Are you ready for the new fitness standards?

  • Published
  • By Col. Cassie Barlow
  • 48th Mission Support Group commander
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England --  If you haven't heard the big news of 2010 yet, here it is ... the United States Air Force has a new fitness program on the way!

It will be implemented Jan. 1, 2010. This means we are just a short two months away from a new way forward for fitness. The Air Force is still working on a new Air Force Instruction 10-248 that will govern the program, but we should all prepare for it now.

Why do we need a new program, you ask? In the summer of 2008, the Air Force Audit Agency report on the Air Force Fitness Program showed unit programs did not create a year-round fitness culture and found it needed significant improvement.

Additionally, commanders were not taking consistent corrective action when Airmen didn't meet standards and Air Force Fitness Tests weren't properly administered. Furthermore, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz stated the Air Force needs a fitness program that is "clear, understandable and simple."

As a result, Gen. Schwartz met with the other leaders regarding fitness. His marching orders were to fine-tune fitness testing, promote a year-round fitness culture and send a clear message that health and fitness are critical to the mission.

Based upon this guidance, here is what we currently know about the new program:

- The overall standards appear to be more difficult than the old standards. Some bases have applied their old scores to the new standards and have come up with 20 percent more failures.

- Active-duty Airmen will take the Physical Fitness Assessment twice a year.

- Deploying Airmen will take the test within 90 days of deployment.

- There will be a new Fitness Assessment Cell on RAF Lakenheath consisting of four people. They will assist commanders in implementing the PT program and administering the test. This fitness cell will likely not be setup by Jan. 1, so commanders must continue to implement the program until the cell is trained and ready to go.

- The aerobic run will count for 60 percent of the score, body composition 20 percent and muscle fitness (crunches and pushups) 10 percent each.

- Commanders should provide Airmen fitness time during duty hours when mission permits, but it will no longer be mandatory per AFI to provide fitness time during duty hours.

If you haven't seen the new fitness charts, I encourage you to go online to look at them: http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/affitnessprogram/index.asp