a fit of fitness

Because astronaut, warlock, and more powerful astronaut are not feasible career tracks at this time, I've recently decided to apply for a job as an FBI Special Agent.  This seems an odd choice given my lack of propensity for stealth, but makes more sense in light of my extraordinary propensity for gathering information that with greater likelihood than not proves to be totally worthless.

I've reviewed the FBI website, which details the physical fitness standards by which it measures applicants.  To qualify as a Special Agent, a candidate must gather points from performance in four fitness tests:

1. Maximum number of sit-ups in one minute;
2. Timed 300-meter sprint;
3. Maximum number of push-ups (untimed); and
4. Timed 1.5 mile run.

However, in addition to ordinary Special Agent positions, the FBI also offers the opportunity for service on a Hostage Rescue Team (HRT).  The HRT entices recruits with the deliciously understated slogan: "Be Where Special Becomes Extraordinary." 

Those Carlsberg "Probably the Best Beer in the World" ad guys sure could stand to take a page from the HRT book.

To qualify for HRT, a candidate must pass an "enhanced" physical fitness test, which differs from the non-enhanced version by the addition of a pull-up component -- pull-ups obviously being the necessary and sufficient skill that qualifies a Special Agent to negotiate for the return of hostages.


The scoring system for pull-ups is fascinating.  As with the other four tests of fitness, men and women must perform the same task but receive points scored on different scales to account for physiological differences between the sexes. 

A woman who can perform no pull-ups scores zero, as does a man who can do fewer than two.  A man must perform twice as many pull-ups as a woman to achieve the same score.  To score five points, a woman must do five pull-ups; a man, 10-11.  A man need only perform 20 pull-ups in order to score the maximum 10 points.

As someone who has struggled mightily through many a pull-up and yet failed to produce a physical result resembling anything remotely close to an actual pull-up or even elementary pre-pull-up movements, I know it's pretty rich of me to use the word "only" to describe a pull-up sum total of 20. 

But I can't be alone in realizing that a man who can do only 20 pull-ups and a woman who can do 10 are not in the same realm of physical fitness.  If those two hypothetical people stood next to each other, between the two of them the man would no doubt have bigger boobs, no?