whom It May Concern

Army Fitness

The military has pretty stringent standards for physical fitness, and requires periodical "PT Tests" to maintain those standards. The Physical Fitness Test consists of the following:

Do as many pushups as you can in 2 minutes.

Do as many situps as you can in 2 minutes.

Run the 2 mile as quickly as you can.

Now, a lot of people read this and think to themselves "hey, that doesn't look that hard?" It's much harder than you think. The minimum standards for the pushup phase of the test is 42 in 2 minutes. It's 52 situps in 2 minutes. I'm not really sure what the minimum standards for the 2 mile are, I think something around 16 minutes but I really haven't ever been close to failing that.

When I first went to basic training in Ft. Benning, you were supposed to do 15 pushups at reception station to move on to your basic training platoon. I did 12. When I heard that the standards were 42 for minimum, I was completely lost, I thought I would never be able to do that. One of my drill sergeants took me in one day and gave me a daily plan I needed to follow to better myself at my pushups. He told me I needed to be in the "front lean and rest position" (the push up position) for ten minutes on any night we spent in the barracks, and that every minute I had to do 10 pushups. I did that, and was able to finally pass on the final pt test, the one that gets graded, I did 52 pushups. I was so happy.

My situps were great, I was able to do the 'max' amount, 92 situps, in 2 minutes, the entire time I was at basic training. My run on the other hand got slower and slower the entire three months I spent at basic training. I started out running an 11:30 and I finished with an 11:47, not too much off of my first run but enough to annoy me, I got worse instead of better. That was normal though, faster guys wouldn't have a way of really training the run at their own pace, we almost always ran in formation and that didn't help me train. When I got back to Nebraska for my senior year of high school I was in really good physical shape overall but my running needed work, and cross country had already started, so I had to run in the junior varsity race like 3 days after I got back in order to earn my varsity spot back on the team, because I had missed try outs. I finished 2nd in the JV race, to another kid who would normally be running varsity for his team but he had to earn a spot too. He and I finished so far ahead of the rest of the JV runners, it was crazy, but anyways, back to military stuff.

I had my senior year to go thru in high school when I got back, and during that year I did a lot of weight lifting over the winter and conditioned my upper body up thru pushups and situps. So I really worked hard on the pushups and was able to max them at the first pt test I took after basics. I've been in thirteen years now and I've maxed the pt test every year since I've been in since basic training. Oddly enough, as time has gone by, pushups are easier and the situps have gotten harder. I guess that's just age affecting me.

I'm the Physical Training NCO in the Wayne army guard unit. This means I'm responsible for keeping the soldiers motivated about remaining physically fit, and also for coming up with programs designed to help those who are having difficulties achieving minimum standards on the pt test. Our unit is supposed to do two pt tests a year, one diagnostic, to see where we are at, and one for record, that actually gets put into our permanent records. We are also supposed to give 3 months warning before a pt test and try to have it roughly the same months year after year. Lately this seems to be getting really lax and that's bad news. Now, we are supposed to always be able to pass a pt test, but it's nice to have warning before hand so that you can work out a little more and get a higher score.

Right now I'm at about 195 lbs, I need to lose 15 lbs and get down to 180 by the next drill for that PT Test, and hopefully this summer lose between 5 and 10 more and get ready for a couple of military competitions, the first being the Nebraska Army National Guard Fitness Challenge in Ashland Nebraska, and the second being the German Armed Forces Fitness Exchange Tournament, in Camp Dodge, Iowa. I want to do 100 pushups in two minutes, 100 situps in two minutes, and the two mile in 10:30. This will take a lot of work over the next few months, that much I know.

I enjoy running though, and that is always a plus. Hey, I'm only young once, I need to try to do these things now when I still can. Most of the people my age are already well beyond the ability to get back into shape enough to try something like this, I don't want to end up that way.