Welcome to October, JAGWARriors!
It’s Thursday, 1 October 2020, and y’all better buckle your reflective belts; today’s briefing is intense.
BLUF: As of this morning, the Army Combat Fitness Test became our branch’s official physical fitness test of record, thanks to the implementing guidelines in the new Field Manual 7-22: Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F).
For more on this development, let’s head over to the Army Times:
“No longer the pushups, sit-ups, and 2-mile run soldiers love to hate, standards for the ACFT may be easier to pass but much more difficult to perfect. To achieve a perfect score of 600 on a test where standards are the same regardless of age or gender, a soldier [must] complete three repetitions of a 340-pound deadlift, throw a 10-pound medicine ball backwards over their head for 12.5 meters, complete 60 hand release pushups, run the sprint-drag-carry in less than 93 seconds, complete 20 leg tucks, and run a sub-13:30 two-mile.”
To gauge your own progress, click to download the official ACFT Standards matrix.
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A lot of the rationale behind introduction of the ACFT can be gleaned from another article which appeared in the Army Times, just yesterday, reporting that there are 13 brigades-worth of non-deployable troops. Quote the Army Times:
“As of April, more than 58,000 soldiers — the equivalent of 13 brigade combat teams — were non-deployable, with 16,500 soldiers on temporary profile and 15,000 soldiers on permanent profile, according to a concept paper for the Holistic Health and Fitness system . . .”
That’s a dramatic figure. And it’s why the Army has rewritten the former “FM 7-22 Physical Readiness Training” as the brand-spankin’ new “FM 7-22 Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F)”. The ACFT is just one component of this new H2F approach. Learn more about it by scoping the hot-off-the-presses H2F Operating Concept brief.
As the Sergeant Major of the Army declared in an email sent to Soldiers all across the Army, “H2F empowers and equips Soldiers to take charge of their health, fitness, and well-being to hone individual performance, while preventing injury and disease.”
So to expedite your train-up, the JAGWAR has collected all the resources you’ll need to kickstart the new fiscal year! Check ‘em out… and happy training!