That is a significant increase over the APFT.Ī new fitness culture that builds around the new test will also significantly decrease the musculoskeletal injuries that impact unit readiness. From those eight events, the Army designed the six-event ACFT, which yielded about 70 percent accuracy as a predictor of a soldier’s ability to conduct the warrior tasks and battle drills. In that same study, researchers used an eight-event test that increased the figure to 83 percent. This study was age and gender neutral because the objective was to evaluate the warrior tasks and battle drills as related to the physical fitness assessment. The study found the APFT was about 40 percent accurate as a predictor. In 2012, the Army directed a study, which was later peer-reviewed and validated in 2020, that laid out the warrior tasks and assessed how well the APFT could predict a soldier’s ability to conduct those tasks. As long as you could do the requisite number of push-ups and sit-ups and could run two miles in the specified time, you were considered fit. Without changing the fitness test, there was no accountability to train according to the manual. It also needed to change the way soldiers’ fitness was assessed. It quickly became clear, however, that the new comprehensive fitness manual was not enough to change the Army. In 2009, the Army took further action aimed at ensuring that its physical training program was sufficient to prepare soldiers for combat when it began developing the Army Physical Readiness Training field manual (now FM 7-22, Holistic Health and Fitness). As a result, in 2003, the Army unveiled the Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills, a series of several dozen basic soldier tasks that everyone-from infantrymen to surgeons-needs to be able to do. Early in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cases emerged of soldiers not being able to conduct critical basic drills-firing their weapons, moving to cover, providing first aid, and others. The Army has been actively developing the ACFT for over ten years. It will improve soldier and unit readiness, transform the army’s fitness culture, reduce preventable injuries and attrition, and enhance soldiers’ mental toughness and stamina. It is a far superior assessment of soldier fitness and combat readiness than its predecessor, the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). The Army is a learning organization and the ACFT is the biggest Army-wide change to occur in over four decades. If you are a leader in the Army, at any level, we need your help to get it. We don’t have all the data yet, and we must gather it. Yet, any decision about its future development will only be made based on facts and data. The test has evolved since its inception, and it will (and should) continue to do so. We commend all soldiers who have participated in this discussion-one that must continue. Kristen Griest published by the Modern War institute and another in the New York Times-have triggered a major conversation about the Army’s continued development and implementation of the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT).
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