The idea of doing the Army Physical Fitness Test as one of the workouts has been tossed out several times in the past, but (I’m guessing due to the perceived time frame limitations of the workout) has never been put into play. Well… until today. A few weeks ago UJ made the comment that he would like to try it out. Everyone figured the Shipyard would be the best location, because of the track, so he started looking at the Q sheet. Not wanting to wait too long he asked if I was willing to use today’s Q for it since the Q sheet was full for the next few weeks. Of course I said yes, and we began to bounce ideas off of each other, along with getting advice from some of our Military Pax, on how to make it run efficiently. Here’s what we came up with.

UJ started an HC list to try to get an idea of who all planned to participate and from that list we realized we were going to have a decent size group. We decided that we would break up into groups of three. One person working, one person counting, and one person watching the clock and holding the worker accountable on form.

Conditions: Mid to upper 30’s. Not too bad considering some of the temps we have been working out in.

Disclaimer: Given

Before we headed down to the track/football field, we had Pacer and Duggar demonstrate the standards we would expect to see in form for both the Push-up and Sit-up, along with the acceptable rest positions and some examples of what was not acceptable form.

So once that was completed we headed to the field and separated into our groups.

First thing up: 2:00’s of max effort push-ups
Cycle through your group until everyone has a go.

Second thing up: 2:00’s of max effort sit-ups
Cycle through your group until everyone has a go.

Third thing up: 2 mile run
Your group starts together and each pax runs the 2 miles as fast as they can.

All in all things ran very smoothly for our first go at it and now all Pax have a fitness baseline to gauge their improvement. The plan is to repeat the test again in 6 months to see how far we’ve come.

Results:

Just as the last guy was finishing up his run it was right at 6:00.  (Good thing we started at 5:00)

Recover

COT:
Count-o-rama
Name-o-rama

Announcements:
* Usual Red Friday line up for tomorrow
* Saturday’s workout will be at Shipyard starting at 6:00
* Run Your Ice Off 5K/8K (you can sign up at the race, so get out and set a time to beat on your next race)
* Several Pax out doing Events this weekend. Good luck to them. Signing up for events can be another great way to motivate yourself to push harder.

Prayer Request:
* Baby Blu’s daughter and son-in-law
* Juggernaut’s M
* Mac-n-cheese having feet issues
* Pacer’s Mom and Uncle
* T-Rav’s Aunt
* Pax dealing with sicknesses, injuries, everyday life issues

NMS:
* Had a great time today and was glad to see a large crowd getting out there and testing themselves. No matter what your current fitness level is, completing something like this to set a baseline is a great way to not only motivate yourself to get better, but gives you something to compare your improvement to the next time you do it.
* Tclaps to Meatloaf and Blue Print for posting to the yard for a workout even though they had things keeping them from doing the APFT. There’s more than one way to get better!
* Huge props to all the guys that posted today. Saw a lot of effort and encouragement from everyone.
* Tootsie Roll was setting an example of an injured pax who chose to get better by doing what he could do. He completed the push-ups and sit-ups, but due to a leg injury was not able to run. Would have been an easy morning to roll over instead of getting up, but that’s not what Tootsie does.
* The push-up G.O.A.T. stepped up to the plate as all G.O.A.T.s do and knocked out all 60 reps with impeccable precision. (Despite having a hard-azz for an “accountability” teammate.) Tickle didn’t disappoint either. As the AOQ of the Shipyard he did his AO proud. FYI: These are the 2 guys that drew the short straw and were paired up with me.
* Can’t wait to run through this test again to see how each person has progressed throughout 2018. Grit your teeth and get after it men!

Until the next Q,
The Meter is paid in full…