Physcial Fitness

[AvroArrow]

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I couldn't find anything specific to my question. Also, I don't where this would go, so move this topic at your discretion, Mike 


First off, I'd like to say that I can't deny that it'd be hard for me to beat a mile better than 6:30 minutes and that, though I'm in good shape, I'm no where near the athletic abilities as some of the other cadets out there in CAP. I can meet the requirements for Phase III for the CPFT and I'm still working on improvement. But, with that in mind, I was curious to what you all think about Cadet Physcial Fitness (CPF)?

For example, applying for staff at a special activity such as an encampment or NCSA: might physical fitness hinder your chance of being selected if you can meet excellence in the other credentials/requirements? I know no one expects any cadet to "drop down and give me 50 in under 30 seconds," but would not being absolutely full of muscle really hurt your reputation/chances?

I've seem some cadets get heartbroken from embarassment because they were unable to run a mile under 7:00 minutes whereas their peers couldn't, especially encampments, etc.

I guess what I'm trying to say subconsciously is that I'm worried not only for myself, but other cadets out there that I know are "pleasntly plump."

Just trying to get some other opinions out there.

P.S.
Have you seen some of the pictures 'round the internet? 'Ts interesting that some of the cadets who attend the NCGC are as thin as a pole.

[notaNCO forever]

 I think the times for the mile run are to low. Otherwise I think the rest of the requirements are alright.
That is just my opinion probably due to the fact I am horrible at running.

[Cecil DP]

Physical Fitness is evolutionary. The more you do it, the better you can perform. It is also subject to your personal physical limits.   As long as you're actively exercising, you should be fine.  

[DC]

I think the CPFT does a pretty good job of being within reach of nearly all CAP cadets, but getting them stay in some sort of shape. It is not designed to make athletes, and you don't need to be one to pass it, but you still need to be active. That, I believe, is the point in the program.

[Eclipse]

For example, applying for staff at a special activity such as an encampment or NCSA: might physical fitness hinder your chance of being selected if you can meet excellence in the other credentials/requirements? I know no one expects any cadet to "drop down and give me 50 in under 30 seconds," but would not being absolutely full of muscle really hurt your reputation/chances?

There are no prescriptions in 52-16 regarding PT in relation to encampment staff appointments (in fact theres no guidelines at all in this regard).  As long as a cadet is performing at grade level, this should be a non-issue.  If they are unable to perform at grade level, they likely will be failing in other areas of leadership and ability which would be more important factors that their mile times, which, frankly, are irrelevant.

I've seem some cadets get heartbroken from embarrassment because they were unable to run a mile under 7:00 minutes whereas their peers couldn't, especially encampments, etc.

Encampment PT should be group activities designed to stress the importance of PT as a part of the cadet program, not a marathon or a death march.  I can't imagine why anyone involved would even have a watch, let alone be timing runs (unless its part of some competition).  PT testing should be done at home, not an encampment.

Running / jogging / push ups, whatever, should be done at the pace of the lowest common denominator to build the team experience.  If cadets are crying, or require oxygen, its another unfortunate example of senior or cadet staff who don't "get it".

[MIKE]

Me, personally... If I was a wing CP I'd want CPFTs at encampments and staff selections etc for evaluation and training purposes.  Not so much for the individual, but for the units.  Is the unit conducting or conducting the test correctly?  If C/CMSgt Snuffy can't even pass for phase 1, do I need to have a chat with his CC?

[Eclipse]

I agree the Wing DCP should be monitoring and evaluating CPFT at the unit level, but that's outside the scope of an encampment.

Certainly encampments tend to show the weaknesses of a Wing's program and especially units sending cadets who don't perform at grade level (CPFT or otherwise), and an Encampment CC should be alerting Wing of issues that come to light, but I don't think an encampment should be used as a wing auditing tool, per se.

[AvroArrow]

At MOWG, there were a few cadets that couldn't do the "morning run."

The first and second day, they nearly fainted because of lack of oxygen. From then on, they got better, but they still weren't as fast as the other cadets, so cadence was somewhat unorganized.

Stuff like this makes me worried, especially since I'm a staff member for KSWG Encamp.

[notaNCO forever]

 Something encampment staff always needs to remember is that some cadets can't physically do what is being demanded of them. You never know when someone has a undiagnosed medical problem. I also don't think a cadet should not do pt because they are out of breath.

[Eclipse]

The issue with the way we do PT is that for each achievement its a pass/fail, one time hit.

So most cadets ramp up into what they need to do, then go back to the X-Box.  Just because a Chief can't perform to
grade level today doesn't mean he didn't at the time of his testing.

Now, that's going to potentially cause progression issues for Mitchell, but its not cause to give him grief at a encampment.

The above doesn't account for the units which are not doing PT by the book, however, which does need auditing.

[NC Hokie]

I've seem some cadets get heartbroken from embarassment because they were unable to run a mile under 7:00 minutes whereas their peers couldn't, especially encampments, etc.

I think the rest of the group has handled your other concerns pretty well but I have yet to see a direct answer to this one.  The CPFT standards do not require a passing score on the mile run, they just require a passing score on the mile run OR the shuttle run.  This is not an excuse to abandon the mile run entirely (I expect all of my cadets to attempt it, even if they "know" that they won't pass), but it gives those who have trouble with it an opportunity to meet the requirement in another fashion.

[SM-MADDOG]

How many times a month do You guys do PT testing? Our squadron does it once a month. I would kinda like to see PT testing once a month and at the start or the month PT. Im not saying the squadron has to do it like that every month but I think it is a good idea for extra PT. What do any of you cadets feel on that type of PT schedule? Thanks

[NC Hokie]

We conduct the CPFT on the first meeting of the month.  There is no other PT during the month as there is not enough time for it after covering the mandatory subjects, achievement tests, etc.  I make sure that failing cadets know what they need to work on and they know that they have to do it on their own time.

[hatentx]

I think the standards are a little rough.  I know as an Active duty Army Sgt who regularly conducts PT and leads PT with my platoon I am in good shape.  Now I know that at my peek conditioning I am not going to hit the 6:30 mile. 7:00 sure 6:45 maybe but much less than that come on.  While I am only 25 with knee and ankle issues it is still a push for me to hit it.  One of the things I have noticed while running with the cadets is the difficulty to not treat them like my Soldiers.  One falls out you "Motivate" them into falling back in with the group or you turn to formation around until everyone else is mad and decides to "motivate" them as well after PT.  I have no other issue with this other than falling out namely cause I was use to being the kid in Basic getting yelled at all the time.  What have ya'll found that works well with cadets to nudge and not "Motivate" them into trying harder to stay in formation?

[Stonewall]

WIWAC we only had to run a mile for the CPFT; no push-ups, sit-ups or sit-and-reach.

Like Cecil DP said, fitness is evolutionary.  I was in good shape as a kid cadet, but by no means was I able to pass the Army PT Test at age 18 when I went into the Army.  In fact, my best APFT wasn't until I got off of active duty and was in the Guard, where I finally scored the max points (300).  I was 28 at that point.

I don't care for the CPFT standards as I think they are too stringent and the whole in-cadence push-up thing blows my mind.  I seems like CAP's answer to the AF's waist measurement debacle.

Don't worry folks, when you get in the AF you can do whatever form of push-up you want - - - they count everything.  I've seen bodies remain still as heads bounce up and down and the dude gets 60 "push-ups" in 60 seconds....

I think as a cadet, your body is still growing and evolving, so you will not be at your maximum potential for years to come.  And don't get discouraged because some Cheetah smokes past you at 50MPH while you're huffin' it to make a 7:00 minute mile.  Your time will come, unfortunately it may be after you're a cadet.  Just don't give up and become an xbox commando.

[RogueLeader]

My last APFT was 52 pu, 74 su, and a 1536 2 m.  my 1 mile lap time is usually between 7:15 and 7:30.  I just have a different physice (sp?)  I can't ask for cadets to give less that their best, although I hate the fact that the cadets have to push "In Cadence"  I can not do as many that way as compared to my own pace.

[Always Ready]

<rant>I hate the CPFT standards. As a cadet I struggled with the mile. During the first two phases, the standards aren't too bad. But, if you join CAP late in your teenage years (like I did, 16 y.o.) or progress to around the Mitchell, things start to get rough with the mile. I was 'lucky' enough to grow up on Air Force bases so when the AF started a "real" PT program, I would go to the gym and work out with whichever squadron was working out. Sometime Security Forces, sometimes the flyboys and gals, and other times it would be the fat, lazy comm folks (My dad was in Comm). I also played varsity football and basketball in high school. Now, I am skin and bone with very lean muscles. The running joke that my dad had for me, was that I could "pass AF PT standards but not CAP...how sad." I had no problems with anything else, just the mile. I worked out daily and ran several miles daily. My problem is I can out run most people in a three or four miles, but not in a mile or less. So when I moved away to college, I was doing AFROTC PT and elected to work out with the Army to build my endurance. Once again, I would pass AF PT standards with flying colors and would pass Army standards (dunno how well). I still couldn't run a mile in under 7 minutes. That was half the reason I went Senior Member at 18. When someone can pass PT standards for the active duty military but not for the cadet auxiliary, there is something wrong with the system.<end rant> Just my two cents. Change the mile standards and everything else is ok.

+1 for making the CPFT mandatory for NCSAs, staff selections, encampments, etc. I've noticed certain squadrons fudge on their PT testing.

[jimmydeanno]

As my wing's CAC Senior Advisor, I hear a lot of complaints about the CPFT - not because the standards are too hard, but because the push-ups in cadence are awkward and the shuttlerun is practically impossible. 

A lot of people I talk to say that the PT is watered down from "when they were cadets."  But I don't think they are - I think they are harder than before.  I remember as a cadet using the 300 point system and each achievement needed a certain number of points to pass.  So for your curry, you'd need something like 40 points out of 300 to pass.  It worked out so that if you could do any of the events and max it out, you didn't need to complete the other two until around your Mitchell Award and really didn't need to do all three until your Earhart.

Over the last few months I've been thinking about the PT situation and revisiting the goal of the program, which is to promote a lifelong habit of fitness.  Do we do that now?  I don't think so, we promote a test.

Anyway, I've noticed that if a cadet joins and isn't very fit at all they are discouraged from even participating in the program because it could take them a year to meet the Curry requirements, etc. 

With that I thought about possibly changing the program to something like...

1) Cadet joins CAP.  There is no standard PT requirement like "12 year old males needs a 9:00 mile for Curry."  But rather, the cadet establishes a baseline fitness level that they're at.

2) The cadet takes the "test."  He runs the mile in 15:00, does 6 sit-ups, 3 push-ups and reaches 10 cm.

3) From there, we set the expectation of improvement between achievements.  So say CAP decides that the improvement should be 2% between achievements the cadet would need to do the following to earn the Arnold Achievement:

Mile: 14:42 (2% of 15:00 is .3 minutes or 18 seconds)
Sit-ups: 7 (we'll round up <1 numbers to at least 1 unit)
Pushups: 4
S&R: 12

This also works well for cadets that already have a high level of fitness because percentages are proportionate to the original amount.  So a kid that runs a 7:00 mile would only need to shave 8 seconds off his mile as opposed to 18 for the other kid.

Now, obviously once you reach a certain point it becomes increasingly more difficult to take more time off.  A person that runs a 5:00 mile is going to have a harder time knocking off 3 seconds than someone that runs a 15 minute mile.

With that in mind there'd be a "max" set so people don't need to be impossibly fit.

The only difficulties that I would see is calculating what each cadet would need to do.  However, this is easily solved with the use of the online promotion system.  When the cadet joins, you enter their baseline and the "system" calculates the needed progression into a nifty chart - you give it to the cadet or it gets emailed to them or whatever and you input their scores from there on.  Voila!

Thoughts?

[cnitas]

When someone can pass PT standards for the active duty military but not for the cadet auxiliary, there is something wrong with the system
...

+1 for making the CPFT mandatory for NCSAs, staff selections, encampments, etc.

These statements seem somewhat inconsistant to me.  So you want to further penalize that older cadet having trouble with the run by keeping them from staff, encampment, and NCSAs? 

[RogueLeader]

It's an added incentive to work harder at it.  At the same time, it needs to be changed to something along the lines of what JD was saying.