The Air Force is implementing a new fitness test this year. Some cheer this new test because it will make Airmen as in shape as Soldiers and Marines. I, however, am figuring I’m doomed.
I’m an Air Force reservist, 26 years of active service. It doesn’t take much to add up the numbers to know I’m on the high side of 40 years of age. When the Air Force implemented our current test five years ago, I actually had to start working out. I’d be the first to admit that our previous test—riding a stationary cycle and measuring heart rate—might have been a bit shy of demonstrating our fitness. So we added pushups and situps to the regimen and brought back the 1.5-mile run.
To get in shape, I started with the treadmill, even sought out a personal trainer for a short while. My office had a challenge that if anyone cursed, the guilty party had to do 20 pushups and the rest had to do 10. Fortunately, I don’t generally curse, so I got the smaller number. Not that it mattered. The first time I did pushups, I did one. Sort of. By the end of the first day (there was a lot of cursing going on), I’d resorted to “girly” pushups, and was still well below five. The next day I couldn’t lift my arms to type at my strenuous desk job.
So I added weights to my fitness program. Now I lift weights twice a week and spend 40 minutes on an elliptical three to four times a week. The good news is after three years of this program, most of the chicken flaps under my arms are gone and I am moderately more toned than I was when I started.
The bad news is it’s not going to be enough to excel at the new test. Someone who obviously is not a woman past middle age, decided for this new test all women from 40-49 should be able to do the same scores. To pass the test with a minimum score of 75 percent, I have to do 11 pushups and 24 situps in a minute. A “good” pushup, by the way, is achieved with a 90-degree angle on the arms, no girly ones allowed! My fitness program has made it so I can pass the minimum—barely. My biggest problem will be the run: I will just skim the passing score for running.
My only option appears to be to work out harder. Needless to say, I’m a bit panicked. I’m already taking an hour nearly every day to work out. But I’m not the only one. Air Force units all over the world have started pushup challenges, group training, and checking out hard-core workout videos guaranteed to give you stellar abs in weeks. A recent Air Force Times estimated that one in four of us will fail when the program begins in June.
Me? I’m going the next step. Bring out the hard core videos! I’m going to show up at RWA National with muscles everywhere and I’ll challenge my fellow writers to pushup contests, wherein I will be an amazing example of the superior fitness of Airmen everywhere.
If not, I hope my arm muscles don’t flap while I’m lifting my wine glass.
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I’m quite certain the Air Force has forced me into better shape than when I was a lieutenant. In fact, I’m now in better shape than my 17-year-old son, who knows better than to challenge his “old” mother on pushups!
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Thanks, AJ, for a good laugh this morning! My first duty assignment was Hanscom AFB and we partied frequently in Boston, even on a work night. Inevitably we would have a random drug test or weigh in after a night of drinking beer in Faneuil Hall. And it would be the thin male airman who would weigh the women!
I’ll practice pushups between now and Orlando so I can do at least one for every 12-ounce curl at the bar!
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Ooo! Pushups on the bar? I like that idea. Or pullups, depending on how many wine-glass lifts I’ve done…
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What? The girly ones don’t count?
I’ve been pumping up my workout as well, but I’m just hoping to fit into my clothes. I wouldn’t think to take you up on a push up challenge as my day job has me sitting on my butt for 8 hours. The butt which has steadily been getting more…padded.
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Hi, Jeannie!
We have a triathlete in our office who volunteered for the “test” of the fitness test. He had to do 66 pushups to get 44 to count! No, girly ones don’t count–and apparently some of the real ones as well!
Augh!