U.S. Army Revolutionizes Its Fitness Standards so Girls Can Pass

If you’re headed into the Army, you’ll soon be held to one of two standards — depending on whether you’re a woman or man.

Last week, the all-new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) was rolled out. What’s new: gender-based scoring standards.

Got a grenade in hand on the battlefield? Go ahead and throw like a girl — you were scored accordingly back at base.

From Military.com:

The final version of the test goes live on April 1 with soldiers not having scores impact their record, a grading that can have effects ranging from promotion to expulsion from the Army, until Oct. 1. However, the Army will not immediately boot failures out of the force. Part-time National Guard and Reserve soldiers have until April 2023 before scores are entered into their record.

The ACFT features six events:

Maximum Deadlift

Standing Power Throw

Hand Release Pushups

Sprint/Drag/Carry

Leg Tuck

Two-Mile Run

More has changed than just the exercises:

[I]t no longer is meant to prepare soldiers for combat but instead built as a general fitness assessment.

There’s a sense to that — ours is a progressively more recreational fighting force:

Apropos of a brand-spanking paradigm, the standards will meet you rather than the other way around:

It will…have different scoring standards for men and women across different age groups, in most cases lowering them, following a congressionally mandated report from Rand Corp, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, that found nearly half of the service’s women could not pass earlier standards for the test.

The nitty-gritty:

[A] female soldier between 17 and 21 years old now has to deadlift between 120 and 210 lbs. while a male soldier has to lift between 140 and 340 lbs. In that same age group, female soldiers have to run two miles between 23:22 and 15:29 minutes while male soldiers must perform that exercise between 22 and 13:22 minutes. That minimum run time for male soldiers is a minute longer than the previous version of the ACFT that the Army previously trialed, following data showing the run is by far the most failed event for both genders.

Leg tucks are totally eliminated as the event to measure core strength, with planks taking their place. … Test designers were concerned that the leg tuck doesn’t strictly measure core muscle strength but also requires that a soldier spend a lot of energy on upper-body and grip strength. …

“If I don’t have the grip strength, but have the core strength, I can’t do a leg tuck,” [Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston] said. “That was the reason for taking that out; we wanted to measure core strength.”

In times past, the military held tough standards so only tough people could join — so they could be tough on the tough battlefield. But these days, we’re being told that something wholly different than individual excellence makes us primed to proficiently kill people and break things.

From Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby:

“Obviously, we take the need to promote diversity and inclusion seriously here in the department. The secretary has spoken to that many times.”

In the words of Air Force Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel, and Services Gwendolyn DeFillippi:

“With the addition of [the Indigenous Nations Equality Team, or INET, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning Initiative Team, otherwise known as LIT], we will have a better understanding of barriers to service which allows us to enhance our diversity and inclusion. Our Airmen and Guardians are the pulse of our Department’s culture and the diverse backgrounds. Inputs from these volunteer groups is vital.”

Courtesy of Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning:

“Striving to engender greater diversity in our force is too important to the Army’s effectiveness to avoid continuous self-examination. … Engendering greater diversity and inclusivity is not social experimentation; it is in fact a dynamic that has often been at the center of the Army’s success.”

To quote Senior Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense on Human Capital and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Bishop Garrison:

“I would hope that as many leaders and members of the total force as possible see [diversity, equity and inclusion] efforts as a force multiplier.”