ACFT For Dummies. Angela Papple Johnston

ACFT For Dummies

In the drag, the whole sled has to cross the line. When you’re carrying kettlebells, you have to touch the line with your foot. If you fail to meet these standards, your grader calls you back. Your event isn’t terminated — it’s worse: Your clock keeps running, which drags down your score on this timed event.

In this race against the clock, you need to complete all five events in 3 minutes flat to get 60 points. Finish in 2:30 to get 65 points, or wrap it up under 2:10 to get 70 points. Power through the whole thing in 1:33, and you max it out with 100 points.

Leg Tuck

The Leg Tuck — maybe the most infamous event on the ACFT — is how the Army measures your muscular strength and endurance. Check out Figure 2-8 for an inside look at which muscles need to work during this event. They’re the same muscles that help you get over walls and obstacles as well as climb and descend ropes.

FIGURE 2-8: Muscles used in the Leg Tuck.

The LTK requires you to use your grip, shoulders, arm and chest muscles, abs, and even your front leg muscles. It’s notoriously tough because it requires you to hang from a pull-up bar with an alternating grip, curl your body (like a shrimp) so that your knees or thighs touch your elbows or the backs of your upper arms, and return under control to the straight-arm hang — all while your body is perpendicular to the bar. Figure 2-9 shows you what the Leg Tuck looks like.

Zack McCrory

FIGURE 2-9: The Leg Tuck.

The starting position for the LTK is a straight-arm hang from the pull-up bar with an alternating grip. Ideally, your dominant hand is supposed to be closer to your head than your other hand is; for most people, that’s the strategy that provides the most power. (Try it both ways when you practice, though.) Your grader can help you get up to the bar if you can’t reach it, and if you’re too tall to hang from the bar with straight arms, you must bend your knees, because your feet aren’t allowed to touch the ground.

On the command “Go,” flex at the elbows, waist, hips, and knees to bring your lower body up. Touch your knees or thighs to your elbows, and then return to the start position under control. If you keep your elbows bent, the rep doesn’t count; the same goes if you swing your trunk or legs to get your knees up. You can, however, adjust your grip. Just make sure you don’t touch the ground while you do it, or your grader will terminate the event.

You only complete a repetition when you return to the straight-arm hang under control. You can’t just drop from the bar on your last rep; if you do, your grader won’t count it.

You have to curl up to the bar once to score 60 points, three times for a score of 65, and five times if you want to earn yourself 70 points. Think you can do it 20 times? If you pull it off, you get a whopping 100 points on this event.

PREGNANCY VERSUS THE LEG TUCK

Critics of the ACFT — and there are plenty — say the Leg Tuck is invariably biased against female soldiers, who may not perform as well as their male counterparts on this event. One reason is that when a woman has a baby, she’s on profile for six months. After her profile expires, her command can require her to take a record ACFT. However, for most people (males too), knocking out at least one leg tuck requires training. And what about females who have undergone C-sections? That’s a major surgery, and it can lead to people having major trouble regaining abdominal strength and reactivating their core muscles. Because full recovery, and returning to your prior fitness level, can take anywhere from six months to a year, talking to your doctor about your profile after you have your child and return to work is important.

Two-Mile Run

The Two-Mile Run, or 2MR, measures your aerobic endurance, just like it did on the APFT. The same theory is in play here: If you have higher aerobic endurance, you can recover more quickly from one task so you’re ready for the next one — and you can run when you need to. In practice, performing well on the 2MR shows the Army that you’ll do just fine during dismounted operations, rucking, and infiltration and extraction. Just in case you weren’t sure what muscles you need to wake up to perform well on the 2MR, Figure 2-10 highlights them for you.

FIGURE 2-10: Muscles used in the Two-Mile Run.

Your unit chooses where you complete your Two-Mile Run. It can be on an indoor or outdoor track or on an improved surface (like a road or sidewalk). Don’t worry; you’re not going to be cruising down the dirt part of Perimeter Road in your favorite running shoes. The Army forbids the run from happening on unimproved terrain, which can be unsafe and potentially hurt your time.

The ACFT has a pre-programmed 10-minute rest between the LTK and the 2MR, which starts when the last soldier in your group finishes the LTK.

Run times for the ACFT are a lot different from what they were on the APFT. If you only need to eke by with 60 points, you have 21 minutes to make your way through the entire course. If you need 65 points, aim for 19 minutes even, or score 70 points by running it in 18 minutes. You can max out 100 points on the 2MR by running the whole thing in 13:30.

The Recovery Drill

When everyone’s finished taking the ACFT, there’s one more step: the Recovery Drill. Army regs say that the Recovery Drill can be conducted in formation or individually — but that’s at the OIC’s and NCOIC’s discretion.

The Recovery Drill includes these stretches and movements, which are all part of H2F:

Overhead Arm Pull

Rear Lunge

Extend and Flex

Thigh Stretch

Single Leg Over

Groin Stretch

Calf Stretch

Hamstring Stretch

Biking, Rowing, or Swimming Your Way through the Alternate Events

If you’re on a permanent profile, the ACFT’s new events don’t have to spell an end to your illustrious career. You may be eligible for the modified ACFT — called the ACFT MOD — if you have clearance from your medical provider. Soldiers are required to participate in all the events they’re not profiled against, but at minimum, a permanently profiled soldier has to pass the following, regardless of his or her job’s physical demand category:

MDL:

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