One Standard, One Fight: Inside the Army’s New Fitness Test

Well, it’s about time. It’s not like there is such a thing as “male combat and “female combat”. In the heat of battle, gender means absolutely nothing; being able to do your job does.

In a move that has both ruffled feathers and garnered applause, the U.S. Army has announced a significant overhaul of its physical fitness standards. The most talked-about change? The elimination of the infamous “standing power throw,” colloquially known among soldiers as the “yeet.” This event, which required soldiers to hurl a 10-pound medicine ball backward over their heads, was often criticized for favoring taller individuals and emphasizing technique over raw strength. Its removal marks a shift towards more practical and equitable assessments of a soldier’s physical capabilities. ​

Never once, ever, in all my time in the Army did I have to throw anything backwards over my head for any reason. Ding, dong, the “yeet” is dead.

Introducing the Army Fitness Test (AFT)

The U.S. Army is rolling out a new standard for physical readiness—the Army Fitness Test (AFT)—officially replacing the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) starting June 1, 2025. This is more than a simple reshuffling of the deck – it’s a recalibration of what physical fitness means for today’s warfighter. The AFT is designed to better reflect the realities of combat, ensuring soldiers are not only stronger and faster but also more resilient and lethal in the face of modern threats.

The AFT consists of five core events, all focused on essential combat performance traits. It starts with the three-repetition maximum deadlift, which gauges lower-body strength and grip—key components for tasks like casualty carries and moving heavy gear. Next up are the hand-release push-ups with arm extensions, a more honest test of upper-body muscular endurance than your old-school chest bouncers. The sprint-drag-carry event pushes soldiers through a high-intensity circuit of power, speed, and agility drills, giving a snapshot of explosive combat readiness. Then comes the plank—boring, yes, but brutally effective at measuring core strength and stability. Finally, the two-mile run wraps things up, evaluating that all-important aerobic endurance every soldier needs in the field.

Now here’s where it gets serious. For the 21 Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) that fall under the combat arms umbrella—infantry, artillery, engineers, Special Forces, and the like—the scoring just got tighter. Soldiers in these roles will be held to sex-neutral, age-normed standards. That means men and women alike will be judged by the same performance benchmarks, though with some age consideration. Each event carries a minimum score of 60 points, but to pass, soldiers must hit a total of at least 350 points. This isn’t about “fairness” in the soft sense—it’s about ensuring everyone in the foxhole is equally ready to haul gear, carry a buddy, or drag themselves out of the kill zone.

For soldiers in other jobs—logistics, admin, support roles—the Army is keeping the scoring adjusted for both sex and age, with a minimum total score of 300 points. This still ensures a baseline of fitness, but recognizes that these roles don’t carry the same physical expectations as a combat MOS.

The new standards for combat MOS become active on January 1, 2026, for active-duty soldiers. National Guard and Reserve units get until June 1, 2026, to catch up. All soldiers, however, will begin taking the AFT as their official fitness test starting June 1, 2025.

Importantly, failure to meet the standards won’t be taken lightly. Soldiers in combat arms who can’t make the grade—even after being given a fair shot—may face reclassification into non-combat roles. The Army is also revising its medical policy to account for soldiers with profiles or limitations, so the system remains tough but fair.

Here’s the breakdown of what each event tests:

The Events and What They Measure

3-Rep Max Deadlift: Lower-body & grip strength

Hand-Release Push-Up: Upper-body endurance

Sprint-Drag-Carry: Strength, speed, and agility

Plank: Core strength

Two-Mile Run: Aerobic endurance

Bottom line: the AFT is a sharper, more combat-focused tool to assess soldier readiness. It moves away from arbitrary metrics and towards data-driven, role-specific standards. Gone are the days of the one-size-fits-all approach. The Army wants a fitter, tougher, more unified fighting force—and with the AFT, it’s laying the foundation for exactly that.

Pete Hegseth’s Role in the Overhaul

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth played a decisive and direct role in shaping the new Army Fitness Test (AFT) by ordering the elimination of gender-based differences in physical fitness standards for combat roles. In March 2025, Hegseth issued a directive mandating that all military branches adopt sex-neutral fitness standards for combat arms positions—roles such as infantry, armor, and special operations that require heightened physical readiness. His order required that the standards be based solely on the operational needs of the job, not on the sex of the soldier.

This directive followed Hegseth’s longstanding criticism of previous policies that allowed lower fitness standards for women in combat roles, which he argued undermined readiness and meritocracy. He has publicly stated that military standards should not be adjusted to meet diversity quotas and has insisted that the same rigorous benchmarks should apply to all soldiers in combat positions, regardless of gender.

Under his leadership, the Pentagon conducted a force-wide review of physical, body composition, and grooming standards, with Hegseth emphasizing that the U.S. military must maintain “the highest and same standards for everyone, regardless of gender, in our combat roles”. The result is the new AFT, which requires both men and women in 21 designated combat specialties to meet the same physical requirements, a move expected to significantly raise the bar for female soldiers in these positions.

Secretary Hegseth’s role was pivotal: he initiated, directed, and publicly championed the shift to sex-neutral fitness standards for Army combat roles, framing it as essential to military effectiveness and operational readiness. He’s really putting his money where his mouth is and getting stuff done at the Pentagon. It’s about time. 

The Bottom Line

This is exactly the kind of common-sense leadership our military has been missing. By holding every combat soldier to the same physical standard, regardless of gender, Secretary Hegseth and the Army are putting readiness and merit back where they belong—front and center. The days of gimmicky events like the “yeet” are over, replaced by a test that actually prepares warriors for the realities of battle. If you want to wear the uniform of the United States Army in combat, you’d better be able to carry your weight—no excuses, no exceptions.