Fitness for Operational Requirements of CAF Employment ( FORCE )

[PMedMoe]

Yes, the yoga pants-wearing 22 year-old who graduated with a Kin degree 2 weeks ago and has no military experience what so ever, is definately the best person to evaluate my fitness to conduct operations.

And the MCpl with his (or her) few 40 minute PT classes on PLQ is any more qualified to do it? 

I'll stick to PSP, thank you very much.

Finally, a relevant PT test.  :blotto:

I agree.  A true sign of fitness should be who can hold their alcohol better.  Pretty sure I'd get exempt on that one too.  ;D

 

[Haggis]

Finally, a relevant PT test.  :blotto:

But that's not enough, is it?  The test, and the associated standards, have to be able to withstand the eventual legal challenge from those who would say that it is disctriminatory against (insert special interest category here) for (insert frivolous reason here).

 

[Journeyman]

But that's not enough, is it?  The test, and the associated standards, have to be able to withstand the eventual legal challenge from those who would say that it is disctriminatory against (insert special interest category here) for (insert frivolous reason here).

You mean those......non-drinkers?  rly:

 

[PMedMoe]

You mean those......non-drinkers?  rly:

How did they even get in??    ???

 

[daftandbarmy]

How did they even get in??    ???

It was a federally funded pilot project for 'designated groups' and, thus, won't last  ;D

 

[McG]

In the past, it's been my experience that the 'good idea' or 'fitness flavour of the month' fairy has more to do with military fitness trest design than any real scientific analysis. I'm hoping that this is in some way different and better.

For scientific identification of the requirement, look back a few posts:

Here is some related reading on both Project FORCE and the disparity between what is measured by current CF and Army fitness testing:  http://www.cfpsa.com/en/psp/HumanPerformance/Documents/CAJ_vol13.2_09_e.pdf
and from another source :http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_13/iss_2/CAJ_vol13.2_09_e.pdf

 

[daftandbarmy]

For scientific identification of the requirement, look back a few posts:

Thanks. :nod:

 

[Stoker]

Isn't this test going to take a significant amount of time to administer, especially for a rather large ships company or section?

 

[PuckChaser]

I have a feeling there won't be 13 tasks to complete, and if its done once a year, so what if it takes a day?

 

[dapaterson]

My understanding is that they are assessing 13 tasks to find out which ones taken together are the best predictors of success at the common military tasks.

 

[Stoker]

My understanding is that they are assessing 13 tasks to find out which ones taken together are the best predictors of success at the common military tasks.

I was kind of disappointed that they jagged in the Navy specific test that they had planned and went with the one standard. My boss was asked to go to Ottawa for some of the testing as he had just returned from Afghanistan. There wasn't really a lot of expertise there at all, in fact most of the participants were athletes and did triathlons and they wanted the standard really high.
I hope the data collected and the final result is a fair test that all personnel can have a reasonable chance of passing. It sounds to me that there will be a lot of failures seeing that some elements do not do that sort of tasks on a regular basis.

 

[Halifax Tar]

My understanding is that they are assessing 13 tasks to find out which ones taken together are the best predictors of success at the common military tasks.

I think that common military tasks part is what is going to cause some griping.  Really there are common service tasks but what a stoker is expected to be able to physically accomplish day in and day out differs greatly from say a combat engineer.

True we could all be expected to pick up a rifle and act as a soldier but we could also just as easily be called upon to preform a damage control scenario on board a ship.  For some each is a common or practiced occurance for some they will never do these tasks. 

I just hope its one standard for all what ever the final outcome is.

 

[navymich]

One of our other feedback points was regarding the order in which the events are done.  The testing group was divided into 3 smaller groups and we rotated through events.  The group who did the picking and digging last probably handled other tasks better then my group who did picking and digging first and were unable to clench our hands afterwards.

If it is kept at 13 tasks, I think they will be hardpressed to fit it into just 1 day.  There is mandatory recovery time between events and even with only doing half of them in one day, we were all quite worn out and sore. 

 

[buzgo]

The final version of the  test is supposed to be able to be administered in a variety of locations and environments including on austere deployments...

I'm very curious, we (CF) are actually a world leader in BFOR military fitness standards.

 

[McG]

My understanding is that they are assessing 13 tasks to find out which ones taken together are the best predictors of success at the common military tasks.

So, does this evaluation of the evaluation have participants doing 13 tasks and the common military tasks?  In order to find a statistical correlation, one would need to know how the members of the study group performed on both the testing methods and the tasks that are supposed to be predicted by the tests.

 

[Jarnhamar]

CO's fitness challenge;

5KM timed run
X pushups in 2 minutes- non-stop
X situps in 2 minutes-non stop.
X pull ups

Each event has a certain amount of points per category ie pushups (male) 0-10=0, 11-20=5, 21-30-10  and so on.

Get some kind of baseline going.
Obese people can struggle through the BFT yet not fire off 3 push ups or a single pull up.

Lifting ammo cans into a truck. What?  The little fella from the Captain America movie, pre-super juice, can lift ammo cans into a truck. That's a silly "test".  Loading ammo cans into an MSVS would be retarded.

 

[fraserdw]

I seen a dozen PT standards come and go in 32 years and the best one is the one I joined under; 1.5 miles under 12 minutes, 30 continuous push ups (and no retarded yoga thumbs pointed experimental PT degree stance either), 35 continuous sit ups, climb the rope and touch the ceiling and 5 pull ups (10 if your beret is purple).  It worked well for almost 20 years before my joining and 7 after.  Since we abandoned it to a more "friendly and welcoming attitude to our more diverse nation" we have wandered about in a hell of poor fitness and confused training standards.  In the past 5 years, I have been taught 9 different stances for a push up, each making it harder to actually do a push up.  Mind you these stances have improved my zen but not my strength.  I have enough of PSP evolving our fitness through science, lets go back to the hung over PT NCO with a bad temper!  I was much more fit back then.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I seen a dozen PT standards come and go in 32 years and the best one is the one I joined under; 1.5 miles under 12 minutes, 30 continuous push ups (and no retarded yoga thumbs pointed experimental PT degree stance either), 35 continuous sit ups, climb the rope and touch the ceiling and 5 pull ups (10 if your beret is purple).  It worked well for almost 20 years before my joining and 7 after.  Since we abandoned it to a more "friendly and welcoming attitude to our more diverse nation" we have wandered about in a hell of poor fitness and confused training standards.  In the past 5 years, I have been taught 9 different stances for a push up, each making it harder to actually do a push up.  Mind you these stances have improved my zen but not my strength.  I have enough of PSP evolving our fitness through science, lets go back to the hung over PT NCO with a bad temper!  I was much more fit back then.

Huzzah!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. 

 

[buzgo]

The problem with all of the run - pushup - situp - rope climb test is that they aren't correlated to any occupational task. Sure if you can max the events then you are going to be in good shape but, this doesn't mean that you are training efficiently to do your job.

This is why the assaulters at DHTC have gone to a task based circuit, and this is why most police forces use a task based circuit.

I still think that there is a place for CO's challenges and things like that - in my experience a lot of the troops (Signallers mind you) are soft and don't know how to deal with a little hardship. Hard PT solves that problem....

but,

we still need to have an effective and enforced standard and if its going to be a task based test, then great. Maybe we will end up with a 2 test system, a general PT test and then a combat PT test similar to the USMC.

 

[R031button]

Relating a CF wide PT test to the Police or to a single unit in particular ( JTF 2 ) is flawed logic. All members of those organizations are expected to preform the same tasks, ie: every cop needs to be able to chase down a suspect. The CF requires a comparatively much more broad degree of tasks to be completed. Similarly one can extend the argument of "task based fitness" to argue that an Air Force Clerk posted to NDHQ's task are typing and lifting a pen ( not disrespect to members that's just an example). Too me the job of ensuring that a given member is fit to preform their task is the duty of the members leadership, ie it's up to 1 VP to decide what's fit enough to be in 1 VP, where as the CF should focus on enforcing a more general fitness test. A test focusing on core fitness attributes of cardiovascular endurance (ie: running), major muscle group strength ( push ups, sit ups), and muscle to weight ratio (pull ups) is a much more simple, and universal standard then trying to find tasks common to all for AES Ops and Naval Weapons Techs.