Testing is great for teams. It keeps you sharp, exposes weaknesses that may have gone undetected in the excitement of a patrol, and highlights strengths that may have been unnoticed. It's a useful training tool, and helps to make better decisions regarding allocation of human resources.

Hazmat: I think I need to refrain from saying more about Fat Tony, as I have never met the guy, but am going off the limited information you posted about him. People surprise me often enough that I know some will shine where you don't expect it.

Fighting fat ppl is NOT easy.
They are hard to hurt sometimes

Fat can be a bitch when they get hold on you, but they usually got low stamina and weak knees.

Take a "fat" person.

Make it work out for three years or more but not less.

You WILL end up with a SERIOUS strength-and-stamina person-of-SQUEEZBILITY
because
the body NEEDS CALORIES
to build.

Fat people cant stop crimes...interesting theory...tell it to the guy who attacked my neighbor and the crackheads I used to bounce out of my hotel.

Do I think being fat is healthy? By no means and thats why Im already working on my weight.

But dont think for a minute that just because someone is fat that they are a pushover...Weebles wobble but we dont fall down.

Good links BTW - thats the exact info Ive been looking for for months...Thanks

Do any of these tests involve sparring while being outnumbered?
I think that would be the most realistic way to deal with it. In real fights, you're always outnumbered or at a disadvantage in some way.

I would assume that physical fitness and combat efficiency are two different issues.

In assessing a person's fitness level you would be checking strength, dexterity, etc.

Combat skills would be another test altogether.

I think whats been suggested would definately improve a persons combat skills, but theres no need to fight an army of nazi frogmen to prove you are in shape.

Folks have a tendency to overthing thinks sometimes...this is just ONE step in a long journey...worry about the next step when you reach it.

I'm not saying that overweight people can't stop crime, but do you think a six foot, 350 lb man is going to chase down a 5'10" 165 lb purse snatcher? Fat or not, the point is to know your limitations, and work within them while you work on expanding them. I know many people who are very healthy, and would possibly succeed very well at a physical contest, but I wouldn't want them to patrol with me for other reasons.

Just because one is overweight, doesn't mean you can't excell physically. The brief description of Fat Tony didn't make him sound ideal for a crime patrol. Tough as nails isn't enough. You can't stand your ground against a bullet.

What I'm thinking with this is to promote the adoption and acceptance of a minimal level of fitness standards for certain people -- at a bare minimum hopefully one small team. Nobody would be turned away for not meeting the standards, but... not really sure yet, but encouraged to make "continual progress" toward them. And depending on the situation in some cases "required"... just in in the sense that if they don't, then they won't be taken along to do X, Y, or Z, for their own safety and stuff.

Sonic Eagle wrote:

...for pushups for me right now is 45 in 51 sec tested my self just now Ill have to test the sit ups and mial run later and no I am not trying to brag just thout if we culld all see what we can do now we culd averg it out just a thought.

Two things about that -- one is to make sure you're doing pushups with proper form, which makes them much harder. Way back when I joined the army I did 50 pushups for a doctor to convince him to give me a physical waver for something. It worked, but then once I was in I realized that basically not a single one of those pushups would have counted on a real PT test.

The average thing you mention is a good point. If you have team standards in place, then tracking the team average in meeting them is sometimes a good way to motivate people to improve, because people at the lower end, even if they're meeting the standard, tend to feel like they're dragging down the averages. It works for squads, anyway.

Double Helix wrote:

Do any of these tests involve sparring while being outnumbered? I think that would be the most realistic way to deal with it. In real fights, you're always outnumbered or at a disadvantage in some way.

I still can't even think of a fair basic fighting test, other than one that measures endurance and willingness not to quit. To keep it objective the best I can think of is something like "participate in ten sparring sessions of six minutes each while making a continuous physical effort to dominate your opponent according to (insert safety rules here)."

You almost might as well just do that as timed sets on a bag with resting being a disqualifier, though.

Combatives level one does a simple punch drill where a guy stands still throwing punches at you while you move in and "achieve the clench" on him, which is basically the execution of a single technique. You could measure one technique fairly, but how far does that go...? I don't know.

Crossfire the Crusader wrote:

I would assume that physical fitness and combat efficiency are two different issues.

People might have different opinions, but here's mine. There's no such thing as "generic" physical fitness. Fitness is like sanity... it should be measured relative to whether the person is functional according to whatever standards you have for functional.

All things being equal my experience is that someone who weighs more than me and has an equal or greater amount of fighting skill will kick my ass as long as it's a fair fight without weapons or the opportunity to run away. Grappling with people who outweigh you is really hard.

Also I like the firefighter standards... that's kinda similar to what I'm thinking with this and the standards appear reachable for average people who genuinely want to reach them.

Oh... having said that about functional, the standards I'mn talking about are pretty generic. It's a compromise between realism and the ability to conveniently and fairly test people.

What I've seen with compromises like that is you basically have to keep standards low to make them fair to multiple people.

Still, even if you only had a standard like "You must do 10 pushups to qualify"... it changes things a little.

I'm a humanitarian. But I would be willing to work towards crimefighter standards, because at some point I may have to work with crimefighters and I wouldn't want to slow them down.

As far as male/female standards go... as the risk of sounding sexist there is a reason why there are different physical requirements for men and women. Can't deny that both genders are built differently. That has to be put into account. Same for age.

Ive been in fights with overweight people I can say that they are not pushovers they can still be taken down if you can make the dummy's eyes light up

Watch 3 Ninjas

Professor Tanaka is one of the tanks who can take a lot of punishment and give it back twice as hard, AND had physical prowess beyond just being tough. He was trained in jiujitsu and was Danzan Ryu black belt. He had stamina and agility to go with his badass fighting skills. He was in his 60's when he did 3 Ninjas I think.

Also, he's not Japanese. He is Hawaiian, and his birth name is Charlie Kalani.

On different requirements due to gender/age, if you can't perform to the standard then you can't, you can't make different standards for people who can't keep up. To have lower standards due to gender/age, would defeat the purpose.

Standards based objectively on what people do out there would be an entirely different thing, though...

5-10 mile walk with breaks... carry a loaded backpack... sprint 100 meters... grapple for 2 minutes (maybe)...

I'm not sure I even want to tackle that... partially because I'm not even convinced yet that what people are doing out there is what should be done. I'm still figuring things out myself.

I do lean toward one baseline standard regardless of age or gender, though, however low it might need to be.

And how to implement something like this besides among a small group of guys... beats me.

Yep goddamn fatties. Total pushovers.

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Mistakes made, lessons learned. Don't bring a skinny bully to a fat fight.