Hello everyone. The last time I posted on this thread, I was a nervous applicant in August who had just realized a service academy was their dream. Now in December, I am academically qualified, have received a nomination from both my congressman and my Senator, and have finished the medical process (although I am still awaiting my results, and I am sure I will have a waiver to fill out.) The only issue now is my CFA. I am behind on my averages, but I am working nonstop to get better. The West Point website offers two separate CFA averages to strive for, and I have yet to reach any average numbers except for sit-ups. I am worried that this may be the test that washes me out, but I will not give up until the Academy makes me. I am looking for any and ALL advice to pass my CFA before January 31st. Flexed arm hang exercises, push-up training, anything. Thank you for all your help and support, this forum has been a godsend to getting through the rest of my application.
Congrats on all of your hard work so far! Keep it up and it will pay off.
I received my appointment to USMA CO2027 this month, and I was in the exact same shoes you were in a few months ago. I trained for about two months (I was really out of shape beforehand) and passed my CFA with numbers that weren't phenomenal. I am a female (and given that you said flexed-arm hang I think it is safe to assume you are too). These are my stats:
26-second flexed arm hang
45ish feet basketball throw
9.3-second shuttle run
90 sit-ups (the only event I managed to max out)
22 push-ups (below average)
and wait for it... an 8:45 mile (that's WAYYY below average)
The good news is that I passed with two event scores that were way below average, and four that were around average or higher. With that in mind, I am going to give you advice for each of the events.
Firstly, if there are any events that you know you are good at, do your absolute best to raise them to be as high as possible. I knew from being in JROTC that I was abnormally good at sit-ups, and I strongly believe that being able to get the maximum score on that event is what saved me from failure even with a pretty terrible mile time. Given that you said you reached average in sit-ups, I would work on getting them much higher!
In my experience, sit-ups and the flexed arm hang are the two events that can be improved upon the fastest. I went from a ten-second flexed arm hang to twenty-six within the span of two weeks. You just have to do them every day and get used to it because it honestly is a really strange exercise. Please make sure that you are doing flexed arm hangs with a pronated grip (hands facing outwards) as opposed to supinated (hands facing inwards) as the CFA explicitly states it has to be pronated and the different grips work entirely different muscle groups. Remember to BREATHE when you are doing flexed arm hang, a lot of people will hold their breath which makes it 10x harder.
Practice the basketball toss every single day, that is another one that will improve if you just keep at it. I would show up in the morning before school every day and chuck a basketball until I either ran out of time or couldn't get very far anymore.
For the shuttle run, get low and pivot. What I mean by this is when you are approaching the turnaround point, you should be lowering yourself to the ground so you can tap it and turn around with ease. I found that I performed the best on the shuttle run when I was touching the ground with the same hand as the foot closest to the line. So if my left foot was closest to the turn-around line, I would touch it with my left hand so that I could pivot faster. (This one is kind of hard to explain via text so if you need further clarification let me know!)
My advice for push-ups is centered around the form. Please do yourself a favor and be CERTAIN your form is up to West Point standard. I attended SLE my junior year and actually failed the CFA (the stats above are from my retake I passed) because I was unprepared for just how serious the administration takes form and only ended up with like six push-ups that were up to par. This includes making sure that you are "breaking the plane", not breaking four points of contact at any point, etc. West Point has videos in the correct form, I would recommend looking them up and following them to perfection whenever you do them.
Finally, make sure that you are taking full-length practice CFA's. It is one thing to be able to do well on all of the events separately, but an entirely new ball game when you have to do them in sequence with time constraints. YOU CAN DO IT!
I wish you endless luck and encouragement, if you want any additional advice or support, send me a private message and I am happy to help
