The fitness regime kicked off with Charles Maughan of London-Paris air race fame. As OC IX about 1966 he ordered enough Canadian 5BX Plans for all aircrew on the station. They duly arrived from the RCAF and were opened by Central Registry. They saw the word PLANS and immediately sent them to the WAR PLANS Officer. The Vault Officer, realising how dangerous these plans were, secured them in the vault. Actually the 5BX is the best, incremental programme, designed to get you fit and keep you fit, that I have seen.
Next, when Charles became OC Waddo he tried again.
Then in the early 70s, following an article Fit to Survive? The CMedO got the ear of an Air Officer, guess who, and a quarterly 1.5 mile run was introduced for all aircrew. I think only the poor saps in 18Gp where, guess who, was working had to do it.
No time was allowed for training. As far as I know it is RAF Policy only to schedule fitness training in PTC. I did the run, once, without training, and passed. I saw little point in doing the same thing 3 months later especially as those who had failed it had neither the need nor the scheduled time for remedial training. Besides which, running 1.5 miles in x minutes hardly helps when you are stuck in an MS9 500 miles north of Saxa.
Now that we need so few aircrew we can perhaps beging to take it seriously again.