US Army plans biggest Crossfit study ever

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Which is better at building at hard bodies: CrossFit or standard Army physical training?

Most CrossFitters will swear they already know the answer, but a new $2.5 million study gearing up to launch at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, aims to settle the question of CrossFit vs. Army PT once and for all.

Researchers with Kansas State University’s kinesiology lab will track 20 groups of soldiers — more than 200 troops in all — over four years. Half of the troops will do by-the-book PT training, and the other half will get trained up in CrossFit.

“We’ll be working with two, or maybe four, groups at once,” says Kansas State kinesiology professor Katie Heinrich, who’s leading the effort. Each pair of groups — one doing CrossFit, one doing regular PT — will get a broad range of fitness testing first, then train for six months, then get tested again.

Subjects will be recruited from students and staff at Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff College and Combined Arms Center. CrossFitters will work out at the post’s Iron Major CrossFit box. The others will work out on their own or with their unit, but follow a training plan drawn straight from the service’s most recent workout regs — Field Manual 7-22, Army Physical Readiness Training, released in 2012.

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