If PRT is mandated by the Army, why are units allowed to do what they want? Does this work against instilling discipline?

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 23:51:52 -0500

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 7 at 2015 11:51 PM

1SG Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 23:51:32 -0500

I was not aware of an official mandate. I thought the whole thing was still in the testing and refinement stage. As far as I know, the "official" PRT set of exercises are just strongly encouraged as a method to follow. Has there been an official memorandum regarding this?

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 8 at 2015 12:31 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 00:31:21 -0500

It is mandatory. http://www.armyprt.com/approach/training-program.shtml

"Physical readiness training is a mandatory training requirement because it is—

Considered by senior leaders to be essential to individual, unit, and force readiness.
Required by law for all individuals and units."

Army Physical Readiness Training (PRT) Information

We provide the easiest way to get all the information you need about the U.S. Army PRT Program.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 8 at 2015 12:43 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 00:43:48 -0500

While it is mandatory you are allowed to add to it. In September I attended a week long course at Fort Drum called MAW(Mountain Athlete Warrior). It’s based off a program called Ranger Athlete Warrior. It covered quite a bit regarding fitness and nutrition. The workout we performed were in addition to the Army’s PRT. We would perform the prep drills followed by some a MAW prep routine. Then we would move on to PRT conditioning drill 1 or 2 which isn’t very demanding. That really served as a warm up. Once that was completed we would perform a more demanding workout such as High Intensity Interval Training using a cross fit type of training, a hybrid workout, shuttle runs, or whatever as long as you mix it up day after day to avoid over training. We would end with PRT and MAW recover drills.

This satisfies the Army’s requirement to perform PRT while adding meaningful training.

In the guard we don’t have the opportunity to PT several times a week as a unit, so we’ve been incorporating what we learned at MAW to our PT during drills. We know one weekend a month is not going to make anyone fit, but we use it as a tool to educate our soldiers in proper methods of exercise.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 8 at 2015 5:54 AM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 05:54:40 -0500

I got it that it is official. I believe that most people view units doing as the please, becasue they have not looked deep enough into the manual to know what it says from front to back. Most individuals know that what it says in the first couple of chapters with respect to conditioning drills and mobility drills, but not anything at the end of the manual.
I am not saying that you are one of these individuals, I am also not saying that this is the only reason people do as they want, it is just a different way of looking at the problem as presented.

Response by SPC Christopher Smith made Jan 8 at 2015 6:41 AM

SPC Christopher Smith — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 06:41:54 -0500

Units are allowed to do what they want because PRT only "maintains" physical fitness. If you need to pass a pt test and get stronger or faster, you need to go with a different program because prt will not develop you.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 8 at 2015 7:51 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 07:51:12 -0500

As a WLC instructor I always ask who does PRT at their respective units. When other Soldiers see they are all doing different things, the conversation usually turns to "Why are we doing PRT, or Crossfit, or MAW?" Why cant we just do our own thing? I have tried to explain the necessity for a baseline and that PRT, while it is mandatory, provides that baseline for different levels of fitness. I agree that some of the exercises are rather dumb or not physically challenging. However many of them are meant to work stabilizer muscles or flexibility.

Response by SSG Genaro Negrete made Jan 8 at 2015 9:15 AM

SSG Genaro Negrete — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 09:15:12 -0500

I would have to agree that this kind of change is more than doctrinal; it's a culture change. It seems to me that there is a clash between the old school NCO's that learned to max a PT test by doing a bunch of push ups, sit ups, and running miles after miles daily and the younger soldiers that have grown up with CrossFit and myriad of other mixed interval training regimens.

The ones that are going to have the most effect in getting PRT to latch on are the team leaders and squad leaders. To that end, I've always felt that being an E5 SGT should start with a certification as a fitness trainer. Not some DA 87 from the Army, but a legitimate certificate of completion from a local college. This is essentially the work the Army is telling us to do; plan and develop a physical fitness regimen that will improve your team/squad's combat readiness. If we trained like football players, it would give us enough balance between strength, speed, agility and endurance to succeed as soldiers.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 13 at 2015 4:11 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:11:38 -0500

I have seen quite a bit about not understanding the program or exercises throughout this post. Master Fitness Training taught us everything about it. And as far as over use of the body and injuries, what about doing PT twice a day all week instead of just continuing it for 30 minutes after standard PT for recoveries or failures? A Soldier fails thier APFT, gets "smoked" for a couple weeks and gets injured. Now they are riding a profile. I think many leaders see the numbers but not the problems that are underlining the statistics.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 13 at 2015 4:39 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 16:39:37 -0500

PRT is hard to implement. It is difficult to see the benefits in reserve units in particular as we do not do organized PT every day. We also do not have any pull up bars in most reserve centers or armories. Seeing a reserve unit having a full ketel bell sets is highly unlikely.