Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Zach Sheely | Thirty-one Kansas Army National Guard Soldiers participated in the Comprehensive...... read more read more
“Everything you’re going to do in a uniform is going to come back to that (Army Physical Fitness Test), your height and weight, and if you can meet those standards.”
Sgt. 1st Class Charles “Chip” Cunningham’s opening report to the Kansas Army National Guard Soldiers attending the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Course, hosted by the 235th Regiment at the Kansas Regional Training Institute in Salina, Kansas, hangs in the air like an anvil.
It’s not the first time these Soldiers have been given this message, but they’re here – most of them on a volunteer basis – to learn the skills needed to avoid ever hearing it again.
At its core, the course is intended to help Soldiers improve their APFT results and body composition in order to continue their military careers. During the two-week course, in which Soldiers are away from their homes and families, they’re given fundamental tools to help them meet Army standards, and so much more.
The problem
The problem, according to Cunningham, is that after basic combat training and advanced individual training, Soldiers in the National Guard aren’t given the continued education or training required to live a healthy and military-ready lifestyle.
“We’re losing a large number of Soldiers due to APFT and height/weight issues and it’s affecting our retention,” said Cunningham, who serves as the lead instructor of the course.
Col. Michael Erwin, special assistant to the adjutant general, Kansas National Guard, said that during the 2015 training year alone, there were approximately 156 Soldiers due to reenlist who could not pass the APFT or meet the height/weight standards. In most cases, Soldiers who cannot meet the standards are barred from reenlistment.
“Taxpayers in this country spend a lot of money on each individual Soldier,” said Erwin, “and if we lose a Soldier because they can’t meet the standard, we’re wasting the taxpayers’ money.”
Cunningham said that the issue has been shaped by the culture and operational climate of the last decade.
“Due to (high-operations tempo), we were focused on numbers, numbers, numbers,” he said. “For a long time, some of the things like APFT and height/weight kind of got pushed to the side. “Now we’re in the opposite situation. We’re not worried about (overseas deployments) as much. We’re seeing a (reduction) of the force and one of the first places units are going to look to is Soldiers outside of the standards."
“I think the problem is so large, it’s like our house is on fire and we’re outside mowing the lawn,” said Staff Sgt. Randall Milleson, a participant in the course. “You can’t just tell a Soldier ‘Oh, keep running and next month we’ll test you again and see if you pass.’ We need to attack the problem.”
The Soldiers
The Soldiers who participated in the course came from across Kansas. They ranged from 21-53 years old and included men and women representing a wide spectrum of military occupational specialties. Yet, whether they grappled with meeting the height and weight standard or passing the PT test – or both –they shared a similar struggle.
Staff Sgt. Danny Mersch cited time management as a major hurdle for him.
“I work 10-12 hour days,” he said. “So where do you add time for activity?”
Cunningham, who has been featured on the cover of body building books, is quick to tell students of his own struggles with weight, nutrition and fitness in the past and how he wasn’t always aware of how bad his habits had become – or worse, how to change them.
“We get in great shape during basic and advanced individual training,” Cunningham asserted. “All these Soldiers here have passed the APFT at some point. However, when we’re attending that training, we do push ups and sit ups and run a lot. That’s not really that fun and it can be really hard to motivate yourself to do that on your own.
“Soldiers know they need to work out and everyone knows they need to eat better,” he said, “but a lot of times that’s not enough. We need to identify the motivating factors that will develop good habits and then make them sustainable for the long term.”
Physical training
The Kansas National Guard Comprehensive Soldier Fitness course was the initiative of Brig. Gen. Robert E. Windham, commander of the Kansas Army National Guard, and developed by Col. Tony Divish, director of logistics, and Erwin.
Soldiers were administered an APFT on day two of the course to gauge their initial level of fitness. The APFT is designed to test the muscular strength, endurance and cardiovascular respiratory fitness of Soldiers in the Army. Soldiers are scored based on their performance in three timed events: the push up, the sit up and a two-mile run, ranging from 0 to 100 points in each event.
In the two weeks that followed, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Course participants spent three hours per day in the gym.
There, they focused on three areas: strength training; “tactical” training, including kick boxing, boxing, kettlebell swinging, Cross Fit and body-weight resistance elements; and Army Physical Readiness Training.
“Part of the curriculum is teaching our students physical readiness training and how to lead the formation,” said Erwin. “They don’t just stand in formation and let our instructors lead it. They actually have to go up and lead that training. So when the student goes back to their unit, they have a qualified person that can actually lead that training.”
Cunningham said the reason the Soldiers lead PRT is to empower them.
“This gives Soldiers a chance to work out and take it out to their units,” Cunningham said. “Then they’re the subject matter experts. They can start teaching PRT. That does two things: it brings PRT out to those units, but it also gives Soldiers self-confidence.
“When they get back to their units, they’re going to show what they learned here. Then they’re proving to themselves what they can really do.”
The instruction
The course, while focused on building stronger, leaner bodies, is about much more than just physical fitness.
“When we say ‘comprehensive’ we mean that word literally,” said Cunningham. “It’s not just physical fitness. We’re focusing on everything from mental strength, nutrition, resilience, goal setting and finances. All that stuff is tied together. When you think about fitness, it’s more than how you can perform in a gym.”
Milleson, a human resources noncommissioned officer with 1st Battalion, 161st Field Artillery, said that his biggest challenge is finding a sustainable way to eat “healthy.”
“My nutrition is all over the place,” he said. “I do a lot of yo-yo dieting. I’ll try anything just to make height/weight, but it’s never consistent and it isn’t the right way to do it.”
Students are given classroom instruction on a variety of nutrition topics, including macro nutrients, what to eat when eating out, meal prepping and foods to avoid.
“We molded it on basic nutrition,” said Erwin. “What does a carbohydrate mean? What does a protein mean? In the program curriculum, we don’t talk about counting calories. We talk about looking at the food and seeing how much you’re eating to assess what you really need.”
“The nutrition classes are teaching me what I should be eating,” said Spc. Rex Bontrager, cannon crewmember, 1-161 FA. “How I should be eating and when I should be eating versus my current habit of grabbing whatever looks good and is easy.”
The nutrition instruction doesn’t stop in the classroom.
“They make a grocery list based off recommended foods that we provide," said Cunningham. "That way they can make foods they actually see themselves eating. Then we go to the grocery store so we can see the food and also start to get an idea of how much is this stuff going to cost? That’s another obstacle of fitness. Eating better can be more expensive. Then the finances come into it and that’s another area we focus on.”
Soldiers are given financial training by a financial adviser, and then each made a budget based on their own finances.
They also cooked two meals at the 235th Regiment culinary school kitchen using basic recipes with healthy ingredients.
“Fat camp”
Cunningham has heard the term “fat camp” attached to the course.
“Every person that calls it ‘fat camp’ or has something negative to say about this program, you know why they’re saying that?” Cunningham asked. “Because they’re probably the people that need to be in this program and it scares them. It scares them to see these Soldiers going through and actually making progress because, honestly, they don’t have the strength to do it themselves.
“That negativity has no place. People need to support these Soldiers. We have to. We should never put someone down for going out and wanting to make a change. That’s how we get here in the first place. It goes back to culture. How does this happen?”
Cunningham said it motivates himself, the instructors and the Soldiers in the course. Students from the first course named their classroom accountability group on Facebook, “Phat Camp,” to turn the negative phrase into a positive one.
“I’ve heard it, too, ‘fat camp,’” said Milleson. “And I’ve said it before, too. It brings a negative connotation to it. Until I was going to the course and I heard it, I didn’t realize the negativity that goes with it. Anybody can come to this course and you will learn something.”
The results
Collectively, the 31 Soldiers who participated in the course lost 136.5 pounds and averaged a three percent decrease in body fat over the two-week span of the program.
The Soldiers increased their cumulative APFT scores by an average of 40 points per person, including a 110-minute total reduction in the two-mile run from the initial test to the second test given on day 13.
Cunningham credited the team of instructors and subject matter experts who loaned their expertise throughout, and the Soldiers themselves.
“I didn’t even know what I had in me,” said Spc. John Meyer, light wheel mechanic, 250th Forward Support Company. “I’m 43 years old now. Looking at my lifestyle before, I was totally screwed up. I was not even close to doing what I should be doing. I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to participate in this program and reevaluate myself.”
Staff Sgt. Mersch said that the course is a life rope to those who need it.
“It's like what they do for suicide prevention," said Mersch. "To me, this is kind of like that severity of a situation. In reality, if you’re not physically fit and staying in shape in the military, you are committing career suicide.”
Not all the Soldiers were long-time veterans. Spc. Maria Handy, a medic with the 1077th Ground Ambulance Company has served in the Kansas Guard for more than six years and is seeking promotion to the rank of sergeant.
“Now my friends are asking me all this advice about eating,” said Handy. “It feels really good to know what I’m actually talking about. I have firsthand experience on what to do and how to implement it. This is a great program. Anybody who’s afraid to try it, try it.”
Milleson served in the Marine Corps before his time in the Kansas Guard and said that he hasn’t participated in a course or program throughout his military career that has affected his life as much.
“This is the most important course that’s been offered in the National Guard,” he said. “I’ve been to several schools and nothing impacts the readiness, morale and resilience of Soldiers as this course.”
The future
The Soldiers will return to Salina in April 2016 to take a follow-up APFT and height/weight screening to track their progress, but according to Cunningham, it’s about much more than numbers on a piece of paper.
“We’re not really interested in where the Soldiers are at the completion of this course,” said Cunningham. “Our focus is where they’re going to be six months from now, a year from now. Can they be consistent. That’s what we try to develop, the skills, habits and education they need to develop their own action plan.”
Soldiers gathered what they learned and drafted their own individual action plans, including short and long-term goals and how they intend to achieve them.
They presented their plan to their peers, another accountability step in the changing of the culture, according to Cunningham.
One of Cunningham’s goals for the course includes inviting former students to come back and lead training in future courses, but his main objective is simple.
“I don’t want this to be an issue anymore,” he emphasized. “My goal is that we have higher APFT results across the board. We have to start to get this information out to the units and we make this more of a priority.
“I want to continue this program, but my overall goal is that we don’t need this program,” he said.
| Date Taken: | 02.19.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 02.19.2016 12:41 |
| Story ID: | 189323 |
| Location: | SALINA, KS, US |
| Hometown: | KANSAS CITY, KS, US |
| Hometown: | SALINA, KS, US |
| Hometown: | TOPEKA, KS, US |
| Web Views: | 637 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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