A less-fit society? Modern soldiers do poorly on old-timey fitness tests

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by cross_trainer, Dec 3, 2011.


  1. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    I ran across this article on a website that looks like Boston Tom McMustache designed it:

    http://artofmanliness.com/2011/09/12/are-you-as-fit-as-a-world-war-ii-gi/

    Actually pretty interesting. Modern soldiers performed poorly on WWII era fitness tests under old testing standards. Very rarely do you see fitness tests performed on a subset of the general population (as opposed to elite athletes) to compare how fit people were across eras.

    One wonders whether all those farmboys from back in the day provided boxing with a fitter talent pool than modern American. (At least at lower levels).

    On the other hand, many of these exercises were bodyweight-based, which means that larger people (even fit ones) wouldn't perform as well as the smaller ones from the 1940's.
     
    cross_trainer, Dec 3, 2011
    cross_trainer, Dec 3, 2011
    #1
  2. edward morbius

    edward morbius Boxing Addict Full Member

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    "bodyweight-based"

    Movie heroes like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood notwithstanding, size is a disadvantage on the modern battlefield as it merely makes you a bigger target.

    "farm boys"

    As someone who goes back quite a ways, farm work in those days was plenty physically demanding (shoveling wheat around and the like) and you had to be in pretty decent shape.
     
    edward morbius, Dec 3, 2011
    edward morbius, Dec 3, 2011
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  3. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    Yes, although in this case I'm using the military fitness tests as a proxy for the fitness of the general population. That, in turn, I'm trying to apply to boxing, where size sometimes does help.

    Yep. Some of the people from my high school (quite some time ago, now) came from rural areas, and they'd always excel in wrestling and similar sports.
     
    cross_trainer, Dec 3, 2011
    cross_trainer, Dec 3, 2011
    #3