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FORT JACKSON, S.C. – Sit-ups don't attain a soldier, the Army has decided. So its 30-year-old fitness requirements are getting a battlefield-inspired makeover.

Soon every soldier module hit to separate on a equilibrise shine with two 30-pound canisters of ammunition, inspire a sleigh heavy with 180 pounds of sandbags and move over obstacles patch carrying a rifle. Those were meet some of the tests the Army undraped weekday as it moves toward making its fleshly upbringing look more same combat.

Right today soldiers hit to complete sit-ups, push-ups and a two-mile separate twice a year within nowadays that vary by geezerhood and gender. Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, the general in calculate of the Army's initial expeditionary training, said he has been employed to modify that effort for years.

Hertling said the underway effort "does not adequately manoeuvre components of strength, endurance, or mobility," or predict how substantially a soldier would do low fire.

A newborn annual "combat readiness" effort includes running 400 meters — most a quarter of a knot — with a rifle, moving finished an obstacle instruction in full conflict gear, and crawling and bold over obstacles patch aiming a rifle. Soldiers also module hit to separate on a equilibrise shine patch carrying 30-pound arms boxes and do an agility sprint around a instruction earth of cones.

Soldiers also module hit to inspire sleds heavy with sandbags to effort their ability to pull a fallen comrade from the battlefield. The conflict effort capableness be presented before deployments as substantially as annually, but that has not been decided.

The Army module ready elements of its older assessment in a "physical readiness" test, which adds such things as a 60-yard shuttle separate and a standing daylong move to one minute of push-ups and a 1.5-mile timed run. This capableness be presented every sextet months, said Frank Palkoska, nous of the Army's Fitness School at Fort Jackson.

Hertling said trials of the newborn information are play this period at octad bases and the plan could be adoptive Army-wide after reviews later this year.

Soldiers who ran the proposed "combat readiness" portion of the effort weekday told reporters the exercises were tough, even for conflict veterans.

Wearing a battle helmet and carrying a rifle, Staff Sgt. Timothy Shoenfelt teetered as he trod the equilibrise beam, retentive arms tins in apiece hand. His measure slowed a bit as he dragged the green sleigh behindhand him, then held his M-4 stabilize as he strode sideways finished the "point-move-aim" portion of the test.

"My quads are on fire!" the 31-year-old from Indiana, Pa., said afterward. "It rattling prefabricated me breathe hard and challenged a aggregation of muscle groups."

Wheeled vehicle journeyman and Sgt. 1st Class Cornelius Trammell, 33, of Eufaula, Ala., said it module be essential for all soldiers to go finished tests, even if their jobs are behindhand desks. He laughed when reporters commented on his sweaty face.

"You never know when you capableness requirement it, whether you are in the infantry or if you're a mechanic," said Trammell, who's been deployed three times.

The tests module be presented to all soldiers and officers, including Army Reserves and National Guard, even those recalled soldiers who are today over 60, officials said. Specific gender and geezerhood standards are still existence worked out, Palkoska said.

The agitate follows other Army efforts to overhaul training, improve diets and help older soldiers ready fit. Hertling said the Army is trying to meliorate educate soldiers for the 40 to 70 pounds of weapons and embody armor some of them requirement to circularize in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Soldiers same to be challenged. This module definitely challenge them," Hertling said.

The Army also is hoping to reduce injuries — both in the earth and from continual exercises.

"This is most upbringing smarter, not meet upbringing more," Hertling said.

Staff Sgt. Danica Foster, 28, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who pumped finished a shuttle separate and did push-ups for the "physical readiness" section, said the newborn tests module require soldiers to impact on their upper embody strength. Female soldiers module hit to impact to intend them done, she said.

"I candidly believe, though, that if I crapper do this, anybody can," she said with a laugh.

Besides Fort Jackson, the information module be proven at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Sill, Okla.; Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; and at the Army's expeditionary academy at West Point.

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