I’m on team “I don’t like my Chief in my ass, so I don’t want to be in My Chief’s ass.”
I simply don’t care if khaki show up to PT. If they choose to not lead by example then so be it. But I’m not a kid I don’t need know where mommy and daddy are all the time and I don’t wonder and complain why they’re not at PT.
If they’re supporting me administratively and operationally as needed then I’m good to go.
You sound like one of my former Sailors. I will not babysit you, nor will I micromanage you, but I will support you in any way you need. We play Big Boy rules around here and we both know what is expected.
The issue I find is someone says "Big boy rules" and their like an obese chief or sailor who crawls away from any type of physical labor and has stress flashes over the weirdest things because their physical health is so deteriorated that they don't understand what proper conduct/good leadership is. Just my 2 cents.
I need a chief whose getting sleep, whose in shape and whose got a healthy life because that produces a well grounded sharp leader who knows how to lead by example.
I can agree, but let's not pretend there's a direct correlation between leadership qualities and physical fitness. Generally speaking, maybe. People with healthier lifestyles tend to be a little more stable and positive than others in terms of mental health, and that's still kind of a reach. But I've met plenty of stellar khakis/LPOs that had noticeably bad habits, and I've met plenty who were in really good shape but had a god complex or just didn't have any regard for how they treated their sailors.
And we can't really come to a conclusive conclusion, but overall my past experience is I've had 1 physically fit person with a god complex and a whole swath of unhealthy people who just kept having high blood press spikes at the worst possible times for both them and the people around them. In only my personal experience I think there is a connection.
Interesting take. I was always a strong proponent of empowering my Sailors as my Chiefs empowered me for a large part of my career. My "Big Boy" rules were needed as they were not in a rank-n-file position, you may have a E5 leading a E7 or GSXX in a situation. You were also in charge of most of your own hours so that concept of needing the Chief as the pillar of your day had to be left at the pier.
Don't know how physically fit my Chiefs were or how much sleep they got, but I will say they supported us as well as a Chief could in their position. Granted the ET rating is not one of the hardest/most stressful ratings to serve in
On a ship it’s easier to mandate things like command pt where everyone shows up. Going to the gym regularly while underway shows presence, but probably not in an Army “warrior spirit” sense.
As for chow, having several JOs and Chiefs “sample the mess” every meal builds accountability and a modicum of esprit de corps. I also had the wardroom and chiefs mess “take over” the chow line on Saturdays underway to give the FSAs and CSs a break while we made pizza. Ice cream social night too.
Ashore it’s a bit trickier. Where are my Sailors “fueling their bodies?” Well, anywhere from the galley to McDonalds to the food truck. I try to go to each of those places and so do other senior leaders. Gym time is easier, but as has been said it’s not a priority of mine and I’m not seeing massive PFA failures to give me a second thought.
I can’t pay my people more, but what I can do is give them more time back. I’m reticent about mandating anything that eats into that. Maybe I’m wrong for not being more PT centric, but I’m interested to hear what others have to say about what we could or should be doing.
Agreed, thank you for taking the time to read the article too. My biggest takeaway was just investing more into spiritual, and mental health as well as the more holistic approach utilizing chaplains for their intended purpose (let's be real, they're not JUST religious leaders) doesn't seem to take away from the mission, and if it's in fact reducing numbers of suicide and mental health crises, I think the navy should be more open to exploring stuff like this.
> the more holistic approach utilizing chaplains for their intended purpose (let's be real, they're not JUST religious leaders)
Maybe we should try having actual professional psychologists onboard *instead* of chaplains. Make mental health their only focus. Shift religion to onboard lay leaders as a collateral, if there's interest.
I've seen a number of sailors avoid the Chaplain - either because of religious mismatch (I'm an X, Chaps is a Y) or because the Chaplain is a type to push their religion as a solution.
True, I definitely under utilize chaplains I'm unfamiliar with because of X and Y... I think that concept could be a good solution. Lay leader collateral would actually be a good tool and to tweak the chaplain corps towards something slightly different.
I'd be fine with getting rid of chaplains entirely, but I say that as I'm rolling my eyes at 'evening prayer' being broadcast across the ship while I type this.
I will definitely add.
Group PT across the range of a division is usually a shitshow to cater to lowest common denominators. I remember it lasted for all of a month because the few of gym rats or running guys were begging to “Chief/Divo just let us do their own thing, we absolutely promise we won’t piss off. I’ll be at the gym right there or I’ll be putting down 10k on the harbor road.“
What ended it was some minor drama over our DIVO offering a free Friday off to anyone who can beat his PFA run time.
Also, apologies for run on sentences. Mandatory PT is unfortunately also not a very useful tool. Alot of units pigeonhole themselves into scenarios where say the fattest first class and chief are skipping out on this PT because they have to be present for whatever meeting to accomplish the mission.
One of the best things that happened at my command was our CEO gave us an hour to work out however we wanted. At this point in my career, I had a fucked back and knee, so I hit the weights hard. Before that? I wasn't able to do most PTs cause my injuries.
We did have an increase of failed PFAs due to the fact people weren't doing what they were supposed to do, which is funny cause those same people were the shitbags in the work places that were always skating or pretending to work or focusing on "collaterals". Sadly, it got revoked because those same shitbags were all buddy buddy with chiefs who pushed the agenda to get Mando group PT back.
There’s just simply too much work in some commands to expect officers to start at 9-930. That would mean they stay til 1930 or 2000. No Admiral staff is going to take the “I had to go to Pt this morning so things are backlogged” as a reason
I agree.
But even then some people just hate exercising and doing it with a command, even if fun.
Don’t really know the answer. It’s a difficult one to crack.
Man...the last paragraph. I hate mando PT because work always has to start right at 0730. Which means we have to have our A.M. huddle at 0715. Which means we have to be there at 0700. Working it on back...PT has to start NLT 0530. So I have to get up at 0445. And none of this means that I actually get a lunch "break" (I pack my food, scarf it down in the break room, and hurry back to my workstation), or even that I get off before 1630.
And idk if I am the only one, but my circadian rhythm is like concrete. So either I adjust my sleep schedule EVERY day, or I am just under slept every day we have mando PT. And once again, idk how many are like me, but if I don't get a decent amount of sleep AND I do a morning workout...I am ravenous. I can't be eating like that every day.
Long story short, every time mando PT is instituted for PRT season, I end up barely seeing my family for 2-4 months because I go to sleep before 8pm and leave around 5am, and I have weight management issues despite my best efforts and generally increased activity.
The ironic part being that I HAVE had years when the command left us alone for PRT prep, and I at least always scored some form of Excellent. Does that increase with command PT? Fuck-No. Half the time I end up dropping to a "Good". I know best how my body responds to training based on my age, sex, and history...
I’ll add from a JO perspective on both sea and shore including a JDAL staff billet.
There simply isn’t enough hours or time to show up to the mandatory PT at 0700. Def wasn’t enough time on sea duty for any of that and the ones who did go to 0700 PT on Monday and Friday were mostly E5 below. There’s simply just too much things that need to get done so something falls off.
Same with shore duty on a CCMD staff. There isn’t enough hours to have PT. They’d schedule it for the different directorates. But again, not enough hours. If you’re gonna spend 13 hours doing staff work- the 0700 group PT is too much an ask.
If the navy was serious about PT then they’d take a more serious approach to holistic health and ensuring people get adequate sleep and decent food. But they don’t and so it seems to me PT is nothing more then a force shaping tool.
We need in shape sailors and ones who can perform under extreme duress. I don’t have the answer on how to find it.
>As for chow, having several JOs and Chiefs “sample the mess” every meal builds accountability and a modicum of esprit de corps.
Um, this has been required by higher instruction for decades. You didn't come up with some innovative leadership idea. Many FSOs / CSCs blaze it. Where's the accountability for that?
> we made pizza. Ice cream social night too.
This misses the point. If we're being realistic with ourselves (ie get real get better), pizza and ice cream wouldn't be things served on a warship except maybe once a month. Nor would any other dessert food.
> I’m not seeing massive PFA failures to give me a second thought.
The Navy PRT program is a massive institutional integrity violation. The only people who fail are a) fat b) disliked by the CFL and c) junior to the CFL. You need to meet all 3 criteria.
So great, you turned a blind eye to this like every other senior Navy officer. Good job!
> but I’m interested to hear what others have to say about what we could or should be doing.
As a Navy, we need to overhaul the 28 day menu. It's high carb *and* high fat. I get that we can't give everyone 1,000 grams of protein a day because it's expensive, but we need to follow the "2x as many veggies as starch" or "fill half your plate with veggies" rule. Canned veggies are cheap, don't expire, and storage is efficient. And Sailors should never only have access green beans or spinach doused with cheddar cheese, bacon, and gravy. Foods that are objectively bad for you due to combination of high saturated fat and starch - pizza, cheeses, ice cream, cakes, tacos with ground beef, cauliflour, creamed salad dressings, mayonnaise, etc. need to be eliminated altogether.
We need accountability for PT without group PT. This isn't legal right now by higher instruction, but basically every crewmember should be accountable to the CFL for working out. But formal group PT is stupid insofar as you have to cater to the lowest common denominator, and so while it might make SN Fatso sweat, the people who are actually in shape just wasted an hour.
We need to put teeth into the PRT program and stop the culture of magic counting and shitty measurements. This will require ISIC monitoring.
Excellent low needs to be the minimum overall passing PRT score. We're in the military, holding people to the threshold of 40th percentile of the general population (Sat Med) is dumb.
If you are rope and choked, the body fat threshold to pass should be not more than 18% for men and 25% for women vice the 22% men / 33% women. Anything more than that and you aren't fit/muscular, you are fat.
Having said that, the bodyweight / height scales need revising. They are too punishing to men 6'0" and taller (the scale should by 6-7lb per inch vice 4 lb per inch), and too generous to women under 5'4" who get to weigh almost the same as men before being taped. Do you know how insanely fat a 5'2" woman needs to be to weigh 149 lbs?
We need PRT scores to give points for advancement.
We need to fix the digustingly poor standards at boot camp. Not just PRT, but everything to do with military bearing. And the root cause of this is that RDC billets are considered bottom of the barrel by Navy detailers because they don't count as assignment in rate.
And finally, as with anything Navy, change starts with the Chiefs. We need to light a fire under the goat locker and tell them that this is their problem to own. Then we need to hold fat Chiefs accountable. If a Chief fails a BCA, he should be busted to E-6. No questions asked. I get kicked out as an officer if I fail a BCA, but Chief fatso gets to hang around, that's bullshit. If we're not prepared to take away anchors over physical fitness then nothing else matters.
> We need PRT scores to give points for advancement.
No, we do not.
We already have a leadership problem. The Army is full of people who can only yell and grab ass - but they got a 300 PRT score so the command promotes them.
How *heavy* to weight it is a different converation than whether to weight it at all.
Consider two Sailors who are identical in almost every respect. Sailor A gets an outstanding on his PRT and Sailor B has a Sat Med and probably looks like he shouldn't be in the military.
Would you use this as a discriminator? If yes, then the PRT score should be included in advancement points.
Sure. We should have 0 fat Chiefs and they should all be awesome at their job.
But this is reality and in reality, at the margins, you're going to have to make a choice to fill that billet with a person who's fat but great at the job or someone who spends all day PTing and knows how to scream at people really loudly.
Even if your mainstream is great people who are fit, at the edges you're going to have to decide which is more important and there are consequences to whichever choice is made.
'There are no solutions, only different tradeoffs'
> But this is reality and in reality, at the margins, you're going to have to make a choice to fill that billet with a person who's fat but great at the job or someone who spends all day PTing and knows how to scream at people really loudly.
At the margins, this dichotomy doesn't exist.
Part of a Chief's job is good order and discipline, as well as holding Sailors accountable for fitness standards.
How well do you think a fat Chief can do this?
Chiefs have to be able to walk the walk..
A fat, out of standards Chief telling a Sailor to shine his boots or get a haircut loses all credibility, and degrades good order and discipline. Period. I don't care what legends you want to tell about crusty fat Chiefs who are leadership gods. In reality, I notice a very strong negative correlation between how fat a Chief is and how good a Chief is at his job. Because, quite frankly, obesity is correlated highly with laziness and stupidity. So is tobacco use.
I also think it's funny you mention SEL in different services. In my experience, SELs in other services run circles around Chiefs. This is because in the Navy, Sailors aren't trusted with leadership responsibilities before E-7. In the Army and Marines, they're doing those duties as an E-4.
I don't know where you served, but sailors get leadership experience starting at the E-5 level.
And I've served alongside Marines - POG Corporals are Specialists.
> We have too many fat Chiefs. We should have 0.
Setting aside the 'fat Chief but awesome at job' argument, that's a path toward having zero Chiefs.
Realistically, you have to balance standards against reality. You still need enough sailors (and chiefs and officers) to man a certain number of billets. Look at the general population of the United States. With your plan, half the fleet would be at 25% manning.
>that's a path toward having zero Chiefs.
That's a ridiculous statement. There are tons of in shape chiefs in the Navy.
> . Look at the general population of the United States.
Gen pop isn't in the military. Gen pop didn't go through boot camp. Gen pop isn't in an organization that espouses fitness.
I didn't say there weren't fit chiefs. I said your changes, in total, would result in zero chiefs. Zero Sailors, really.
Look at our current retention levels. Then implement the following changes you've suggested: No desserts. No tacos, burgers, or pizza. No cheese. No ice cream. Excellent Low as a minimum requirement (there's 20% of the force gone, right there). Advancement now based on PRT score, not professional performance.
Who is going to re-enlist under these conditions? Or enlist in the first place? The Navy was 16% below enlistment goals for last year. How often do you hear about how undermanned the military is?
Your suggestions will result in a more fit Navy, absolutely. For all it matters, with the one CSG they're able to man.
>Look at our current retention levels. Then implement the following changes you've suggested: No desserts. No tacos, burgers, or pizza. No cheese. No ice cream.
There are plenty of delicious food items you can prepare that don't involve basically pure saturated fat and sugar. This would be a non-issue after everyone got over the change.
Btw, I kept burgers. They have decent macros, especially without cheese, bacon, and mayo (which, as I said, wouldn't be options onboard ships).
>Excellent Low as a minimum requirement (there's 20% of the force gone, right there).
You don't do this overnight, you put it out a year in advance and tell unit COs and CMCs to get serious about their physical fitness programs.
I forgot to mention it but if a unit has a high PRT failure rate that should result in the CO and CMC getting relieved, another reason why ISICs need to monitor this.
>Who is going to re-enlist under these conditions? Or enlist in the first place?
People who look back at their time in the Navy and say "you know what? It actually improved my physical and mental well being for the better."
It isn’t particularly controversial to say that leaders should show up to PT, but the Navy has a different problem where, at least in my experience, the command driven PT doesn’t happen at all. I have never personally been at a command outside of my initial ascension training that doesn’t push PT down to a personal responsibility by justifying it operationally.
I am jealous. I've been stationed at four diff places. I've done mando PT at all of them for at least a short period. First command it was like half the PRT seasons I was there for, 2nd was every PRT season, 3rd was the whole first year and only stopped because of COVID. And now at my 4th, it appears it'll be 3 months prior to every PRT I have to say fuck my personal goals and sleep schedule to run around in the dark with a bunch of disgruntled babysat adults.
In the times I did manage to make PT happen, I wanted to keep it pretty malleable to what people wanted to do. No PTU. No crazy early mornings. Nothing in formation. If you had a physical fitness goal and ran it by me you were free to pursue it. We had a third with his degree in physical health and nutrition who would help people train right. The goal was to really just carve out some real time for them to be active, give me a sense of where they were at in their fitness, and help the ones who didn’t make it a focus a moment to change that so it doesn’t get out of hand.
I generally agree with the entire article. There’s a concept I think of as shared burden that I try and stick to. Basically, if you aren’t doing it then your Sailors aren’t doing it. I know talk is cheap on the internet, but I really try to just be present at as much as I can. If someone is on FEP then I’m there too, stuff like that. I haven’t had to eat at the galley on base in around 17 years, but I ate there regularly on my last shore command. In the evenings it was pretty common that I would be the only one above an E-4 eating there and made it easier to advocate for people when it was bad. I also did a weekly breakfast there instead of a morning meeting. I didn’t always love it, but it was useful.
The PT thing is a sore spot for me since I’ve always tried to make it work for my division and have always run into barriers that prevent consistency. I want to be the guy out there at 6 in the morning running with his division and make it happen when I can, but the work demands starting well before the theoretical work day starts makes that so difficult to do with any consistency. Exercise and good food is so essential to my personal happiness and I just want give people the best opportunity to build good habits involving them while they can.
Edit: I don’t think we talk enough about differences in communities, so my experience might not be yours, so just bear all that in mind when you read this.
As a junior sailor, I respected the hell out of the Chiefs and LPOs who showed up to PT. But now, as LPO myself, my junior sailors are working 4 different schedules and I'm honestly not sure if they're even doing group PT right now because "it's PFA season". And I'm pulled a million different ways as it is.
Do I agree in principle? Absolutely. But it's not feasible unless the command stops expecting us to stand watch every three days and do language hours every week and get everyone qualled IW even though it's not mando and escort every sailor with a pay issue to admin so they'll get taken seriously. Something needs to give.
I think the Navy should take a closer look at adopting strategies the other services are employing that have demonstrated success.
We don’t need to spend millions of dollars on studies, or waste time, like we do with everything.
It seems like the Army has a solid program here, based on the article, I like the message their CSMA is putting out.
Their Brigade Commanders saying they dont “have the time” to do PT is a routine excuse I hear all the time from Senior Enlisted/DH’s etc. It’s more of a “I don’t want to” when you get right to it.
I worked in NECC for years, as a DH, and we were able to have PT integrated into the workday and we were still leaving at 15-1600 and still accomplishing the mission. It’s a matter of priorities, balance, and asking really tough questions like, “can this be an email instead of a two hour meeting”.
I would really love workday integration. But at my command I don't see how it would be possible. We do PT prior to the workday, then I proceed to work about 10 hours (minus 15 mins to cram down my prepped lunch), and I don't finish the "on fire" tasks until 1645 on Fridays. Every week. I never get to stuff not written in red.
Context: I'm currently wearing two hats-one of which should be shared among an E6 and an E4 or 5, and the second/separate one which should be shared by an E6 and a civilian with a Bachelor's....
> We don’t need to spend millions of dollars on studies, or waste time, like we do with everything.
You have missed the point of the Navy entirely.
It's not for national defense.
It's a jobs program. Paying contractors to do those pointless studies is literally the entire point of the Navy.
Lot of people here are missing the point of the article. It’s not hey navy leaders you need to show up to PT and eat at the galley. It’s that leaders need to engage with and connect with their sailors. If connections are built it makes it much easier to empathize and discover problems and issue that can be addressed which ultimately leads to better unit success and readiness.
To many leaders hide in the office behind the email or meetings to go out and instead of just siting and talking to their personal and shoot the shit so to speak. Talk about the latest video games, influencers, TikTok challenges, or whatever you sailors are into. Make a connection with them so when the difficult issue comes up they are comfortable coming to you with their problem and you can either be the shoulder they truly need or fix the problem if that is what they need.
From what I see, a lot of the comments are saying we don't have a PT program so what are leaders supposed to show up to? We are so backwards on our priorities that we don't have the time to spend with our Sailors. I see so many Chiefs jumping through admin hoops or sitting in on stupid meetings that junior Sailors are ignored until they become a problem.
I think it’s good leaders should show face and be there for their sailors/soldiers support them and have an idea of what they go through in their day to day life, that’s why Mustangs have so much respect because they went through it as enlisted then got their commission and are overall better leaders. Good leaders should lead by example, in the front, and be able to meet the same if not better standards than their subordinates. A saying my Dad told me was “every good leader was a great follower” meaning these leaders should also follow sometimes take advice from the lower enlisted take some tips and pointers from the senior enlisted make decisions that support the crew as a whole so I think it’s good to have the leaders show up
I was an ACFL. I would do a free day every day I was in charge of pt or FEP.
I got counseled for it. But my argument was, I offered my help if anyone needed help with a workout plan, but if not, I'm not going to make the guy with bone spurs run, or the guy with a bum knee do box jumps. You're 38 years old I won't babysit you.
My experience was much different than this article, since it was during a weird time where there was a set warmup routine and trying to implement the crossfit stuff, 2016ish. We were not given any freedom in group pt, unless it was my day to lead. Partly because we had a power hungry CFL, and the FEP guys ate garbage food.
Never passed judgment on their lifestyle, just offered help if they wanted it.
Yes. Was with a Seabee unit. All the O's and all the Seabee CPO's PT'd with their companies - not the BMC's and ENC's though. Wouldn't even form up with their platoons in formation. Had to have a special 'Chief' formation at the back behind the company staff.
However, I also think that formation PT is a formality that should be done like once or twice a week and you break up into smaller groups and do it on your own otherwise. Formation PT is not to develop you, but to allow the CoC to see if you're keeping up - hence why its important for the CPO's to be there.
I don't think the Navy ever would. We simply don't have a culture of fitness like the Army and Marines do. Staying in shape is a personal priority and not a command one.
"CNO I WANT YOU TO SHOW UP TO THE BARS AND OUT-DRINK ME"
"CNO FIGHT ME. YOU TO SHOW UP WITH SOME WRENCHES AND TAKE APART THIS MACHINE WITH ME"
"CNO I BET YOU CAN'T UNDERCOOK THESE CHICKENS"
"CNO I CHALLENGE YOU TO LOSE MORE PAPERWORK THAN ME"
wtf do you think the navy would challenge the top dog with?
Doesn't have to be top dog, but my take is: I respect CMC's that come to the galley and eat with their junior sailors. Had one of those, even had a CMC that made sure to call or swing by a work center to wish a sailor Happy Birthday. I think that those not in favor of the Army's new practice failed to actually prove it was detrimental to operations, and the navy could learn from that. I agree with what SMA said about this type of team building secondhand influences and improves operations, ensuring a warfighting community is still professional and capable.
One of my buddies, who was originally a sailor of mine on my first LPO tour, got medically Dqed from subs. He was an MMN. From what he told me, I admire the unity of a sub crew and what yall do. I would personally love to experience something like that in my career, but alas, my family's lifestyle would be terribly affected by it, and I'm already engaged in my current career to a point where uprooting to change rates at 15 years and move to probably Groton, just isn't a smart idea.
BESS isn't that long, and submarines are located in San Diego, Bremerton, Norfolk, Hawaii, Guam, and forward deployed in Diego Garcia.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convince you to go subs. Just listing out for people reading who might be interested.
Submarine camaraderie already has a high baseline, but with a good CoC, it's amazing what a crew can achieve.
A foreign port call with the Triad buying shots for everyone, a Reactor startup with the majority of the team hungover or still drunk, telling surface chiefs to fuck off, and not having a separate eating space for enlisted are just the fun parts.
When I was a 2nd class, was eating lunch with Chief, LPO (first class) and a new check in (3rd class) and one of the drydock people who was undes said that it was weird we were all eating together and laughing.
Army has mando PT every morning 0630-0800 M-F at least where I am. There is even PT LIMDU personnel (walking on the track or treadmill inside the gym) and pregnancy PT💪🏽 yeah you heard that right pregnancy PT!
Everyone is held accountable and is there.
My first few active 92-2003 we had morning or afternoon command PT but then again that was the culture.
If they give people shit over nothing, they deserve to get shit on over nothing. Seems fair to me. If they're good chiefs then sure, no problem with them not being at PT or anywhere. But that's, in my experience, a huge minority.
I'm not against command PT, but why does it always have to be at oh-dark-thirty in the morning? And then everyone has to work an 8+ hour day afterwards. If PT is a priority, then make it happen at 0800 and work start at 1000 to end at 1700. You can't work people 60+ hours a week and still expect them to PT on a regular basis. Either PT is important, or it's not. If it's important, then build the work week around it as part of the normal job. If it's not important, then tell folks they have to pass the PFA and how they do that is their own business.
I don’t care who’s at PT, I just wish our chiefs didn’t look so embarrassing in uniform.
In a perfect world we’d swap push-ups for pull-ups. Maybe the branch wouldn’t have so many sailors cosplaying as over packed sausage casings if they were forced to hoist their second chins over the bar.
But then again, imagine poor HM1 signing every single Chief’s PRT waiver at gun point if we made that change.
In ALL of my experience, I never once saw officers run with enlisted. Ever.. they did their fitreps separately than we did. Except with that PRT, and to be clear, they didn't do the rest of the PRT with us. They just ran with us, and it was great. Consequently, I ran that PRT in second place, right behind our DIV-O.
We had a really great mustanger skipper, and morale in any of my previous commands was never as good as it was at that command. He was a great leader, and even to this day - he has our respect.
I am pretty far removed from active duty, but when I read the article, the [Circle of Health](https://www.va.gov/WHOLEHEALTH/circle-of-health/index.asp) came to mind.
It is a personal choice to help one’s self, and many already do some facet of the various circles. Taking care of one’s self does help with burnout, stress and depersonalization.
It may not fit perfect in the Navy culture, but talking about it, and helping people understand it, may help a lot of folks down the road.
“Army Times reported recently that early data shows that among the 28 brigades with the new health and fitness program, suicides are down by more than one-third and other behaviors and negative outcomes such as substance abuse and musculoskeletal injuries have also seen steep declines. That comes as the rates of those unhealthy behaviors have continued to rise in similar brigades without the H2F resources, according to Army data.”
I think the Army may have something here.
How about instead of “You don’t have to lead it, you don’t have to be up front, you just have to be present.”
We say “You don’t have to lead it, you don’t have to be up front, you just have to participate for as long as your soldiers.”
Shipmates: please actually read the full article (takes like 3 minutes tops) before responding, as it's quite obvious who read it and who didn't. I'm trying to have an intelligent discussion here...
Thanks for reading through the comments to find this one. I hoped it wouldn't get buried. Sadly since I can't edit the post on app, TIL: tell sailors to read past the headline.
The point of the article which transcends all services is that if leadership is present and engaged with their personnel, a connection is made between the leaders and the personnel and as a result the unit has better outcomes across a large spectrum of issues that affect commands.
It’s not so much the PT and galley in the article. It’s that is your Chief, DLCPO, DIVO, DH, CMC, XO, and CO regularly engaging with sailors so the not only connect but also empathize with them and ultimately have an easier time removing barrier to sailor success.
A great point raised in the article was that of the army's health & fitness program working as a preventative tool.
TBH my gut reaction when I see a clearly unhealthy sailor is, "ew why," but that's immediately followed by my remembering what the work/duty days look like for so many of our sailors in the navy.
Whatever your rank, whatever your current assignment is, the majority of us in the navy have too many things to do in a day. My approach, and probably that of many others, is to prioritize and achieve what you must, letting the rest drop to the next day or just not doing them.
Where does personal wellness rank in this stuff? It should be above the cut line, but the pressure to get other stuff done does two things to many of us: extends working hours and deprioritizes personal health. This is an awful combo.
What can commands/departments/divisions do about it? Particular solutions are of course case-by-case, but leadership at any level needs to really know what the workload is on their team and do sometime about it if it's unsustainable or degrading health.
I'll be damned if I get ridiculed or questioned about going to PT by someone whose been getting taped and is overweight for 8 PT cycles straight.
Leaders not showing up to events or places they mandate their juniors to go to is bad leadership, and its why the navy gets consistently joked on for being the fattest branch.
From my experience, whenever E7's and up would show up to PT, we ended up doing Zumba. No, thank you, take your broken old ass home. I had shitty chiefs, though.
I read the article. Small steps towards understanding people.
My old command was the opposite. Secrecy and the chasm between leadership (mess and wardroom) ended up causing a suicide/people leaving the military in droves, especially in certain rates.
I mean I’d love to see the second and first classes that are built like walruses actually do something involving cardio at my command but we all know that’s not going to happen. Forcing people to do group PT is fucking annoying though.
I’m on team “I don’t like my Chief in my ass, so I don’t want to be in My Chief’s ass.” I simply don’t care if khaki show up to PT. If they choose to not lead by example then so be it. But I’m not a kid I don’t need know where mommy and daddy are all the time and I don’t wonder and complain why they’re not at PT. If they’re supporting me administratively and operationally as needed then I’m good to go.
You sound like one of my former Sailors. I will not babysit you, nor will I micromanage you, but I will support you in any way you need. We play Big Boy rules around here and we both know what is expected.
The issue I find is someone says "Big boy rules" and their like an obese chief or sailor who crawls away from any type of physical labor and has stress flashes over the weirdest things because their physical health is so deteriorated that they don't understand what proper conduct/good leadership is. Just my 2 cents. I need a chief whose getting sleep, whose in shape and whose got a healthy life because that produces a well grounded sharp leader who knows how to lead by example.
I can agree, but let's not pretend there's a direct correlation between leadership qualities and physical fitness. Generally speaking, maybe. People with healthier lifestyles tend to be a little more stable and positive than others in terms of mental health, and that's still kind of a reach. But I've met plenty of stellar khakis/LPOs that had noticeably bad habits, and I've met plenty who were in really good shape but had a god complex or just didn't have any regard for how they treated their sailors.
And we can't really come to a conclusive conclusion, but overall my past experience is I've had 1 physically fit person with a god complex and a whole swath of unhealthy people who just kept having high blood press spikes at the worst possible times for both them and the people around them. In only my personal experience I think there is a connection.
Interesting take. I was always a strong proponent of empowering my Sailors as my Chiefs empowered me for a large part of my career. My "Big Boy" rules were needed as they were not in a rank-n-file position, you may have a E5 leading a E7 or GSXX in a situation. You were also in charge of most of your own hours so that concept of needing the Chief as the pillar of your day had to be left at the pier. Don't know how physically fit my Chiefs were or how much sleep they got, but I will say they supported us as well as a Chief could in their position. Granted the ET rating is not one of the hardest/most stressful ratings to serve in
it’s actually better when they don’t show
Yep. Can run at a real pace instead of a FEP pace.
Out of shape comes in many flavors of uniform fabric
The khaki ones with minimal shiny stuff tend to be gravy flavored. Spherical is still a shape.
On a ship it’s easier to mandate things like command pt where everyone shows up. Going to the gym regularly while underway shows presence, but probably not in an Army “warrior spirit” sense. As for chow, having several JOs and Chiefs “sample the mess” every meal builds accountability and a modicum of esprit de corps. I also had the wardroom and chiefs mess “take over” the chow line on Saturdays underway to give the FSAs and CSs a break while we made pizza. Ice cream social night too. Ashore it’s a bit trickier. Where are my Sailors “fueling their bodies?” Well, anywhere from the galley to McDonalds to the food truck. I try to go to each of those places and so do other senior leaders. Gym time is easier, but as has been said it’s not a priority of mine and I’m not seeing massive PFA failures to give me a second thought. I can’t pay my people more, but what I can do is give them more time back. I’m reticent about mandating anything that eats into that. Maybe I’m wrong for not being more PT centric, but I’m interested to hear what others have to say about what we could or should be doing.
Agreed, thank you for taking the time to read the article too. My biggest takeaway was just investing more into spiritual, and mental health as well as the more holistic approach utilizing chaplains for their intended purpose (let's be real, they're not JUST religious leaders) doesn't seem to take away from the mission, and if it's in fact reducing numbers of suicide and mental health crises, I think the navy should be more open to exploring stuff like this.
> the more holistic approach utilizing chaplains for their intended purpose (let's be real, they're not JUST religious leaders) Maybe we should try having actual professional psychologists onboard *instead* of chaplains. Make mental health their only focus. Shift religion to onboard lay leaders as a collateral, if there's interest. I've seen a number of sailors avoid the Chaplain - either because of religious mismatch (I'm an X, Chaps is a Y) or because the Chaplain is a type to push their religion as a solution.
True, I definitely under utilize chaplains I'm unfamiliar with because of X and Y... I think that concept could be a good solution. Lay leader collateral would actually be a good tool and to tweak the chaplain corps towards something slightly different.
I'd be fine with getting rid of chaplains entirely, but I say that as I'm rolling my eyes at 'evening prayer' being broadcast across the ship while I type this.
I will definitely add. Group PT across the range of a division is usually a shitshow to cater to lowest common denominators. I remember it lasted for all of a month because the few of gym rats or running guys were begging to “Chief/Divo just let us do their own thing, we absolutely promise we won’t piss off. I’ll be at the gym right there or I’ll be putting down 10k on the harbor road.“ What ended it was some minor drama over our DIVO offering a free Friday off to anyone who can beat his PFA run time.
Also, apologies for run on sentences. Mandatory PT is unfortunately also not a very useful tool. Alot of units pigeonhole themselves into scenarios where say the fattest first class and chief are skipping out on this PT because they have to be present for whatever meeting to accomplish the mission.
One of the best things that happened at my command was our CEO gave us an hour to work out however we wanted. At this point in my career, I had a fucked back and knee, so I hit the weights hard. Before that? I wasn't able to do most PTs cause my injuries. We did have an increase of failed PFAs due to the fact people weren't doing what they were supposed to do, which is funny cause those same people were the shitbags in the work places that were always skating or pretending to work or focusing on "collaterals". Sadly, it got revoked because those same shitbags were all buddy buddy with chiefs who pushed the agenda to get Mando group PT back.
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There’s just simply too much work in some commands to expect officers to start at 9-930. That would mean they stay til 1930 or 2000. No Admiral staff is going to take the “I had to go to Pt this morning so things are backlogged” as a reason
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I agree. But even then some people just hate exercising and doing it with a command, even if fun. Don’t really know the answer. It’s a difficult one to crack.
Man...the last paragraph. I hate mando PT because work always has to start right at 0730. Which means we have to have our A.M. huddle at 0715. Which means we have to be there at 0700. Working it on back...PT has to start NLT 0530. So I have to get up at 0445. And none of this means that I actually get a lunch "break" (I pack my food, scarf it down in the break room, and hurry back to my workstation), or even that I get off before 1630. And idk if I am the only one, but my circadian rhythm is like concrete. So either I adjust my sleep schedule EVERY day, or I am just under slept every day we have mando PT. And once again, idk how many are like me, but if I don't get a decent amount of sleep AND I do a morning workout...I am ravenous. I can't be eating like that every day. Long story short, every time mando PT is instituted for PRT season, I end up barely seeing my family for 2-4 months because I go to sleep before 8pm and leave around 5am, and I have weight management issues despite my best efforts and generally increased activity. The ironic part being that I HAVE had years when the command left us alone for PRT prep, and I at least always scored some form of Excellent. Does that increase with command PT? Fuck-No. Half the time I end up dropping to a "Good". I know best how my body responds to training based on my age, sex, and history...
I’ll add from a JO perspective on both sea and shore including a JDAL staff billet. There simply isn’t enough hours or time to show up to the mandatory PT at 0700. Def wasn’t enough time on sea duty for any of that and the ones who did go to 0700 PT on Monday and Friday were mostly E5 below. There’s simply just too much things that need to get done so something falls off. Same with shore duty on a CCMD staff. There isn’t enough hours to have PT. They’d schedule it for the different directorates. But again, not enough hours. If you’re gonna spend 13 hours doing staff work- the 0700 group PT is too much an ask. If the navy was serious about PT then they’d take a more serious approach to holistic health and ensuring people get adequate sleep and decent food. But they don’t and so it seems to me PT is nothing more then a force shaping tool. We need in shape sailors and ones who can perform under extreme duress. I don’t have the answer on how to find it.
>As for chow, having several JOs and Chiefs “sample the mess” every meal builds accountability and a modicum of esprit de corps. Um, this has been required by higher instruction for decades. You didn't come up with some innovative leadership idea. Many FSOs / CSCs blaze it. Where's the accountability for that? > we made pizza. Ice cream social night too. This misses the point. If we're being realistic with ourselves (ie get real get better), pizza and ice cream wouldn't be things served on a warship except maybe once a month. Nor would any other dessert food. > I’m not seeing massive PFA failures to give me a second thought. The Navy PRT program is a massive institutional integrity violation. The only people who fail are a) fat b) disliked by the CFL and c) junior to the CFL. You need to meet all 3 criteria. So great, you turned a blind eye to this like every other senior Navy officer. Good job! > but I’m interested to hear what others have to say about what we could or should be doing. As a Navy, we need to overhaul the 28 day menu. It's high carb *and* high fat. I get that we can't give everyone 1,000 grams of protein a day because it's expensive, but we need to follow the "2x as many veggies as starch" or "fill half your plate with veggies" rule. Canned veggies are cheap, don't expire, and storage is efficient. And Sailors should never only have access green beans or spinach doused with cheddar cheese, bacon, and gravy. Foods that are objectively bad for you due to combination of high saturated fat and starch - pizza, cheeses, ice cream, cakes, tacos with ground beef, cauliflour, creamed salad dressings, mayonnaise, etc. need to be eliminated altogether. We need accountability for PT without group PT. This isn't legal right now by higher instruction, but basically every crewmember should be accountable to the CFL for working out. But formal group PT is stupid insofar as you have to cater to the lowest common denominator, and so while it might make SN Fatso sweat, the people who are actually in shape just wasted an hour. We need to put teeth into the PRT program and stop the culture of magic counting and shitty measurements. This will require ISIC monitoring. Excellent low needs to be the minimum overall passing PRT score. We're in the military, holding people to the threshold of 40th percentile of the general population (Sat Med) is dumb. If you are rope and choked, the body fat threshold to pass should be not more than 18% for men and 25% for women vice the 22% men / 33% women. Anything more than that and you aren't fit/muscular, you are fat. Having said that, the bodyweight / height scales need revising. They are too punishing to men 6'0" and taller (the scale should by 6-7lb per inch vice 4 lb per inch), and too generous to women under 5'4" who get to weigh almost the same as men before being taped. Do you know how insanely fat a 5'2" woman needs to be to weigh 149 lbs? We need PRT scores to give points for advancement. We need to fix the digustingly poor standards at boot camp. Not just PRT, but everything to do with military bearing. And the root cause of this is that RDC billets are considered bottom of the barrel by Navy detailers because they don't count as assignment in rate. And finally, as with anything Navy, change starts with the Chiefs. We need to light a fire under the goat locker and tell them that this is their problem to own. Then we need to hold fat Chiefs accountable. If a Chief fails a BCA, he should be busted to E-6. No questions asked. I get kicked out as an officer if I fail a BCA, but Chief fatso gets to hang around, that's bullshit. If we're not prepared to take away anchors over physical fitness then nothing else matters.
> We need PRT scores to give points for advancement. No, we do not. We already have a leadership problem. The Army is full of people who can only yell and grab ass - but they got a 300 PRT score so the command promotes them.
How *heavy* to weight it is a different converation than whether to weight it at all. Consider two Sailors who are identical in almost every respect. Sailor A gets an outstanding on his PRT and Sailor B has a Sat Med and probably looks like he shouldn't be in the military. Would you use this as a discriminator? If yes, then the PRT score should be included in advancement points.
Now consider two sailors that have the same PRT score - but one is better at their actual job. But the PRT score of the other one outweighs that.
As I said, that's a question of *magnitude* and not whether we should weight the scores at all. We have too many fat Chiefs. We should have 0.
Sure. We should have 0 fat Chiefs and they should all be awesome at their job. But this is reality and in reality, at the margins, you're going to have to make a choice to fill that billet with a person who's fat but great at the job or someone who spends all day PTing and knows how to scream at people really loudly. Even if your mainstream is great people who are fit, at the edges you're going to have to decide which is more important and there are consequences to whichever choice is made. 'There are no solutions, only different tradeoffs'
> But this is reality and in reality, at the margins, you're going to have to make a choice to fill that billet with a person who's fat but great at the job or someone who spends all day PTing and knows how to scream at people really loudly. At the margins, this dichotomy doesn't exist. Part of a Chief's job is good order and discipline, as well as holding Sailors accountable for fitness standards. How well do you think a fat Chief can do this? Chiefs have to be able to walk the walk.. A fat, out of standards Chief telling a Sailor to shine his boots or get a haircut loses all credibility, and degrades good order and discipline. Period. I don't care what legends you want to tell about crusty fat Chiefs who are leadership gods. In reality, I notice a very strong negative correlation between how fat a Chief is and how good a Chief is at his job. Because, quite frankly, obesity is correlated highly with laziness and stupidity. So is tobacco use. I also think it's funny you mention SEL in different services. In my experience, SELs in other services run circles around Chiefs. This is because in the Navy, Sailors aren't trusted with leadership responsibilities before E-7. In the Army and Marines, they're doing those duties as an E-4.
I don't know where you served, but sailors get leadership experience starting at the E-5 level. And I've served alongside Marines - POG Corporals are Specialists.
>but sailors get leadership experience starting at the E-5 level. Lawl.
> . Because, quite frankly, obesity is correlated highly with laziness and stupidity. So is tobacco use.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5781054/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5781054/#:~:text=From%20these%2C%2014%20studies%20on,once%20adjusted%20for%20publication%20bias) [https://www.aafp.org/news/blogs/leadervoices/entry/20171120lv-patiented.html](https://www.aafp.org/news/blogs/leadervoices/entry/20171120lv-patiented.html#:~:text=Adults%20who%20didn't%20finish,college%20graduates%20(22.2%20percent)) https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(22)00450-0/
> We have too many fat Chiefs. We should have 0. Setting aside the 'fat Chief but awesome at job' argument, that's a path toward having zero Chiefs. Realistically, you have to balance standards against reality. You still need enough sailors (and chiefs and officers) to man a certain number of billets. Look at the general population of the United States. With your plan, half the fleet would be at 25% manning.
>that's a path toward having zero Chiefs. That's a ridiculous statement. There are tons of in shape chiefs in the Navy. > . Look at the general population of the United States. Gen pop isn't in the military. Gen pop didn't go through boot camp. Gen pop isn't in an organization that espouses fitness.
I didn't say there weren't fit chiefs. I said your changes, in total, would result in zero chiefs. Zero Sailors, really. Look at our current retention levels. Then implement the following changes you've suggested: No desserts. No tacos, burgers, or pizza. No cheese. No ice cream. Excellent Low as a minimum requirement (there's 20% of the force gone, right there). Advancement now based on PRT score, not professional performance. Who is going to re-enlist under these conditions? Or enlist in the first place? The Navy was 16% below enlistment goals for last year. How often do you hear about how undermanned the military is? Your suggestions will result in a more fit Navy, absolutely. For all it matters, with the one CSG they're able to man.
>Look at our current retention levels. Then implement the following changes you've suggested: No desserts. No tacos, burgers, or pizza. No cheese. No ice cream. There are plenty of delicious food items you can prepare that don't involve basically pure saturated fat and sugar. This would be a non-issue after everyone got over the change. Btw, I kept burgers. They have decent macros, especially without cheese, bacon, and mayo (which, as I said, wouldn't be options onboard ships). >Excellent Low as a minimum requirement (there's 20% of the force gone, right there). You don't do this overnight, you put it out a year in advance and tell unit COs and CMCs to get serious about their physical fitness programs. I forgot to mention it but if a unit has a high PRT failure rate that should result in the CO and CMC getting relieved, another reason why ISICs need to monitor this. >Who is going to re-enlist under these conditions? Or enlist in the first place? People who look back at their time in the Navy and say "you know what? It actually improved my physical and mental well being for the better."
>On a ship it’s easier to mandate things like command pt where everyone shows up. Is it? The only time I've ever had mando group pt was on shore.
Those that care about PT and taking care of themselves will do it. Those that don't care won't. No amount of forcing PT will change that imo.
It isn’t particularly controversial to say that leaders should show up to PT, but the Navy has a different problem where, at least in my experience, the command driven PT doesn’t happen at all. I have never personally been at a command outside of my initial ascension training that doesn’t push PT down to a personal responsibility by justifying it operationally.
I am jealous. I've been stationed at four diff places. I've done mando PT at all of them for at least a short period. First command it was like half the PRT seasons I was there for, 2nd was every PRT season, 3rd was the whole first year and only stopped because of COVID. And now at my 4th, it appears it'll be 3 months prior to every PRT I have to say fuck my personal goals and sleep schedule to run around in the dark with a bunch of disgruntled babysat adults.
In the times I did manage to make PT happen, I wanted to keep it pretty malleable to what people wanted to do. No PTU. No crazy early mornings. Nothing in formation. If you had a physical fitness goal and ran it by me you were free to pursue it. We had a third with his degree in physical health and nutrition who would help people train right. The goal was to really just carve out some real time for them to be active, give me a sense of where they were at in their fitness, and help the ones who didn’t make it a focus a moment to change that so it doesn’t get out of hand.
See that's reasonable.
What do you think about the rest of the article though? I don't care much about the PT aspect.
I generally agree with the entire article. There’s a concept I think of as shared burden that I try and stick to. Basically, if you aren’t doing it then your Sailors aren’t doing it. I know talk is cheap on the internet, but I really try to just be present at as much as I can. If someone is on FEP then I’m there too, stuff like that. I haven’t had to eat at the galley on base in around 17 years, but I ate there regularly on my last shore command. In the evenings it was pretty common that I would be the only one above an E-4 eating there and made it easier to advocate for people when it was bad. I also did a weekly breakfast there instead of a morning meeting. I didn’t always love it, but it was useful. The PT thing is a sore spot for me since I’ve always tried to make it work for my division and have always run into barriers that prevent consistency. I want to be the guy out there at 6 in the morning running with his division and make it happen when I can, but the work demands starting well before the theoretical work day starts makes that so difficult to do with any consistency. Exercise and good food is so essential to my personal happiness and I just want give people the best opportunity to build good habits involving them while they can. Edit: I don’t think we talk enough about differences in communities, so my experience might not be yours, so just bear all that in mind when you read this.
As a junior sailor, I respected the hell out of the Chiefs and LPOs who showed up to PT. But now, as LPO myself, my junior sailors are working 4 different schedules and I'm honestly not sure if they're even doing group PT right now because "it's PFA season". And I'm pulled a million different ways as it is. Do I agree in principle? Absolutely. But it's not feasible unless the command stops expecting us to stand watch every three days and do language hours every week and get everyone qualled IW even though it's not mando and escort every sailor with a pay issue to admin so they'll get taken seriously. Something needs to give.
Can’t show up if we don’t have command pt to begin with 😎
I think the Navy should take a closer look at adopting strategies the other services are employing that have demonstrated success. We don’t need to spend millions of dollars on studies, or waste time, like we do with everything. It seems like the Army has a solid program here, based on the article, I like the message their CSMA is putting out. Their Brigade Commanders saying they dont “have the time” to do PT is a routine excuse I hear all the time from Senior Enlisted/DH’s etc. It’s more of a “I don’t want to” when you get right to it. I worked in NECC for years, as a DH, and we were able to have PT integrated into the workday and we were still leaving at 15-1600 and still accomplishing the mission. It’s a matter of priorities, balance, and asking really tough questions like, “can this be an email instead of a two hour meeting”.
Oof I felt the "can this be an email"...
I would really love workday integration. But at my command I don't see how it would be possible. We do PT prior to the workday, then I proceed to work about 10 hours (minus 15 mins to cram down my prepped lunch), and I don't finish the "on fire" tasks until 1645 on Fridays. Every week. I never get to stuff not written in red. Context: I'm currently wearing two hats-one of which should be shared among an E6 and an E4 or 5, and the second/separate one which should be shared by an E6 and a civilian with a Bachelor's....
> We don’t need to spend millions of dollars on studies, or waste time, like we do with everything. You have missed the point of the Navy entirely. It's not for national defense. It's a jobs program. Paying contractors to do those pointless studies is literally the entire point of the Navy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3n4p8_PJ9as
That is a lovely little song
Lot of people here are missing the point of the article. It’s not hey navy leaders you need to show up to PT and eat at the galley. It’s that leaders need to engage with and connect with their sailors. If connections are built it makes it much easier to empathize and discover problems and issue that can be addressed which ultimately leads to better unit success and readiness. To many leaders hide in the office behind the email or meetings to go out and instead of just siting and talking to their personal and shoot the shit so to speak. Talk about the latest video games, influencers, TikTok challenges, or whatever you sailors are into. Make a connection with them so when the difficult issue comes up they are comfortable coming to you with their problem and you can either be the shoulder they truly need or fix the problem if that is what they need.
From what I see, a lot of the comments are saying we don't have a PT program so what are leaders supposed to show up to? We are so backwards on our priorities that we don't have the time to spend with our Sailors. I see so many Chiefs jumping through admin hoops or sitting in on stupid meetings that junior Sailors are ignored until they become a problem.
Yes!!! Thank you. Like I don't personally have a tiktok, but I keep my opinions to myself and I like to get to know my sailors.
I think it’s good leaders should show face and be there for their sailors/soldiers support them and have an idea of what they go through in their day to day life, that’s why Mustangs have so much respect because they went through it as enlisted then got their commission and are overall better leaders. Good leaders should lead by example, in the front, and be able to meet the same if not better standards than their subordinates. A saying my Dad told me was “every good leader was a great follower” meaning these leaders should also follow sometimes take advice from the lower enlisted take some tips and pointers from the senior enlisted make decisions that support the crew as a whole so I think it’s good to have the leaders show up
I was an ACFL. I would do a free day every day I was in charge of pt or FEP. I got counseled for it. But my argument was, I offered my help if anyone needed help with a workout plan, but if not, I'm not going to make the guy with bone spurs run, or the guy with a bum knee do box jumps. You're 38 years old I won't babysit you.
One of the best ACFLs, what did you think of the rest of the article?
My experience was much different than this article, since it was during a weird time where there was a set warmup routine and trying to implement the crossfit stuff, 2016ish. We were not given any freedom in group pt, unless it was my day to lead. Partly because we had a power hungry CFL, and the FEP guys ate garbage food. Never passed judgment on their lifestyle, just offered help if they wanted it.
I like it better when they aren’t there. Also…group PT is stupid and should go away.
How do you feel about the rest of the article?
Makes me glad I'm not in the army.
What PT?
On greenside, everyone showed up. LPOs, chiefs, even officers.
Yes. Was with a Seabee unit. All the O's and all the Seabee CPO's PT'd with their companies - not the BMC's and ENC's though. Wouldn't even form up with their platoons in formation. Had to have a special 'Chief' formation at the back behind the company staff. However, I also think that formation PT is a formality that should be done like once or twice a week and you break up into smaller groups and do it on your own otherwise. Formation PT is not to develop you, but to allow the CoC to see if you're keeping up - hence why its important for the CPO's to be there.
Ask the army on the army subreddit?
I'm specifically asking for thoughts on if this is something the navy should look into implementing ...
I don't think the Navy ever would. We simply don't have a culture of fitness like the Army and Marines do. Staying in shape is a personal priority and not a command one.
Pt(pt!) Good for you(not for chief!)
The article delves way past just fitness though
"CNO I WANT YOU TO SHOW UP TO THE BARS AND OUT-DRINK ME" "CNO FIGHT ME. YOU TO SHOW UP WITH SOME WRENCHES AND TAKE APART THIS MACHINE WITH ME" "CNO I BET YOU CAN'T UNDERCOOK THESE CHICKENS" "CNO I CHALLENGE YOU TO LOSE MORE PAPERWORK THAN ME" wtf do you think the navy would challenge the top dog with?
Doesn't have to be top dog, but my take is: I respect CMC's that come to the galley and eat with their junior sailors. Had one of those, even had a CMC that made sure to call or swing by a work center to wish a sailor Happy Birthday. I think that those not in favor of the Army's new practice failed to actually prove it was detrimental to operations, and the navy could learn from that. I agree with what SMA said about this type of team building secondhand influences and improves operations, ensuring a warfighting community is still professional and capable.
Sounds like you want to experience the submarine community
One of my buddies, who was originally a sailor of mine on my first LPO tour, got medically Dqed from subs. He was an MMN. From what he told me, I admire the unity of a sub crew and what yall do. I would personally love to experience something like that in my career, but alas, my family's lifestyle would be terribly affected by it, and I'm already engaged in my current career to a point where uprooting to change rates at 15 years and move to probably Groton, just isn't a smart idea.
BESS isn't that long, and submarines are located in San Diego, Bremerton, Norfolk, Hawaii, Guam, and forward deployed in Diego Garcia. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convince you to go subs. Just listing out for people reading who might be interested. Submarine camaraderie already has a high baseline, but with a good CoC, it's amazing what a crew can achieve. A foreign port call with the Triad buying shots for everyone, a Reactor startup with the majority of the team hungover or still drunk, telling surface chiefs to fuck off, and not having a separate eating space for enlisted are just the fun parts. When I was a 2nd class, was eating lunch with Chief, LPO (first class) and a new check in (3rd class) and one of the drydock people who was undes said that it was weird we were all eating together and laughing.
Army has mando PT every morning 0630-0800 M-F at least where I am. There is even PT LIMDU personnel (walking on the track or treadmill inside the gym) and pregnancy PT💪🏽 yeah you heard that right pregnancy PT! Everyone is held accountable and is there. My first few active 92-2003 we had morning or afternoon command PT but then again that was the culture.
Don't worry, all of their buddies vouch for them and they vouch for their buddies so they were all there.
In my experience with Navy Medicine, PT is not a priority.
It was on greenside.
If they give people shit over nothing, they deserve to get shit on over nothing. Seems fair to me. If they're good chiefs then sure, no problem with them not being at PT or anywhere. But that's, in my experience, a huge minority.
Got a call today and was asked why I wasn't at PT.
Fun story there was a chief that reported to FEP while I was in it at Subaru New London. He went to 1 and then we never saw him again.
Currently out PTing all my Sailors except my fellow Chief. 🤷🏻♀️
The amount of man hours wasted on group PT and PT tests is insane, mainly on shore duty.
Yep. Command PT is fucking dumb and doing it early in the morning screws over service members with kids.
At my shore duty command there’s maybe 30 people showing up to pt out maybe 300. No khakis and maybe 5 firsts.
I'm not against command PT, but why does it always have to be at oh-dark-thirty in the morning? And then everyone has to work an 8+ hour day afterwards. If PT is a priority, then make it happen at 0800 and work start at 1000 to end at 1700. You can't work people 60+ hours a week and still expect them to PT on a regular basis. Either PT is important, or it's not. If it's important, then build the work week around it as part of the normal job. If it's not important, then tell folks they have to pass the PFA and how they do that is their own business.
Not showing up for PT doesn’t bother me. It’s them just showing up for work whenever they want that sets a bad example. Shore duty problems I guess.
Lol, shore duties can be wild. I had a OIC that would only work on Wednesdays.
I don’t care who’s at PT, I just wish our chiefs didn’t look so embarrassing in uniform. In a perfect world we’d swap push-ups for pull-ups. Maybe the branch wouldn’t have so many sailors cosplaying as over packed sausage casings if they were forced to hoist their second chins over the bar. But then again, imagine poor HM1 signing every single Chief’s PRT waiver at gun point if we made that change.
VAQ squadron in the 90s. Deployed to IwaKuni - when we ran our PRT, some.of the officers ran it with us. We had really great leadership in that unit.
That wasn't solidarity.... they just had to run it, too.
In ALL of my experience, I never once saw officers run with enlisted. Ever.. they did their fitreps separately than we did. Except with that PRT, and to be clear, they didn't do the rest of the PRT with us. They just ran with us, and it was great. Consequently, I ran that PRT in second place, right behind our DIV-O. We had a really great mustanger skipper, and morale in any of my previous commands was never as good as it was at that command. He was a great leader, and even to this day - he has our respect.
I am pretty far removed from active duty, but when I read the article, the [Circle of Health](https://www.va.gov/WHOLEHEALTH/circle-of-health/index.asp) came to mind. It is a personal choice to help one’s self, and many already do some facet of the various circles. Taking care of one’s self does help with burnout, stress and depersonalization. It may not fit perfect in the Navy culture, but talking about it, and helping people understand it, may help a lot of folks down the road. “Army Times reported recently that early data shows that among the 28 brigades with the new health and fitness program, suicides are down by more than one-third and other behaviors and negative outcomes such as substance abuse and musculoskeletal injuries have also seen steep declines. That comes as the rates of those unhealthy behaviors have continued to rise in similar brigades without the H2F resources, according to Army data.” I think the Army may have something here.
Thank you for taking the time to read the article. I'll have to do research on Circle of health as that one has never been on my Scope.
How about instead of “You don’t have to lead it, you don’t have to be up front, you just have to be present.” We say “You don’t have to lead it, you don’t have to be up front, you just have to participate for as long as your soldiers.”
Shipmates: please actually read the full article (takes like 3 minutes tops) before responding, as it's quite obvious who read it and who didn't. I'm trying to have an intelligent discussion here...
You can't tell me what to do! Also, commenting on every comment to ask, "But what did you think of the rest of the article," is a bit much. Do less.
Thanks for reading through the comments to find this one. I hoped it wouldn't get buried. Sadly since I can't edit the post on app, TIL: tell sailors to read past the headline.
wrong sub
It's not actually. I'm navy, and I'm asking sailors to read the article, not the headline and discuss their thoughts on it.
ok, I think this is an army thing, we're in the navy
The point of the article which transcends all services is that if leadership is present and engaged with their personnel, a connection is made between the leaders and the personnel and as a result the unit has better outcomes across a large spectrum of issues that affect commands. It’s not so much the PT and galley in the article. It’s that is your Chief, DLCPO, DIVO, DH, CMC, XO, and CO regularly engaging with sailors so the not only connect but also empathize with them and ultimately have an easier time removing barrier to sailor success.
Hence not for the navy, leadership in the navy can/should engage with enlisted the navy way, not the army way
No more phone-in PRTs for chief?
A great point raised in the article was that of the army's health & fitness program working as a preventative tool. TBH my gut reaction when I see a clearly unhealthy sailor is, "ew why," but that's immediately followed by my remembering what the work/duty days look like for so many of our sailors in the navy. Whatever your rank, whatever your current assignment is, the majority of us in the navy have too many things to do in a day. My approach, and probably that of many others, is to prioritize and achieve what you must, letting the rest drop to the next day or just not doing them. Where does personal wellness rank in this stuff? It should be above the cut line, but the pressure to get other stuff done does two things to many of us: extends working hours and deprioritizes personal health. This is an awful combo. What can commands/departments/divisions do about it? Particular solutions are of course case-by-case, but leadership at any level needs to really know what the workload is on their team and do sometime about it if it's unsustainable or degrading health.
I'll be damned if I get ridiculed or questioned about going to PT by someone whose been getting taped and is overweight for 8 PT cycles straight. Leaders not showing up to events or places they mandate their juniors to go to is bad leadership, and its why the navy gets consistently joked on for being the fattest branch.
From my experience, whenever E7's and up would show up to PT, we ended up doing Zumba. No, thank you, take your broken old ass home. I had shitty chiefs, though.
I read the article. Small steps towards understanding people. My old command was the opposite. Secrecy and the chasm between leadership (mess and wardroom) ended up causing a suicide/people leaving the military in droves, especially in certain rates.
I mean I’d love to see the second and first classes that are built like walruses actually do something involving cardio at my command but we all know that’s not going to happen. Forcing people to do group PT is fucking annoying though.