Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on May 17, 2018.
After years of study, experimentation, and pilot testing across the force, the Army appears to have settled on a new physical fitness test—the Army Combat Readiness Test, or ACRT. This new six-event test will keep the two-mile run from the current Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), but scraps the push-ups and sit-ups in favor of leg tucks, a medicine ball power throw, three-rep max dead lift, “T” push-ups, and a shuttle sprint-drag-carry. The ACRT follows a trend among the military branches, as the Marines, Navy, and Air Force have all adopted new tests and grading standards in recent years to better assess physical requirements expected of their service members.
Still, “everybody’s doing it” isn’t a sufficient reason to abandon the APFT—a physical fitness test that has been in use for almost forty years. So why is the Army doing it? The general argument against the APFT is that it focuses only on muscular and aerobic endurance and its events bear little resemblance to combat-focused physical tasks. The ACRT aims to fix all that by testing endurance, strength, explosive power, speed, and agility through events that mimic warfighting tasks like carrying ammunition, moving a casualty, and lifting a soldier over an obstacle. But, the new test comes with a few challenges that need to be addressed.
The ACRT, for example, is comparatively much more time intensive than the APFT. Each set of equipment allows approximately five soldiers to complete the full six-event ACRT in seventy-five minutes. In an infantry battalion with ten sets of equipment and eight hundred soldiers, completing the ACRT will take sixteen days—three work weeks—if limited to normal morning PT hours. Since the current APFT throughput is only limited by the number of available graders, an entire battalion can easily complete the APFT in a single PT session. While there are ways a battalion could adjust to make executing the ACRT more efficient, the financial cost is more significant.
Beyond consuming more time, the ACRT transition is going to be expensive. A battalion’s set of equipment, or ten ACRT sets, is estimated at $12,000. With hundreds of battalions across the Army—combined with geographically dispersed units like the more than 1,100 ROTC campus locations, 1,600 recruiting stations, or US Army personnel stationed in embassies worldwide that need their own sets—startup costs for the ACRT could easily reach into the tens of millions of dollars, if not higher. That’s a big budget pill to swallow after almost four decades of a nearly cost-free physical fitness assessment. That also doesn’t address associated costs of equipment replacement over time, or potentially reconfiguring on-base fitness facilities to allow soldiers to train for these news tasks.
While the ACRT has been sold as a means to reduce soldier injuries, the new test introduces physical tasks that require proper training and monitoring, such as the dead lift and medicine ball power throw. According to the Army Public Health Center, musculoskeletal injuries account for 70 percent of all medically non-deployable personnel, and weight-bearing and exercise-related activities account for roughly 50 percent of all non-combat injuries. Many of those injuries result from overtraining and improper exercise. A perfect example is the ubiquitous sit-up—the APFT’s core strength test—which has long been known to cause lower back pain and injuries. That’s why the Marine Corps has phased them out. New exercises require trained leaders demonstrating proper form and enforcing standards.
But, the general response has been positive in pilot testing across the force, as most soldiers see the ACRT as a better total fitness assessment. As such, transitioning to the ACRT brings new opportunities—but also new requirements to correct some of the more systemic fitness program failings that have plagued the Army for years.
The Army must train the trainers.
Army PT is generally a platoon-level function. That means the Army relies primarily on junior NCOs, platoon sergeants, and lieutenants to develop and sustain a fit force. The problem is that few, if any, of these leaders are actually certified to manage a fitness program. They may be trained in how to run physical training and perform exercises, but that is fundamentally different from developing a fitness program that ensures soldiers are prepared for the type of complex drills found in the ACRT.
This is an easy fix. The Army has a Master Fitness Trainer (MFT) Course already, and that course can be adapted before the ACRT takes effect. With only a two-week resident school portion, MFT should be integrated into training for new NCOs (Basic Leader Course) and new officers (Basic Officer Leader Course), and then built upon in later NCO and officer schools. The best way to build readiness while preventing injuries is to invest time in training the trainers.
To reduce the costs and replicate combat conditions, use combat equipment.
Several ACRT tasks tie directly to physical requirements in combat—this is arguably its biggest advantage over the APFT. The shuttle sprint-drag-carry in particular includes a weighted sled pull that resembles evacuating a casualty, and the kettle bell carry simulates moving with ammunition cans. To save money and even better replicate combat conditions, the Army could replace ACRT-specific equipment with items readily available in the force.
Rather than purchasing kettle bells to simulate carrying ammunition, why not carry ammunition cans? Rather than selling all of the huge number of ammunition cans the Army goes through to the public (a very common practice), it would be easy to fill them with a set amount of weight and use them for the test. Also, rather than investing in a new type of sled to pull around a couple 45-pound plates, why not use the standard-issue SKEDCO litter system? Standardizing the weight is simple, and using the SKEDCO would reinforce an actual tactical task.
Incentivize exceptional performance.
The Army has started doing this already, particularly for enlisted service members. Aside from earning promotion points that increase with a soldier’s overall APFT score, the Army’s Select-Train-Educate-Promote policy has already integrated the APFT into all professional development schools. Passing the APFT is a requirement to remain in the course, and APFT failure results in immediate dismissal and a negative formal evaluation. Promotion to the next higher grade requires completing the associated school, and the APFT is now a part of that.
But in many cases, Army height and weight standards often have little connection to performance. Human builds vary widely, and it isn’t uncommon for a soldier to max an APFT but have to be “taped” because he or she is too heavy according to the Army’s height/weight chart. But if performance is what matters (and it should be), the Army should adopt something similar to the Marine Corps’ policy for testing body composition. For Marines who achieve a score of 285-300 on the Marine Physical Fitness Test, the height-weight test is waived, and those that score 250-284 are granted an additional 1-percent body fat allocation. Though the scoring for the ACRT has not yet been determined, the Army should consider something similar for soldiers who achieve a maximum score. Such a policy incentivizes fitness and a commitment to high individual performance.
Make the ACRT part of a culture shift to health and fitness.
Army leaders have already identified the need to address more than just a physical fitness test. The ACRT is one change among many that address a much-needed cultural shift towards health, wellness, and fitness. One concept being explored would create Soldier Performance Readiness Centers—one-stop shops for all things fitness. These centers would be designed to address the nutrition, rest, mental, spiritual, and physical components of fitness. Part of the design is to educate and integrate an increasingly fitness-challenged incoming population of recruits, while also providing resources for career service members.
Complementary to that is the need to address military dining facility challenges. Over the past several years, military dining facilities have seen dramatic patron decreases, even among single soldiers who can eat for free. Reasons run the gamut from poor selection to long lines to location inconvenience to challenges with facility hours and work schedules. Some dining facilities are getting creative to draw soldiers back. They’re providing grab-and-go options during hours outside meal times, introducing healthier meals and rotating menus, and even looking at food-truck capabilities to compete with less healthy and more costly retail services. This is the type of creative approach the Army must institutionalize to really create a culture of health and fitness.
The ACRT demonstrates an institutional willingness to buck tradition in order to find more effective ways to build and sustain a healthy and capable force. This new test has been years in the making, has been piloted repeatedly at numerous installations, and has evolved to ensure the events provide a more comprehensive fitness assessment. While there are still challenges to be addressed, the ACRT provides an opportunity to correct some of the ills that have plagued physical readiness training for nearly four decades. This test is a move in the right direction.
Image credit: Sgt. Kelsey Miller, US Army
How do we max it? What are the reps, times and weights required? Thanks
Great question – scoring plan hasn't been finalized yet.
I have the paperwork at work, but it's proposed
15min 80 max t pushups.
3 min 15 max knee tucks
It's cm for the ball throw but comes out to something like 14ft-45ft
Sprint drag carry is 1:30-3:30
Deadlift is 170-405 and up
2 mile Run is 11:30-1930….
These are of the top of my head.. don't quote me exactly
Does individual size and weight matter? Is there a female and male standard?
Having equipment for this test consolidated at the battalion level may work for active duty but in the National Guard or Reserves a company's battalion HQ might be located on the other side of the state. The time factor is a much greater issue when you only have 2-3 days a month to train. With the APFT a whole company can be complete and back in ACUs ready to train in 1-1.5 hours with perhaps 8-10 graders. Also, in the linked article the sleds were pulled across a grass field. Dragging something across grass is a lot easier than across dirt, gravel, or a concrete floor. I'm curious if the testing took that into account or just assumed every unit has a nice grassy field to conduct PT.
In the USAR your battalion HQ may be in a completely different state.
Exactly right about the surface used for the sled push. My last guard unit was across the street from an astro turf field, where a sled moves much quicker than the gravel parking lot. Will be curious to see if the standards address this.
Historically, things like evacuating casualties, lifting ammunition, and climbing over obstacles, were dependent on muscular and aerobic endurance, which the old test directly measured. Moreover, one need not "mimic" anything to test those things: one has, historically, simply tested them directly. It seems to me that the entire point of the new standards is that they disguise the actual levels of endurance and strength soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines require. They also therefore make it easier to hide the enormous physical differences between the sexes, and I suspect that is a major part of the re-design of the fitness standards. As to the better conditioning and thus fewer injuries argument, one is not likely to be able to pace a force this way in sustained combat against peer enemies. The old tests recognized that. And, incidentally, the female injury rate is about 3-4x that of the men in every military force in the world. Hide that in training and discover it to one's regret in war.
I'm not sure where you got that the new test hides gender differences and the old test didn't.
Maybe you can explain how the new test does this.
The old test – pushups, situps, and a 2 mile run – "hid" gender differences because, 1 – the test had nothing to do with anything relevant, and 2 – female standards were much lower, especially for the pushups. Therefore, a female could "max" the APFT test, but that told you nothing about her ability to actually do anything important.
Same can be said for males. I score 300 and am no way functionally fit. I'm just skinny and can run. No way I could pick up and carry a dude in full kit that weighs 50 lbs more than me.
" female standards were much lower, especially for the pushup"
I believe you meant to say "Sit-ups". Push-up standards and run times are drastically different.
http://tradocnews.org/tag/acrt/
Rick, it’s a 1.5 mil in this article posted 2weeks ago. Also I don’t see where test has actually been approved. I remember back in 2011ish when the Army was at the same junction with a previous test. Then scrapped it as they were testing on active BCTs. Probably for much the same cost and time durations mentioned. Agree with use of equipment, why simulate when you have literally thousands of the thing to be simulated.
It is gratifying to see the Army finally moving away from the APFT. The APFT drove many people to simply do 3 things for physical training: some push ups, some situps, and go on a 2 mile run. It's sole benefit was that it is cheap to execute.
It's way past time that the Army gets more scientific in its approach to training, to include scientifically measuring performance. This means not just measuring performance of the individual (or group) being assessed or tested, but also being scientific about what the right standards are. This needs to be applied beyond just physical training, but also to ALL training: administrivia, individual, crew, collective.
Sometimes it seems as if absolutely no thought is given to how many "repetitions" of a given training task are required for an individual to become competent at the task, how competent the instructor(s) need to be, and what skills need to be trained.
For example, from my personal military career (which ended 7 years ago), pistol marksmanship stands out as the worst resourced, most obsolete, most unscientific, and least effective training in my time as an enlisted Soldier and then career officer. After I retired from the Army, I personally bought some 1,000 round cases of ammo and have become a better pistol marksman than I ever was in the Army. I have been able to train things never addressed in the 9mm qualification "Preliminary Marksmanship Instruction" (definition: some NCO got tasked to give a class at the range about something he didn't really know anything about). These include such skills as drawing and point shooting, switching hands , weak hand shooting – by no means have I become an "expert", but I have realized how freaking incompetent the Army was at training pistol marksmanship, at least in conventional units. This is just unacceptable. The Army should be excellent at training, and we are not, at least we are not much of the time.
As for crew and collective training, I'm not sure at all that the Army applies scientific rigor to determine what tasks an Apache crew, or tank crew, or Stryker crew needs to train. A lot of the gunnery requirements seem to be based on a bunch of experienced, well meaning senior NCOs/WOs writing the gunnery table requirements. But how do we KNOW what the optimal training is? It is 2018, if we wanted to, we could instrument and measure EVERYTHING about crew performance, and develop statistics on how much training it takes to get an average crew to meet an objective standard.
Physical fitness is a good place to start, but that should be just the beginning of putting some science and rigor into training.
I agree with 100% of what you said.
I agree except for your opening sentence. If you only trained for the APFT/ ACFT events then you are a failure. Everybody is stuck on this combat simulation for physical fitness training. It’s amazing how the army managed to fight all the wars prior to the last 20 years. Just because individuals and units failed to diversify their physical fitness to include realistic, functional training and tired easily on the battlefield is a reflection on poor leadership. The only thing that prepares a soldier physically and mentally is tough, realistic and simulated combat training.
We are hearing the same complaints now with the new ACFT, inevitably units will train to max the test and fail at executing the intent. I can tell you that tossing a ball backwards overhead translates into nothing combat related. I disagree with any physical fitness related being referred to as a test. It is an assessment to be used by the leadership and master trainer to gauge overall readiness to perform your job in extreme environments. It is arguably much more mental than physical. It is a tool for the commander and not a badge for the uniform. Does the new ACFT prepare for combat in the jungles and rainforest versus the Himalayan Kush, Iraqi desert or Norway?
The old APFT was a baseline just as any subsequent fitness program will also be the bare minimum. We simply cannot recreate combat experience nor should we. We can add stressors physical, mental and those can be as simple as a timed push up, sit up and 2 mi run or the current ACFT.
Will there be a standard that holds women accountable to the same standard as men? Hmmm, we'll see. I doubt it. We'll probably continue to play make believe, and talk the talk about enforcing standards, while looking the other way as women are passed along and men are flagged for having the same raw score!
I assume you are new to planet Earth. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that men are generally larger and more muscular than women. This is due to genetic differences and cannot be remedied by an angry comment on the internet.
Tim – From what I have read on the subject, the standards are supposed to be the same irrespective of gender or age. That might not be how it all ends up, but that's how I understood it from an earlier article somewhere.
Tim – I hope to god the standards are the same for males and females. It’s the only way we can finally stop listening to you and your Bitter Troll cohort stop complaining. I’m female, 5’6 and 135 lbs. I workout daily. Also, I’m willing to bet I’d crush you on this test AND sprint/drag/carry your broke, bitter a$$ to a medic in less than the prescribed time. Thanks for your service (assuming you put some money where that mouth is) and you’re welcome for mine 😉 – one team, one fight!
My concern is the crazy amount of time that this “test” will eat up for USAR and ARNG unit’s. We don’t have enough time as it is, and most units don’t have nice, grassy PT fields. We have to schedule use of tracks and fields with schools, colleges, and bodies politic with the understanding that we won’t be there for more than a couple of hours. Try competing with a college ball team for use of an athletic field in the cooler months. Now, this just shot our biggest selling point for use of public facilities..a tiny footprint…all to hell.
“Oh, but you’ve got all Saturday and Sunday!” Really? How many people here willingly take the APFT at 1500 in August at FT STEWART, Camp Blanding, or even the epicenter of Mickey Mouseishness…FT Jackson…where the saying is the only difference between Columbia and Hell in the summertime is a screen door? No one. Do people not see the disadvantage one troop will have over another by simple scheduling? Even alphabetically, midrange names will catch hell.
This has Great Idea Fairy written all over it. Frankly, this test was not developed with the RC in mind. Just like several other “initiatives” by Mother Army with a garrison focus, such as the wonderful ADPAAS system..
“Well, you probably don’t do APFT to standard, anyway.”
Really? That sure isn’t going to happen, now. While the legacy APFT wasn’t perfect, it was able to be executed by an RC unit several hundred miles from an installation. This troublesome trend of saddling organizations with onerous requirements isn’t high standards, it’s foolishness!
While your complaint about time is valid, location and weather should not affect your ability to conduct a physical activity. I’ve been at fort Polk for years and we take pt tests all year long and have conducted them after 1300 in mid July. As a soldiers we should be able to adapt to any climate to meet physical demands
You may be correct that Soldiers fight rain, sleet, snow or blazing hot sun but this isn't a firefight in Iraq, purposely exposing your troops to high heat, high humidity weather for a purposely physically demanding task is begging for trouble.
The Army has a huge issue with heat casualties as it is, there's no reason to toss fuel to that fire.
This test will be end of soldiers careers fresh out of ait lol. Most these kids can't wipe there butt correctly. No matter how much you try to paint a turd to look pretty, you will get the same result. Apft now isn't broke. You got some soft soldiers and bad recruiting standards. I just saved the army millions.
Focus on fixing the ACTUAL problem. Which is how PT is conducted at the unit level. Look at what SOF is doing with Thor3. Now look at how idiotic the standard Army conducts PT and then they wonder why everyone is a broken soldiers running around and half of the units are on profile, sick, or damaged. Keep training like its 1935 running people into the ground and you think changing a PT test is going to anything? This entire component has its head ups its own rear end. And trust me I'd like to be
way more explicit but they'd probably remove the comment for the honesty.
The sad part is, most units aren't even doing PRT as prescribed by AR 7-22. They are doing their own "custom" plan, but throwing the PRT preparation/recovery drill at the front and back, calling it PRT, then blaming injuries and low performance on PRT, rather than their uneducated approach to unit level fitness and injury prevention.
You are absolutely correct, unit level leaders are dumb on the topic of physical fitness, opting for tradition over knowledge and effectiveness. They want to maintain what's comfortable for them, so they don't have to learn anything new before they retire. Pure laziness.
Agreed-the issue is how we conduct PT. If we trained like professional athletes (which technically we are), we wouldn’t be “in season” all year round. We would have pre-season, season, post season, off season…In other words, we wouldn’t beat our bodies up year round without rest periods and expect our bodies to optimally perform under the abuse. We would gear up and down and allow the body to train hard and then rest for certain periods. Maybe even weeks or months at a time.
The Army is filled with cases of “overuse” injuries and yet we still overlook the above. We need athletic trainers and exercise and conditioning coaches as well as more sports med influence on our physical fitness program. Let’s stop pretending we are bionic soldiers who cannot be broken and adhere to a realistic standard of training and recuperation.
No one will get trained to give this. The same incompetent NCOs that have been conducting PT, with no grasp of exercise physiology or human anatomy will conduct them with only a baseline knowledge of what it requires.
That is unfortunately so true. We have too many people who lead by the "let's just do a bunch of stuff" approach, but have no clue what to do if there method proves ineffective. In those cases, instead of educating themselves as leaders, they just blame the Soldier, yet don't know how to teach the Soldiers to do it better.
We have a lot of fools within the ranks that think they are carrying the torch of the old ways, but who's ignorance are actually causing more damage to the force than helping.
"The ACRT, for example, is comparatively much more time intensive than the APFT. Each set of equipment allows approximately five soldiers to complete the full six-event ACRT in seventy-five minutes. In an infantry battalion with ten sets of equipment and eight hundred soldiers, completing the ACRT will take sixteen days—three work weeks—if limited to normal morning PT hours."
Just some observations:
1. This is a non-starter on time
2. When do soldiers practice for the test? -With the old PT test you could practice anywhere and anytime.
3.With the the "old" APFT as you practiced for it you got stronger and your cardio capacity increased.
4. The old "APFT" was simple, inexpensive and world-wide deployable…and could be done in 2 hours or less.
5. If people thought the situp hurt lower backs…how does the requirement for three deadlifts help your back?
6. It seems to me that anything that makes PT Tests more expensive, more time consuming , and more reliant on equipment is going in the wrong direction
To answer #1 & #2: The lack of time to train physical fitness is more of the problem than is a physical fitness requirement that requires time. The Army needs to rethink its work distribution and prioritize more time toward physical fitness training, instead of screwing Soldier's over by prioritizing "easy" over effective.
To answer #3: While partially true, in a sense that every exercise can become "cardio," the "old" APFT did not measure functional fitness, which is more important in combat than simply passing a seemingly arbitrary test to remain employed. There is a reason we see more and more units and Soldiers gong to the gym AFTER PT or COB, because their training for the "old" APFT doesn't align with their actual physical requirements for their job.
To answer #4: Simple does not always equate to effective. Inexpensive does not always equate to quality (think of the saying "made by the lowest bidder." Being able to produce a similar product for less cost means something/someone is getting shorted, unless they developed a revolutionary material/technique. As far as world-wide deployability, I agree, but I also don't think we need to require a physical fitness test while actively in a combat zone. Do the test before deployment, then pick up the training program again upon return.
To answer #5: Sit ups cause unnecessarily frequent contact between your back and the ground, and due to the race against the clock on the APFT, injury producing form is ignored for the sake of passing. Plus the situp primarily messaged the hip flexors and abdomen, yet caused injuries of the neck and back. . . The dead lift can be dangerous for the lower back as well, but removing the high repitition situp in place of a low/slower repitition weight focused deadlift, means Soldiers can actually focus on form safety for the few lifts they must conduct.
To answer #6: I understand your perspective, but I simply disagree. I think more time, money, and equipment need to be focused on developing Soldier fitness. Our bodies are all we have, yet we place low priority on their physical development, instead opting for easy, inexpensive, and convenient. We need to start investing in ourselves more like the F-35, rather than a cheap throw away piece of GI equipment.
And the brains behind all of this have probably bought stocks in the companies that will provide the equipment! Some people (officers) are about to make a lot of money!
How does throwing a medicine ball, backwards, replicate anything we do in combat?
How does the T push up measure anything that is done in combat any better than the regular push up?
Deadlift: the deadlift is a very technical lift that requires extensive training to do with proper form, with heavy weight, without getting injured.
Where is the back muscle/pulling motion. Soldiers need to climb over walls, up onto trucks, up ropes, etc. There needs to be a pull up type event.
And what about the profiles. They just changed the way those are generated. So now, Restrictions will need to be adjusted as well.
My thoughts exactly!
The worst part of this is the cost of all that equipment, the space for storage of it and length of time for the test. For Reserve component soldiers, they have limited time already on the weekends where APFT is required. Nothing surprises me after 34 years if service. If it is truly going to be a soldiers responsibility to be fit, make up a second conditioning schedule for non-equipment. Something they can practice without equipment. Just another new cost that will not stand the test of time. Have fun and get ready for serious profiles from the dead lifts. Unfit soldiers and overexercion equals disaster. My suggestion. Go back to the1950 high school physical fitness tapes and follow the past. Those kids were fit! LTC Mark Green (retired)
same here
All I can say is, it's about time. We invest so much time and money into developing non-human technology (aircraft, ground vehicles, etc), and even human augmentation technology, justifying it for the greater good, but then we advocate to go cheap on physically developing the actual person.
I don't see the time and cost of don'conducting the ACRT to be a bad thing. We need to continue to shed a lot of the mandatory computer based training to free up more time to focus on physical fitness. At the end of the day, our ability to move "stuff" (including our own person) from point A to point B is the most important combat related task that underlies everything else; we NEED to train it better, because our equipment is only getting heavier.
It is when half of us can’t even get paid because our unit is already out of money. Now having to spend so much more on stupid stuff that we are only going to use every 6months? It’s stupid and it’s going to cost us a lot. I know a lot of people with back problems who aren’t going to be able to do a dead lift. Fuck I don’t even know how to do one properly .. last time I tried I slipped a disk in my back and was laid up for a month….so there’s more money they army will be paying (medical). ..are they going to give us classes on how to do these so we don’t get hurt? Cause there’s more time and money. And that’s just one event.. and as for time we can’t get the shit we need to get done now because we don’t have time I have a shit ton of viks that need services that I can’t do because we don’t have time. There’s a lot of broken people in my unit and thats without adding the hanging from bars dead lifts and on top of it all running 2 miles. As for equipment getting heavier what is getting heavier? Because all my shit has gotten a fuck ton lighter… from my iotv I got in 2011 to my little plate carrier I have now… hell even the mounts have gotten lighter because it’s more efficient . I do agree the pt test need to change but it needs to be something that isn’t going to brake us that isn’t going to bankrupt are units and take away from training. And it needs to be something that is actually going to help us in our careers. Like why are 11B and a 19D doing the same pt test as a 92Y or an 88m? Most army’s have test and events biased on what mos you are. Because we all don’t do the same shit everyday and we don’t do the same shit in combat.
Women? Zero mention. And as a female Army veteran, I think it's funny that Tim thinks women are passed along, while men aren't? Hahaha. What Army are you in Tim?
How do I get my Field Artillery Battalion into the trial of this?
I have said that with all things being equal – all things are not equal when it comes to the Army Physical Fitness Test. When females were allowed into the Combat Arms, I wondered how it would be treated if they could not do the same physical requirements as I demand on the men (think lifting 20-30 155mm rounds during a resupply). To be honest, there were males that couldn't complete the requirements. I have some questions though:
1: Why have it be based on a points scale? Why not have it as a go/no go process or make it 3 different grade points like an NCOER – FAILED, Standard (because we train to a standard right?), Excelled.
2: What happens when someone holds more than one MOS? Are they tested on the more stringent requirements? They should be. If someone holds the MOS of 11 or 13 – I would want them to be able to achieve the same "Standard" for Combat Arms. THEN maybe we will be used in our job skill by the Defense Department.
3: With the National Guard and Reserve's comprising of 49-51% of the force, has anyone thought about how the lack of training resources would be directly proportionate to their overall scores? Currently, members of the Active Component get time in the day to conduct physical fitness with a dietitian, free gym membership and free medical. Members of the RC who work a regular profession and complete military duties on the side (sometime for fun of comraderie as Infantry and Artillery) that must pay for gym memberships and health-care and actually lose money to attend their drill. There is no Free anything in the civilian side and the "old" APFT would allow soldiers to complete their "workout" with no additional resources. This new system, while functionally better, places a whole lot more burden on the RC service member. Think of it like when they did away with "Common Core" and went to the SSD system. For an AC Soldier, this is no big deal but for a RC Soldier, this adds a much larger burden and takes MORE time away from family without compensation and the only comment is: "If they want to get promoted (now if they want to stay in the military or be a leader) than they will take the extra time." This does not compute for someone that works 50-60 hours a week with a wife and multiple children.
4: Will weather be included into the testing? While some may say there is no difference between a 0 degree and a 100 degree day OR a nice warm day after an 18 hour training day (Field people) and flying in sideways hitting you in the face rain.
5: How will Physical Profiles work for this? I have had back surgery from deployments and being a stupid artilleryman in my youth so how would a physical profile be measures and will people be exempt? Would exemptions cause non-leadership selections until Soldier has meet "Standard"? Would males and females that don't meet "standard" for their MOS be required to re-class after so many attempts in a given year or two year period?
These are some questions that I have with multiple more stirring round my head with the more that I read. I do want my Field Artillery Battalion (The Great State of Indiana) into this testing phase for it is the way of the future.
The ACRT seems to be a terrible idea. True, it could possibly receive a 'go' after being tested on select, specially-trained AC Soldiers. But it's so impractical for the RC that it should be considered as entirely not applicable. And regardless of component, expect the number of disabled Soldiers to go through the roof.
More disturbing is the apparent 'vision' behind this thing. The desire to have super-athletes as Soldiers seems to be based more in admiration of recent action films than in the realities of current human resources, the actual levels of physical exertion during combat deployments, the disturbing number of injured Soldiers, or the importance of the RC as part of the force.
Is the intent to transform a million-Soldier Army to a much smaller, AC only, force of triathlon wannabes? Granted, maybe that's overstating it. But one does have to wonder: what exactly, is the desired end state?
There needs to be extensive testing on this in the Reserves and National Guard. The time it takes to issue this test for a standard size unit intrigues me. Getting that equipment deployed to the various reserve component locations across the country will be staggering. There are quite a few challenges that need to be addressed before this is fully approved and pushed to the field. If you don’t and just push out the guidance it will be a disaster.
OK fine! We're all Soldiers and well get the job done like we always do…but I have a huge concern. How the tell are we going to get it done? My major point regards those old timers and others with highly endorhermic metabolisms.
Right now we have a force who's bodies were trained to excel at three events, pushups, sirups and a two mile run. Adding all these additional events does a much better job of testing a Soldier's physical preparedness for combat but how do we get them to a passing level without breaking 51% (Reserve/NG) of our entire force? How do we get our troops to passing when they're over 40 and already partically broken from multiple deployments? Some of these events require proper form and proper training to prevent injury and that is one thing the Army notoriously is terrible at, preventing injuries.
Rick – Great read. I have General Frost coming in for a meeting, so this got us up to speed. I'd like to talk to you about getting some of this type content into the DEP via Sandboxx. Please shoot me an email when you have some time to talk. – Sam
I’m 32 Years old what do I have to score in each level in order to pass
yes
Well, lucky me. I will have to retire after 22 years, and hope that PT stud E2 can work up an OPS plan. OK, maybe not the best example, but we will lose lots of experience.
The article implies that the thorough of the test is 5 per 75 minutes. This is not the value to extrapolate how long it will take to test everyone. My evaluation of the test does show that the first 75 minutes will complete 5 Soldiers. But that is not where you want to extrapolate from for subsequent hours. In fact, the test structure supports the completion of 11 Soldiers per lane of equipment after the first hour. Due to the test being sequential in nature, there is no way to shotgun start the test in order to obtain the benefits of all equipment being in use at the same time. Thus, the first hour only supports the completion of 2 Soldiers per lane of equipment.
Is there a cap on rank or is this test MOS specific? Does this test go up the rank chain as well?
The discussion on how impactful it is for active duty intrigues me on how a reserves forces individual is going to keep up. Imagine the injuries for those that can only perform these exercises once a month (if that frequently). Some have no access to specialty equipment. Some work in offices all day and are not afforded paid PT sessions. It does not make sense to apply those standards to a part time force and expect similar results.
Philipp, how did the Reserve Component train for the old 5 event PT test prior to 1980? That test required specific equipment not often found at a civilian gym (overhead ladder, Run-Dodge-Jump), and yet they somehow managed to get the job done. At least with the ACFT all the equipment used is easily found in many civilian fitness facilities or sporting goods stores.
Which means buying, spending money. Are you telling an E-1/E4 to go spend $500 or even more in equipment or gym memberships in order to pass the ACFT? really? wake up. We have problems making them pass the actual PT test and now they come with this? I
My major complain with this is that it still has push ups (though modified) and 2 mile run. If push ups and 2 mile run in APFT weren't good at measuring the readiness of combat situations why even bother including these in the new test? I can only imagine so many soldiers getting back injuries after deadlift reps, especially ones that try to impress others and to hit the max. People always complain about sit ups. That's understandable, but keeping those push ups and 2 mile run, adding more tests and telling soldiers that the Army is hoping to reduce injuries is just nonsense.
I have never seen anyone in combat dragging people or maneuvering in a PT uniform. If it is a combat fitness test shouldn't it be performed in a combat uniform?
Does this mean we sacrifice looking fit and trim? If a soldier gets 300 this implies he can look outside the fit and trim requirement! Not good!
Should be combat ready at all times. The military should not be your only form of exercise but should be done in your free time as well.