Everyone is talking about the new Army Combat Fitness Test set to become the standard of fitness measurement beginning in Fiscal Year 2021. Until then, 60 BN-sized units will evaluate the six event test which requires specialized equipment to complete.
On the plus side, the ACFT is designed to more accurately measure Combat Fitness than the current three event Army Physical Fitness Test. On the down side, the ACFT takes a lot of standardized equipment and time to conduct.
Although it has been referred to a variety of names over the past four decades, the three event test was adopted because all that was needed was a stop watch, measured two-mile course and a flat surface to conduct pushups and sit-ups. The test prior to that required a special facility with horizontal bars and a run, dodge, and jump course. In short, the APFT can be conducted almost anywhere with little preparation or equipment. It’s easy to conduct.
What’s more, the Physical Fitness score is tied to promotion with a common scoring system for all. While the ACFT will use a common scale with a minimum, Soldiers in different MOSs and assignments will be required to attain different scores. This undermines its use as a promotion tool.
Adoption of the ACFT will require a significant cultural shift. But enough of that. Here’s a Center for Army Lessons Learned document discussing the ACFT. It tells you everything the Army wants you to know about the ACFT. Enjoy!
(Click here to download pdf)
“Requires specialized equipment to complete” = doomed to failure as a policy.
I’m glad the army is looking at a more holistic fitness measurement tool. The document makes no mention of scoring. Is that separate of this document and has it been published already?
Scoring is covered on page 73 if I understand what you’re looking for correctly.
Towards the bottom of the PDF (page 73) it has the scoring brackets and shows the minimum based off MOS brackets (black, gray, gold).
Forget, for a minute, about sourcing the equipment needed for this test. Forget about the storage needs. Not counting the amount of time and support manpower it’ll take to set up the 16 stations, disregarding the required half a football field of space to run each lane, not counting the amount of time it’ll take to tear down the lanes after the testing is done, just look at the amount of time it takes to test one soldier:
51-54 minutes per soldier, best case with the minimum required rest between stations. Call it an hour. One hour to test 16 soldiers. Two hours to test 32. Three to test 48. And so on. No matter how you slice it, it will take a solid day to test one company. A whole day devoted to administering this test.
Regardless of how effect this test is as a measurement of overall fitness or combat crossfit readiness or what the fuck ever, this is simply not practical. I’m trying hard to rein in my natural inclination towards sarcasm, but this is the best idea the army has had since it chose the Universal Camouflage Pattern.
Agreed
Are you seriously complaining that much about having to spend a whole day, a couple times a year to do a PT Test. Compared to the amount of time wasted doing retarded crap in an average year in the Army this is nothing. It makes you sound lazy.
I have an idea, when a group soldiers is waiting their turn or has already completed the test have them do some other type of productive training. You know, be a fucking NCO and take the down time to do a little hip pocket training. When the day is done you not only knocked out a PT test, but several hours of other quick training sessions.
You can set up some quick training stations for people waiting around, maybe some first aid, call for fire, commo, NBC, doesn’t matter. Instead of complaining, do your job and make it a productive training day.
Lastly, the test should be even longer for 11 series guys. That 2 mile run should be replaced with a 12 mile road march.
Apparently, the enormity of what the Army has taken has eluded you. This fiasco will have to happen more than twice a year because not everyone in a unit is available to test on the same days. What’s more, the physical layout means that on many posts, only a few suitable spots will be available for use. Scheduling will become an issue. It won’t be like now, where multiple units can perform simultaneous tests. And yes, the required equipment will be a major issue.
I completely get that. For a deployed unit it isn’t practical at all. I’m sure changes will come to make it easier to conduct down the road, especially for deployed units. For an NCO or anyone at a company level to bitch is pointless at the moment. Instead start planning on how to make it an actual productive training day that’s more then just a PT Test.
Here is a thought: Retain something like the old APFT for individual testing, and then do a unit-based collective test based on things that unit actually has to do, with their organic gear. For the maintenance sections, use their damn toolboxes and have them load them on their trucks. Tankers can load their ammo, infantry can dig foxholes or roadmarch with their gear; integrate CTT into it all, along with weapons qualifications.
Hopefully, you’re going to be doing training, anyway. Integrate fitness assessments into that training along the way.
I don’t care how they get it done. But this is better than the old APFT. They will have to train for this and that kind of training will make them better under combat The Bats were already training this way.
Hands down will make them more physically capable on the battlefield.
You don’t know me, friend. If you did, if we were face to face, I can absolutely assure you that you would not say anything like what you have posted here. Not because I’m the ultimate bad ass (I’m not, although on a good day I’m kinda sorta bad ass) but because I don’t need advice from you on how to “you know, be a fucking NCO,” and if we knew each other in real life, you would be painfully aware just how foolish you telling me to “be a fucking NCO” makes you sound. I was probably (I’m not sure, because I don’t know you either) being a “fucking NCO” before you were born, and I’m still doing it today, better than most. No brag, just fact.
This test is a bad idea, it’s not practical from and your helpful suggestions about running hip pocket training tells me you are severely missing the point.
Jack makes a very valid point, talk to each other like you’re in the same room.
So, from FM 7-22 (Oct 2012):
The APFT consists of push-ups, sit-ups, and a 2-mile run—done in that order—on the same day. Soldiers are allowed a minimum of 10 minutes and a maximum of 20 minutes rest between events. All three events must be COMPLETED WITHIN TWO HOURS (emphasis mine). The test period is defined as the period of time that elapses from the start to the finish of the three events (from the first push-up performed to the last Soldier crossing the finish line of the 2-mile run event).
Are you really basing your argument on the premise that its preferable to keep a mediocre to poor test of physical readiness to perform soldier tasks because its quick and easy? Do you approach other aspects of training your soldiers with this same attitude–just get it done, who cares about the quality?
I don’t think the APFT is the end-all be-all measure of a soldier’s fitness, but it has been a decent barometer of fitness and ability to perform soldier tasks for a long time. Basically, in my experience, if you’re sucking at the APFT you’re probably not very fit and probably suck at other soldier stuff.
The APFT is, by design, simple and easy and quick to administer and requires no special equipment. That’s the point. This new test none of these things.
As far as my attitude towards training and standards, I’ll tell you what I told mike above: you don’t know me, friend. Be careful about making those kinds of assumptions. Or don’t, who cares. You don’t rate me.
If you are just using your PT test as a way to make it easy to kick people out, the APFT is not a bad tool. It is probably a really bad indicator of fitness for armed conflict. It does shine a light on folks who just don’t care enough to pass the thing though, and that can be useful to leaders wanting to be rid of bad troops. It also is hard to be a total mess from a body comp perspective
It should be noted that everyone who fails these (especially those who don’t do so regularly) does not automatically fall into the bad troop category (unless they are in an MOS where the unit’s own standards are leaps and bounds beyond big Army), but there are far fewer special cases than one would expect reading what folks who fail these kind of tests online write about. Figuring out the difference between an out of shape dirt bag, an out of shape troop who can/should be retained/rehabilitated, and an otherwise fit soldier who had a bad day takes leadership skills and experience that can’t be written into an FM or managed from on high.
The benefit behind the APFT, and other similar “legacy” assessments is their ease of administration. It can be done almost anywhere you have space to run, and it is simple enough even the least bright NCOs and officers on the planet can do it. While planning solely for the lowest common denominator is a sure fire way to mediocrity (at best), failing to take the reality that half a given population is of below average intelligence into account is just as unwise.
All that said, I really want to see the new test work. I will be unsupervised if it does not, but still a little bummed.
You cannot micromanage fitness at the Army level. It will always be at the squad level that fitness preparation is made.
I applaud the effort to come up with objective real-world fitness testing, but… Is there any reason they couldn’t have made it a bit more realistic, and instead of using proxies for the test equipment, could they not have used actual gear and equipment that units have on hand, on the MTOE?
For example… The deadlift? Why the hell not do something like tell the testers to select a piece of organic equipment that falls into the needed weight range, and tell the test subject to load said equipment onto an organic vehicle by themselves? Instead of a sled, have the tester work out the average size of a soldier in that unit, and use the ones near that size as the test dummies for the casualty drag? This would also tend to encourage folks to apply peer pressure to their heavier brethren.
To be honest, I think combat fitness might best be assessed as a unit-level event, and should include the full range of combat skills, including marksmanship. Make it a Marine Corps kind of deal, like their rifle qualification week, and have a full-time dedicated facility to run units through on an annual or semi-annual basis. Keep something like the old APFT for individual fitness assessments, and for those not assigned to discrete units.
Like I said, I like the general idea, but the implementation looks really iffy, here.
That download brought on a whole new level of mental anguish for me over this. Fiasco indeed.
Let’s keep this simple:
Pass / Fail all events
50 sit ups in 2 min heels on deck, no partner holding
50 hand release push ups in 2 – 2.5 min. (more time? less?)
10 pull-ups no kipping, chin above bar, all the way down, elbows locked, pause, back up
1 mile run in 7 min
8 mile hike in 2 hours w 50 lb ruck and two canteens
Twice a year.
Estimated time with 5 min interval between events aprox 3 hours, so it’s a morning.
Cost would be minuscule compared to the oncoming nightmare and it would be much simpler to administer.
How exactly do you do a perfect sit-up, feet remaining flat on deck without a hold either an isolation lock or a partner?? Where you even in the military or do you always throw BS suggestions and dumb questions around?? Oh, BTW I was just curious, don’t take that the wrong way! Lol
I was in the military.
Not feet. Heels on deck. No lock or partner. That’s how we had to do them for the airborne PFT. Or what we were told was the airborne PFT. Takes a little practice but it’s totally doable.
“What you were told”
Really?
Yes. Marines. ANGLICO. If memory serves the 82nd wanted us to pass their PFT if we were going to be supporting them.
Ok, “heels on deck”, not feet flat like every service PFT. I still don’t comprehend how not isolating by having feet “held” or in a lock is a measure of core endurance per your suggestion? My feet and lower legs don’t weigh half my body weight to not prevent them from lifting off the floor w/ out a hold. The point of the sit-ups and push-ups is to measure endurance of core and upper body. How many reps in 2min gives a score based on age fitness ability. 50 sounds like the max for a 70yo male or a 25yo female.
BTW, fitness testing and weekly/daily PT in 3 of the 4 services is pathetic. Only MC and SOF elements get it closer to being functional.
Try doing them. It’s doable but definitely harder. 50 in 2 min seems reasonable to me. I can’t remember what the standard was – this was 1992.
Or…
If we’re including pull-ups, which we should, then replace situps with pull-up bar heel taps.
You make absolutely no sense and don’t even base your recommendation on anything quantitive or physiological. Get back to me when you know how to make sense.
I understand the logisitical concerns with running this test, but the fitness test doesn’t do much to test real world capabilities. Justifying its existence by saying it’s important for promotions is missing the mark-are we testing to understand the resilience and physical performance of warfighters, or testing so we can better figure out when someone should be promoted?
We should also consider how many soldiers currently train without qualified guidance-most training revolves around the fitness test itself, or looking a certain way. Imagine what happens when we replace the current test, and therefore change the end goal for how training should be.
The transition will be painful, but it’s necessary. I really struggle to understand what so many people have beef with-conversations about overmatch capability, the right kind of equipment, techniques and tactics, but when it comes to human performance…keep doing what we’ve always done.
My point is that Army learned this lesson once. It will have to relearn it.
SSD,
Interesting discussion. I have been watching this debate for awhile now. In general, I think the Army is smarter now on physical fitness than it was before – but the newer knowledge and effective application is certainly still not uniformly distributed.
You referenced it earlier, and I lived for several years with the old 5 event test. It was also apparatus centric. Horizontal ladder and Run-Dodge and Jump specifically. In Germany in the late 70s each Division had only two or three sites in sector. Units had to schedule PT tests months out with little flexibility to make changes. Not to mention extensive travel time involved. Even on stateside bases with multiple sites on the same base, the same dynamics made it a challenge to schedule and run the test.
More to the point, it is not just about the test. If the test is properly designed to measure required aspects of physical fitness than using the same equipment on a regular basis should be relevant to building that fitness. Therefore, as others have alluded to, it is absolutely essential that soldiers have access to the gear so that they can train to the standards.
In that case, there has to be practically daily access to the gear – or some reasonable substitutes already on hand as Kirk mentions. The point is building fitness, the test is just a validation that your program is working or failing. This may be a good program, but I suspect the logistics will be too burdensome. And, as you have already pointed out, I believe that ultimately the Army will have to look again for something simpler.
TLB
That is pretty much par for the course, with the Army. Learn something the hard way, decide you don’t like the lesson, forget it, and then have to re-learn it all over again.
One might note a disturbing congruence with the latest dress uniform fad, but I’ll just leave that one alone, here.
The question I do have is this: If we wanted to go to an objective PT test standard, one that measures actual individual capability against a set standard, how would one go about measuring that without special equipment? Unless you resort to using MTOE equipment, I don’t see a way of getting around the necessity of having to acquire special gear for the test.
And, since we’re not going to restrict ourselves to recruiting solely from among a population that has the physical characteristics we need for success in combat, well… Objective standards have to be set, and adhered to.
The Army has allowed the distortion of individual body weight/composition to skew test results for way, way too long. Now that we’re sticking women into the combat arms, there has to be an objective set of standards applied–“Can you lift this much weight” vs. “Can you do a push-up X number of times”. Without that, we’re going to have to accept that physically inadequate soldiers can go into the combat arms, with all the implications thereof.
Personally, I think there needs to be an assessment of individual fitness like the old APFT, supplemented by an MOS-specific set of standards tested with MTOE equipment. “Can you lift this shell into the breech of this weapon X number of times…?”-kind of thing. Some things could probably be proxied for with available gym equipment, but the whole deal needs to be based on things the units have under their control at all times, like ammo crates and vehicles.
Frankly, it’s ‘effing idiotic that we’d ever allow a situation to arise to where you could have an 88M female junior enlisted soldier who can pass the APFT with flying colors, and yet who can’t physically perform the basics of her MOS like load spare tires back onto the trucks unassisted, and the like. Fix that issue, and most of your PT test issues go away, and I highly doubt that there’d be much protest at the whole thing.
This sounds like an enormous clusterfuck to put on by a unit at least twice a year. Every post has and in processing/out processing unit. At Fort Polk, back in the day, people would be loaned to them for 6-9 ?months from various units to do in/out processing of soldiers. Why not make putting on this new very labor and equipment intensive test part of their mission? The test would be given every morning from 6a-8a units could be assigned a date and time every quarter or individual soldiers sign up for a test spot as needed for a promotion packet or school or whatever. The test would be run by experienced NCOs and it would run more smoothly and faster than every unit putting on their own APFT and having the same old jack wagon NCOs getting out of it everytime because they are a grader. SGT Jackwagon would HAVE to get tested and be tested fairly. Being assigned a quarterly slot would assure everybody got in a test at least once every 6 months and NCOs would keep track of who needs to go when.
Eric, I’m confused by your criticism of the test re: promotion points. Required promotion scores are already separated by MOS, so Infantrymen that are expected to score X points on the ACFT compete for promotion against other Infantrymen held to the same ACFT standards. Same goes for Finance clerks, wheeled vehicle mechanics, tankers, usw. How does adopting the ACFT change this?
Anytime there is a comparison of Soldiers, outside of MOS. For example, PME, boards, stratification.
So they get rid of having different standards for gender and Now hold Soldiers to different standards for some other arbitrary reason??? The Army is so confused… they want all of us to see each other as equal; get rid of gender based standards and now add a completely self-imposed one. Damnit! Oh and the only reason MOS should be held to different standard is if there is also a MOS based pay scale.
Norbis, it makes sense to have different standards for different MOSs, because it hurts the Army to lose very qualified people in non-physical MOSs purely due to them not meeting a standard. I absolutely agree that the current standards aren’t difficult to meet, but if we want to keep a programmer in the Army who has never worked out in his life before basic, then we need to find a way to do it without circumventing the entire system just for these special cases.
So they get rid of having different standards for gender and Now hold Soldiers to different standards for some other arbitrary reason??? The Army is so confused… they want all of us to see each other as equal; get rid of gender based standards and now add a completely self-imposed one. Damnit! Oh and the only reason MOS should be held to different standard is if there is also a MOS based pay scale, if we all wear the same ranks, and u informs we should all be held to the same basic standard.
To time and resource intensive and ummmm what about the RC units? This would eat up a whole day. Plus as a RC soldier how are you to train for this APFT, especially since PT is not built into their work day. If a RC soldier was to purchase this equipment needed on their own how much would that cost too. Good idea but shortsighted follow through
This is a great example of good intention with horrible implementation.
If you are going to go this radical it would make more sense to have, say for example, combat arms and non-combat arms PT test or something like that.
I’ll follow up with the concern for Guard/Reserve Soldiers. How the hell do you train for this, on your own, without access to any of the specialized equipment, and then expect Soldiers to pass the test?
You think this will suck up a lot of time for AC units? This will take the better part of the weekend, twice a year to get company sized element through the test. Not to mention there are always Soldiers away at schools, or sick, who won’t make the April and October drills. How do you do a make-up test for these Soldiers? In my units we generally ran an APFT every other month (before the drill start time) to try to keep everyone current. But you could do that with just a few NCOs to run it and grade it. Not with this test. Just the set up and grading will take a lot of time. You could get a whole unit though the old APFT, showered, dressed and ready to train in about four hours and training time is already severely constrained in the RC environment.
In many states, units are so far apart geographically that each armory or drill center will need their own set of equipment just to run the test. Think about running an Infantry company through this twice a year without impacting other training of greater importance.
The active duty will be able to adapt to this, but it’s not gonna work for the RC components.
I was just thinking about the “significant emotional event” just running the test would be in the ARNG/AR world, and then you brought up training to pass it. Spot on. Without regular access to the equipment needed, it will be pretty challenging for individual soldiers to train for the events. And forget about diagnostic tests…
It’s hard enough for a reserve component commander to meet all the Big Army requirements *and* fit in METL tasks. This new requirement will be the center of the Guard/Reserve universe. Bad juju.
You mean like they already are compared cross-MOS with the current APFT? The only hiccup the ACFT introduces in comparing scores is no age adjustment, and that can be addressed by a cultural shift in recognizing and accepting that very few troops are going to max the test, especially as they get older.
Exactly like that. Units and leaders add their own physical standards to ensure capability is met and for esprit de corps. Quarterly 12 mile rucks, timed obstacle courses, UBRR etc are a few I’ve seen. But everyone in those units did the same baseline APFT. I don’t know how the age scale thing should work… I don’t have that answer, but I do know at 35 with 16 years in I can still get a 300 on the 19-21 scale. Im not saying everyone can or that’s how it should be. It’s just never bothered me. I’m also not saying the APFT needs to stay but this is like someone else said them fixing; woodland by selecting UCP.
My key complaint is above all the other obvious reasons this looks terrible, it’s going to hurt Soldiers. They are concerned about injury but going to have untrained, in athletically developed and in some cases unmotivated soldiers do things like deadlift??? I don’t see this going well and a lot of profile issues. I deadlift weekly, but it took years to get it right this seems like a bad idea to me. And that’s just the deadlift event.
Another case of if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
It is “broke” though. This just isn’t the right fix. The current system does not measure combat readiness at all. Secondly my experience is that even though there are fitness standards, soldiers are not held accountable for meeting them.
What’s worse is the Army as a whole and unit level leaders allow do not put a focus on fitness and actually create excuses for soldiers not to do PT.
Perfect example is many units do “Sergeant’s Time” once a week. I get the purpose of that, but there is plenty of time in the day to get in an hour of PT in the morning.
This new fitness test will only make the situation worse. The Army needs a fitness test that can be done in 1-2 hours that requires minimal equipment and actually measures a soldier’s readiness. The last part of that is soldiers need to be held accountable. You fail to meet the standard you should get 60 days to re-train, fail again and you are out of the Army.
A lot of the problem comes from the mentality issues we’ve allowed to grow up in the Army surrounding training–“If it’s not on the schedule, you can’t do it…”, coupled with “Plan training six to eight weeks in advance…”. Bluntly put, the idea that you’re going to have absolute knowledge of things that far out is purest fantasy–There’s always going to be some last-minute BS thrown at you by the chain of command, specific key individuals are going to get sick or be unavailable, and on and on and on… Simply put, the whole idea we’ve had of planning stuff that far out is insane.
Back in ye olden days, before computers? It was all “Squad Leader’s Time”, “Platoon Leader’s Time” and “Commander’s Time” on the mimeographed schedules. Very rarely, you’d see something like “Battalion Commander’s Time”, or a scheduled special event like a ceremony or some kind of big-ticket training event. The rest of the time? You were supposed to have some kind of plan for your level, and be prepared to justify it to higher, when they came around checking on things–And, the higher authorities didn’t hang out in their offices doing email, either. You could generally expect to get a visit from the Battalion XO, the CSM, or even higher, so you kept your guys busy doing stuff you could justify–“MAJ Smith, I’ve got my guys here in the toolroom doing maintenance, and we’re working on familiarizing the new guys with how to use all the tools in the carpenter’s box…”, or “Yeah, we’re using the training aids in the demo box to do individual skills from the SQT manual…”.
It wouldn’t have been entirely out of whack for a squad leader back then to look around at the day’s work, and go “Huh… Y’know, the job’s done, the gym is open and empty… Let’s go do some weight training…”. And, he could do that, because the time was his to fill. Now? Oh, noes… It’s not on the schedule, so even though the damn conduct-of-fire slot fell through because the simulator is broken, we can’t do anything besides sit here and wait, ‘cos the schedule says we’re supposed to be here…
We’ve simultaneously pulled all the authority and responsibility for training way up out of the hands of first-line leadership, while wondering how come they don’t display initiative and enthusiasm for doing opportunity training on their own. The irony is, back in the old days, we had a bunch of mid-level leaders who were kinda sketchy on things, and they were given more trust than we give guys now, who are supposedly so much higher quality than the presumed “scrubs” we entrusted with all that authority and responsibility in the old days…
Can’t quite figure that one out, to be honest. It was like the culture went from handing out free play to cranked-down authoritarian right along with increased quality in the troops, which is kinda-sorta backwards…
The title’s a bit harsh, but this is a pretty good write up on what’s wrong:
https://warontherocks.com/2018/10/dumb-and-dumber-the-armys-new-pt-test/
Here’s the rather unconvincing corporate response:
https://warontherocks.com/2018/10/in-defense-of-the-army-combat-fitness-test/
“Unconvincing Corporate Response” is an understatement. That response literally boils down to “We have spent a lot of time on this and disagree with you. That is all.”
The guy clearly has street cred, but he also doesn’t train for performance or in line with modern standards and scientific understanding. Evidenced by the words kettle ball vs kettlebell. The word kettlebell is in the documentation. A 340#x3 reps Trap Bar deadlift is perfectly reasonable. In the article, the gentleman says a sergeant major will have to increase his Trap Bar DL by 100# to get 100%, making his trap bar DL 240#. That’s just weak. Honestly. Weak. Trap bar is one of the safest and most stable variations we have.
Soldiers need to train to reflect their real world environment. The current test is not reflective of that. I would argue that the current test encourages chronic overuse injuries force-wide and further reinforces bad training practices. How many soldiers do you know with “bad knees”? How many of them ran? I’d venture to say there’s a strong correlation there. Just because they ran doesn’t mean they ran well.
The new testing standards will undoubtedly result in reduced risk of injury, therefore improving force readiness. The data that supports this is undeniable. Look to units already implementing these training practices.
I don’t think there’s any denying that, properly implemented, a soldier that scores highly on this test will be very fit, strong, and less prone to injury. The question a lot of us are struggling with is: does a fitness test really have to cost so much, be so equipment dependent and so complex in order to drive a force toward a desired fitness goal?
I’m sure the science is solid, but I think this is a case of so much time, effort, and money spent that people are afraid to say stop and question whether this really makes sense for the force. I think Jack’s analogy with the universal camouflage pattern is pretty appropriate.
I find it interesting to compare this test, and its equipment requirements, to the ones we find mentioned in this document regarding fitness tests of the Nordic armed forces. Any thoughts on the comparison?
https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/195454/Movingsoldiers012011.pdf?sequence=1
Visit an AUSA event and speak with the Army Officials to see the direction they’re trying to take the Army with this new APFT. Their attempt to imitate the THOR3 program is what they are after. At their Huntsville symposium earlier this year they had mentioned revamping all physical fitness centers on base and providing each Brigade with their own Crossfit styled fitness facility.
Like most have you have stated, you think it’s a waste and you are probably right. The way the training plan was briefed will never fly on the conventional side because everyone in the Army is brainwashed into conducting PT between 0630-0730 every day. I say good luck, hope it works out. I’ll be watching from Fort LivingRoom