Army Replaces Decades-Old Fitness Test, But Keeps Age- and Gender-Based Scoring – By Caitlin M. Kenney (Defense One) / March 23, 2022
Several years of experiments showed a single-standard approach to be detrimental to the overall force.
When Army leaders set out to update the decades-old physical-fitness test, senior leaders sought, in part, to create a new test that would judge all soldiers against a single standard. But during several years of experimentation, they found that women and other groups were failing at rates that threatened to leave the force short of key personnel. On Wednesday, service leaders announced the final form of the new Army Combat Fitness Test—and that it would return to scoring personnel based on their gender and age.
“It’s the Army’s intent that the transition to full implementation of the ACFT will not adversely or disproportionately affect any soldier or group. This is really important to us,” said Brig. Gen. Scott Naumann, the Army’s director of training in the office of the deputy chief of staff, G-3/5/7.
Naumann and other senior Army officials spoke to reporters this week ahead of the service’s announcement on the final composition and implementation of the ACFT.
