Am I the only one on here that thinks PRT is useless?

I have had conversations on PRT more times that I care to remember. While I am not the Army's biggest advocate for the program, I am a senior leader within the Army's ranks and I execute it as an assigned mission, with the greatest level of energy that I can.

That said, I can tell you that I spent one and a half years as an AIT Company 1SG and one year as an ALC 1SG and we planned and executed PRT daily during my time with both units. Within my AIT company I designed the PRT plan and it was not only progressive and detailed but also filled with rigor. I did not allow Soldiers to just show up and meander through the workout. I literally got in the middle of formations and pushed myself and other Soldiers. At the NCOES I put more ownership of the program on my SGLs but again, I stayed plugged in and ensure the intensity was kept high.

The program is prescriptive but not intended to limit those developing and executing plans with it. It is too easy to say that the regulation limits us but in reality, it is often us, as leaders, that are limiting ourselves. If you are not getting a single thing out of any workouts within the program I would ask that you look to see what level of intensity you are putting into it. There are many Soldiers that need to supplement daily PRT to achieve individual fitness goals and that is to be expected. Remember, the Army is not designed to make everyone super, it is designed to get everyone to a certain level and maintain. Super is on the individual.

It's useless because no one is doing it right... There are FORSCOM units out there that are still doing 5 reps, and not deviating from 3 or 4 tables...

I don't think it's useless, but personally I do think i got more out of doing physical training the old way.

PRT will smoke your bags if done correctly!! Like any other issue in the Army it is up to the NCOs to conduct the PRT session as described in FM 7-22. There is no "this is how I understand it" as the FM outlines how and what is supposed to be done.

I was thinking about this this morning. We did prep drills, CD1&2, 4 for the core and recovery drills. I got NOTHING out of it. Maybe if it was the day before a PT test it would be fine but in a unit where people have low to failing PT scores I feel we could step it up. I'm used to high intensity work outs. Spartan work outs, tabatta etc. I understand PT is to sustain but if there's a plethora of over weight individuals that aren't improving...something should be ramped up.

Prt is useless. There is no stretching or warming up of the joints. It sucks. Bring back PT. Calisthenics and buddy pt and ruck marching, football, basketball, handball!

I would have to disagree with you PRT is great if done correctly to sustain a level of fitness. It will not make you score a 300 on your APFT but it will allow you to sustain. If you want to improve you need to take time of your own to workout. It is designed to bring weaker Soldiers up and sustain the strrong ones. As we know pt is an individual responsibility.

Unit PT is "sustainment" as opposed "development."

It's great to believe that everyone is locked on and will go out and knock out PT on their own, however somewhere between a minority and the vast majority will let OPTEMPO shift PT to a secondary concern over their normal role, and they need a semi-rigid PT schedule just to keep from losing what they gained.

But, you can't make advances in large groups. It's just not possible. You need to be in much smaller groups to get better, because you have to focus on individual weaknesses in order to do that.

I miss the old fashioned let NCO's lead the PT, memorizing tables and repeating is not leadership. I think we lost a lot more than just PT standards when we poorly implemented PRT.

Try the card game....every suit is assigned an excercise. Aces are 15, face cards 10, rest of cards are face value. Shuffle the cards and start flipping! Keep the jokers in the deck...when they come up that is 15 points plus whatever the next card is....I promise this will give you a good cardio and physical workout! Happy sweating!