[M]ilitary fitness operates under a 100-year-old paradigm that places endurance training above strength. I think the realities of modern mechanization have made endurance testing for military people obsolete, and it ignores the physical reality of the Soldier in 2014. Soldiers in 2014, as opposed to 1914, come from a completely different background. In 1914, people worked on a farm – they bailed hay, they picked heavy things up, they were stronger. You can get people in endurance condition pretty quickly. Endurance for people who are not endurance specialists comes on pretty quickly. Strength, on the other hand, takes years to develop. If it is not trained, it never develops. Having talked to lots of people who have occupied a combat role, it is my studied opinion, and theirs, that strength contributes more to combat readiness in 2014 than endurance does...."Everybody in the military" includes general officers nearing 30 years of service, as well as grizzled sergeants who have piled on a certain amount of battle damage. Likewise, as he says, it takes years to develop strength: you can't expect to deadlift twice your bodyweight tomorrow if you've never done it before.
[E]verybody in the military ought to be able to deadlift twice their bodyweight. And that does not represent a powerlifting specialization. For a 165-pound Soldier, a 330-pound deadlift is not a remarkable feat of strength. But it at least ensures that there is a minimum standard. Next, we would have an overhead press test that would be 75% bodyweight... I would also test chin-ups and 400-meter sprint. I think a Soldier should be able to do 12 chin-ups and run 400 meters in 75 seconds or less. The additional benefit of having the press, chin-up, and 400 meter run tests is that they do away with the need to do body composition testing, which takes up a lot of time and can be a problem for muscular Soldiers.
As an aspirational standard, though, it sounds good to me. If we said that everyone in the military should be able to do this by the end of their first four-year enlistment period, it might make sense. We'd have to combine a sense of what is reasonable to ask given natural aging and also service-related injuries, but it's otherwise not a bad idea at all.
UPDATE: I suppose I should add that I think he's on his best ground in arguing that we should move from endurance-based to strength-based testing as the minimum standard for military personnel. Endurance is nevertheless of critical importance for some specific jobs in the military -- loading artillery, for example, as well as many special operations missions. That's the reason to have a tough, endurance-based course as an additional layer of selection for those especially onerous jobs. This is a function performed by, for example, the USSF Q-course, or the Marine Infantry Officers' course.
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Excellent point, Grim. But frankly, I question the premise that endurance is no longer required. I know plenty of guys who went to Iraq and Afghanistan who would disagree that no one humps a heavy load for extended time anymore because of "mechanization". Frankly, riding trucks/tracks into combat isn't so much the norm anymore. Ask the Marines who served in Falluja how much sitting in a vehicle they did. Or the patrols in Kandahar province. These guys were packing 80-100lb loads for hours on end. You can't tell me endurance is no longer a big deal.
Heh. I was just updating this post to reflect that very point.
I have a son in Basic right now. Most of his conditioning focus is on pushups in 2 minutes, situps in 2 minutes, 13-minute run, chinups. They have some distance marches, but apparently not as in days of yore. Son #4 was in the USMC and had more marches and endurance, but not as much as they had in earlier years. Their training was also filled with more short and medium-burst exertion.
The idea that people were stronger 100 years ago because of lifting bales on the farm is not accurate. The physical testing of our soldiers entering WWI showed the opposite: shorter, slighter, poorly nourished, previously injured or with chronic conditions. The improvement in track and field and other athletic records over time is not just the specialisation of a few.
AVI is absolutely correct. The British found out to their dismay in the Boer war, that close to half of their army was essentially unfit for service. Especially the new recruits. This "Everybody lived on a farm 100 years ago" is also simply not true. the US went to a majority of population in the cities by 1901.
While I'm sure that improvements can be made in training (you can always improve something), I'm not sure that Rippetoe is entirely correct.
There is an old saying about armies are always fighting the last war, and that's probably very true now as much as it ever was.
Well, ok, but I don't think he was interviewed for his expertise in historiography. :)
So in other words, his premise based upon history is false (hay bales). The experience of the current generation shows his premise to be false (combat actions in Iraq and Afghanistan requiring stamina, not one time raw lifting power), and from this, we're supposed to support the premise?
Houses built on sand, my friend.
That's a very harsh reading. I think his argument is good, even separated from the historic aspect: the physical body builds endurance in particular repeated motions rapidly, but strength requires a lot of investment.
The two-mile run the Army does as part of the PFT (or the three-mile run the Marines do) isn't very much like any kind of combat; nor are bodyweight-only exercises like pushups and sit ups. Do all that stuff wearing Interceptor armor and pounds-and-pounds of ammunition, maybe.
Likewise, we've lost a lot of simple physical strength even over the 1990s by the movement to the BMI standard. Marines are a lot smaller than they used to be! Moving away from the BMI standard to a physical-strength standard makes all the sense in the world to me.
THAT I will not argue against. When I was in the Army (92'-97') the BMI ratios were incredibly stupid. Coming out of Basic Training, with extremely little fat on me (BCT has a way of doing that) I stood 5'10" and weighed 185lbs. At those numbers (and at the age of 19) I was "overweight" and constantly had to be taped to verify my % of body fat (highly unscientific measure) was within regs. For every weigh in for the next five years (save one where a short NCO measured me as being 6'2") I had to get taped. I am a large dude. Always have been, always will be.
Measuring strength over BMI makes a LOT more sense, unless you want an Army of whipcord runners. BUT... I still maintain endurance (the ability to ruck march for 10+ miles with a heavy load) is still a necessity in the combat environments of today. I am unsure I buy his determination that endurance is easier to develop than strength (I lack the background in physiology), but I am disinclined to take his word for it, based upon his other inaccuracies.
When I was in the Army in the '80s the 'whipcord' runners were supreme. I hate running, but I could march all day with a pack. I had company commanders who were marathon runners. God, what a pain.
My experience as well, Eric.
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