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New PT test sidelined for 6 months

On your mark.

Get set.

At ease, airmen.

The new fitness test standards are on hold, the Jan. 1 start date pushed back six months. Until July 1, the current scoring matrix stays in place.

Before you get too excited, know that you’re not completely off the hook. You still have to take two PT tests next year.

“It is important to us that we have this right,” Lt. Gen. Richard Newton, deputy chief of staff of personnel, said when he announced the delay Nov. 19 to Air Force Times.

The Air Force announced the PT overhaul in June. The decision to hold off on the changes came Nov. 16 from Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force chief of staff, who told major command leaders about the delay the next day, said Lt. Col. Adriane Craig, Schwartz’s spokeswoman. Schwartz, according to Newton, considered several options — from no delay to postponing all the changes until July.

Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy backed Schwartz’s decision.

“It is in the best interest of the total force to delay the program until all aspects of the revised PT program are worked out,” Roy said. “By doing it this way, airmen will fully understand the standard and where they measure up.”

Newton denied the delay came about because commanders were worried too many airmen would fail the test, which will still be push-ups, sit-ups, a 1.5-mile run and waist measurement.

“We are not backing off the commitment that we are absolutely focused that our airmen are fit to fight,” he said.

The new AFI

The delay in the AFI is because of a debate over mandatory PT on the job and getting the Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard on the same page about the new rules, Newton said.

Until the overhaul, the Reserve and Guard tested to the same PT standards but had their own rules. The updated AFI brings the Air Force, Reserve and Air Guard under the same rules, Newton said.

Senior leaders and junior airmen alike argued over whether commanders should continue to be required to schedule unit physical training into duty days.

Right now, commanders must give airmen at least an hour three times a week for PT time. The new AFI will drop the requirement, trading it for a provision that encourages commanders to set aside time for unit PT.

“As we’ve gone through this process,” Newton said of the mandatory PT rule, “it has provided us a lot of opportunities to have discussions …”

Air Force officials could not state when the AFI will be issued, other than to say release is “imminent.”

Civilian test-givers

In the overhaul, the Air Force took the responsibility of administering PT tests away from airmen after an internal audit showed they couldn’t be trusted when it came to testing their buddies.

The audit, requested by then-Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Rodney McKinley, found 17 percent of airmen received higher scores than they should have when airmen from the same unit administered the test. Auditors who retested airmen found 17 percent had bigger waists without gaining any weight, “indicating the tests were either improperly performed or inaccurately documented,” according to the report.

McKinley acknowledged PT test cheating was a concern.

“I’ve got eyes,” McKinley said when the audit was released last year. “I can see some guys who supposedly have passing PT scores but visually, well, it’s questionable.”

The civilians coming on board next year will make up fitness assessment cells at each base; not all bases, though, have filled the proctor jobs because they didn’t get money for the positions until November, Newton said.

“It was a product of the budget cycle,” explained Col. Joan Garbutt, chief of military force policy. “We didn’t have the money until then. Now, we are trying to hire them as fast as we can.”

Pacific Air Forces started using civilian proctors in March after former commander Gen. Howie Chandler decided to crack down on the cheating himself. Failure rates jumped from 2 percent to 20 percent.

What’s ahead

Failure rates could jump even higher than the 15 percent once the new standards are in place because not only is the test being scored by civilians but there also will be minimum scores for each event. Currently, airmen can score poorly in one event — say, push-ups — and make it up in another, such as the run.

With the new matrix, for example, a 30-year-old male airman must finish the run in 13:36, have no more than a 39-inch waist and perform 33 push-ups and 42 sit-ups to pass.

Across the board, the waist measurement increased. The measurement needed for a perfect score went from 32.5 inches to 35 for men and 29 inches to 31.5 for women.

Age groups for the score matrix will now be in increments of 10 years instead of five. The new categories: younger than 30, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60 and older.

Running times also got much faster. For example, a 29-year-old man has to run 24 seconds faster and a 40-year-old man has to run 39 seconds faster than they did before to max out the test.

Air Force leaders have added different point totals for the push-up and sit-up components to encourage airmen to eke out every last repetition.

Though PacAF already uses civilian proctors, PacAF airmen will benefit from the delay, according to an official at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.

“This will give us more time to get the message out there to airmen and properly prepare them for the new standards,” said Jason Ham, who directs the Hickam Human Performance and Rehabilitation Center.

At Hickam, fitness leaders have distributed the new scoring standards at commander calls and through the local media. Hickam, though, has not run practice tests against the new standards like Aviano Air Base, Italy, has done. At Aviano, one unit saw about 40 percent of its airmen receive a failing score.

PacAF bases with fitness assessment cells, such as the one at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, have seen their failure rates slowly drop as airmen get used to the civilian test-givers and the new standards.

“A lot of airmen came in pretty nervous since some were unprepared and didn’t know what to expect,” said Ryan LaRock, a fitness specialist at Elmendorf since June. “Over time, though, they have gotten used to us and continued to do better after working with us in the different programs.”

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