As someone who was over 40 when compulsory fitness tests were introduced, I have come to a couple of conclusions over the years.
Firstly, the RPW is a more accurate than the bleep test or the mile and a half run at accurately measuring a person’s fitness. This can be borne out by the amount of people who fail a RPW, but are then told to do the run/bleep test as it doesn’t require any monitoring, you just have to achieve a “level” (I can just see the PTIs now all saying “not me guv”). The downside of this is that old unfit people die everywhere annoying the gym cleaner.
Secondly, the RPW does not allow for “body types”. I have stood next to someone who plays rugby every week and is as fit as a butchers dog, but he weighs 16 stone. You know and I know that that guy could run in circles all day without breaking into a sweat but to the computer he’s “overweight”. The answer to that one is exercise less and lose muscle mass, simples!
So in conclusion, do the RPW if you’re skinny and old but not if you are fit and muscled, do the bleep/run if you are “overweight” and fit or about to have a heart attack and don’t want anyone to know, or lastly, be female and get lots longer to complete the test (I suspect that one is going to be really hard to achieve but the image of the stoning scene from “life of Brian”, but in reverse, springs to mind).
I’ve done (passed) my last one ever and I’m off for a ciggy, so enjoy!