You asked “are most Soldiers in the Army unfit?”: No, I do not think so.   I understand your confusion or perhaps culture shock when you compare your view of what PT looks like at WP versus in the “real Army”.   Consider, first, the population difference both in age and in position.  You’re looking at mid to late 20’s and people who’re going to be future platoon leaders who are in the middle of a 4 year train-up to commission.  You need to be physically fit and ready to take on your job.   When you compare that large  sample size of what in actuality is a small global population against a standard sample size of the average unit, yes, comparatively speaking the junior Soldiers you encounter will probably appear to be “unfit”.  There will be young Soldiers who pass their APFT, but struggle on a unit run. There will be Soldiers who can lift twice their body weight, but are on/off passing their sit-ups.  Whereas at WP it is made very clear that you should strive for excellence as much as you are able.  In summary, the two populations you are comparing is giving you this illusion.  Are there people from both backgrounds that struggle? Yup. Are there others that smoke PT? Yup.  Overall, you’ll probably find it’s a mix.

You also asked about raising PT scores:  I am a believer that while the APFT is a test that you can ‘train for’, you can achieve high PT scores while also achieve health and fitness and mission accomplishment for your Soldiers.  In other words, bring the mindset of an Athlete.  You need to eat well, sleep well, and train well.  It truly ALL matters.  Like a few people above mentioned, that varies based on your unit and your mission.  Maybe you don’t need to ruck as much.   Or maybe your missions depends on you carrying all your stuff on your back.   Here’s where is a great time to apply all the physical fitness knowledge you got at WP.   What helps with running? Having a healthy weight, having strong muscles, taking care (stretching AND warming up) of those muscles. Of course, part of that is also running itself, building speed/distance, not just smoking Soldiers because you can.   What helps with pushups? Well doing them, sure, but it’s a full body exercise.  So I find that circuit training (that, of course, includes pushups) helps with the PT score of pushups.   You get the idea.

(Quick Spoiler Alert, there is no “real Army”. Every unit and post and commander has their own culture.  Unless someone is citing a regulation, I submit to you that when someone says “in the real Army, you check X,” what they mean is that in a certain division on a certain post under a certain commander, X was the standard.   You will be flabbergasted at the things you think are dumb at WP that you will see or feel apply to your experiences in the Army.  You will also laugh at a fair amount of the absurdity of some of the things you worry about now. A lot of what WP teaches you is what you take out of it and how you apply your mind to the situations you will encounter in your career.  Your mileage may vary.)