Yea, for the most part that’s true. The Army caught itself in a weird spot where it doesn’t have a test of record technically with the extension of reviewing the ACFT that went into effect last October until next fiscal year but the APFT has already been eliminated as the general test of record unless a service member is under very specific conditions. Some of thats COVID related; some of it is political.
That said, up until politics got involved more recently, even with covid last year initial entry programs were using the ACFT, not APFT, as the graduation requirement. That was also a weird spot to be in because we were holding initial trainees accountable on a test that when they showed up to the force, soldiers weren’t being held to that standard on record yet so those programs were also brought into line with placing it on hold this past October. I would expect to see it back in place by next fiscal year at the entry level and a hard push to make it for the force as well.
With all that said, I don’t think it’s going away. You might see modifications depending on what more studies say, but the Army has already invested money into this venture and begun to make the manning training and personnel requirements they envision to start making master fitness trainers useful to a unit that’s part of this change in the holistic approach to fitness. Schools like Sapper have modified their entrance fitness tests to be a modified ACFT instead of APFT and been running that for the last year (typically just hand release push ups, leg tucks, and a run of varying distance based on the school). With these kind of large scale changes in place. I don’t see it being completely canned. I have gripes with certain parts of the test, mostly based on equipment requirements, but I do also appreciate the kind of fitness it encourages that the APFT didn’t. It also, in my opinion, is an easier test to just pass than the APFT, if you’re going by gold standards (lowest) and you can do a pull up. If you can’t do a pull up of any sort, the leg tucks will probably get you. It is a much harder test to max,because you are smoked by the time you get to the run if you’ve been putting in a good effort.
What that means for candidates is I would continue to recommend training for the ACFT, not APFT. Like I said before, training for the ACFT will put you in position to pass both. Training for the APFT only and you’re probably going to struggle to do well on the ACFT.
