We've all seen the soldier that is fit but has a spouse who is morbidly obese. That soldier fights an uphill battle, coming home to cheap but poor nutrition meals.
Keeping in mind that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, nutrition and exercise education and equipment needs to be made available to everyone in the service member's chain of support.
I feel strongly that this investment would pay dividends not only for the military, but for society in general.
I do believe that Army PRT, properly executed, works well. I personally went from a 317 to a 340 (while gaining 15 lbs.) during 14 weeks of Infantry OSUT, on a steady regimen of correct PRT (and group smoke sessions, of course...).
Others talk about having more training on fitness, nutrition, body mechanics and such. I completely agree. But as others have said many SM will not pay attention because it is just another class to add to the already overwhelming amount of classes we have. The leaders will only half way do the classes because they have work to do as well as this extra mandatory requirement. What do we do?
Then we talk about changing, removing or banning food served on or around post. Sounds great but is so hard to actually implement. DFACs have begun serving a little bit better of food; as well as putting up the green, yellow and red nutrition signs. But they still supply the fatty deep fried foods. As they should because if I hit the gym twice a day, get a 300 on my PT test and have a six pack abs who are you to say I can't enjoy a burger. Same goes for the "bad" food on post. We will never ban burger king or taco bell because of 2 reasons. Number one money, money, money. The Army its self doesn’t control AAFES. AAFES is here to make money and that is how they will do it. Number 2 just because we have overweight Soldiers doesn't mean that dependents, retirees, civilians and contractors that also use our facilities should be told they can't have the fatty burger they want.
Still others talk about it here and it is really a big variable in our forces Fitness is profiles. The stigma that they are bad is one thing, doctors not writing the right kind of profiles, leaders not knowing how to handle Soldiers that have them, Soldiers getting them and not trying to get better to get off them. This will always be something that affects the decisions we as a force make pertaining to health and fitness.
Now to my solution. Keep in mind that I understand the cost involved would be high and the time involved higher. But I don’t think it would cost all that much if implemented correctly.
I think that the army needs to maintain an MOS of personnel trainers, dieticians, and people trained in sports medicine. They should be sent down to the company level. We would put at least one personal trainer at the company level. Right now we are calling them master fitness trainers. Their entire job would be to evaluate the Soldiers in the unit. Establish fitness goals and help come up with an appropriate workout routine. I say this because for the handful of Soldiers in a formation that do 2 a days at the gym and know what they are doing; there are ten times that who have no clue what to do. Once a routine is established for each individual Soldier they are given bench marks to meet. HT/WT, body fat and a fitness test. “Not the current fitness test but something better oriented at the entire force.” That company level personal trainer reports to the BN and BDE. At the BN and BDE level you have your dietician, sports medicine expert, and maybe some RNs. All of these people work closely with the post medical staff to ensure that profiles are reflecting the real issues; not a blanket don’t do anything profile. This is then referred down to a group at the BN level whose job is to ensure injuries are tracked, and properly worked on.
The second suggestion that I would make is part of the reason morning PT is so important is because it is a chance for the commander to get all his troops in one place and se them. May be the only time all day. Work on some D and C while doing PRT. So a better suggestion would be get rid of the organized PT and get it to an individual program with the personal trainer. Move the work day up an hour so the commander has a chance to get all his troops in one place. Work on some D and C, maybe knock out some mandatory training and just generally have some time with troops before “work” starts for the day.
I consider the Armed Forces to be athletes. So we should be treated like athletes. I will use football as an example. If I am a QB; my QB coach will help me work on my throw. If I injure my leg I will go see the sports medicine staff, go to the Doc, and get put on a routine to help fix my leg. The QB coach will have nothing to do with the rehab of my leg. Why? Because it is not his job. We need to start realizing in the Army that the 20 year old brand new E5 with only a GED may not be the best person to decide what 100 people are going to do for PT this morning.
I do believe that at this point in our current military culture PRT in the morning is the best we have. We cant just send Soldiers to the gym. Most wouldn’t know what to do and would result in a weaker force. But given the right circumstances it could be done.
I would have the personal trainers be military for the simple reason I believe sm would react better to military personnel( they have gone through the same things as the SM have gone through, thus would have a inherent respect)
And I am a firm believer in everything in moderation, when you go to excess in anything it can can be bad
interesting question. I think that reading posts here and elsewhere on this topic, that we are not cultivating a "fitness culture". We are cultivating a how to pass the PT test culture. Fitness and nutrition are not emphasized in our daily lives. It's no longer seriously taught in schools. They only require a small block of study (6 hours) on nutrition and health now. Students only require 1 Physical Education credit to graduate and things like marching band, cheer, flag team etc. count for the PE credit. Until fitness and nutrition become emphasized in society, especially in elementary and secondary curriculums - where it has the most impact reaching young moldable minds, then the military will continue to play 'catch up' with it's members. Once they reach 18 they have formed most of their eating and exercising habits. Most of them are taught through the education system, by them not having to emphasize fitness and nutrition, that it isn't that important. They become lazy when it comes to fitness, and will do the minimum amount possible to pass the test and nothing more.
I do feel that the Air Force should adopt more of the other services mentality when it comes to the Fitness assessment. Right now they only mark your EPR/OPR with pass or fail. They should include the fitness score into the Weighted Airman Promotion System and into the Officer Promotion system board scores. This I believe would help motivate Airman and move the service more towards 'cultivating a fitness culture'. When their fitness score directly impacts the career I think there would be some increased motivation to be fit and healthy.
I would like to hear from the other services on whether or not you feel that including the fitness score into promotion board scores increases members motivation to be fit and healthy or not?
The question of putting the score on our evals used to come up pretty often in SEL calls; I see it less often now, mostly on Facebook or in article comments calling for it and for scores to be brought into promotion.
The then-CMSAF answered the question pretty well during an enlisted about 6 years ago. When asked why the score isn't on the EPR, he said "Because I don't want it to be there. If you put that number there, everything will become about that number, and people will do crazy and unsafe things to affect that number." I think he predicted leadership at various levels would use the PT score as a sort of one-size-fits-all stratification element to consider various things that the PT standard wasn't designed to be brought in to.
Yes we are pushing a "culture of physical fitness & peak performance" but if not done correctly and we look at PT test scores as an indicator of how fit we are then there are going to be issues.
I'm going to share more than I would like in this post but I hope it helps answer the question.
Because some leaders demand and expect our troops to be in top shape but also frown on a medical profile when that soldier is injured we may be doing damage to the force with the "peak performance without excuses" mentality.
For me it started with supplements to ease the pain and build muscle around the injured knee or shoulder, just a little extra help for those last few reps on the PT test.
But that caused tendon and ligament damage so it was on to the red pills. Six three times a day. Legal anabolic miracles that speeded healing, cut fat and added muscle.
But now I needed to fight the fatigue I had when the pills stopped working, no problem, three green pills twice a day and I had energy all day.
I added 30 pounds of muscle and my strength was at its peak but I couldn't bend over and my joints were all stiff. Again, too easy, Two blue pills twice a day, two oxygen tablets and topical treatments at the joints. Don't forget the cortisone shots and electronic muscle stimulator treatments at home.
I went from 180lbs to 220lbs in less than a few months and up a uniform size. I had muscle on top of muscle and the pain was hidden by testosterone, anabolics, and braces. But I maxed the PT test and could road march 30 miles with a 90lbs pack with a smile.
Of course the nerve damage helped with stopping the pain and the HGH treatments helped with recovery. Boot size went from a 10 1-2 to an 11 1/2 and my neck hit 18 1/2 inches round.
Yes I was in the best shape of my life and a partial tear of the triceps tendon off the bone went unnoticed thanks to the miracles on the shelves of the modern pharmacy. I deployed three times and my injuries from IEDs went untreated, just masked. "I can't leave my soldiers", so to avoid going to Germany for medical treatment I added industrial strength pain killers, but I passed the PT test so I was in shape.
I went to the Army Master Fitness School, I know about diet, and exercise. I know steroids are bad and I avoided them. But the legal version of steroids must be ok because we sell them in the PX, and if I am going to be fit and work through these injuries I just need a little help.
Mood swings, anger management issues, poor social graces, aggressive in voice and body language, but I was fit, just look at those PT test scores.
Now I have liver and kidney issues, toxic contamination of my internals, and after 17 surgeries to place muscle and tendons back on to bones I think I can say the "culture of physical fitness & peak performance" needs to be looked at.
NCO's watch your people, look for the signs of injuries and unexplained improvement. Weight gain, aggressive behaviors by your gym rats and sudden strength gains. And above all, get involved with your people, know them as a person as well as a soldier, airmen or Marine.
Peak performance is a goal, but lets make sure were pushing towards meeting that goal the right way.