It's not just fitness gurus who are Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson is fired up about the idea of an operational fitness test for sailors.

The Navy finished part one of a physical fitness assessment overhaul last year, relaxing body fat standards but tightening up the number of failures allowed. Now, the physical readiness program leadersgurus at Navy Personnel Command are discussing the feasibility of a new test that measures sailors' abilities to do their jobs. And the push has a high-level fan.

"I'm not talking theoretical here," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson told Navy Times in an April 13 interview. "So I can't tell you exactly what, but I'll say it this way: If it's going to materialize, it's going to materialize during my tenure."

Both Richardson and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (AW/NAC) Mike Stevens have tossed around ideas at recent all-hands calls, concepts that are popular with some sailors and fitness experts.

"A lot of people say every sailor in the Navy is a firefighter, because you can find yourself on board a ship regardless of your source rating, right?" Stevens told Navy Times in January. "When you are on that ship, if a fire broke out, for example, everybody would have to be able to fight it. Maybe your test revolves around something like that."

Richardson said the Navy is taking a look at the Marine Corps' model, which requires a general fitness test during one half of the year — like the existing battery of pushups, sit-ups and a run — with a combat fitness test during the other.

But, he cautioned, any changes are just a conversation for now.

"First of all, I just really like talking about these things," he said. "But the vulnerability there is, it's really hard for the CNO to just muse about things."

hypothetically,

"What sort of physical thing do you need to do to combat a flooding casualty? What do you need to do to take your shipmate out of a space that's in distress because of a fire?" he said. "Move this weight, these sorts of activities, going up and down ladders. It just appeals to me that we could have a test that gets at that."

The challenge is coming up with something that can be done at any type of command, and wouldn't require expensive, space-consuming equipment.

"We've got a lot of sailors that would have to do this test every year, and if I have to go to some sort of exquisite Thunderdrome to do it, that's going to be hard," he said, in a reference to the combat arena featured the third Mad Max movie.

One senior officer with a fitness background has suggested allowing sailors to skip the operational test during deployment, or to put together PFA schedules based on deployments, so that the operational test could be done at home while the standard PRT is completed while away.

And a Navy fitness expert, the head of the Naval Academy's physical education program, suggested that adding an operational test would motivate sailors to get into the gym.

"A lot of sailors can do nothing all year and do very well on the PRT. They can gut out enough push-ups and curl-ups without having to train," Cmdr. David Peterson told Navy Times last year. "You couldn't take that approach if the Navy had a more comprehensive program."

When asked whether commanding officers should order more command-wide physical training more command PT or allow gym time to help sailors train for a new fitness test, Richardson used himself as an example of a CO who encourages sailors to use unscheduled parts of their work day to exercise.

"I've always told my people, certainly, you've got to meet your schedule," he said. "But if you've got an opportunity at just about any part of the day, if you want to go the gym, well, you're an adult. Go to the gym."

Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.

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