Army Physical Fitness Test

The Soldier Athlete Initiative: New Army PT Test

The purpose of this article is to show the improvements of the New Army Physical Fitness Test by the Army Physical Fitness School. First we’ll go over the improvements in strength in respect to muscle length-tension relationships. It will also go over the improvements in dynamic agility. Let’s take a look at the difference between the two tests.

Old Test:
2:00 Minutes of Push Ups
2:00 of Sit Ups
2 Mile Run

The new Physical Readiness Test is a combination of muscular strength and endurance tests with dynamic coordination and agility added in. See the chart below.

Strength and power is better because of length tension relationship emphasis.  One bad thing with the old test is having your hands behind your head during the sit ups. This made the upper traps and lats tight on many soldiers, with this being replaced with the rower this won’t be an issue any longer.

Power is now tested with the Standing Long Jump, previous to the new test the most advanced form of physical fitness as defined by NASM was never even addressed.

Speed, agility and coordination is now tested with the 60 yard shuttle run. Think about it, how many times have soldiers in battle ran more then 400 yards without a rest in the last 50 years? I am pretty sure you can count the times on one or two hands.

The old test simply measured chest, triceps, abdominal and hip flexor endurance. Obviously the run measured soldier’s cardiovascular endurance. The problem that I saw each time I did it was my hip flexor’s would be dead before I even started the run. It, undoubtedly took time off my run because the two minutes of sit ups are murder on your hip flexors which are also a prime mover muscle for distance running. Its borderline unsafe to train this way over time.

Dynamic agility is better because of the increased focus on agility with shuttle runs and the ACRT. I have wanted to see something like this in the military since I joined in 1997. At the young age of 17 I knew it was broke and I am glad to see that they are actually doing it the right way now!

I am very excited to see how this program improves the performance of soldiers, and how it will help put the soldier – marine debate to rest because the Army’s new fitness test is far superior to the Marines Corps outdated pull-ups, run and crunch test. I have no doubt that all branches of the services will follow the Army’s lead by adopting similar tests over the next decade.

The Soldier Athlete Initiative is far superior to the old APFT because it increases soldiers speed, agility, coordination, power and stability far more than that of it predecessors. This will provide the commanders on the battle field with soldiers that are much more capable of the dynamic movement that is required of them. I mean, think about it, when is the last time you saw a soldier do a push up or sit up on the battle field? The only time in the last 60 years soldiers has had to run over a half of mile is in Somalia with the black hawk down incident. So it is good to see the emphasis on short, anaerobic bursts of speed and agility that is truly needed.

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