It is time for the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) to politely excuse itself from the party. Besides the semi-annual beating your spine takes from performing the 1940s-era sit-ups, the APFT is an outdated physical assessment for today’s Army. The APFT is limited in scope, beats up your neck each fall and spring, and lacks a mental fitness assessment. The Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) arrives in October 2019 to help units build tactical athletes capable of more than they previously thought possible.

As the Army adapts to meet future battlefield challenges, the new six-event ACFT is the right assessment for Soldiers in today’s Army. The first part of this article explains how the ACFT provides a more holistic physical gauge of our Soldiers with direct transferability to tasks on the battlefield, will build more physically fit and mentally tough Soldiers, and helps transform the Army’s fitness culture. Part II provides Soldiers and leaders with an eight-week program to help prepare for the ACFT.

War is the realm of physical exertion and suffering. These will destroy us unless we can make ourselves indifferent to them, and for this birth or training must provide us with a certain strength of body and soul. If we do possess these qualities, then even if we have nothing but common sense to guide them we shall be well equipped for war…” – Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Part I: A Case for the ACFT

The ACFT is a marked departure from the simplicity of the APFT and serves as a holistic assessment of Soldier fitness. Soldiers lift, sprint, throw, drag, shuffle, carry and run as part of the Army’s new six-event evaluation. The ACFT is a challenging, multi-modal assessment that challenges Soldiers mentally and physically.

The outdated APFT’s event selection (push-ups, sit-ups and the two-mile run) limits the test’s usefulness as a physical fitness evaluation. It tests only two modalities: strength-endurance in the chest/shoulder/triceps muscles and abdominal/hip flexor muscles, as well as low-end aerobic endurance. Most Army units focus their daily physical training on the APFT, which is not bad but provides a narrow focus for our Soldiers. In contrast, the six-event ACFT consists of three-rep maximum (3RM) trap bar dead-lift, standing power throw with a 10-pound ball, hand-release push ups, the sprint-drag-carry event, leg tuck, and a two-mile run. In addition to strength and aerobic endurance, the new ACFT will measure strength, work capacity, and power for a more complete test of our Soldiers’ overall physical abilities.

The ACFT provides an excellent assessment of our Soldiers’ physical fitness and mental toughness. While the APFT provides a limited evaluation of our Soldiers’ overall fitness, the ACFT offers a well-rounded test that encourages Soldiers to develop speed, strength and athleticism. We desire these physical attributes in all of our Soldiers, regardless of their unit or occupational specialty.

The APFT’s primarily failure is its inability to assess strength. The ACFT corrects this oversight by measuring lower-body and grip strength through the trap bar 3RM deadlift assessment. While many will initially focus on their unit’s lack of trap bars, the resource constraints distract from the expected benefits. The ACFT’s biggest benefit is encouraging Soldiers and units to add lower-body strength training to their PT programs. Because the fitness test now assesses Soldiers’ lower-body strength, Soldiers must consistently train their lower body. Throughout my 17 years of experience as an Infantry officer, lower-body strength is usually neglected in daily fitness programs because it is not formally assessed in the conventional Army.

Assessing and consistently training lower-body strength will translate to Soldiers who can run faster, move under weight more effectively, and experience lower body injuries less often. Resistance training not only strengthens muscles and tendons, but also increases the overall flexibility of ligaments, making them harder to injure during training (Morgan Pillsbury, The Athletic Lab).* Put simply, by making our Soldiers stronger, we make them more durable and harder to injure. The Army’s net benefit due to encouraging strength training by implementing the ACFT will be increased overall readiness for combat operations.

In addition to assessing lower-body strength, the ACFT tests power through the 10-pound ball throw and upper-body pull/core strength through the leg tuck event. Similar to lower-body strength, these fitness components were never formally measured with the APFT. The 10-pound ball throw transfers directly to battlefield tasks. The increased power and explosiveness in our Soldiers measured by the ACFT will allow them to more easily jump over walls, hurdle creeks, or lift another Soldier over obstacles.

Assessing upper-body pull/core strength in the leg tuck event is a welcome addition to the new test as well. Developing pull strength in our Soldiers helps balance the push strength developed in the hand-release push-up event, and has excellent transferability to the battlefield. Tasks such as pulling a casualty from a damaged vehicle or dragging your battle buddy to safety will become easier over time as Soldiers develop increased pull and core strength.

While taking the ACFT is challenging, the real benefit for the Army comes in preparing for the ACFT. The ACFT sets the mark much higher than the APFT because Soldiers now must train across a wider spectrum of events, which will build increased overall strength and athleticism in our Soldiers. The trap-bar dead-lift, hand-release push-ups and leg tuck event – and the associated exercises to train for these events – will form a solid strength base in our Soldiers that we have not seen during the APFT generation. Our Soldiers’ “combat chassis**” – consisting of their legs/lungs/core – will become much stronger and more durable over time.

In addition to improved overall fitness, our Soldiers will develop increased mental toughness by training for the ACFT simply because it is much harder than the APFT. Hand-release push-ups are much more difficult than regular push-ups, the leg-tuck is harder than just doing pull-ups, and running two miles at the end of the ACFT is as much of a mental challenge as it is a physical one. Increased mental toughness will translate into increased confidence for tasks on and off the battlefield.

As units began to formally train for the ACFT in October 2019 and weight-based strength training becomes more routinized across the Army, the Army’s fitness culture will begin its overdue transformation. Right now, there are many conventional units that lift during physical training, but this is often because of the guidance or personal motivation from a Company or Battalion Commander – it is certainly not consistent across the Army, nor a part of the Army’s fitness doctrine. As ACFT familiarization proliferates throughout the Army next year, junior leaders can begin to take ownership at the small-unit level. When our junior leaders take ownership of ACFT training and preparation, the Army’s fitness culture will experience an authentic transformation.

Army leaders should embrace the initial challenges in resourcing, training, and execution to achieve the potential benefits from the Army’s new fitness culture. The ACFT will help the Army develop well-rounded tactical athletes who are stronger, faster, and mentally tougher than Soldiers of the APFT generation. Together, by embracing this new challenge, we can transform the Army’s fitness culture for this generation and the next.

Part II: The Program [CLICK HERE].

I developed an 8-week training program to help Soldiers and their leaders prepare for the ACFT. I tested the program, and then took the ACFT with a great team of Aviation instructors at Fort Eustis, Virginia (home of the Army’s Center for Initial Military Training, the proponent for the ACFT). I performed well on the test, and believe the attached program can help leaders looking for a place to start. This program is not the only way to prepare for the ACFT, but I do believe it provides a balanced framework that leaders can experiment with and adjust as they progress.

Some notes about the program:

• Scale and safety are essential. I cannot emphasize this enough. Train hard, but always train smart and safe. A helpful rule of thumb for training like this is “Difficult but doable,” which Mountain Tactical Institute founder Rob Shaul introduced me to in 2010. If you cannot conduct sets of 20 dips, then do not try. Conduct sets of 5, 7 or 10 – whatever is consistent with your current level of fitness.
• This program was written assuming the training Soldiers have access to weights. If units do not have access to weights, leaders should focus on the muscle group or function (push/pull) trained and develop an alternate exercise. For example, I know that many units do not have access to squat racks, so leaders should focus on building lower body strength with alternate exercises like bodyweight squats, dumbbell squats, sand-bag squats or lunges. The same guidance applies for the trap-bar dead-lifts prescribed in the 3rd session of each week.
• Many units have a weekly foot-march requirement, and that would require leaders to adjust the program as I describe it below. In the attached program, units could easily substitute the second session each week with a foot march.
• This program does not directly address the sprint-drag-carry event. It is a weakness that I will adjust in future versions. However, through the strength training and intervals in the program, Soldiers will absolutely be able to perform well in the sprint-drag-carry event. As a small piece of motivation, Secretary Mark Esper recently maxed the sprint-drag-carry event and I am confident he did not go through a deliberate train up for the event.

Thought process behind the program and the primary exercises:

• Squats and trap-bar deadlifts: develop lower body strength. The ball slams following the deadlifts are designed to develop explosiveness that will transfer to the power throw event.
• Pull-up + knees to chest: I developed this incredible exercise while experimenting at the gym one day. Conduct a pull-up and then bring your knees to your chest while your chin is above the bar. Lower yourself down, collect yourself to minimize swinging, and repeat. I have found that this exercise really helps develop the muscles in the upper back/biceps/core that transfer directly to the leg tuck event. Furthermore, conducting a full pull-up and then bringing your knees to your chest is more difficult than the leg tuck.
• Threshold-pace running (comfortably hard) following strength training: The ACFT requires you to run two miles after the first five events. This is a physical and mental challenge. Running for max distance following strength training mimics that challenge, and also provides a competitive venue for Soldiers during PT.
• Dumbbell thrusters: This exercise is included as preparation for the power throw event. I recommend training with dumbbells because it is much safer than using a barbell for inexperienced lifters. Scale and safety are important. If a Soldier cannot properly perform the exercise, they should use very light weights until their technique improves. The power generation required from legs, up through your core, to your shoulders is directly transferable to the power throw event.
• Intervals: Interval running is a critical piece of this program. If we want to be fast, we must train by running fast. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many think they can get fast by running slow. Intervals are physically and mentally challenging and can be done almost anywhere.
• Bodyweight as resistance: The fifth session of each week is focused on bodyweight exercises, but is still very challenging. You’d be surprised by how tough volume bodyweight/lightly loaded exercises can be.
• Recovery: The final session of each week is designed to allow for recovery and building endurance. I know that many Soldiers train six days/week, and some even train seven days/week. That sixth session each week is designed to provide some structure for recovery. A moderately paced run and core work to close out the training week should not beat anyone up too much and the lower intensity allows Soldiers to flush out lactic acid that may have built up during the five prior sessions each week.

*A study of female soccer players under the age of 18 showed a 72% reduction in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears for those who conducted strength training during their early adolescent years, demonstrating a strong linkage between resistance training and reduced lower-body injuries. The study and an article with further commentary on the study can be found here. Another study, conducted at the Institute for Sports Medicine in Denmark, found that strength and proprioception training made a significant impact on reducing sports-related injuries.

**Mountain Tactical Institute founder Rob Shaul developed the term “combat chassis.”

Lieutenant Colonel Arntson has been an Infantry officer for 17 years, serving in Airborne, Ranger and Mechanized units. On 31 July, he will assume command of 3-187 Infantry at Fort Campbell, KY. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the United States Army or the Department of Defense.

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