Physical fitness tests - What are they good for?

What is it about?

This article explores and sketches out a model for physical fitness testing that displays how different rationales for testing put emphasize on distinctive aspects of soldiers physicality. Our hope is to nurture a more nuanced debate within the armed forces community and among those who use physical fitness tests in their units to optimize soldier and unit performance.

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Why is it important?

Physical fitness testing in the military has largely been related to soldiers ability to physically carry out their soldiering tasks. Which in itself makes perfectly good sense. Still, physical fitness tests have the potential of doing more. In fact, the military itself argue the relevance of physical fitness tests to a range of other purposes, like health, motivation and readiness, to name a few. In themselves, each of these purposes contains a framework that enables, constrains and constructs a specific understanding of what physical fitness tests are and are able to do, and consequently how one can make meaningful judgments from the test scores.