Army suffers burst of sanity
The Army has finally discovered that some folks in excellent condition don’t necessarily look it.
Soldiers who score a 465 or better on the Army Fitness Test will not be subject to flagging actions for body fat percentage, the service decided this month.
An Army Directive distributed Sept. 4 allows for an exemption to the body fat rule for soldiers who score at least 80 points in each of the events on the fitness test: deadlifting, pushups, sprint-drag-carry, plank and a two-mile run.
Not sure how 80 points times 5 events works out to 465 points, as that would total 400. I’m guessing poor writing is to blame and they mean 80 points per AND a total of 465 points, which would make more sense.
I know I am not the oldest here, but even I knew multiple example of people in superb condition who just didn’t look it. Had a couple of chunky guys in AIT who had to do see a doc due to excess weight – one explained he was a body builder. The doc said he didn’t understand, and the guy did your basic bicep bulge and split the seam on his khaki shirt. (Yeah, that dates me…I actually had khakis that had to be starched. Maybe even more comfortable that starchy fatigues after you broke starch.)
Even had a platoon sergeant who regularly maxed his PT tests but couldn’t do a Ranger pushup – his chest hit the ground before his arms broke the plane. And there was a Marine I knew at school who basically got PT’ed out of the Corps – damn near maxed his tests but didn’t LOOK like a Marine – round shouldered, small pot gut, soft looking – even though his 3 mile runs regularly beat 198 18 minutes. He sent so much time doing remedial PT he had no time or energy to study, and failed the school.
So it’s welcome news that after only, oh, several decades, someone at DA finally pulled their head out.
Soldiers who don’t meet the body fat standard but do pass the fitness requirement will not be enrolled in the Army Body Composition Program, nor will they have to undergo a tape test, in which proctor takes a waist measurement to measure body fat circumference, the Army said. The service will still make a record of their height and weight data. Army Times
Two tips of the hat on this one, Jeff LPH Friday and Roger 4-78 mentioned it Sunday.
Category: Army
And somewhere out there right now some 1SG or CSM is loudly declaring in a staff meeting “I don’t care what DA says!”
198 minutes for a three mile run doesn’t seem very fast to me.
When I was a 2LT I had a commander who really took a dislike to me and everything about me. I bulked up over a year and easily maxed the PT test. Even though I was below the screening weight he made me take a BF analysis test, because I “looked big”. It came back at 14%. Then he made someone else do it and it back at at 12%. At the time I was 6’3″ and 195lbs.
He was really annoyed by all that. My platoon sergeant thought he was nuts, he was probably right.
“6’3″ and 195lbs”
Tall and skinny….
I could do 3 miles in that time (198 minutes) today…and I’m late 60s with bad ankles and some extra poundage…
Typos are fun….
18, dammit! My typing skills rank with Joe Cocker’s dancing.
Heck with it…enjoy yet another typo. There will be more…
I proof read AFTER hitting send.
That takes all of the fun out of correspondunce.
Nah…
Send a company-wide message advising the employees, in case of IT problems contact the hempdesk.
all thousand of them.
Replies were hilarious, starting with “Hey Bud!”
one little M for L…..
You may have been more accurate than you realize.
I always thought Joe was having a seizure.
Total of 465 but at least 80 in each event. It is to prevent someone from getting maxing 4 events and barely passing 1.
On a side note, the AFT is easier to pass but harder to max than the old APFT and there are many examples of people being morbidly obese (medical definition) who would qualify!
I saw the scoring tables and was shocked. I could pass that today in the youth table and I’m pulling up on 60.
“Army suffers burst of sanity.” This, too, shall pass….
Its only monday.
“We at the Department of the Army regret the error…” in 3, 2, 1
Somewhat old news, actually, lol.
The Army did this with the ACFT back in 2023.
With the removal of an event (the ball throw) from the AFT, they had to recalculate the points totals and update policy.
Took them three months from implementation of the AFT to update the policy, in bureaucratic time that’s not bad at all.
That ball throw sucked. Couldn’t self-monitor while doing it (am I doing it right?). Some folk threw it all over the place, too.
With four shoulder surgeries and two manipulations under anesthesia, and an unrepaired labrum tear, I was happy to get 7-8 meters on that event. It was only manly pride which kept me from crying every time I threw that thing.
Well that’s a lot easier than the PFT we had to max when I was in…we had to slay a mastodon with a stone tipped spear, clean it into steaks, and make a battle dress uniform out of it’s hide.
“Old Corps”
Did you forget the mandatory “No shiite, there I was….”? /grin
You also forgot swimming across a fast moving glacial river before slaying the mastodon.
This was “pre-global warming”, correct?
When I served in ’78 I was 6’3″ and weighed between 235-240…I think at the time the max weight for my height was either 220 or 225….besides the muscularity, part of the problem was that I have a long torso and shorter legs (32″ inseam) which adds more weight, my waist was 32″…
It always made for interesting “fitness” reviews…
I feel your pain…short legs, long body, and skinny neck.
I am built a bit stocky, 5′ 10″ but also weighed 200 or 210. At least until I retired, now I’m 214 at age 72. I always did well on the PT test but the scale limit for my height was something like 170 lbs., IIRC. It’s been well over 20 since I retired.
I always had to be taped and never failed that but it was always a PITA. FWIW I didn’t “look” fat or even soft and I wore the same size green blouse and pants I was commissioned in back in 75.
I understand the Army wanted to hire fitness pros for the development of the height / weight charts but they concentrated on a runners build IMO. It didn’t fit for me or others who had a different build but were also in shape.
I was stationed with a guy who had a body shape of a V, all muscle, and he said he had been getting BMI(?) waivers yearly from the day he enlisted. He had been in about 10 or so years.
Yes, the new AFT raised the percentage you need to have your Height & Weight overridden.
The old ACFT used to be 80 points on each event and 540 points out of 600 possible max. (six events)
Now with the new five-event AFT, it is still 80 points per event for a total of 465 out of 500, which is a higher percentage.
So, with the old ACFT, it was 90 percent of the 600 max total, while with the new AFT, it is 93 percent of the 500 maximum possible score.
Yes, and I came across many people over the years who DID look the part and were in good physical condition who just didn’t have the stamina to complete the rigorous activities. A tad off topic but after I got out of the Marines, I played semi-pro football for several years and the hardest hitter I EVER faced was a 5’10’ 170lbs DB. He did not look the part, and no one could tell by looking at him that he would hurt you badly when he hit you, until he hit you. My point is that it’s a stupid and drastic mistake to make an assumption of a person’s strength and endurance based on body type.
I forgot to mention the many people on this planet who have ALL of the physical tools and have the right look but just lack the guts. We’ve all seen them over the years as well.
AFT! (About Fing time)
I’d routinely get in the 290s on the 3 event test, always running a sub-13 2 mile with room to spare. I suffer from 2 debilitating conditions:
1. I have long arms and a heavy upper body
2. I hate push-ups
But I could (can?) road march forever and a day with stupid weight.
Thin neck would have me busting tape. Was ‘on the line’ at WLC (PLDC/whatever it’s called this week) so day zero I got a counseling for being right at the ‘standard’. From that moment on my 299 PT score and the rest of the course didn’t matter so I phoned it in to the limit; “failed” the non-graded uniform inspections, yelped nonsense during PT warmup to “standard”, the writing assignment got the precise number of words after I ‘accidentally’ left a space between a compund word (which my SGL didn’t catch, Infantry Leads The Way).
The dumb out of shape cow SFC that wrote the counseling on me was grading the field portion when I was SL and the drill was React to Indirect Fire. After sprinting 300 meters to the rear and collecting my squad we continued to react up the lane another terrain feature, the whole time she struggled to keep up.
“Sarrn’t Roh-Dog, didn’t you hee me yell ‘index’?”
“No Sergeant, I have hearing damage from Iraq.”
All over a passed tape test.
Ahh, “tactics” at PLDC(heese). I remember those days well. First time I ever saw a Porta-potty in the field and I think that’s where the cadre got their standards.
“I hate push-ups”
My arms do not completely straighten; my elbows are always bent. I always seemed to attract the unfavorable attention of the DIs who seemed to think I was a slacker. There was definitely no rest in the “front leaning rest” position for me.
LOL
I was 6’1″ and 185 pounds.
However, it was all legs. a “medium” T- shirt was baggy on me. I was described as “two mighty oaks with a shrub on top.”
I could run, and how, Sit ups were easy peasy. But Pushups were dang near the end of me. Could barely do 54. Was doing 50 when I reported to Benning. 14 farging weeks later was doing 54. Lived in the leaning rest, did dips between two bunks, etc.
54….54…54….54…..54 until I ETS. fifty frogging four.
Now, I could go all day at a trot, could out spring just about anyone, 440 in 47 flat. 2 miles in 13:30 and carry stupid weight ruck forever.
One particular clown always gave me crap about pushups. One day, i see him with his broke-down car, needs a push start. I offered. He laughs and said no way.
You bet I did. All by my lonesome, on flat ground. He lit it on try one.
Later, gave me some carp about, “you cant push -me-“. So I did. Slow grinding inexorable, He just kind of grunted and huffed and gave ground as I got low and under his CG and just dug in my feet.
Stopped giving me crap.
And I recall my 5’6 250+ pound Samoan Drill Sergeant, who maxed PT and was the strongest man I have ever met, griping about “effing tape tests” because well-fed Samoans run to a tad on the padded side, and his wife he said was a good cook.
Then again, we had our SIDPERS clerk, who made the BC look good, so no one -ever- took him out to a PT test, and no matter how hard his wife tried to fatten him up to get him out, they re-enlisted his chubby self. (probably BMI of 30+)
I always enjoyed how I got by with a few extra pounds during football season. I was a lineman on my USAF Base varsity football team and the 1st Sgt was a fan. Off season, amnesty was over and I had to get skinny real quick.
I went to ANCOC with a Ranger that looked like a pear supported by two toothpicks. Dude was a PT stud and definitely not somebody you wanted chasing you across the desert!
Day-um, the US Army having an attack of common sense? Time to buy a lottery ticket!
They’ve been talking about doing this for well over 20 years. It’s about time.
I’ve known some big boys. I was always a blade runner; never failed tape, but regardless of whether I was 178 or 2008, I was within 1% of the max. When I went for my SGT board in 2005, a team leader in my platoon was going for SSG. He failed tape, despite the fact that he was a legit bodybuilder. He passed when retested later that day and went one to win the best Warrior Competition a couple of years later. One thing I always hated was how the truly obese people would easily make tape due to the fat roll on their neck. I have a thick abdomen, usually taping about 36″ even when well below my table weight, but my neck would fluctuate between 15″ and 16.5″. When I got selected for Drill Sergeant duty, I knew that I didn’t want to risk being taped, so I dropped from around 220 (fat boy staff wienie weight) to 180-ish (table weight was 198).
If you do well on the fitness test and have no problem doing your job, I see no issue with having a higher body fat percentage. By the end of my career, I wasn’t exactly a PT stud, but I did moderately well on the APFT and could at least pass an ACFT (by the time that rolled around I was in a unit where we NCOs administered them to the officers but never took one besides the grader certification test). I also avoided being on profile outside of a handful of tempory ones throughout my career. Most of the “fat bodies” I knew were career staff NCOs who had to take alternate APFT events and who magically trimmed up right as the tape was going around the abdomen. Nearly all of them retired as E-6s or extremely senior E-7s.
The tape I didn’t like was the one the tailor used at the clothing sales store. Yup, believe it or don’t the BX actually had a tailor on staff (it was only one base and it was in Japan), but anyways, I was shopping for a shirt and the tailor didn’t wait to ask what size. He whipped out the tape and measured my neck. The shirt I bought fit nice around the neck, however; I didn’t know what to do with all of the material at the waist. There was enough room there for a whole ‘nother person.