Overview
Imagine it. You’re at practice. Rifles are spinning as cadets sharply execute their routine. Clack, clack. Perfectly in time.
But then, you hear that dreaded sound…
*clack-clatter-clatter*
The sound of a drill slipping from a cadet’s hands and striking the drill area. You watch is the rifle bounces, as if in slow motion, across the floor before skidding to a halt feet away. Then you hear those words, spoken by generations of well-meaning drill coaches the country over. The words that were spoken to them in that moment after their own rifles grew a mind their own and bobbled themselves onto the drill deck. The words etched in the collective minds of every instructor, cadet, and coach who has ever participated in the armed exhibition drill activity…
”FOLLOW IT!”
Yeah, that’s a terrible idea. And we come from a generation where we had the entire “justification spiel” memorized in case a principal or other administrator happened on a lonesome cadet knocking out some push-ups at drill practice. “Ma’am and/or sir, this cadet is completing push-ups having lost control of their drill rifle while executing their physically demanding routine. The drop occurred as a result of a lack of physical strength which is being remediated through the use of physical training to ensure the safety of that cadet such that future incidents will be less frequent…yadda, yadda, yadda.”
Presented herein are three reasons assigning push-ups is just some kind of archaic hold-over passed down from generation to generation without a lot of critical thought. We hope that once you have completed this article, you will see how for literally decades, we’ve probably been doing more harm than good. And usually just because, “that’s what you do when you drop a rifle!”
Why Push-Ups?
We’ve heard a lot of things. Increased strength. Accountability. To help the cadet avoid future rifle drops. The real reason is pretty simple: it’s a practice that works in a specific scenario (the military) with a specific audience (individuals who are under contractual obligation to a career field) in a specific environment (one designed to turn civilians into military personnel where mistakes, small or large, can have huge consequences.)
It wasn’t like someone best-practice tested this with youth psychologists and athletic experts. The best coaches already know you never punish an athlete with the sport.
So let’s debunk this once and for all!
Reason 1: Dropping a rifle isn’t a bad thing…why are we punishing it?
There a multitude of reasons for this. A skill as complex as handling a rifle, especially for exhibition drill, is a major physical and mental task. Learning to do it well takes years and years of diligent practice. In order to learn to do something RIGHT, it’s just as important that drillers learn all the ways that DON’T work as it is for them to learn the things that do.
Furthermore, cadets who fear dropping the rifle due to archaic PT punishments are more at-risk for injury as they will likely do more to prevent a drop while simultaneously being too nervous to really expand their skillset. Ironically, a combination of these factors produces a driller who is far more likely to drop a rifle when it matters most.
Dropping rifles is normal. Especially in the learning and training process. We need to learn to mitigate the negative impacts such as damaged rifles (learn on a softer surface) and injury (teach in a safe formation) using common sense. To create critically-thinking, proficient cadets, we need to remove barriers to their exploration of the activity, not add to them.
Reason 2: Cadets already know dropping a rifle isn’t the optimal outcome…do we need to belabor the point?
The not-so-secret secret goal of implementing push-ups is to hold a cadet accountable and help teach them that dropping the rifle isn’t the desired outcome. Let’s be honest. That’s what this is REALLY about. And it isn’t even usually because it’s “bad,” per se. It’s really because it costs us points in competition.
Our cadets are smart. They know that dropping the rifle isn’t something that anyone wants to happen. Especially not in competition. Using exercise to remind them of what they already know doesn’t seem like it makes much sense.
Reason 3: The strain from doing those push-ups will not help a cadet avoid more drops…it’s likely to cause more of them.
Conditioning is important. That’s why we linked an article right there for it! But a properly executed conditioning is intentional and targeted. It’s not random and it certainly isn’t as a consequence of some sort of action or inaction at drill practice. In fact, no matter how good or bad practice was, we recommend ending it with conditioning anyway. But let’s get more in the weeds here…
If a cadet drops a rifle and does 30 push-ups as a consequence, are they more or less fatigued?
More, right?
If they are more fatigued, are the small muscles in the hands and forearms required to manipulate a drill rifle safely in better or worse shape following the push-ups?
Worse, right?
If they are in fact worse, is that cadet likely to have more or less control of their drill rifle in the moments following those push-ups?
Less, right?
That’s where this is headed. We want to do things to help our cadets become better performers, not worse ones. And this is one of those “things” that we’ve long accepted as normal when in fact it has almost no benefits so long as the team is already engaged in a good conditioning regimen.
But wait…we’ll just “bank” the push-ups for the end of practice…Well, after referring back to Reason 1 above, consider this…
Bonus: Push-ups aren’t actually a functional exercise for drill anyway.
Excluding the use of specific styles of push-ups in an environment where cadets are being coached on proper athletic form, your garden-variety push-up is actually not a terribly functional exercise for drill. Their primary benefit is to the biceps which are being worked through armed drill naturally. And the chest muscles exercised along with the way the shoulders are employed benefit the muscle groups which pull the shoulders forward, something we want the exact opposite of to when working to standing with great posture.
Conclusion
We’re not saying that push-ups don’t have a place in a strong conditioning program in moderation. But they certainly don’t have any place as a punishment (erm…”means of accountability and physical growth”) in any drill program.