FORT BENNING, Ga., (Nov.11 2015) -- "Some of you have a lot of work to do," Staff Sgt. Aaron Duhachek told basic combat training Soldiers as they sweated through their 1-1-1 assessments Oct. 26 in the company area.
Building warrior athletes begins with mastering the fundamentals from the very beginning, the D Company, 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, Soldiers learned as they absorbed advice from drill sergeants.
"Lower your butt," "lift up your core," "interlock your fingers," "come all the way up," drill sergeants said as they counted the push-ups and sit-ups.
The 1-1-1 assessment includes one minute of push-ups, one minute of sit-ups and a one-mile run around a track. The assessment gives the drill sergeants an idea of the physical condition of their Soldiers. Based on the assessment, Soldiers can be sent to run clinics or devote time to proper push-up form outside of regular physical training time.
"We know where to push them from here; we know what ability they're at coming to basic," Duhachek said.
The assessment is for the men who really struggle with physical training, Duachek said. The drill sergeants watch for those who had previous injuries or are prone to injury to help them succeed through training.
For the assessment, Soldiers are required to complete a minimum of 10 push-ups and 10 sit-ups. The Soldiers will be placed in ability physical readiness training groups based on their run times, grouping Soldiers with similar run times together with a drill sergeant who can maximize their physical capabilities. Following their first Army physical fitness test, they will be placed in ability groups based on their sit-up and push-up scores, an initiative that D Company is piloting.
Scores for each event in the APFT range from 0-100 and are determined from the number of repetitions Soldiers complete in a given amount of time. Soldiers who score 80 percent and above in an event on the APFT are considered on par with the best Soldiers in the active force and are placed in the blue group. Soldiers who score 60-79 percent are on par with advanced individual training or one-station unit training graduates and are in the green group. Both the blue and green groups are considered sustainment phases. These Soldiers will be challenged to achieve excellence through their PT. Soldiers with scores of 50-59 percent will be placed in the yellow group. They are considered on par with that of a BCT graduate. Those with scores of 0-49 are on par with the civilian population and will be in the red group. These bottom two groups are considered toughening phases and will work on improving their PT.
"We think everybody should have decent numbers," Duhachek said. "This test shows us who is really in trouble."
The purpose of the ability groups is to provide appropriate training for specific ability levels, he said. Those who need improvement can work toward it, and those who are at the top of their game can work on sustaining their APFT scores and becoming warrior athletes.
Now, drill sergeants are discovering that men who drank less milk growing up increase their incidence of injury, said Capt. Shinwon Moon, company commander. To mitigate this, the company is giving the trainees a "fourth meal" of a chocolate milk and a protein bar to help meet their calcium needs.
Moon said physical training serves as a crucible, a shared bond that any Soldier - regardless of their military occupational specialty - has experienced.
"Fitness is discipline ... it also shows their readiness to fight," Duhachek said. "A lot of us are true believers that fitness is the base for everything we do in the military."
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