BigBen

No, I am in the army.

I have done the POPAT, when the Army was looking into alternative PT testing measures.

There is an obstacle course consisting of a 6 foot mat, two sticks spaced apart and on chairs and a flight of stairs. You have to run around cones like a chicken with your head cut off and jump this mat and these sticks, and then run up and rown the flight of stairs.

Then you go over to a push-pull machine with 80 lbs. It is attached to a wall and you do 6 half circles of push and 6 of pull. Then you do this vault-thing where you jump a pole and land on your back and jump it again and land on your stomach (sit up and push up with a jump inbetween, basically) and then the timed portion is over. You have to carry an 80 pound sack 25(?) metres and not drop it. All said, you have to do the timed portion in 4:45 (this time differs, depending on how tough they want to be) and you have to start the sandbag carry after a 1 minute rest. Once you start, you can take all of the time you want, but you can't drop it.

You see, the obstacle course is simulating the chase of a suspect, the push-pull machine simulates the apprehension, the sandbag carry simulates carrying a victim to safety once the situation is resolved;

The army eventually went to a more soldier specific drill test, which includes hauling 40kg ammo crates, running with full fighting gear for 3.2 k, digging a trench, and fireman carry a casualty 100m. For fun, we always put this test on the hottest/coldest day of the year, after a rucksack march.

Thank god there is no stair machine involved. I would fucking quit.

__________________
3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.