ON
US AIR FORCE FITNESS STANDARDS
1. The purpose of this paper is to discuss why the US Air Force should change the current physical fitness standards. It will discuss why the current standards are not adequate enough to produce fit airmen, and recommend the steps that the US Air Force should take in order to ensure airmen are fit to fight.
2. The US Air Force requires airmen to maintain their own fitness measures and requires them to be fit in order to accomplish the mission. The problem is that the physical fitness test is only conducted once a year for airmen who score in the excellent or good category, so many airmen only train and participate in physical activity during the month of their test.1 The US Air Force has the least stringent physical fitness test standards among all the branches of the military. For example, the US Army physical fitness test requires more pushups, more sit-ups, and a two mile run.2 The US Marine Corps requires a …show more content…
The best solution for maintaining fitness standards would be to conduct the test quarterly and eliminate the waist measurement portion of the test. The points for waist measurement should be redistributed among the pushups and sit-ups categories. Being physically fit is defined as “a set of attributes that people have or achieve that relates to the ability to perform physical activity.”6 By eliminating the waist measurement, the US Air Force would not be compromising physical fitness, but instead would ensure that airmen who are physically fit do not get disqualified based on discrimination of larger waists. Enforcing this standard would make sure airmen exercise and work out in an effort to be fit to fight.
5. The purpose of this paper was to discuss why the US Air Force should change the current physical fitness standards. It discussed why the current standards are not adequate enough to produce fit airmen, and the steps that the US Air Force should take in order to ensure airmen are fit to