Army changes training methods to deal with overweight recruits

 

FORT JACKSON, S.C. — The brutal crack-of-dawn exercise of the past is gone and exercise that looks more like pilates or yoga routines are in. This is the Army’s new physical-training program, which has been implemented this year at its five basic training posts that handle more than 145,000 recruits a year. The official goal of the program change is to reduce injuries and better prepare soldiers for the rigors of combat in rough terrain like Afghanistan.

But, the un-official and/or likely reason for the change in the program is to address the problem of overweight and unfit recruits.

Obesity is the leading reason the Army rejects potential recruits. And while that has been true for years, the problem has become much worse over the past 20 years as the obesity rate has exploded. Earlier this year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled “Too Fat to Fight" in which they posited that U.S. national security is being put at risk due to this ongoing problem.

The report concluded that between 1995 and 2008 the proportion of potential recruits that failed their physicals because they were overweight had risen 70 percent.

Although the Army screens out the seriously obese and completely unfit, it is still finding that average recruits today have less strength and endurance than in the past. It is the legacy of junk food and video games, compounded by the cutting of gym classes in many high schools, Army officials assert.

As a result, it is harder for recruits to reach Army fitness standards, and more are getting injured along the way. The percentage of male recruits who had failed the most basic fitness test rose to more than 20 percent in 2006, up from just 4 percent in 2000. The percentages were even higher for women.

Another study discovered weakness in bone strength from recruits not having enough weight-bearing exercise and a diet heavy on sugar-laden sodas and energy drinks and not enough calcium and iron -milk-.

The new fitness program tries to deal with these problems by incorporating more stretching, exercises for the abdomen and lower back, and more agility training. The multi-week program is designed to slowly build the fitness of recruits instead of the abrupt regimen of the past.

There are less situps, push-ups and long runs, which Army officials say is good for avoidance of injury. Also included in the Army's new program is a change in menu at its mess halls, focusing more on lower fat, healthier choices.

Commentary: The US Army Surrenders to Obesity? The rest of this news story just pisses me off so I don't see much point of giving the designers of this new plan more attention than I've already given them. I've never been in the Army, but I recognize through my years of experience as an extreme athlete that an abundance of hardship and suffering is required to build mental and physical strength. It seems to me the whole point of basic training is to test young men and women mentally and physically in order to weed out those too weak and incapable of enduring the rigors of combat.

What are we doing in this country when we start taking it easy and coddling those who are supposed to be our protectors? The Army has one primary goal: to build a force of warriors who have the toughness and stamina to defend us from those who would do us harm.

If we don't have enough potential candidates to built a sufficient Army to protect us, the government of the United States is failing at its primary responsibility. Everything else comes second. An obesity rate of 60% and climbing makes every other political issue obsolete, and that includes the economy, Afghanistan, Iraq, health care, immigration, and the rest. We can't fix any of these problems with a lethargic, unhealthy, un-ambitious population. The fall of the American Empire is staring us in the face. The Army is blinking.