You Would Fail: Check Out the U.S. Army's Tough New Fitness Test

Task and Purpose

Security, Americas

A tough one.

The new test will involve six events that will be completed in 50 minutes or less, said Maj. Gen. Malcolm Frost, head of the Army Center for Initial Military Training. The current physical fitness test has three events.

By October 2020, all soldiers will be required to take and pass the Army’s new gender- and age-neutral Combat Fitness Test, which has more events and less time for rest than the service’s current PT test, officials said on Monday.

(This article by Jeff Schogol originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter. This article first appeared in 2018.)

The Army has not yet decided what the standards will be that soldiers have to meet on each of the test’s six events, or whether soldiers will take alternative tests if they fail any or all of the events, said Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel Dailey.

“We don’t need to rush into this — and we’re not going to,” Dailey said. “The chief of staff and the secretary have been very adamant about the fact that we’re going to take a year to study this inside of our organizations.”

The new test will involve six events that will be completed in 50 minutes or less, said Maj. Gen. Malcolm Frost, head of the Army Center for Initial Military Training. The current physical fitness test has three events.

Soldiers will start with a strength deadlift, which they will have to complete three times, Frost said at a media roundtable. Then soldiers will throw a medicine ball as far as they can over their head.

Next, soldiers will have to do a set of pushups, during which they lift their hands off the ground after completing each pushup, he said.

The fourth event is a 250-meter “sprint/drag/carry,” in which soldiers must complete five tasks for 50 meters: sprint, drag a 90-pound sled backwards, run laterally, carry two 45-pound kettle bells, and sprint again, he said.

Then soldiers will hang perpendicular to a pullup bar and bring their knees or thighs up to their elbows, Frost said. The final event is the 2-mile run.