The Air Force wants a more in-shape force, but the department’s top leadership has no plans to mandate that time during the duty day be set aside for airmen and Space Force guardians to work out.
“You have to leave those kinds of decisions up to the command teams for their best judgment, I think,” Undersecretary of the Air Force Matthew Lohmeier told reporters on Monday.
Lohmeier’s comments were in response to a question about leaders providing duty hours for fitness during a media roundtable with Air Force Secretary Troy Meink at the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
Task & Purpose asked both leaders if the Department of the Air Force’s new “Culture of Fitness” initiative would include a mandate that the duty day include time for individual or unit physical training, or PT.
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“That’s not a decision that Secretary Meink or I are able to make sitting inside the building where we work,” Lohmeier said. “There’s no one that knows that better than the individuals, of course, and then our command teams.”
When it comes to human performance and the various missions that airmen and guardians do, “there’s no one-size fits all,” Lohmeier said.
Earlier this month, the Department of the Air Force announced the Culture of Fitness initiative which leaders said will drive airmen and guardians to become “dominant, agile and lethal through physical fitness.”
The effort includes making sure all Air Force installations have gyms open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Currently, 77 out of 84 bases have fitness centers that are open around the clock.
“Part of that culture of fitness is that each of our airmen and guardians are inspired and motivated to find that time within their workday,” Lohmeier said. “Of course, no one wants to stick around for extra hours, let’s say, after doing 12-hour shift work in the space community. And so, there’s nuance there that I think everyone needs to sort out wherever they happen to operate.”
In a separate effort, the Air Force is increasing the amount of physical training at boot camp from 60 to 90 minutes per day, said Col. Bill Ackman, commander of 737th Training Group at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.
“It’s more high-intensity interval training. The runs are going to be longer. Increased box jumps. There’s a number of different things that we’re going to be asking them to exercise,” Ackman told Task & Purpose in an interview. “So, more than just pushups, sit-ups, and the run. We really want to make sure that their cardio, their strength, is all improved.”
The extra exercise is one of several changes to Basic Military Training that will begin on Oct. 7 with the first class of roughly 850 trainees at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, he said. The longest distance that trainees will run will remain 5 kilometers.
“We’re preparing as the Air Force looks at that new PT test,” Ackman said. “What we’re hearing is that it will be a 2-mile run. We will adjust our PT program as well to make sure that they are able to qualify and pass the PT test before they can graduate.”
