NEW ARMY PHYSICAL FITNESS TEST FROM THE MONTH OF MARCH.

The annual physical fitness test that active Army service persons posted to Army units must successfully pass has been the object of an in-depth revision during 2009 and the result has been a new fitness evaluation system with four new events, which will be obligatory and with required minimum scores.

These events make up the General Physical Fitness Test, which has come to replace the Annual Physical Evaluation Test with the arrival of the New Year.

The first regular announcement of the new test will take place in the month of March.  The period to that date then will serve to train for the new events and from that moment, to be obtaining the data needed to fully shape the system throughout 2010, which has been considered a transition year.  Nevertheless, when needed, such as for courses, commissions and other specific cases in which there is a request to undertake the test before March, once the application is approved, the General Physical Fitness Test will be executed with the corresponding certificate of having passed the test.

New test events, new scores

The aim of the change was to design physical fitness test events more according to present physical demands of the combatant, simpler to organise and execute, as well as reflecting with greater rigour the results according to the training undertaken and in this manner promote motivation for physical exercise.  Likewise, it sought test events that did not demand a high degree of technical preparation and that offered more data on individual physical fitness.  Also, an extrapolation for units could be made.

The result is a new test that takes into account two tests of strength (push-ups and sit-ups), one of endurance consisting of a 6 kilometre run, and a test of speed-agility that includes a zigzag circuit among cones.

The score in each of the three psychophysical aptitude qualities (that of strength is obtained by taking the average of the scores made in push-ups and sit-ups) ranges between 0 and 100, depending on age and gender group, and is divided into 10 levels.  The level obtained in each one of the qualities makes up the Individual Physical Profile, consisting of three digits and similar to the language level score.  In addition to the profile, the test also gives rise to a final score from 0 to 10 resulting from the sum of the scores obtained in all events being divided by 40.

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