Females Marines vs. Pull Ups

| December 27, 2013

Ohio sends us a link from NPR which reports that fifty-six percent of female Marines couldn’t meet the three pull-up requirement which was the goal of Big Corps that was supposed to go into effect on the first of January, and since those female bots couldn’t meet the requirement, Big Corps quietly dropped the whole thing;

The three pullups is already the minimum required for all male Marines. Now the Marine Corps has postponed the plan, and that’s raising questions about whether women have the physical strength to handle ground combat, which they’ll be allowed to do beginning in 2016.

Marine officers would not talk to NPR on tape. They said they delayed the pullup requirement to avoid losing not only recruits but also current female Marines who can’t pass the test.

The Marine Corps has been using it to test upper body strength for men for more than 40 years.

The announcement was made to social media outlets, including in this video from The Corps Report at about the 20 seconds mark;

In my opinion, there isn’t a woman alive who can’t do three pull-ups if she really wants to do three pull ups. When I was a TAC NCO at 1st ROTC Region Advance Camp, I had the first cycle of ROTC Cadets. Most of them were in my platoon because they were going to jump school after our seven weeks of training where there was a requirement to do six pull ups. So I made it a mandatory for my platoon that everyone had to do ten pullups before they could get in the chow hall. At first they needed assistance, men & women both. But by the end of the seven weeks, they were all doing ten pull ups unassisted.

So, either no one is training these women properly, or the women are purposely not trying.

Category: Military issues

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Ex-PH2

I vote for ‘not being trained properly’.

I do like the idea of ‘You want dinner? Get busy doing pull-ups.’

Sparks

In my opinion, the women aren’t really trying. They are instead betting on the come that the pull ups will be gender normed and the flex hang will be their order of the day.

Grimmy

In my experience, any male grunt who still only meets min reqs in physical efforts, after being in the fleet for 3 months or so, gets heavily encouraged to seek other employment by his peers.

Weak sucks are too dangerous to everyone else to allow peaceful existence within the ranks.

gc5953

I was a non-athletic air winger who hated working out, and even I never did less than 11 pullups on a PFT (ranged from 11 to 14 if I remember correctly). Get a damn pullup bar for the bathroom doorway in your barracks room and just do them throughout the day. It’s not rocket science. Pullups are their own animal. You don’t improve them by lifting weights or doing other exercises, you improve them simply by doing more pullups.

There’s no reason anyone, male or female, can’t do 3 lousy pullups.

CI Roller Dude

a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I seem to recall us Army pukes doing pull ups everyday for PT. Part of the PT test was the parallel bars. When I rejoined 13 years later, the Army had stopped the parallel bar test and we almost never did pull ups as part of PT.
As a cop, doing pull ups sure helped getting over a fence to chase some asshole.

OWB

Between age and shoulder injuries, there is no way that I could do them today, but back in the day as a recruit? Yeah, did them, just because it was a great way to improve upper body strength.

Cacti35

@CI Roller Dude, do you mean the Horizontal Bars? We did them in the Army way back when. I did so many as a Drill Sgt. for demonstrations that I could fly across them. I tested for the Seattle Fire Dept when I got out in 1969, the bars were part of the physical. I zipped right through them and had to chuckle when some of the big jocks could not make it all the way.

Old Tanker

I was famously horrible at pull ups but I could still manage 15 or so. Push-ups I could do well, usually 100 or so in two minutes but I sucked at pull-ups…

B Woodman

Which ones are pull ups? Palms facing away from the body, or palms facing to the body?

Stacy0311

Want to bet that pull ups will disappear from those MOS specific fitness tests? Any takers?
“studies have shown that pull ups don’t successfully measure the upper body strength needed for infantry, artillery and armor MOS……”
and some test that women can pass will be substituted to insure that quotas (I mean “goals”) are met to show that women can be successfully integrated into all MOS.

Flagwaver

My best friend is going into the Corps in less than three weeks and she can do five without a problem.

JarHead Pat

Wide grip palms facing away,are pull ups,the other kind are homo chin ups,and don’t really fucking count.I went into boot doing 10 left boot doing 28 and can still do 3 sets of 20.The girls need to suck it up,or fuck off.

Red leg JO

@10:

If I had to chose between doing Pull-ups or lifting 100LBS 155 shells for my arty PT test I would take the pulls-ups every single time buys that’s just me. Hardest physical expirance of my PL time was helping my bovos move 300+ shells and their powder charges in full kit in 110 degree weather. And just in case a person thinks that officers don’t have to do that. There is no way any PL in arty can co well is they don’t hump shells (not every time, that is not your job but at least a few times). It baffles my why people say arty will be easy to gender integrate particularly after results like 55% of women AT THE END of Recruit training (when they should be in the best shape of their lives) no being able to do3 pull-ups. Arty will always be a hard physical job.

Red leg JO

And typos are what I get for trying to write something on my I phone. Darn auto correct and fat fingers

gc5953

B woodman, for a Marine PFT pullups may be done with palms either way.

A Proud Infidel

@13, Red Leg JO, I remember when I was just another AD Army Engineer “Joe” during the early 90’s when the Army decided that the 12C(Engineer Bridge Crewman) MOS was fit to be open to females (Another reason I decided to ETS), a job that includes A LOT of heavy lifting, especially with panel bridges, and I foresaw a lot of episodes where “quota riders” would sit back and let others carry their load. Put it this way, when assembling a US Army MGB (Medium Girder Bridge, better known as the “Mean Green Bitch”), the Lower Panel Crew Personnel (4 each) pick up and carry a 350 pound piece, then hold and wriggle it until the Pin Man can latch and pin it (The “Pins” are about 2 feet by 2 inches, and made of steel, and then they can release the piece, then go back and get another. The Upper Panel Crew have to do the same with a 250 pound piece, well, y’all get the picture,…

FUCK political correctness to death up the ass sideways with a broken broomstick…

Beretverde

The “Big Lie” continues.

2/17 Air Cav

There are pull ups and then there are chin ups. Often confused, the two are NOT interchangeable terms. To do a pull up, the bar is gripped with the back of the hands facing you. To do a chin up, the the bar is gripped with your palms facing you. Nearly everyone who can do either can do more chin ups than pull ups. If you’re game, do two of each and you will feel similar—but not identical—muscular strain. I do not know whether pull ups or chin ups are required. We’re told pull ups but then I see comment 15 says either way is okay and that is consistent with what the video shows the woman doing—one does pull ups and others do chin ups.

John

@13 Red leg JO
“55% of women AT THE END of Recruit training (when they should be in the best shape of their lives)”

Only if one is in mediocre shape at the start.

@1Ex-PH-2
“I vote for ‘not being trained properly”
Google for “Women doing pull-ups/chin-ups.” Even discounting the epilept–, er kipping, there’s plenty of examples of women cranking out 20 reps. The honorable thing for Whomever is in charge of programming the training at the USMC would be ritual suicide by Smith machine.

Sam Naomi

I still think their place is home in the kitchen out of Harms Way. I was never for them being in combat. We ran across alot of fighting females during the Korean war, and take my word for what’s its worth, it’s a site you’ll never forget. Sorry if some of you feel offended, maybe most of you were not even born when the Korean war took place, talk to some of the old guys that served in Korean back in 1950 & 1952 and see what they have to tell you.

Sparks

@16 Infidel, I could not agree with your sentiment more. The military is the LAST place for social PC experiments. There are too many other places in society for PC to be attempted. Not in the military though where every body has to count and lives are on the line.

flindip

Easy fix: You can’t ship out to basic until(male or female)can do three pull-ups. Problem solved.

John

@22flindip:

“Easy fix: You can’t ship out to basic until(male or female)can do three pull-ups. Problem solved.”

It’s what the Bureau did for its fitness test: And it worked.

flindip

@23

Yeah, its the easiest solution. The only problem is that social engineers won’t like the fact that the marine corps is only recruiting half the women as before.

IMO, that should be the approach. If a person can’t do three pull-ups they shouldn’t be in the military let alone combat arms.

Sparks

@24 Here-Here!

obsidian

My 13 year old grandson can do five for sure and more if he pushes it, my 8 year old grandson can do three.
I can do four but I’m in the 55-60 age group.
My wife won’t even try to do a pull up.
I recall being able to do some pull ups when a young Marine, more than four for sure.

MissFrostJaws

three pull ups? They’re in the Marines and they can’t do three pull ups? I’m sorry, but that’s just sad. something must be missing in their training. They should do a minimum of five! they’re in the Marines for Pete’s sakes.