Posted on Jan 20, 2014
SGM Sergeant Major
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I am a firm believer that to build esprit de corps in your unit there should be fun team building events at PT on a regular basis. You can't do it every day or else it loses it punch but done weekly can get everyone involved and looking towards a certain day of the week.

I have done scavenger hunts with teams purposely built around unfamiliar members.

I also did a river PT session where the unit broke into teams then completed multiple tasks and some tasks involved getting into the river to complete a few tasks. Nothing like getting all sweaty then jumping into a nice cool trout stream at the end.

What have you done to make a team building event for PT? What was the outcome?

Edited >1 y ago
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GySgt (Other / Not listed)
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I love small unit leadership and push small team exercises in a competitive spirit with races, relays, and sports.  Exercises, like squad pushups, fire team pushups, chinese sit-ups, seesaw sit-ups, indian runs (throw a sand bag in it), build the house and move the house, fireman carry, fireman carry squats, ground fighting with team vs team, etc.
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SGM Sergeant Major
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Those are great team building exercises which will help build your unit as a more tight knit group. I try to focus my sessions on team building, physical training and leadership challenges. Nothing like taking the bog dog out of the fight and making the junior Soldiers figure it out. I also like giving a group minimum supplies and have them perform a specific task. You would be amazed at the different views you will get.
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CW2 Special Agent
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I concur, any kind of relays/competitions are always great!
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1SG Michael Blount
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1SG - we do alot of Ultimate Frisbee Football.  It's cheap, fun and will gas you out in 15 minutes.
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SGM Sergeant Major
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Ultimate anything is good but the CG at Campbell has put sports off limits during PT. Wish they would change the policy to say allowed once a week. That would be nice.
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CSM Command Sergeant Major
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11 y
I agree that sports would develop team building within a unit, I know I enjoyed sports PT days the most as a joe.
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1SG Michael Blount
1SG Michael Blount
11 y
Top - my command lets me do what I want, because they know I won't go too nuts.  Now one of my XOs?  He's another matter.
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CW2 Joseph Evans
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HMWWV pushes were always good. I remember the 105MM team tow drills from the days at the Battery. Beach runs at DLI... So many good ones.
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What type of team building PT sessions have you done?
MAJ Laurie H.
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Anything involving a log is great team building PT. We had a nice (very worn, slippery, but somehow with plenty of splinters to offer) PT log at OCS that we had to maneuver with every now and again, which definitely required working together and taking advantages of each others strengths and weaknesses. I don't know if I'd call it fun, but it surely brought us together!
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SGT Information Technology Specialist
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1SG,

Just as you said in your post, I have also done a scavenger hunt with my unit for PT. What I did, was drive around post the day prior and make clues to locations around post. I wrote those down on index cards then have them to our commander for approval. He added quite a few locations then the next morning we broke into teams and were given hints to locations. We were allowed one cell phone per team to take pictures of each location to prove we had been there and not cheated. The first team to correctly ID all locations AND make it back to the company AO won the challenge, got the next morning off for PT AND got to "smoke" the other teams!!
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SGM Sergeant Major
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Sounds great. We got a lot of success out of our scavenger hunt. The only bad thing about these PT sessions is making the next session better so we keep the interest in the right place. I was trying to do a geo caching PT event with the DAGRs but found the DAGR only got us in the general location. I think we are going to send some of the Soldiers to the local DAGR class here on base then try again.
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SGT(P) Delivery Driver
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My unit plays a game called "Bear Blast".  It starts as one person with a beanie baby bear vs. the entire unit.  The first person must hit someone with the bear and then that person joins the first person, they are now a team.  These two then work together to hit another person.  This goes on until there is one person left not hit by the bear, they are the winner.  It gets confusing and communication is important once you get down to less than 10 people that have not been hit.  There are set boundaries so that people can't just run off.  If the person that the bear is thrown at catches the bear, then it does not count as a hit and they can hit another person. It encourages teamwork, physical fitness, and communication.
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SGM Sergeant Major
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11 y
Same concept as Sharks and Minnows except there is no throwing just tagging another person. We are not authorized to play sports during PT so you have to get a little creative to keep it interesting.
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SGT Montana Crawford
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Ft Wainwright, AK, back when I was still 11B. We divided into squads, put our lightest guys on 4 litters, and it was a race up the ski slope to the top of Birch Hill. You were either on the litter or on 5 gallon water jugs.
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CPL Stephen Kirt
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We have done sports PT, which for the most part is basketball because of the size of our squad. We also have done a ruck/run competition that involved a 5k route and exercises at check points that we did together. Wouldn't call it fun necessarily, but was definitely some good PT.
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SGT Suraj Dave
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I never really got to anything fun. Ever. Seriously. I was at Ft. Campbell. Playing sports for PT was banned by post regs. Never played paint ball, or did a river run .... though like 2 or 3 times we got a zonk....
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