Luigi59
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It appears the USMC will hold their members to an identical physical standard in order to qualify for combat.
How many pull-ups does it take to make a female Marine?
How many pull-ups does it take to make a female Marine?
The answer, starting next January: a minimum of three, the same number required of male Marines.
If anyone thought the military’s decision to allow women into combat units would lead to exceptions for women when it came to fitness and physical strength, this is one service’s “gender neutral” answer — or at least part of the answer.
Like the men, women will have to perform the exercises on the Marine Corps’s annual physical fitness test as “dead hang” pull-ups, without the benefit of the momentum from a lower-body swing. Like the men, women can do the pull-ups underhanded or overhanded, as long as their chins break the plane of the bar.
The new requirement replaces the old “flexed arm hang” for women, in place since 1975, which had to be held for a minimum of 15 seconds.
“The physical requirements of female Marines, commensurate with their roles, have increased greatly since 1975,” said Col. Sean D. Gibson, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va. “The pull-up is a better test of muscular strength.”
But even for the pull-ups, the Marines are still making some exceptions. To get a perfect grade, women will have to do only 8, compared with the 20 required for men.