Dumb and Dumber: The Army’s New PT Test - War on the Rocks

I was never aware how the sit up actually causes more injuries. I injured my back a long time ago before I joined the army. I had a pinched nerve or had to Get It Chiropractic align my back yet 25 years later, I can bust out sit-ups no problem. I'm 55 now and I can still perform 66 sit-ups required to Max in 2 minutes. The deadlift is what concerns me the most. This is something that most people will have to go to the gym to train on. Until five years ago, I could Max the PT test year after year by just doing the push-ups, sit-ups in the 2-mile Run. I've gained 15 pounds and I'm 25 years older and it's harder. I think retention is going to suffer. People will just want to pass. They'll be no more bragging rights saying "hey I got a 290 or I got a 270 or a 300". They'll just be grateful to pass the test.

This actually aligns wit my area of study. My questions regarding the new PT test are "What is it trying to accomplish?" and "What is it going to cost the force?"

The linked article highlights one of my concerns regarding resource management. Cost. The reason we use the "flawed system" of Body Fat that we do is Simplicity. This is not conjecture, this is Doctrine. We needed an easily administered and easily repeatable system that could used throughout the force(s). So we used one that we KNOW is (not even a little) flawed.

This new PT test abandons all semblance of sticking to the KISS philosophy, while simultaneously making it harder to administer and more costly for the force... and less scalable. That's before being able to answer "How does this actually make us better warfighters?" (without increasing injuries and causing more nondeployers in the process).