Little changes to the PT test can make a big difference in your career. That’s the message to take away from the new physical training guidance, with modifications that took effect June 25.
The revisions are subtle — they lack the major shock of the revamped PT test introduced two years ago that changed all the rules and introduced civilian testers. But ignore these new details about the timing of your PT test, and you could soon be on the wrong side of the drawdown.
That means keeping track of when your test expires, even if you are on a medical waiver, said Capt. Kristina Rennie, a spokeswoman for Air Force fitness. Airmen who scored a 90 or above must take the test again one year later; those who earned a passing score of 75 but less than 90 must take it in six months.
“Overall, the goal is for all airmen to be current,” Rennie said. “If an airman is not current when their evaluation closes out, they will receive a referral.”
Warnings that you could lose your “5” rating on your enlisted performance report never materialized, but that doesn’t mean PT can’t affect your career. A referral on your EPR can be a career ender.
The current rules give commanders plenty of discretion when dealing with airmen who fail to remain current, including everything from doing nothing to issuing letters of counseling or even reprimand, Rennie said.
And airmen who think they can slide because they have a Form 422 in hand exempting them from taking parts of the test should think again.
“Having a profile does not mean that they are allowed to go ‘noncurrent,‘“ Rennie said. “They still are expected to take their test on time.”
That means if you’re on a profile — which can lead to a medical waiver for at least parts of the test — or within the 42-day conditioning period that follows the end of your profile, and it’s technically time for you to test, you should schedule your test on the components you are medically cleared to do so you’ll remain current, Rennie said.
You won’t be responsible for taking the full test until the first day after your reconditioning period, and you won’t take that test unless your current score is about to expire.
Other changes that could make or break your career:
Disputing a bad score
If you think your PT test score has been updated with an administrative error, or you were tested when you shouldn’t have been because of an existing medical condition, get ready to submit an application to the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records. The board is now the official authority for removing fitness assessment scores from the management system. In previous guidance, major commands had the authority to remove the score.
Rennie said the change is meant to streamline the process and reduce some confusion about where airmen should go to dispute scores.
“We wanted to make sure that, across the board, no matter what the reason was, if an airman is disputing the score in the system, they will need to submit an application to the BCMR,” she said.
Rennie said she doesn’t know how much time such applications will take to process, but for administrative errors, she was told by the Air Force Personnel Center that those requests can be turned around in a day or two once they’ve been received by the board’s office.
Commander discretion
Have you had four PT test failures in the last 24 months? Are you sure? It all depends on how your commander has been calculating the 24 months since you last failed the PT test. And Rennie said feedback from the field suggested that commanders needed some clarification.
The new guidance should straighten things out. When determining if you’ve failed four times — the maximum allowed in two years — you must count backward 23 months from the month in which you failed your last PT test, and include the month in which you failed that test.
For example, if your most recent PT test failure was in June 2012, you must count any failures from July 2010 through June 2012, according to the guidance. Four failures anytime in those 24 months means your commander will make a discharge or retention recommendation, unless you have a medical condition that keeps you from getting a passing score. If your commander opts to keep you in your job after four PT test failures, he will have to write a recommendation to retain you, or cut you loose, every time you fail a subsequent test.
Medical problems
In the event that you have four failures in a 24-month period and medical problems or injuries have prevented you from passing the PT test, you’ll no longer have to face any kind of in-person assessment.
Your unit commander will issue a memo to your medical provider asking for a review of your medical records. The memo, included in the update to the PT instruction, will include the four PT test failures and ask your medical provider to vouch for a documented medical condition that would have prevented you from passing all or part of the test.
Your medical provider will check one of two boxes: One says there was a documented medical condition; the other says there was no such condition. The form must include the signature and stamp of the medical provider and the date it was signed.
Effects of deployment
Deployments can complicate the PT testing cycle and, as before, an airman whose test expires while he is on deployment does not have to take the test until he gets back.
If you are deployed or on a temporary duty assignment for more than 30 days, you will get a 42-day acclimation period that begins once you return to your home station.
Previously, the PT guidance did not specify when the 42-day window started, leaving some to wonder whether any leave time they took after returning home but before returning to their home stations would be counted. Now, the clock starts ticking on your first day back at work.
Sky-high
Time is also a critical element in PT test scores at bases at higher elevations, where thin air can hinder your ability to run fast.
The Air Force introduced altitude adjustments at six bases in January, allowing airmen to add anywhere from six seconds to just over a minute to run times, depending on the elevation of the base and the airman’s run time.
Airmen at those bases will continue to get that break under the new guidance, but the base names were removed to make sure the policy will cover any new bases and operating locations that come on line in the future, Rennie said.
“We went through the process and tried to determine if there would be an all-inclusive list, but with new bases coming online, new locations being established and other bases being closed or no longer utilized, by the time we came up with a list, we either would have identified some bases that probably fell off, or potentially could have missed some bases,” she said.
The guidance provides altitude time correction for bases that are at 5,250 feet or above, which includes the Air Force Academy; Buckley, Peterson and Schriever Air Force bases in Colorado; Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.; and F.E. Warren, Wyo. The next closest current base to those elevations, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is 4,789 feet above sea level, and didn’t make the cut.
More tinkering to come
The Air Force updates its PT guidance, spelled out in Air Force Instruction 36-2905, every six months.
The last update in January brought the end of civilian PT testers by March, and shifted the testing responsibility to physical training leaders appointed by unit commanders.
That update also introduced target scores so you can set goals for passing each component of the test and eliminated points for anything below the absolute minimum for the waist measurement, sit-ups, push-ups and run time. It also lowered minimum temperatures for taking the test — from 32 degrees to 20 degrees.
All those changes remain in effect.
But don’t get complacent — another update is coming in January.
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