Master Sgt. Haskel Johnson works out on a treadmill Tuesday at the Flightline Fitness Center at Aviano Air Base, Italy. The Air Force is looking at ways it can alter its fitness evaluations to provide a better standard of how fit its force is. (Kent Harris / S&S)

It might be time to start taking those push-ups and crunches a little more seriously.

The Air Force, which has been promising changes to the way it evaluates the fitness of its airmen for several years, is trying to transform itself into a leaner — though not necessarily meaner — fighting machine.

In fact, proponents say a fitness approach such as WarFit, a multifaceted program that’s currently being used by the Air Force Space Command, will give more people a better chance of staying in the military and making many of them healthier in the process.

“If I were king of the world, I’d implement it today,” Col. Jon Pearse said of WarFit.

Pearse isn’t king of the world. He’s the commander of the 90th Medical Group at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming. Warren was the pilot base for WarFit and has been using the program for almost a year.

Deena Ellin, an exercise physiologist hired by Space Command to coordinate the program, refers to it as “individual fitness with unit support.”

Pearse said the program is the product of discussions at Warren, which — like other bases around the globe — has been losing experienced airmen who failed to meet the Air Force’s body weight standard. So Bruce Brady, the 90th Space Wing’s retired command sergeant major, and Pearse discussed how to create a program that provided a better measurement of an airman’s overall fitness as well as a plan on how to get those scoring low in better shape.

WarFit’s test consists of four parts: a bicycle test, similar to the one the force currently uses, to measure aerobic fitness; push-ups and crunches — totaled separately – to measure muscular strength; and a body-fat calculation that measures fat.

Results from those four scores are added together and compared to a chart.

That chart, which factors in age and gender — but not rank or job classification — puts people into three categories: low, moderate and high risk. The risks are considered to be health hazards such as strokes, heart attacks and high-blood pressure.

Those in the low-risk category are given a pat on the back and told “basically, continue what you’re doing,” Pearse said. They’re retested in a year.

People falling in the moderate-risk category are told to work out at least three times a week for at least a half-hour. Pearse said such a workout could be “whatever gets your heart rate up to 80 percent of your maximum.”

They get retested in six months.

Those in the high-risk category are assigned five supervised workouts a week. And they get a new test in three months. Pearse said they’re also given advice on their diets and lifestyles — especially if they smoke.

“We’ve even trained some spouses on low-fat cooking and things like that,” he said.

The preliminary numbers at Warren and Los Angeles Air Force Base — the second test site — show that many airmen in the program have improved their test scores within a few months.

Of the 63 airmen retested at Warren, 31 moved up at least one category in a following test. The results were similar at Los Angeles.

“Just some improvement in every category will improve that [overall] score,” Ellin said.

“If people exercise and do the program as directed, well over 90 percent will get better in at least one category,” Pearse said.

Maj. Lisa Schmidt, chief of the health promotions operation for the Air Force Surgeon General, said fitness tests are a reality those in the military have to live with.

Not only are they required annually by law, “testing is a way to monitor the progress of your personal fitness program,” she said.

But she said the Air Force doesn’t want people to just pass a test. It wants airmen to focus every day on getting and staying in better shape, “instead of waiting until someone does not meet the standard.”

She said there seems to be a general agreement that what the force is currently doing isn’t working.

“We were losing a lot of good people and needed to look at it,” she said.

Master Sgt. Gerald Tanner, the top enlisted airman in the Health Promotions Flight at Aviano Air Base, Italy, said he believes a program such as WarFit would help some people at the base.

“Aviano drives people to become unfit,” he said, referring to the pace of operations and the quantity of food and drink available on the economy.

But Tanner is concerned that Health and Wellness Centers around the Air Force will get extra work and no extra staffing.

Schmidt and Pearse said that hasn’t been the case at Warren. More of the burden has fallen at the unit level. People already responsible for body-fat measurements are taking on the additional duties. A suggestion on the table is to hire civilian monitors — possibly spouses — to take over the program’s monitoring.

Another push is giving airmen time during their work hours to stay in shape.

Pearse said Warren has pushed for units to do just that.

“We’ve encouraged them, we’ve cajoled them, we’ve done everything short of telling them they have to,” he said.