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Seasoned Vet
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Issue Date: October 27, 2003
Fit to fight
By any measure, the new Air Force fitness standards aim to make airmen into warriors
By Laura M. Colarusso
Times staff writer
Some airmen are breathing a sigh of relief. Others are holding their breath. Either way, the wait is over — the Air Force’s new fitness standards are finally here.
The test is worth 100 points and is broken down into three categories:
• Aerobic fitness, which accounts for 50 percent of your total score. It involves a 1.5-mile timed run. Airmen medically exempt from running will take the current cycle ergonometry test.
• Body composition, which accounts for 30 percent of your score. This is where they’re going to measure your waistline — the slimmer you are, the higher you’ll score.
• Muscle fitness, which accounts for 20 percent of your score. There are two events in this category, push-ups and crunches. Points are determined by age and the number of repetitions done in one minute. Max out and you’ll get 10 points for each respective category.
When the Air Force set out to redesign the test, the plan called for two minutes of push-ups and two minutes of crunches. Only 62 percent of volunteers passed that test, so it was abandoned.
How well you score depends not only on your performance but also on your gender and age. That’s right, the old-timers catch a break — but not much of one.
To ace the test, men younger than 25 need to run 1.5 miles in nine minutes, 36 seconds or less and do 62 push-ups and 55 crunches in one minute.
Women in the same age group have an extra minute and a half to get a perfect score on the run. They have to do 42 push-ups and 51 crunches in one minute to max out on the muscle fitness portion.
Men 40 to 44 years old have to complete the run in 10 minutes, 24 seconds for the max score, and do 40 push-ups and 47 crunches to score perfectly.
Women over 55 have 14 minutes, 24 seconds to get 50 points for the run. With 14 push-ups and 27 crunches, they can max out the muscle fitness components of the test.
But what about my waistline, you might ask? Well, the old-timers don’t get any slack here. Everyone is subject to the same abdominal-circumference standards. A 32.5-inch waist for men and a 29.5-inch waist for women earns you the maximum 30 points for body composition. You lose points for every half-inch of girth you gain.
Those perfect scores may sound impossible, especially if you haven’t had the chance to hit the gym in quite a while. But don’t panic — you don’t have to get all 100 points to pass. In fact, you don’t even have to pass every category.
Who passes, who fails
The test score is a composite, so strong performance on one part can make up for a poor performance on another.
“We really [don’t] look at each component,” said Maj. Lisa Schmidt, chief of promotion operations for the surgeon general. “There’s not a point, if you go below a certain score for crunches, where you will go on remedial training.”
The test is designed to take into account people’s limitations, she said.
A composite score of 90 or higher is considered excellent. If you amass from 75 to 89 points, you’re in good physical shape, according to the Air Force. Scores of 75 and above mean you have escaped the mandatory fitness training and will retest in a year.
Problems arise when your composite score dips below 75, the realm of “marginal” fitness. At that point you are sent to a training session on exercise and nutrition. If your score is between 70 and 74.9, count on taking the test again in six months.
If you score less than 70, your fitness level will be considered “poor.” You will be required to attend mandatory fitness training five days week. What that entails will vary from base to base. But you will be tested every 90 days until you reach 70 points, then you’ll be tested every six months until you reach 75 points.
You’ll also be retested every 90 days.
So how do you avoid such a fate? Your best bet is to start running and eat right, because aerobic fitness and abdominal circumference provide 80 percent of your score.
“The way we’ve anchored the scores … it’s going to be really hard to pass the test” without being aerobically fit, Schmidt said.
The best way to prepare is to run several miles a week, according to Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, associate professor of exercise physiology at the University of Florida. But it’s also important to mix up your workouts to avoid injury.
“The logical thing would be, of course, run a lot of miles,” Leeuwenburgh said. “You want to find a softer surface for longer distances and cross-training.”
How much you should run depends on your fitness level but, generally, running about 20 miles a week will get you to a point where you can pass the run, experts say. Though it sounds obvious, the more you run, the better you will do on the test, Leeuwenburgh said.
However, it’s important not to get stuck in a rut where all you are doing is running five miles a day. For maximum results and minimum boredom, try to vary the workouts. Long runs will increase endurance, but at least once a week incorporate sprinting drills to increase your speed. Leeuwenburgh suggests running five or 10 400-meter dashes around a track. Set a goal for each lap and try to improve every time you’re on the track.
Taking these steps will improve your run time but won’t guarantee a perfect score. The maximum standards set by the Air Force are tough to meet.
“It’s steep, but it’s doable,” Leeuwenburgh said. “A world-class runner could run 1½ miles in six or seven minutes.”
The Air Force is going to ensure that most of its people are healthy by setting the bar high, Leeuwenburgh said.
Other experts believe the Air Force’s standards for the run are too low.
Is it tough enough?
“Those [run] times are very accomplishable and perhaps not ambitious enough,” said Len Kravitz, an exercise scientist at the University of New Mexico.
Mike Greenwood, a professor in the department of health, human performance and recreation at Baylor University in Texas, said that though the standards may seem tough, the Air Force should expect its people to be fitter than average Americans.
“You’re talking about the military — hopefully an elite class of people who should be in top shape,” Greenwood said. “Their jobs are physical. They require better conditioning.”
The point scale is based on research done by the Cooper Clinic in Dallas. Founded by Dr. Kenneth Cooper in 1970, the clinic has done more than 200,000 stress tests and correlated performances to the risk of disease and death.
Dr. Tim Church, medical director of the Cooper Institute, an affiliated research center, said treadmill studies done over the past 30 years have validated the relationship between fitness and health.
“What we can look at is how you do on the treadmill and how much longer you live,” Church said. “We can look at if you had a heart attack [or got] cancer.”
Sedentary individuals — those who fall into the “low fit” category — are more than twice as likely to develop a cardiovascular disease than those who are moderately fit, according to Church.
The bike test, which measures a person’s oxygen consumption or VO2, is still an option for those who are medically exempt from the run. Air Force officials have found data to correlate VO2 scores with the likelihood of illness.
“We know that when you have a VO2 score less than 36 for males under 25, you’re going to be at higher risk for disease,” Schmidt said. “We found out at which point the person was at risk for disease and then built the [scores] that way.”
Though it may seem tough, the Air Force has it easy compared with the other services. The Navy, the only other service that requires the 1.5-mile run, has higher performance standards. Male sailors age 20 to 29 have only eight minutes and 30 seconds to get the highest rating for the run. Navy women between 20 and 29 have nine minutes, 47 seconds.
The Army requires a two-mile run. Marines have to run three miles, in 18 minutes, to get a perfect score. All of the services have a muscle-fitness portion that includes crunches or curl-ups and some sort of upper-arm strength test, whether it’s dead-hang pull-ups or push-ups.
“The [Air Force] has been considered the ‘weak link’ for fitness personnel for years,” said Kravitz, the University of New Mexico scientist. The service previously used the bicycle test and did not have a muscle-fitness component. “It is the most technical service and ergo has many more personnel operating in ‘office’ environments than other services.”
This new test is a step in the right direction, Kravitz said. It will help the Air Force catch up to the other services.
Years in the making
OK, are you ready to take the new fitness test? Whether you’re ready or not, chances are good you’ll be hitting the bricks in January — but that should come as little surprise.
Gen. John Jumper promised tougher tests after he became chief of staff in September 2001. The changes would better assess whether airmen are physically prepared to do their jobs, he said.
The new test was supposed to be implemented by Jan. 1, 2002, but a couple of things caused a delay — such as the global war on terrorism. Also slowing the process were years of research to determine what the test should look like and even more research to match performance scores to data that correlate fitness and health.
“We looked at some of the data on fitness versus fatness and knew there needs to be more emphasis on fitness,” said Schmidt of the surgeon general’s office. “When your fitness score goes up, we know that your propensity for injury and disease goes down.”
For Jumper, the new test is a chance to change the Air Force’s mentality on fitness, a way to return the service to its warrior roots.
“I want to make very clear that my focus is not on passing a fitness test once a year,” Jumper wrote in an Oct. 17 site picture. “More important, we are changing the culture of the Air Force.
“This is about our preparedness to deploy and fight. It’s about warriors,” the general continued. “It is about instilling an expectation that makes fitness a daily standard — an essential part of your service.”
Staff writer Bruce Rolfsen contributed to this report.
Laura M. Colarusso can be reached at (703) 750-8655 or lcolarusso@atpco.com.
------------------------------------------------------------ Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. ------------------------------------------ 
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Trooper
 
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about damn time.
think some of our air force brethren are in for a big shock out in recruiter land. most of these guys look like **** on average.
AIRBORNE GODS WALKING THE EARTH....
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BS6's Dude
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The biggest problem I have with all of this is the following:
If you score less than 70, your fitness level will be considered “poor.” You will be required to attend mandatory fitness training five days week.
If you fail, you attend PT training... How backward is THAT?
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Air Force Liaison/P.Net Original Cast of Characters
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The waist measurement thing has me baffled. How can everyone, regardless of height, have the same waist size??? What moron came up with that standard???
I can max the pushups and "crunches", but with my waist (38) I'll only score around 83 points total. What a rip. Hell, last time I had a 32 inch waist when I was a 16 year in High School and weighed 153 pounds.
LOAD CLEAR! LOAD CLEAR! Your Job is my Hobby!
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BS6's Dude
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It's obviously biased toward runners - SOme of whom have chests not much bigger than their waists!
I'd like to see a waist to shoulder ratio taken in to account. If you have a 38" waist and HUGE shoulders, that size of waist doesn't look so big.
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