Acft mos standards 2021 how to#

He encouraged soldiers to bring their ACFT scores to one of the Army’s roughly 2,500 master fitness trainers to help create a personalized training program for improvement. John Kline, commander of the Army’s Center for Initial Military Training. “We knew we could evolve, and we wanted to improve readiness overall and we wanted to reduce injury,” said Brig. In search of a test that would measure more than muscular endurance, the Army began in 2012 to create a new fitness test. This test has been the standard since 1983 and has about a 5% failure rate. The current APFT measures muscular endurance through three events, pushups, situps and a two-mile run. “This is just one aspect of a holistic approach to the readiness of our soldiers.” “This test is a general fitness assessment, using age and gender performance-based norm scales to accurately assess an individual's physical fitness,” he said. Instead of seeing the test as a predictor for how someone will perform physically in combat, Naumann said the revised ACFT is a general fitness test. The reason of wanting to take that out is that we wanted to measure everybody on the core strength.” If I don't have the grip strength, but I may actually have core strength, then I actually can't do a leg tuck. “There's a grip strength, then there's an upper-body strength, and then there's the core event. “The leg tuck has really three components to it,” Grinston said. It was removed based on the results of the Rand study, which found the exercise has weak evidence to show that someone had core strength. The test originally included a hanging leg tuck instead of a plank to evaluate core strength. The six events include a deadlift, standing power throw, hand-release pushups, the sprint-drag-carry, a plank and a two-mile run. “With the age- and gender-normed scale, we predict similar outcomes, based on the data that we have right now that we that we had roughly with the old ,” Naumann said.

Acft mos standards 2021 how to#

The report’s four recommendations to the Army call for the service to address the shortfall of evidence and collect additional data, consider how to mitigate the impact of the test on the workforce, take steps to support more training over time, and create a management structure for its implementation and use.Īrmy leaders agreed to incorporate all the recommendations, most notably by returning to an age and gender-based scoring system that is based off the pass rates of the previous fitness test. Scott Naumann, the Army’s director of training.

On those neutral scoring tables from the older version of the test, Rand found an 89% pass rate for men and about 54% for women, said Brig. The report also found higher failure rates in certain populations, training can improve pass rates, and a formal management structure to oversee test refinements would benefit implementation.Īll of Rand’s research findings and recommendations were based on a previous version of the test that was age and gender neutral, not the version that will be implemented throughout the Army next week. It found the Army needs more evidence to support the ACFT and the fitness events included in the test. Rand reviewed test data for 460,000 soldiers and narrowed its report to four main findings and four recommendations. “Because this test may ultimately be used for personnel actions, it is especially important that all of the test’s events and minimum standards are validated for all genders, components and occupational specialties,” said Chaitra Hardison, a senior behavioral scientist at Rand and lead author of the report.

It also found women, part-time troops, and soldiers older than 45 had a more difficult time passing the test. Rand conducted the research and found the Army lacked enough evidence to prove that all six test events adequately predict performance on combat tasks or reduce injury risks, according to its report.