"Fit, Not Fat:" making the US military's standards high again

[Marauder06]

MSN

from the article:

On his own X account, Hegseth wrote: "Our troops will be fit — not fat. Our troops will look sharp — not sloppy. We seek only quality — not quotas. BOTTOM LINE: Our Department of Defense will make standards HIGH & GREAT again — across the entire force."

I mean, I'm all for that, but with the rest of America so fat or criminal or sad or whatever, how are we going to maintain the force we need?

 

[Topkick]

MSN

from the article:

On his own X account, Hegseth wrote: "Our troops will be fit — not fat. Our troops will look sharp — not sloppy. We seek only quality — not quotas. BOTTOM LINE: Our Department of Defense will make standards HIGH & GREAT again — across the entire force."

I mean, I'm all for that, but with the rest of America so fat or criminal or sad or whatever, how are we going to maintain the force we need?

Dewey Oxburger joined because he heard the Army had a great weightloss program, just saying..

 

[Cookie_]

MSN

from the article:

On his own X account, Hegseth wrote: "Our troops will be fit — not fat. Our troops will look sharp — not sloppy. We seek only quality — not quotas. BOTTOM LINE: Our Department of Defense will make standards HIGH & GREAT again — across the entire force."

I mean, I'm all for that, but with the rest of America so fat or criminal or sad or whatever, how are we going to maintain the force we need?

The memo I saw directed a review back to 2015. That's around when women in combat arms and religious beard waivers (he specifically mentioned beards in the memo) became a thing. I imagine both of those will be on the chopping block. Interested in how that'll work for the women already in those roles?

Otherwise, I'll get ready for the 5th(6th? 7th) version of the ACFT. Hopefully we keep it; it's a much better test than the APFT.

 

[Topkick]

Otherwise, I'll get ready for the 5th(6th? 7th) version of the ACFT. Hopefully we keep it; it's a much better test than the APFT.

Just hope the uniform doesn't change again. I LOVE the pinks and greens. Wish I had them in my time.

 

[SOSTCRNA]

The memo I saw directed a review back to 2015. That's around when women in combat arms and religious beard waivers (he specifically mentioned beards in the memo) became a thing. I imagine both of those will be on the chopping block. Interested in how that'll work for the women already in those roles?

Otherwise, I'll get ready for the 5th(6th? 7th) version of the ACFT. Hopefully we keep it; it's a much better test than the APFT.

How long does it take your unit to get through the ACFT. Looks like a good test but time consuming

 

[Cookie_]

How long does it take your unit to get through the ACFT. Looks like a good test but time consuming

When the units actually plan it out, properly lay out lanes beforehand, designate graders, and let myself and the other handful of NCOs actually lay out lanes beforehand?

60-70 minutes from warm-up to end of the two mile for a company. Command almost never plans for it correctly, so it's closer to 90-120 minutes for us. 2 hours is the max time authorized before it becomes an invalid test, and we've yet to have that happen.

Our RTI gets 150 BLC students through in less than 70 minutes on average, so that's probably a better example.

 

[SOSTCRNA]

When the units actually plan it out, properly lay out lanes beforehand, designate graders, and let myself and the other handful of NCOs actually lay out lanes beforehand?

60-70 minutes from warm-up to end of the two mile for a company. Command almost never plans for it correctly, so it's closer to 90-120 minutes for us. 2 hours is the max time authorized before it becomes an invalid test, and we've yet to have that happen.

Our RTI gets 150 BLC students through in less than 70 minutes on average, so that's probably a better example

When the units actually plan it out, properly lay out lanes beforehand, designate graders, and let myself and the other handful of NCOs actually lay out lanes beforehand?

60-70 minutes from warm-up to end of the two mile for a company. Command almost never plans for it correctly, so it's closer to 90-120 minutes for us. 2 hours is the max time authorized before it becomes an invalid test, and we've yet to have that happen.

Our RTI gets 150 BLC students through in less than 70 minutes on average, so that's probably a better example.

Not as bad as I thought, I had visions of half a day

 

[Cookie_]

Not as bad as I thought, I had visions of half a day

So it could, depending on how many lanes of equipment you have and how many personnel you're testing.

The test is designed for 4 soldiers per grader/lane. So a company testing 150 soldiers, with 15 lanes of equipment, will need to run 3 iterations of the ACFT to test all of the troops.
Easy way to get around that is to plan out for testing a platoon a day, using NCOs/soldiers from the non-testing platoon to run it.

 

[SpongeBob*24]

Pros APFT is faster, and requires zero gear and can be done anywhere. ACFT is a better test overall.

Cons ACFT takes about twice as long, costs a bazillion times more, requires alot of planning and the scoring system changes about every year.

A soldier can train specifically for either test and look good on paper so that argument is invalid.

Anywho why is SECDEF trying to make us skinny again....doesn't he know Fatt people are hard to kidnap!

 

[Marauder06]

The ACFT was one of the most egregious bait-and-switch operations the Army pulled while I was in uniform. We were sold the ACFT, and its ridiculous exercises and all that required equipment and all the effort that it would take to do one for a large unit in part because they were going to be gender and age neutral. One fitness test to rule them all. Equal rights, equal fight.

Did they do that? No.

No they did not.

 

[Box]

There was never
ever
evereverever
any intention to make the ACFT, APRT, APFT, HI-JK-LMNOPFT, gender or age neutral because objective standards destroy narratives.

I am 57 and just to be a smartass - me a another guy I work with took that stupid fucking test - and almost maxed it...
...except for the plank and the run - I just barely passed that plank thing - besides, fuck that stupid exercise

Almost maxed it because I'm 57 fucking years old - not because I'm in the physical shape you'd expect from a warrior - but because I'm 57 years old and the standards for women and the elderly are negotiable.
VA disability
untreated hernia
chronic neck and back pain
...and the dad bod of a 57 year old man that is 20 years past his prime

The Army is not really serious about producing warriors - they Army is in the business of doing whatever it takes to get money from Congress as long as the troops are "just good enough"...
...take away the influence of congress "bribing" our senior leaders with funding and the US military would be staffed with unbeatable warriors monks before the next midterms


Pay no attention to me - I'm cynical and this post is pure sarcasm - our senior leaders would never behave like "Militicians" because they are deadly serious about the oath they took.
Can I get an amen?

 

[DA SWO]

There was never
ever
evereverever
any intention to make the ACFT, APRT, APFT, HI-JK-LMNOPFT, gender or age neutral because objective standards destroy narratives.

I am 57 and just to be a smartass - me a another guy I work with took that stupid fucking test - and almost maxed it...
...except for the plank and the run - I just barely passed that plank thing - besides, fuck that stupid exercise

Almost maxed it because I'm 57 fucking years old - not because I'm in the physical shape you'd expect from a warrior - but because I'm 57 years old and the standards for women and the elderly are negotiable.
VA disability
untreated hernia
chronic neck and back pain
...and the dad bod of a 57 year old man that is 20 years past his prime

The Army is not really serious about producing warriors - they Army is in the business of doing whatever it takes to get money from Congress as long as the troops are "just good enough"...
...take away the influence of congress "bribing" our senior leaders with funding and the US military would be staffed with unbeatable warriors monks before the next midterms


Pay no attention to me - I'm cynical and this post is pure sarcasm - our senior leaders would never behave like "Militicians" because they are deadly serious about the oath they took.
Can I get an amen?

Amen brother!

 

[Devildoc]

MSN

from the article:

On his own X account, Hegseth wrote: "Our troops will be fit — not fat. Our troops will look sharp — not sloppy. We seek only quality — not quotas. BOTTOM LINE: Our Department of Defense will make standards HIGH & GREAT again — across the entire force."

I mean, I'm all for that, but with the rest of America so fat or criminal or sad or whatever, how are we going to maintain the force we need?

I am hoping that more in-standards candidates candidates will join because of Trump and Hegseth.

Almost maxed it because I'm 57 fucking years old - not because I'm in the physical shape you'd expect from a warrior - but because I'm 57 years old and the standards for women and the elderly are negotiable.

I love the age-adjusted standards. It me me look like freaking David Goggins or something.

Them: "You maxed out the PFT!"

Me: "Woo hoo, I did 12 push ups!"

 

[Marauder06]

There was never
ever
evereverever
any intention to make the ACFT, APRT, APFT, HI-JK-LMNOPFT, gender or age neutral because objective standards destroy narratives.

I am 57 and just to be a smartass - me a another guy I work with took that stupid fucking test - and almost maxed it...
...except for the plank and the run - I just barely passed that plank thing - besides, fuck that stupid exercise

Almost maxed it because I'm 57 fucking years old - not because I'm in the physical shape you'd expect from a warrior - but because I'm 57 years old and the standards for women and the elderly are negotiable.
VA disability
untreated hernia
chronic neck and back pain
...and the dad bod of a 57 year old man that is 20 years past his prime

The Army is not really serious about producing warriors - they Army is in the business of doing whatever it takes to get money from Congress as long as the troops are "just good enough"...
...take away the influence of congress "bribing" our senior leaders with funding and the US military would be staffed with unbeatable warriors monks before the next midterms


Pay no attention to me - I'm cynical and this post is pure sarcasm - our senior leaders would never behave like "Militicians" because they are deadly serious about the oath they took.
Can I get an amen?

I have a slightly different perspective. I think the Army, at least the people who designed the ACFT, genuinely believed in the one-standard approach. However, when it was actually put into operation it immediately blew up the left's "men and women are functionally interchangeable" narrative because the outcomes were so disparate. It was not until Congress got involved that the standards got changed to advantage women and older Soldiers once again.

 

[Box]

The hanging leg raise was to objectivity on the PT test what hemlock tea was to Socrates.

 

[Marauder06]

I thought the hanging leg raise was stupid. It required a pullup bar, which is another piece of equipment that the APFT didn't require.

But yeah, the fact that so many women couldn't even do ONE was the thing that got that exercise killed and got us the plank (which I'm OK with).

 

[Cookie_]

To be pedantic:
It was a leg tuck, not a leg raise.

A leg raise is just hanging from a bar and extending your legs 90° in front of you.
The leg tuck required your knees or thighs to touch your elbows, which requires (most people) to do a 90° or greater pull-up.

I'm not going to dig for the study right now, but I remember reading something about the female failure rate when the thing was first being rolled out. They found that when units actually started doing the PRT Climbing Drills the female failure rates dropped and scores went up overall. This is part of why the leg tuck got replaced, because it was a bad exercise for measuring core strength. If your upper body strength was the limiting factor in testing your core, then we've got a bad movement.
---------------------

The ACFT isn't perfect, but I do think it's a much better assessment of "fitness" then the APFT was. I want to see them bump the minimum scores up a bit, but I doubt that happens. As long as PT score is a huge chunk of your promotion points we'll never get away from gender/age scoring.

I'd like us broadly conduct a CFT like the Marines do, which we already have with the E3B Physical Fitness Assessment. AFAIK, that test is gender and age neutral.

 

[Devildoc]

To be pedantic:
It was a leg tuck, not a leg raise.

A leg raise is just hanging from a bar and extending your legs 90° in front of you.
The leg tuck required your knees or thighs to touch your elbows, which requires (most people) to do a 90° or greater pull-up.

I'm not going to dig for the study right now, but I remember reading something about the female failure rate when the thing was first being rolled out. They found that when units actually started doing the PRT Climbing Drills the female failure rates dropped and scores went up overall. This is part of why the leg tuck got replaced, because it was a bad exercise for measuring core strength. If your upper body strength was the limiting factor in testing your core, then we've got a bad movement.
---------------------

The ACFT isn't perfect, but I do think it's a much better assessment of "fitness" then the APFT was. I want to see them bump the minimum scores up a bit, but I doubt that happens. As long as PT score is a huge chunk of your promotion points we'll never get away from gender/age scoring.

I'd like us broadly conduct a CFT like the Marines do, which we already have with the E3B Physical Fitness Assessment. AFAIK, that test is gender and age neutral.

Bad exercise for measuring core strength lol, like the crunch/sit up. It only took the military 100 years to slay that sacred cow.

RE: fitness tests for bling, if you are a Navy corpsman assigned to FMF, you can earn the FMF badge. It came out, oh, maybe 2005ish, before there was a FMF ribbon. You had to do the Marines PFT, then CFT, and I can't recall the scores but you couldn't have the minimums. I think a fitness test associated with anything that shows you are an expert or SME is a good idea.

 

[Box]

As long as PT score is a huge chunk of your promotion points we'll never get away from gender/age scoring.

It's also proof that the US Military will double down on narrative instead of readiness because it is not interested in equality.

SGT Jones the 21 year old infantry soldier can run two miles in a blistering 22 minutes and dead lift a whopping 135 and still pass the PT test - and therefore be a better infantry solider
...than the "other" SGT Jones that failed the PT test and is now facing career damaging consequences because "he" could only deadlift 135 pounds and took 22 minutes to run two miles.

MOST OF US - would honestly - I know I would - look at the male SGT Jones and think what sad sack shit bag infantryman puts up numbers like that?
You should be ashamed of yourself Jones - @Box is 57 years old and can put up better numbers than that !!!

Then we would look at the female E5 21 year old infantry Soldier - sigh - and just think to ourselves - what a fucking world we live in.
...you are a "go" stand over there Jones
...because we know that calling "that" SGT Jones sad sack shit bag infantry Soldier would result in a fucking harassment complaint for calling a Soldier that met the posted standards a shit bag in front of the rest of the unit.


Maybe that guy from Fox really will will fix the US Military and the "Fit not Fat" problem - but I doubt it - at least not in the long term because there are too many entrenched "leaders" and unconventional lawfare experts that will either slow roll his efforts of sue fat shaming back out of the POI

 

[Florida173]

I can literally run my 2 mile in over 22 minutes now and still pass... WTF is wrong with our standards?