The Army’s Radical Fitness Shift
The Army Combat Readiness Test would change how the military measures soldiers, with no adjustments for age or gender
A proposed overhaul of the Army’s decades-old test includes a barbell lift, a sprint with 40-pound kettlebells and a brutal new style of push-up. The test would be a dramatic shift for the Army, a longtime bellwether of civilian health and fitness. The exercises in the proposed test are more challenging but the Army hasn’t yet set the passing standards.
.. The proposed six-event test known as the Army Combat Readiness Test, or ACRT, aims to encourage more practical physical training and prevent injury..soldiers formed lines behind a row of barbells loaded with weights ascending from 125 pounds to 425 pounds. Each soldier picked a weight and performed three dead lifts.
.. The second event was a reverse throw of a 10-pound ball, measured for distance. The seemingly awkward motion serves a purpose: It mimics a boosting move that’s “exactly how we get people into buildings,”
.. The proposed new push-up requires lowering all the way to the ground and extending one’s arms in a T between repetitions. The T push-up is easier to monitor in testing, Army leaders say. Col. Snider says he managed 50 T push-ups in two minutes “and I was completely destroyed.” He had done 84 regular push-ups while taking the Army’s current fitness test a few weeks earlier, he says.
.. The 250-meter shuttle event requires alternately sprinting, dragging a 90-pound sled and carrying two 40-pound kettlebellsThe leg tuck, the fifth event in the proposed test, requires lifting knees or thighs to elbows while hanging from a pull-up bar. Some soldiers struggled to do more than a handful of reps... The proposed test ends with a timed two-mile run, the only event identical to one in the current test... Staff Sgt. Jenna McKinney, who took the recent pilot test, says events like the sled pull would make the proposed test an easier sell than the current test to soldiers under her command.“It’s nice to be able to tell them: Imagine carrying your battle buddy downrange,” she says, using the Army term for being deployed overseas.
.. A universal testing standard will help legitimize women’s position in combat, Staff Sgt. McKinney says.
.. Jim Peterson, a former professor of physical education at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, says the test could discriminate against women and cause injuries to male and female soldiers. Dr. Peterson also says the dead lift is a particularly risky exercise if not performed correctly.
.. About 17% of Army soldiers are classified as obese, according to a 2016 Army report. That’s half the rate among U.S. adults overall, but up from 13% a year earlier.