WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Air Force is starting a new mandatory unit-based exercise program on Jan. 1 that will include sit-ups, push-ups and runs, something Gen. John P. Jumper hopes will produce leaner troops.

Jumper expects commanders to make sure it happens. The Air Force currently scores fitness with a stationary bike test that everyone must take once a year. What each member does during the rest of the year to prepare for the test is generally up to the individual.

The fitness test itself also will become broader. Although officials are still working out details, troops can expect to be tested on their speed in a 1.5-mile run as well as the number of sit-ups and push-ups they can do. They also can expect a body-composition measurement to see how much fat they carry.

The stationary bike test will remain, but it will be reserved for those who can't run -- who, for instance, have bad knees.

Jumper's directive, issued in July, said increased attention to fitness is needed to make sure personnel can operate in rough places and far-flung locations, Iraq being a case in point. "We deploy to all regions of the world, living in tent cities and working on flight lines in extremes of temperatures," he said.

Fit people acclimate more easily to heat and stress, are less likely to get hurt or sick in demanding conditions, and have better endurance.

The exercise policy also may save the service people and money. The Air Force annually loses 400-600 people who are too out-of-shape to stay in. It also estimates it spends $24 million on medical costs and $4.2 million on lost duty days directly attributable to excess weight.

In the new system, units probably would work out three times a week for 30 minutes, said Maj. Lisa Schmidt, chief of health promotion operations in the Air Force Medical Operations Agency.

Each person would exercise for 30 minutes at an intensity targeted by heart rate, so younger people, whose maximal heart rates are higher, could work out harder than older people. However, a fit 45-year-old still could outrun an unfit 25-year-old, Schmidt said.

Those who are not keeping up will be singled out for extra help, which could include a physiologist to help them train better and a nutritionist to help them learn to eat better.

Units also will vary fitness training around their mission, so medical service centers might schedule training to fit their caregiving demands, Schmidt said. Similarly, units that need to train harder, such as the pararescuemen who fly into enemy territory to bring back downed pilots, will continue to do so, she said.

The Air Force Space Command has developed its own unit-based fitness program, called WarFit. Commanders had noticed that people in the service were doing the same thing that civilians were doing -- gaining weight, said Lt. Col. Chet Roshetko, Space Command's chief of population health and health promotion.

Progress in the WarFit workout is measured by a single number -- a composite score that includes sit-ups, push-ups and stationary bike performance, as well as a body fat test, although the bike component could change to a run in the Air Force's new fitness regimen. The composite could wind up as an Air Force fitness measure, Roshetko said.

In the Marines, where unit exercise is a corps specialty, one expert on physical training thinks the Air Force would be on the right track with exercise programs that could be done anywhere.

The Air Force has developed some really splendid gyms, but all a workout program should need in the modern, mobile military is "a little patch of real estate and the will," said Lt. Col. Brian McGuire.

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.