Training the next generation: how parks and recreation can help anyone get in military shape.

As the U.S. armed forces look to train the next generation of soldiers, they're finding more and more candidates are out of shape. Studies show that today's youth are less active than previous generations. Television, video games and the Internet are increasingly pulling kids away from team sports and other physical activities, and the American Heart Association says children are less fit today than they were 10 years ago.

These are daunting trends for the U.S. military; which is currently undergoing a transformation to modernize its forces to fight enemies who are ever more skilled, determined and elusive.

Tomorrow's battlefields will be faster and more lethal than ever before, says Dr. Ed Thomas, an Army infantry veteran and a pioneer in military physical readiness training, who now serves as the health and physical education consultant to the Iowa Department of Education.

So are today's kids prepared for 21st century warfare? Several experts answer "no." Basic training standards for each branch of the armed forces are evolving into more tactical, situation-based programs, each of which has an essential baseline for physical fitness. Military fitness and readiness authorities worry that these baselines are unachievable for a growing population of children who lead sedentary lifestyles. Experts feel that kids need to be exposed to tougher physical education programs, but worry that schools are unable to do an adequate job due to budget cuts and limited resources.

They also say that park and recreation departments are in a unique position to help remedy the problem.

Couch-potato Warriors?

A recent study conducted by the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement found that more than 38 percent of the state's public school students are over-weight or at risk of becoming over-weight, while 32 percent of children entering kindergarten fall into the same categories.

According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, 92 percent of children between ages 2 and 17 play video games regularly. And a 2003 study by the University of Texas at Austin found that video game playing contributed to sedentary lifestyles and weight gain in children up to age 12.

Last year the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, a division of the National Institutes of Health, found that America's children are not getting the necessary amount of physical activity. The study revealed that third graders received an average of 25 minutes of "moderate to rigorous" activity per week. Experts say 30 to 60 minutes of activity per day is the minimum amount required for kids to be physically fit.

These statistics are disturbing to military readiness experts and explain why candidates are in poor physical shape upon joining the military.

Thomas, a former doctrine writer/ instructor at the U.S. Army Physical Fitness School at Fort Benning, Ga., says far too many young men and women are physically unprepared for military training. Parents, schools and entire communities should help mold children into fit young adults.

"The physical demands of sustained combat operations far exceed those of our daily lives," Thomas says. "Every soldier must be prepared to fight in tomorrow's fluid battlefield environments."

Candidates for basic training need to understand the physical requirements of their branch of the military before they begin, says Jeremy Levine, a former Marine and the thunder of Virginia Beach, Va.-based Functional Fitness, which provides specialized training services to military special operations and conventional forces, as well as government agencies, and police and fire departments.

The Army, Nays, Air Force and Marines all have different fitness requirements for their personnel. In recent decades, Levine and Thomas have seen the armed threes change their philosophies of what elements are most essential to creating the best-prepared fighting forces.

Today, each branch maintains its own standards for candidates to achieve a prescribed level of fitness to prepare them for combat and tactical situations including a specific numbers of push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups within a given time, along with timed runs. All four branches also test body composition.

Training requirements are drastically different, however, during basic training. Each branch focuses on different physical requirements, ranging from sprinting, individual movement techniques and obstacles to foot marching, cross-country movement and water survival.

History's Lessons

Thomas witnessed the demilitarization of Army physical readiness training in the mid-1970s, and led the way as the paradigm began shifting toward battle-focused physical training in the late 1990s. The shift began in 1994 when Thomas and a team of military and civilian fitness experts developed an off-duty education college degree program in fitness leadership offered by Upper Iowa University at Fort Benning in Georgia.

"We attracted some of the brightest warriors at Fort Benning," Thomas says. "They studied the best of past military physical training doctrine and connected it to current training innovations in the civilian sector. We made some improvements, but further progress will depend as much on the civilian sector as the military."

Behind the public assurances from military leaders that today's soldiers are fit to fight, some experts including Thomas are concerned that current physical readiness training methods coupled with decreasing youth fitness will leave our soldiers fit to fail. To illustrate the problem, Thomas began encouraging Army units in the late 1990s to take the battle-focused 1946 Army physical fitness test. Commanders were sobered when today's soldiers scored miserably.

"World War II recruits were generally more prepared coming in, and the physical training doctrine produced by that generation was based upon solid historical wisdom," Thomas says. "If we were using the best of their doctrine, we would do much better on their physical training test."

World War II physical training doctrine was based upon some of the warrior-based European systems of physical culture that were popular in the civilian and military sectors in the early 1900s, Thomas says.

Changing the Guard

Thomas believes that parks and recreation facilities can help young men and women physically prepare for military service. Levine agrees and encourages park and recreation organizations to find instructors who understand the armed forces' fitness requirements to help establish fitness programs.

Many park district programs have the resources to offer courses with cardiovascular equipment, strength-training equipment, free weights, running tracks, pools and other outdoor resources. And, these services generally can be offered at a low cost to the departments and their customers.

Although most park and recreation departments do not offer physical fitness A MILITARY READINESS FITNESS PROGRAM

Levine and Thomas say that park and recreation departments can build effective military readiness programs by focusing on a few integral details.

Find the right instructors. By understanding physical fitness requirements and basic training conditions, instructors can create programs that effectively simulate what military recruits will face.

Find the right balance. Military tests typically evaluate a prospect's fitness levels through running and exercises like situps, push-ups and pull-ups. But experts recommend more outdoor obstacles and free-body exercises to more closely acclimate candidates with actual military training activities.

Find the right collaborators. By working with local military recruiters, departments can gain better understandings of current requirements and desirable qualities for future soldiers. Recruiters can help park and recreation departments establish programs that will help candidates entering basic training. programs for military candidates, many provide comprehensive fitness programs for the general population. These programs can be an attractive option for anyone looking to stay fit.

The Chicago Park District (CPD) emphasizes basic fitness principles when it creates exercise programs, says Colleen Lammel-Harmon, the CPD's fitness senior program specialist. While the CPD builds most of its physical fitness programs around these basic principles, the organization has developed a few courses that can help potential candidates prepare for military training.

One class, called "Conditioning," is a total-body strength and conditioning class designed as a circuit course, so exercisers move from station to station with each stop focusing on a specific muscle group or short spurts of military-style cardiovascular exercise. The circuit includes push-ups, squats, triceps dips and light-weight resistance exercises, along with jumping rope, jumping jacks, fast sprints and step-ups.

The CPD also partners with Chicago-based Bulldog Bootcamp Co. to offer another military-style training program. Bulldog Bootcamp is a comprehensive physical conditioning program that combines one-on-one personal fitness training with group workouts. For an hour a day, five days a week for four weeks, participants perform workouts based on a combination of strength and cardiovascular exercises. Drill instructors integrate push-ups, pull-ups, squats and other strength builders with running, sprinting drills and plyometrics (stretching the muscle before it contracts) designed to increase speed and build cardiovascular endurance.

Park and recreation departments have found that the structure and discipline involved in military-style programs are a major attraction for fitness enthusiasts, even those who don't aspire to military service. These courses allow civilians to participate in focused programs that stress basic fitness as well as unconventional training techniques and body movements.

Thomas recommends that park and recreation departments emphasize body mechanics, tumbling and gymnastics, wrestling, martial arts, climbing, aquatics and calisthenics using a variety of tools including agility ladders, dumbbells, Heavy Hoops, medicine balls and rubber tubing.

According to Thomas and Levine, park and recreation departments should offer outdoor physical fitness activities to introduce future recruits to the natural environments they will find in military situations. Doing so would also compensate for the void in outdoor recreation at schools.

Levine cites the playgrounds of his youth, which he says were constructed like small obstacle courses, as examples of the kinds of structures and challenges faced by today's soldiers. Many park and recreation departments have these facilities already, and they can utilize them as a key element of training. These types of facilities will introduce military aspirants to situations they won't face in team-based athletics, Levine adds.

"Anyone in parks and recreation who has basic knowledge of and experience in physical training can look at the requirements and then develop the building blocks of effective training programs," he says.

"Park and recreation departments can balance the emphasis on sports by developing programs outside of team environments through free body exercises like calisthenics, and incorporating training tools, such as medicine balls and dumbbells, to add core strength training, diversity and muscle balance to a program," Levine says. "By taking the elements most park and recreation departments have available, they can establish great programs."

He also encourages park and recreation officials to contact local military recruiters for help in creating successful programs. Recruiters can provide insight about what methods to offer and what to avoid, Levine says.

'American military history clearly warns us all not to repeat past tendencies to overlook physical readiness," Thomas adds.

But, given the scope of the obesity epidemic among America's children, some may wonder whether new fitness programs can make a difference. Thomas believes they can and must, and he encourages park and recreation departments to think outside the box. "The world is becoming far too dangerous for us to ignore our duty to our youth and our nation," he says.

In the end, the most important component of any training program is to establish a basic foundation of fitness, Levine says. Those entering basic training should not aim to be in perfect shape, however, because attaining an optimal level of fitness is precisely the purpose of basic training, he says.

When working with military trainees, Levine's company focuses on endurance and strength-training exercises. People who don't incorporate those elements will risk injury and be underprepared for what can be an extremely grueling physical trial, Levine says.

"With fitness comes confidence and competence," he says. "Boot camps can instill these values in anyone, but what a huge difference it can make to have them beforehand."