Physical fitness tests are a fact of life for active duty members of the military, no matter which branch they serve. Scoring well can mean weeks or even months of training to get ready, either as an individual, a group or with the help of a personal trainer.
Fitness apps can help, but they’re not all created equal and may not be tailored exactly to the physical fitness standards of a certain branch of service. U.S. Air Force Capt. Zachary Hicks, a family medicine physician and emergency medical services medical director at Yokota Air Base, Japan, learned that the hard way.
“I was ill-prepared and ended up failing my fitness test,” Hicks told Military.com in an interview from Tokyo. “I realized there are a lot of resources out there that everyone points to, but it’s kind of a mess to find it all. I had no idea how to get started.”
App Includes Branch-Specific Workout Programs
After a lot of thought, the 33-year-old Arkansas native decided to develop his own fitness app, designed with active duty military members in mind. It’s called “Military Fitness Score,” available for download from the Apple Store or the Google Play Store for Android users.
It has the fitness test requirements for each branch of service and the ability for users to receive an action plan of exercise routines tailor-made to meet their goals and pass a military fitness test.
“It’s something I had thought about for a few years, but at the time, I was in residency for family medicine, and I certainly didn’t have time to work on an app at that point,” Hicks said. “But over the last couple of years, I thought about what it would look like. And then this year, when the new fitness standards came out, that was kind of the last straw. I thought, ‘Okay, this is the time. I think we really need this app.'”
According to the government website Military One Source, each branch of service requires its own unique fitness test to measure the strength, endurance, and overall readiness of service members. Generally, those tests include timed push-ups and sit-ups, a timed run for at least a mile or longer, along with pull-ups, arm hanging and lifts.
But Hicks said the problem he found was that the test requirements were not all in one place, with workouts that matched the fitness standards.
“I noticed with the different score calculator apps out there, none of them bring all of the military branches together into one app. So if you’re trying to train for another branch, cross-training to another, or you’re working with another unit, things like that, you have to use more than one app,” Hicks explained. “To me, the question was, ‘Why not just have all the military branches in the same fitness app?’ It just never made sense to me.”
To ensure the app “Military Fitness Score” aligned with official standards, Hicks transcribed each scoring calculator directly from service-specific scoring charts. He also built the training guidance using publicly available military resources, including the Air Force’s Warfighter Fitness Playbook.
“There is absolutely nothing profound here. This is literally just basic stuff. If you want to get better at your run, if you want to get better at your deadlift for the Army. If you want to get better at swimming for the Navy. You want to get better at your push-ups. The app has routines for all of that,” Hicks explained. “So if you’re lacking in your push-ups, the app will incorporate a push-up program. If you’re lacking in your running, it will incorporate running into your program.”
Hicks said it took him about four months to develop the app, using his own money to fund what he called his “passion project.”
“I’m self-funded. I’m not making any money from the app because this is a resource that I think is needed by military members,” Hicks said. “Also, one of my big goals for this app is to keep it free. I don’t want to have to charge for an app that I want to be a universally usable tool for everyone.”
‘On-Device’ Download Boosts User Security
Hicks explained he was able to keep the app free of charge by not using a cloud service to operate the app’s features. Instead, he said everyone is “on-device,” meaning it can be entirely downloaded and run off a personal device.
“Of course, there are a lot of features I could build and add a lot of convenience to the app if I used a cloud service. But not going that route is the biggest way I keep the app free,” he said. “If you’re worried about security or privacy, you have that with an on-device app versus a cloud service. Once you download it to your device, it will work no matter where you are in the world.”
Hicks said the app will help with whatever a user needs. His goal was to design a tool to show a military member how to actually get better, build a training program that meets them where they are to either maintain their level of fitness or to actually improve a fitness test score.
“Maybe you failed. Maybe you’re just not doing too great and you want to get better. I wanted the app to give someone a very actionable starting point that takes into account where they are now,” he said. “The app asks what the goal is you want to get to and how long we have to get there. You just put that information into the app, and it’ll just beep, beep, and pop out a recommended training program for you.”
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