What The History Of The Army’s PT Test Can Teach Every Man About Complacency And Readiness | The...

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/05/11/history-of-the-armys-pt-test/
I friend from my USMA class forwarded the link to this site which I thought was interesting in light of recent discussions on physical combat proficiency tests.
This article reminded me about the Physical Combat Proficiency Test and includes the test we took in the 1970s - horizontal ladder, run dodge and jump, etc. Separately we did the 150 yard man carry and the low crawl under overhead machine gun fire.
Below are excerpts from the article:
"Each of the various iterations that the Army’s physical training test has gone through since it was first introduced almost 75 years ago offers an interesting snapshot and reflection of the country’s general culture at the time. The standards of the test have evolved, along with changes in gender inclusion, scientific knowledge of health and exercise, and the shifting demands of various wars.
The test’s standards have generally toughened during times of war, and softened during times of peace, and the difference between these poles has roughly translated into the difference between a focus on combat readiness, and a focus on general fitness.
The current Army Physical Fitness Test centers on the latter, but that hasn’t always been the case. Today we’ll trace how the modern PT (Physical Training) test came to be, what came before, and where the test may be going. It’s a subject worth learning about for soldiers and civilians alike, not only because it’s pretty fascinating, but also for its wider implications; it’s quite an instructive case study in understanding the human cycle of laxity and vigilance.
“Over a period of years and the course of several wars, the costly lessons learned from our past military experiences led to an increasing interest in the physical condition of the fighting man. With this interest has come the ever increasing realization that our troops must be well conditioned to operate effectively. No longer can we afford emphasis on physical fitness during wartime and de-emphasis during peacetime. It is evident that, in spite of increased mechanization and modern weapons, physical readiness retains a vital place in the life of each individual solider and in every unit within the Army.” —FM 21-20, Physical Readiness Training (1969)
Historians of military fitness have long observed that an emphasis on physical training waxes during wartime, and wanes during peacetime — both in the armed services and in the population at large. Civilians and soldiers simply aren’t as motivated to stay strong and fit when there isn’t an immediate threat to deal with nor a strong likelihood of being called to serve in combat. As a result, when a draft is instituted, a large portion of eligible men are found unfit for service, and the military initially struggles to adequately train their troops and bring them up to speed.
As the war progresses, the impact of soldiers’ physical inadequacy on casualties and success is clearly realized and real-time lessons from the battlefield emerge as to the kind of physical training and skills that are needed to address these deficiencies. These insights make their way into the military’s official PT programs in the later stages of the war, and are codified in manuals in the years following the conflict’s conclusion…only to be relaxed and modified once more as troops settle into a peacetime routine and no imminent crisis seems to loom.
“Over a period of years and the course of several wars, the costly lessons learned from our past military experiences led to an increasing interest in the physical condition of the fighting man. With this interest has come the ever increasing realization that our troops must be well conditioned to operate effectively. No longer can we afford emphasis on physical fitness during wartime and de-emphasis during peacetime. It is evident that, in spite of increased mechanization and modern weapons, physical readiness retains a vital place in the life of each individual solider and in every unit within the Army.” —FM 21-20, Physical Readiness Training (1969)
Historians of military fitness have long observed that an emphasis on physical training waxes during wartime, and wanes during peacetime — both in the armed services and in the population at large. Civilians and soldiers simply aren’t as motivated to stay strong and fit when there isn’t an immediate threat to deal with nor a strong likelihood of being called to serve in combat. As a result, when a draft is instituted, a large portion of eligible men are found unfit for service, and the military initially struggles to adequately train their troops and bring them up to speed.
As the war progresses, the impact of soldiers’ physical inadequacy on casualties and success is clearly realized and real-time lessons from the battlefield emerge as to the kind of physical training and skills that are needed to address these deficiencies. These insights make their way into the military’s official PT programs in the later stages of the war, and are codified in manuals in the years following the conflict’s conclusion…only to be relaxed and modified once more as troops settle into a peacetime routine and no imminent crisis seems to loom.
When WWII broke out, for example, half of the first two million men called up by the Selective Service were found unfit for duty, and 90% of these rejections were due to deficiencies in health and fitness. For this reason, the military started scientifically researching the best ways to exercise its men and prepare them for combat. The result was the introduction of a robust physical training program, as well as the Army’s first physical fitness test. The test consisted of a 5-event battery of events: squat jumps, sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, and a 300-yard run (you can take the test yourself here), and was designed to test the kind of muscular endurance and anaerobic capacity soldiers would require on the battlefield. The physical training program and test were developed during the war, and then codified in a PT manual in 1946.
Yet in the years following WWII, physical training standards once again grew lax. As many military strategists felt that the advent of nuclear weapons had made ground warfare largely obsolete, an emphasis on physical readiness waned and soldiers were allowed to grow softer. Consequently, American troops struggled in the Korean War, and military analysts traced many of the conflicts’ causalities to a lack of physical hardihood and preparation for the rigors of battle.
And so the oscillating pendulum of physical readiness swung back again; by the end of the 1950s, the Army took the lessons it had learned in Korea and began to draw up new standards for soldiers’ physical fitness — ones aimed specifically at enhancing their focus on combat readiness. The necessity of these efforts was made clear as combat operations in Vietnam got underway in the 60s; the military got real-time data back from the field as to how soldiers needed to be trained in order to withstand the kind of guerilla warfare being waged in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
The result of this effort was a new program of physical training and testing that was first introduced in 1959, and revised and codified a decade later in FM 21-20, Physical Readiness Training — the Army’s PRT field manual. As the name implies, the new program was aimed at developing soldiers’ “physical readiness,” defined as a “combination of training to develop proficiency in physical skills and conditioning to improve strength and endurance.” The training emphasized exercises that developed strength, muscular endurance, anaerobic and aerobic capacity, agility, and coordination, as well as the attainment of “proficiency in certain military physical skills which are essential to personal safety and effective combat performance:
1.Running — Distance and sprint running on road and cross country.
2.Jumping — Broad jumping and vertical jumping downward from a height.
3.Dodging — Change of body direction rapidly while running.
4.Climbing and traversing — Vertical climbing of rope, poles, walls, and cargo nets. Traversing horizontal objects such as ropes, pipes, and ladders.
5.Crawling — High crawl and low crawl for speed and stealth.
6.Throwing — Propelling objects such as grenades for distance and accuracy.
7.Vaulting — Surmounting low objects such as fences and barriers by use of hand assists.
8.Carrying — Carrying objects and employment of man carries.
9.Balancing — Maintaining proper body balance on narrow walkways and at heights above normal.
10.Falling — Contact with the ground from standing, running, and jumping postures.
11.Swimming (in specialized situations) — Employment of water survival techniques.”
To gauge whether a soldier had gained the required aptitude in these physical skills, and was prepared for the demands of battle, the Physical Combat Proficiency Test (PCPT) was created. It consisted of five events: low crawl (40 yards), horizontal ladder/monkey bars (20 feet long), grenade throw (sometimes substituted for a 150-yard man carry during basic training and for combat-support troops), ‘dodge, run, and jump’ (agility run), and a 1-mile run. While completing the test, soldiers were required to wear their combat uniform (sans jacket) and boots.
All male soldiers were required to take the PCPT to graduate basic training, and periodically throughout their enlistment. Women, who were then part of the separate Women’s Army Corps, took a much lighter and less strenuous test, which consisted of arm circles, body twists, a bent-over “airplane” exercise, sit-ups, and jumping jacks.
From Readiness to Fitness: What Happened to the PCPT?
The Physical Combat Proficiency Test was arguably the Army’s high-water mark for the testing of functional fitness. But even though the PCPT was a rigorous test that closely linked its standards with the standards of “job performance” in combat, it didn’t last.
Within just a decade, several factors originating from the civilian world would combine to create a very different test.
First, in 1975 President Gerald Ford signed a bill allowing women to enroll in the nation’s service academies for the first time. As performance on the PCPT was a part of graduation requirements, as well as Officer Evaluations Reports, some officials worried that women would struggle with the test’s standards, especially when it came to the horizontal ladder, and that their low scores would hold them back from advancing to leadership positions.
Then in 1978, the Women’s Army Corps was disbanded, and female soldiers were integrated into non-combat male units. In conjunction with this change, the Army wished to create a sex-integrated fitness test that could be taken by all of its troops.
There were other changes to the make-up of the Army as well. After Vietnam, the military once again became an all-volunteer force, and some of the new recruits were not as fit as the exiting veterans. Obesity began to be a problem in society as whole, and in the military as well, spurring the Army to become increasing concerned about keeping down the weight of its soldiers.
At the same time, an emphasis on cardio-respiratory endurance was coming to dominate the health and fitness discussion in the civilian world. Slow, long distance running/jogging was rising to prominence, and the military began to see aerobic health as the most important determiner of overall military fitness (as well as a way for potentially obese soldiers to keep off the pounds).
As the Cold War continued, there also remained those who felt, the wars in Korea and Vietnam not withstanding, that ground combat was a thing of the past, and that as warfare became more and more mechanized, combat would become less and less strenuous; thus, while it was desirable for soldiers to maintain a general level of health, a high level of fitness and combat readiness would be unnecessary.
In addition to these factors, the Army was keen to come up with a PT test that, unlike the PCPT, didn’t require any equipment and thus could be done cheaply and in any conditions.
So it was in 1980, that the Army introduced a new fitness test for its soldiers: one that was deemed more equitable for women, included gender normed standards, focused on general fitness, health, and weight control, and required no equipment. The PCPT’s five, combat-related events became three: 2 minutes of sit-ups (rest/pauses allowed), 2 minutes of push-ups (ditto), and a 2-mile run."