The Coast Guard is making it easier for all its members to pass height-and-weight standards and for larger recruits to enter the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of April 20, the service’s manual of body-fat standards manual <\/span>allows new Coast Guardsmen to exceed the maximum allowed weight if their body-fat percentage is within regulation, according to a servicewide message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previously, anyone over the maximum weight \u2014 250 pounds \u2014 needed a waiver to enlist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also new rules for taking and recording body-fat measurements across the service:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previously, circumference measurements were averaged and body fat was rounded up to the nearest whole inch, Coast Guard spokeswoman Lisa Novak told Navy Times on May 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The changes were not due to complaints from the fleet or issues with new recruits showing up to boot camp overweight, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Like the Navy, the Coast Guard uses the weight standard to reduce the amount of body-fat measurements that must be conducted,” she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The changes are designed to streamline the recruiting process and <\/span>promote alignment with Navy policy and also to streamline the recruiting process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if a recruit weighs more than 250 pounds, which maxes out the chart, it’s all right if their height and other measurements fall within body fat standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those body-fat standards remain the samemeasurements are<\/span>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those numbers are less restrictive than the Navy’s, but the Coast Guard’s gender neutral height-and-weight chart is more stringent than the Navy’s separate <\/span>standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For its part, the Navy is looking to the other services as it makes changes to its own body composition standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Currently, there are two age groups for body-fat measurements in the Navy: under age 40 and over 40.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of its coming BCA overhaul, a Navy official with knowledge of the changes told Navy Times earlier this year that the service is looking to allow body fat to increase more as a sailor ages, the way the Coast Guard and other services do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fitness changes<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Coast Guard’s new body composition rules come just a couple months after the Coast Guard scrapped its long-awaited plan for its first servicewide physical fitness test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike the other four military services, the Coast Guard has never required that all members complete a semi-annual exam, though many individual units hold their own job-specific tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After more than two years of development and testing, officials concluded that a standardized test would be untenable for many of the service’s smaller and more remote commands, Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft told Navy Times in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “A number of our units don’t have the wherewithal to even implement these measures,” he said, making it unfair to require the test without the facilities to hold them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He used the example of 87-foot patrol boats, which he noted are colloquially known as “vomit comets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t know how many laps you’d have to run,” Zukunft said. “They’re not very friendly riding to begin with. But if you’re deployed for a period of days on those or smaller patrol boats, yeah, we just don’t have the wherewithal to accommodate fitness while underway.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The test, piloted at some training commands, included a 300-yard shuttle run, pullups and a jump event. The decision not to implement it was announced via servicewide message March 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zukunft said the service will continue with its mandatory Personal Fitness Plan, which requires members to sign off on 180 minutes of exercise per week, minimum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Coast Guard is easing its body composition standards slightly to streamline procedures and align with Navy policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":55923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":65,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3308],"class_list":["post-27077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-navy"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"SJDUVIGLU5GPRIUYIVHXV53EVA","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-navy\/2015\/05\/09\/coast-guard-eases-body-composition-standards\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n