Air Force athletes aim for weight standards - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Air Force athletes aim for weight standards

Until this semester, Cadet First Class Ryan Kemp ate three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every night before going to sleep. The sandwiches polished off days the defensive lineman spent eating three squares and snacking between classes at the Air Force Academy.

After the Armed Forces Bowl on New Year’s Eve, Kemp and his fellow firsties (seniors) on the football team have to drop pounds to meet academy and Air Force weight and body composition standards, including the 32-inch waist measurement.

So far, Kemp has lost 20 of the 60 pounds he packed on in his four years in Colorado Springs, Colo. His weight jumped from 195 his first year to the 255 he played at this fall.

Like the rest of the Air Force, cadets must meet weight and body composition standards. Athletes are no exception; the rules are just stretched a bit for those who play positions on teams — football or wresting, for example — where extra weight provides a competitive edge. But after their last season before graduation, the athletes have to shed those extra pounds.

Recently, an Air Force audit found commanders aren’t disciplining airmen who don’t meet the standards; a crackdown is expected, though, with the release of changes to the fitness program this month.

Those who are the target of a crackdown would be the academy’s and Air Force’s heaviest athletes like Kemp, but he isn’t too worried.

Academy athletes have received temporary body fat adjustment waivers since 2004 when the policy was written into the academy’s new weight management program. Under the program, cadets must maintain a healthy body mass index or a body fat percentage under 20 percent for men and 28 percent for women.

If an athlete exceeds the percentage, his coach can request the waiver, which then must be approved by the athletic department and the vice commandant of cadets. An athlete’s sport as well as his position dictates whether the waiver is approved, said Jeff Heidmous, the academy’s associate athletic director.

“The water polo coach came to me one time and said ‘I want someone to be 22 percent.’ I said, ‘what are you smoking?’ Show me a world-class water polo player who’s more than 12 percent body fat, let alone 20,” Heidmous said.

Even with a waiver, an athlete is given a maximum body fat percentage. The number is under 26 percent for men and under 34 percent for women, Heidmous said.

Once an athlete comes off the waiver, he is put on a strict schedule to cut body fat and weight to meet academy and service standards. A male cadet must lose five pounds a month, a female cadet must lose three pounds a month and both must drop at least 1 percent of body fat a month.

Losing three to five pounds a month is safe and perhaps even a bit conservative, said Jeff Kotterman, director of the National Association of Sports Nutrition.

“You should be able to lose two pounds per week and 2 percent body fat per month,” he said. “They are giving these guys a break.”

Since 2004, Heidmous said, every academy athlete who has had a waiver has passed the fitness test before his graduation date. All cadets must pass the test to graduate and to be commissioned.

2nd Lt. Blaine Guenther weighed 292 pounds during his days as an offensive lineman for the academy. He didn’t struggle at all to pass the fitness test after he came off his waiver. He lost points on the waist measurement and the run but did the maximum number of the pushups and sit-ups to earn an 85 on his test — 10 points over the minimum score needed to pass.

“I was kind of itching to lose weight, so I hit the diet pretty hard,” said Guenther, who cut his weight to 230 pounds with interval training and six small meals a day.

Now, as offensive line coach at the Air Force Academy Prep School, Guenther tries to teach his players the importance of gaining weight by building muscle instead of simply getting fat.

Kemp is losing weight. In January, he weighed 235 pounds — the minimum weight requirement for pilots, which is the Air Force career he wants to pursue. As for whittling his waist down to the 32-inch requirement, Kemp is confident he can do it. He wore 38-waist jeans just this fall, but he’s into the 34s he wore before he came to the academy.

“All it took was not eating as much, and I lost the weight.”