Institutional inertia is huge. I've found that like marksmanship, someone has to want to improve and enjoy improving strength and fitness to dedicate the time necessary to do so. Especially true for reservists. I'm going to try hard not to rant for too long here...
The standard PFT is part of the problem in my opinion. They set a low bar to "pass" and junior soldiers have a hard time seeing how the test is relevant to their jobs.
The idea of a better test comes up every few years, and is usually shot down after a few months. The USMC has made a huge leap forward with the Combat Fitness Test. The US Army refuses to implement something similar for some reason. Ammo cans and sand to put in them are the only real equipment requirements. I'd love to see the TSC or "Operator Ugly" become a yearly test, but I also understand the equipment costs would be huge. As it stands now, the CFT may not be perfect, but it's the best thing going.
We can't change the Army, and the Army won't change the test, we will just have to start where we can. You mentioned coming up with a unit program...exactly the place to start. Changing a units fitness culture will be up to the team leaders, squad leaders, and platoon sergeants to encourage that mindset. I'm still working out how to best do this in my unit. I'll follow up on this soon...
To answer your question Miguel, I don't follow that program word for word,rep for rep, but the general template and exercise selections I do. Which is really his intent I think, it is a template with some ideas for rep schemes that will change slightly depending on ones needs and available resources. For example he says the crawling, get ups, swings, and rucking is critical; the pull ups, presses, and DLs are great to add if you can.
I often only have time for one ruck a week. If I can only ruck once that week, I'll aim for 6 miles with 35 pounds. Very do-able and repeatable every week for me. I feel that without a specific goal in mind that one ruck is enough to maintain a decent level of fitness with that. The swings and get ups I do almost daily. Crawls are my warm up and cool down. I press and pull up more often than I deadlift. I feel the swings do a lot to maintain my DL strength, so I don't worry about DLs too much. I don't really do the typical 2-3 mile run/jog at all. I get a great PFT run time just by doing the ruck and sprints, which is exactly what Al Ciampa recommends.
Eventually I will want to focus more on strength again, and I'll switch to Tactical Barbell for 6-12 weeks. I will score between 280-300 on the APFT depending on how focused on all this I have been. 280 is more likely following this type of program to be honest. If I want a 300, I do have to do a little more focused work on push ups and sit ups.
I have tried the ROP before. I got to where I felt I "owned" the 24kg, but still could not press the 32kg (half body weight for me) once, so I moved on hoping to build some strength with other programs and come back to it some day. I can do 10 TGU with the 32kg and can press my body weight overhead on a barbell, but that half body weight KB just won't go up. I do love the ROP though. I may have to make that a goal for the summer.
