Navy PRT Changes: Sailors Ditch Sit-Ups for Planks, Add Rowing to Fitness Test

Sailors who have long pushed for Navy leaders to come up with a better way to measure abdominal strength will finally get their way.

Sit-ups will be axed from the Navy's physical readiness test starting in 2020, the service's top officer announced on Wednesday. Sailors can expect planks and rowing tests to replace the event on the annual assessment.

"We're going to eliminate the sit-ups," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said in a video message announcing the changes. "Those have been shown to do more harm than good. They're not a really good test of your core strength."

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Instead, Richardson said, the Navy will be replacing the sit-ups with a plank. Details about how that might affect scoring or how long sailors might need to hold the straight, bridge-like position were not immediately announced.

Commands with rowing machines will also be adding a rowing event to the PRT, Richardson said.

"You can choose to get onto a rowing machine to do your cardio if that's what you prefer to do," he said.

The changes were driven by feedback from the fleet, Richardson said in the Facebook message, and have been tested and evaluated. The changes are another way, he said, the Navy is moving toward getting "best-ever performance every single day."

Last year, the Marine Corps began allowing those with medical conditions preventing them from completing the run on their fitness test to opt for a 5,000-meter rowing test instead. Those Marines can still earn full points on their physical fitness test if they complete the event in the allotted time.

Navy leaders will release more information about the new PRT rules soon, Richardson said.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.