The Army Combat Fitness Test Revisited

If you needed an institutional level example of how NOT to roll out a new program for adoption in your organization (and the Army’s combat uniform debacle of 2004 doesn’t do it for you), look no further than the tortured adoption of the Army Combat Fitness Test — the ACFT. Literally years in the making, this six event test has been a politically fraught, expensive and difficult to implement, and has met with what is, at best, a mixed reception from Soldiers. It could have been so much better, but there is plenty for the Army to learn and improve from.

First, it’s worth briefly exploring the need for the ACFT. That’s fairly easy to understand. The American populace has never been less fit and the physical demands of Soldiering haven’t changed all that much. Over the last two plus decades of conflict, the Army has seen a number of Soldiers incur significant musculoskeletal injuries based on the stresses of service. During active duty and upon retirement, this incurs a significant cost. Beyond the commitment to take care of its people, to prepare them for the rigors of combat, it just makes sense from a cost standpoint to ensure they are more fit and thus less costly. The Army’s previous record test — the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) — included just three events: push-ups, sit-ups, and the 2-mile run. Soldiers trained to pass this test, but the test itself didn’t encourage holistic or “functional” fitness. The ACFT is, foremost, an effort to ensure Soldiers cultivate functional fitness as they train for the test — it is a forcing function.

Second, though bureaucratic inertia and poor implementation have now rendered this point moot, it must be remarked upon that the ACFT was intended to facilitate the effective gender integration of the Army. The ACFT was originally intended to feature an unified scoring system and a military occupational specialty (MOS) — a Soldier’s job — based minimum standard. This author argued as far back as 2011 (in a Stars and Stripes Op-Ed piece) that a unified physical fitness standard was an essential component of effective gender integration. That basic argument still holds; Soldiers performing the same job should meet the same standard and, in doing so, earn their place. There is no room for disagreement on this point from the perspective of Soldier readiness. Alas, readiness is not the Army’s sole concern, and it is here that the controversy starts.

One can host a healthy debate on whether the exercises used for the six-event ACFT as originally conceived were the right choices. They were the 3-rep maximum deadlift (done with a trap bar), the standing power throw, hand release push-up arm extension, sprit drag carry, leg tuck, two-mile run. The most current iteration of the ACFT jettisons the leg tuck in favor of the plank and, it can be argued, that it is around the leg tuck that the most controversy swirled and by which some deep institutional failings within the Army were exposed. The leg tuck requires a Soldier to execute what is effectively a half pull-up and touch their knees to their arms. It’s a demanding exercise in the sense that it relies on grip strength, core fitness, as well as the muscles of the back and biceps. An astute reader will note that the 3-event APFT doesn’t have an event that tests Soldiers’ grip, arms and back. The leg tuck required Soldiers that didn’t already possess a high level of fitness to train in a new way to prepare themselves. A significant number failed to do so.

This is the start of the Army’s failure to effectively roll-out and implement the ACFT as intended. That initial failure was exacerbated by the Army’s tendency to conflate fitness with leadership, or at least to use measured fitness as a proxy of sorts when considering advancement and professional opportunities for Soldiers. In combination, the Army experienced two significant issues. First, the Army had far more Soldiers failing the ACFT than was acceptable. Second, the Army had more women failing than men (particularly the leg tuck) and generally scoring lower. Both of these when taken together represent a vertically integrated failure.

The ACFT minimum standard for “heavy” (i.e. combat) jobs was five (5) leg tucks. You could Soldier on in a less demanding job with just one leg tuck. Bluntly speaking, there is no reason that given more than three years to train and prepare for the ACFT any Soldier should be unable to complete a single leg tuck. The vertically integrated failure starts with the Soldier, in this case. At the individual level, there is no excuse. That being said, the Army has a chain of command for a reason. Company Commanders and First Sergeants exist to ensure the individual readiness of their units and their Soldiers. They are assisted by Platoon Leaders, Squad Leaders and Team Leaders as well as Platoon Sergeants. A Soldier will have no less than FOUR leaders concerned directly with their individual performance. That includes their physical fitness. Every Soldier that mounted the pull-up bar unable to perform a single leg tuck represents a failure by their entire immediate chain of command and noncommissioned officer support channel. Simply passing the ACFT, regardless of gender, never should have been an issue. That it was is a scathing indictment of the Army’s leadership at echelon, but particularly at the small unit level. A number of Commanders clearly did not buy into the ACFT and did not support its implementation.

The second issue is perhaps more significant for the institution in the long run. The debate over the plank versus the leg tuck and the suitability of the other five events is largely academic. The dead lift also requires arm, back, and grip strength. The standing power throw engages the posterior chain and the shoulders/arms as well. Far more important, and potentially more damning, is the Army’s return to a gendered grading scale. The reason is easy to understand — the Army cannot put women in a position of disadvantage based on how they score on the ACFT. The issue is that physical fitness scores (APFT or ACFT) matter far more than they should. The Army should set a challenging and relevant minimum fitness standard, but it needs other more relevant measures of a Soldier’s potential, of their leadership. The Army has failed, consistently, to balance individual Soldier readiness (in the form of physical fitness) with its system of cultivating and advancing Soldiers. The result is lowered fitness standards (for men and women) and a graduated, gendered scale appropriate to differentiating relative performance (within a gender). It once again puts Soldiers in the position of meeting a significantly lower official standard than may be required by their job. In a culture where women are still fighting to be recognized as equals, and equally capable, in the combat arms, they are using a different standard than their peers. Both of those things matter and threaten to undermine the ACFT’s goal of a fitter, more cohesive Army.

Moving forward, the Army’s emphasis needs to be on (finally) adopting and implementing the ACFT as its test of record. Whatever its faults, it still represents an opportunity to drive a higher level of more holistic fitness for Soldiers. The long term priority needs to be setting conditions for the return to a gender neutral or, perhaps more appropriately phrased, gender blind grading scale. The start of this process should be identifying and implementing MOS specific standards. These can be implemented at the unit level initially. The Army must simultaneously work to remove physical fitness beyond this minimum standard from consideration in centralized proceedings (like promotion points) and so-called talent management. Effectively, physical fitness for leaders should be a GO — NOGO event. A Soldier is adequately fit, or they are not. The Army then needs to expand its battery of Cognitive and Noncognitive Assessments (like those found at the Command Assessment Program or the Combat Advisor Training Course) to more effectively codify the capability and aptitude of its Soldiers. Intelligence (the ubiquitous “IQ” score) correlates strongly with decision making aptitude. Emotional intelligence correlates strongly with leadership aptitude. Both of these matter more than an incremental difference in fitness between two Soldiers when considering promotion potential, academic aptitude, and leadership. The Army’s efforts to attract, retain, and cultivate the best possible talent demand a change from the “business as usual” of relying on imperfect measures of physical fitness. The ACFT roll-out is, in that sense, a reminder of just how much is still left to do as the Army continues to modernize the all volunteer force and prepares it to meet future challenges. The ACFT started its life as a good idea that the Army, culturally, isn’t ready to implement.