 Hey, good evening to everyone who has taken time out of their busy schedules to join us this evening So we got some special guests with us. I'll introduce them in a second before we get started. I wanted to First talk about why we're doing this town hall Everybody knows that we have been Trying to get after a new assessment to to be a better predictor of our performance of our army warrior task and our performance in combat So we've been after that for a couple of years now. In fact, I think the Three years to be exact as far as all the studies and research and data being collected and then what we're familiar with is actually the the pilot programs of actually getting out there and doing the assessment and Brings us to where we are today a test that is Being kicked off April the first so a few days ago for the diagnostic phase To start live one October depending on what your status is and then the roll hot for other status is April of the following year to be fully implemented in April of 23 so With that, I won't waste a whole lot of time. I will turn it over to our two guests first Sergeant Major of the Army Mike Michael Grinston and Brigadier General John Klein from the Center of Initial Military Training So SMA Hey, sir major range. Thanks for having me and If you could just make sure can you give me a thumbs up that you can hear me clearly? Okay, we got a thumbs up. We have audio. We have visual here. I am from my POW camp But which is in my house. It looks a little creepy, you know, the Army can't afford a you know Good ceiling light, but that's okay Hopefully you can see me fine. The brief still goes. Well, I Am safe and secure. It's okay. No, but I appreciate everybody taking their time. Good evening and thanks for joining us Before you get started again or I'd like to you know first by thank all our soldiers That we have right now forward deployed. We have a lot of things that are going on with the soldiers in Europe We've sent soldiers over to the Baltics We have soldiers in Poland and may have all compost over their army guard and reserve On this mission for those in Europe, it's usually our active component But please keep them in your thoughts as they do the mission that the army has asked them to do I'd also like to thank The the Army National Guard for all that you have done in the last couple of years For your roles either through capital response national natural disasters code support Sometimes even driving school buses or whatever your country needs The Army National Guard has done a fantastic job and I'd like to thank you all and thank you all for joining us tonight But tonight we're talking about Getting an update on the army combat fitness tests and the policies and procedures That's what we're doing this leadership matters and Everybody here is going to be a part of that and I appreciate everybody tuning in we got a lot of information But I'd ask you all no matter what we talk about tonight. Please take the time to read the army directive And and the execution order if you can't do that. There was also the army mill slash ACFT website and go to so we're just going to jump right in and Hopefully you can go ahead and bring up that that first slide As I'm kind of waiting for this to go this is I mean you go ahead and go to the next line What we have tonight is the first thing we're going to talk about is the evolution the ACFT and what the objectives were, you know We kind of had The same PT test for 40 years, so I'm pretty proud that we actually finally got it changed There's been three other attempts to do so Now this one actually works, so I'm really proud of this that your four years We got the army combat fitness test my goal of this is to improve readiness transfer and culture reduce injuries And this has been many years in development and it's evolved over time. We had ACFT like the original version The standards were based off order task and battle drills age and gender neutral and then take the test or not Then we went to 2.0 where we said hey, we're gonna add a an alternate plank and then for three three dot all the The plank was a permanent member On the alternate events and then here here we are now for full infant implementation and We had 630 samples of the army combat fitness fitness tests and the test scores and everything so as We get going for full implementation. I'll talk about that tonight At some point, I think was around June through December the National Defense Authorization Act said we could not implement the ACFT until We did another independent review and I'll talk about more of that here in a few minutes But after that review and after it was completed what we came up with Was The army combat fitness test is what you have right now And I'll kind of pause there just for a second to see if the slides below We're at the Smith. That's made a slides a broadcasting. There's major your mic is muted. Okay. Can you hear me now? Give me a thumbs up. There we go Maybe it's my internet and my house is working very slow tonight or something. I don't know But okay, we're on slide number three here. Keep going Here's what we have after the ranch studies complete. They made several recommendations I'll talk about those in a minute and what we ended up with was a general fitness assessment Where before we really were leaning towards an occupational fitness test but we've we settled on a general fitness test which is Performance normed so it's based off of age and gender Which is same groups is what we had before with the APFT And if you look across the bottom of the timeline There are a few key dates I'll talk about the key dates for the active component and the army Guard and reserve which is active guard and reserve a GR So if you're an agr soldier or an active component soldier 1 April 22 will begin your timeline for a diagnostic PT test That diagnostic test will go to one October 22 and for all the active guard reserves On one October or active component one October will be official start of the army combat fitness test We've dropped the the numbering It's not 4.0. It's not 3.1. It's just the army combat fitness test. It's still six events We dropped the leg tuck. I'll talk more about that in a minute And the plank is the only event the core and then there's still the two are in a bin But back to the time October so one October will start for a GR and active component one I've dropped and for all PME So no matter the school system one on the school system you go into six events PME after one October or in this military training The ACFT will be your test record and if you fail you're allowed to be flagged Again active or a GR So say you go and take your diagnostic you feel good about yourself and take another one or you like that one You can say I want to come to where I'd like to go ahead and use that one as my test record You don't have to take another one and that would be valid for those that are traditional Guard soldiers That timeline is extended. That'll be one April that you have all the way till then to take your diagnostic And then after one April that would be your Online that you begin flagging soldiers if you have not passed a PT test you have to pass it You'll take a test in April if you're if you don't pass by then you will be flying And you're willing to be separated In April guarding so your time lines You know for you all most of you all or the guard soldiers will be extended this I think that's a reasonable time And that's what part of the rent says is was to phase it in over time and what we're doing get allowing you more time To go ahead and take that diagnostic in your drill weekends and then get the tests before April and then Complete or pass the test for April 24 Go ahead and go to the next line Okay So ran what added we get to where we're at right now a little bit is the ran completed study already talked about that Here are the four shortfalls that they they said that we must have in case you can't read those as addressed the shortfalls in the ACFT evidence base consider ways to mitigate the impacts to the soldiers Take steps to further support training improvements over time and that's where I talked about we Let it go for more time so that you can have time to pass the test Institutional lines a formal senior level management structure And so there is a plan that we'll look at the army combat fitness test I think there's work Lee month working groups the two times a year They'll be briefed up to the army senior leaders and decide if there's any changes that need to be made So those are the recommendations that the ran talked about in the top and in the bottom Here's what we did Based off what was in the ran studies if anybody like to read it. I'm pretty sure it's on the internet or something So please feel free to go ahead and read through that if you'd like One of those things talked about was climate We did find a small very minor change when you get to you know, really hot extremes or a cold extreme But there's always there's always some policy in there That says, you know commanders can decide when to take the PT test and encourage those not to take the army combat fitness test When it's extremely hot outside or extremely cold and that's another reason why we're giving a long time so you can get those tests When a reasonable other additions, so we looked at climate. We looked at what's happening with recruiting Based off of the National Defense Authorization Act they had to We really didn't see any changes in recruiting because we already had the occupational physical assessment test So we didn't change that and there's no requirement to take the ACFT in the army the second the third thing to look at was the retention and See if there's any effects of retention We don't see any changes to retention based off of the norming of the scales We expect similar results from the APFT and in the evidence base. I think it is we had now We have 630 samples of the army combat fitness test And that's why the some of the scales are we the way they are And I'll talk about that a minute mitigate the impacts and I'll talk about that when you looked at the scale and I've already talked about how we're gonna Implement this training over time What you had for the active component in the AGR soldiers For timelines for passing in PT tests used to be 90 days and we've extended that to 180 days And that are and for the guard there's 240 days So we we've increased that amount of time so Gives you more time to go ahead and just pass the PT test and and Then the governance I've already talked about So if you could go to the next slide and we'll go ahead and show you the scales in case you haven't seen those Here are the men You go next slide, please If you look at this scale, there's a minute of max. There's a whole bunch of numbers in between those two when you get the official scales When you look at this you say, how do we get those scales? So you took like the top 5% in each category in each event and we just looked at all those 630,000 ACFT scores and says this is where this group scored at the end so 5% You know or so would max that event and that's what the max is for that group And then the same thing for the men was a 55% if if less than 5% it failed That's where the men minimum was and there's there's a little bit of new islands Not everyone was perfectly 5% but that's the rough man So We did do the plank and the plank standards We just kind of went and said there were some other Orizations of ring core at a plank And so we just kind of went with some of those scoring scales Actually, we went a little bit harder than a ring course to make sure that ours was harder than theirs So but we had we didn't have a whole bunch of that on the planks Just kind of look at other services and that's how we got it got to those scores so Next slide when you look at this this is the plank versus the leg tuck If you are bored and you get a lot of time to read The ran study encourage y'all to do that Really excited But why did we remove the leg tuck one is for simplicity number two is Is because when you read the ranch study it talks about the validity of the leg tuck It doesn't mean the leg tuck is a bad exercise It says that they couldn't validate that the leg tuck was good And showed support for the warrior task in battle battle drills That's what ran to just that exercise Because some subgroups couldn't do it and what that means is when you look at you know your little Diagram there if you look at leg tuck it does measure some grip strength Upper back strength, I'm sorry upper body strength the grip strength and the core So if you don't have grip strength and upper body strength and you can't do a leg tuck It doesn't it won't measure your core strength So we went with a plank that way we can sure that we can measure the core strength But if you look at the that same page, I think it's on page 14 the ranch study Doesn't mean the leg tuck is bad So, you know, I made a video the other day It says, you know the leg tuck is still alive and well And some people says hey, why would you do like that's because it's a good exercise It's a multi-component exercise that assesses grip strength, upper body strength and your core So I encourage you all to continue to do multi-component exercises and not just go Hey, I'm only going to do these exercises that are listed in the army combat fitness test I encourage I'm assuming that prior to You know In your your your programs when you exercise you don't just do I hope you don't just do you know did push-up setups and run yet did other other things. So the same thing with this You should you know branch out and do other things that are not just listed in the army combat fitness test I encourage you all to do that But that's the reason why we took out the leg cook. We couldn't validate. It was good for each subgroup Doesn't mean it's a bad exercise and then we wanted to keep it simple for simplicity next So I'll just cover this briefly temporary profiles. We added in The walk the 2.5 mile walk one of those reasons is we found that when we bought equipment We bought all the equipment for everybody army national garden reserves But the thing we didn't buy with a bike and the rower So wanted to add it and a ultimate event for those with a permanent profile that you could do Uh Similar to you know running if you didn't have a swimming pool a bike or a row So we added that alternate event back in if you're on a permanent profile If you're on a temporary profile, don't take the test You've got a much longer timeline to go ahead and take that test if you're on temporary profile But the temporary profile is just like the old baby team No one should be taking the pt test if you're on a temporary profile If you're on a permanent profile, you should take the events that you can take based off your profile And for those events that you can't take Um, if you were to be promotable e45 e5 d6 The promotion points would be Scored based off the events you take not the events that you did not take So if you got you didn't take an event you would get minimum passing score of 60 And that's how you calculate your score If and only you were on a permanent profile Okay, next I'll try to briefly cover these. I've talked about a little bit. I'll go by each one this class quickly as I can um so flags For the active comment will start in october for the army national guard that will start is allowed to start in april of 23 If you're etsing or You know for an active voter soldier or anyone if you want to get out of the army I'm sorry if you're etsing And you'd like to re-enlist you cannot re-enlist if you haven't passed a army combat fitness test in april if If you can't pass it, you can't extend You can may extend up to 12 months But you cannot re-enlist if you'd not pass the army combat fitness test for your evaluations and oer's We're allowed to go ahead and put those on the oer's for the through date of 1 april 23 If you're commissioning on 1 april 23, we'll start with the commissioning for promotions active if you Fail and that prohibits a promotion. You shouldn't get promoted if you're flagged Which is no change for the hft or the apft and Promotion points for those that have promotion points You'd use your you still use your last apft for promotion points until You've taken an ace it till we give everybody the amount of time to take an apft So that gives everybody i'm sorry the acft Go give everybody a lot enough time to take the acft And then once we do that we can add those promotion points And so the apft will be used a little bit for promotion points For those that may have Never taken an apft You could if you had a temporary profile you could be awarded some points For those that haven't taken an apft ever That would be odd But it could be those and I think there is a little clause in xor that allows you to take an apft In the event you need promotion points, but you should have taken one those at some point separations for the army national guard that will not officially begin until April 24 and as you can see it on timeline For initial military training started in october of 22 Everybody goes through basic training And I'm sorry a it must graduate and have a passing score for the army cali fitness test For all pme one army school system after After one october of 22 It will be if there is a graduation requirement for the army for a physical fitness test It will be the army combat fitness test and everybody must pass to graduate And that will be a score to appropriately for the army combat fitness test for all components on one october of 22 Which is listed right there on the bottom okay That's the down and dirty and fast as I can go through A difficult topic or not really too difficult for us, but I know for most of us We've been taking this the army combat fitness test for years So I appreciate you listening to me and that rundown I'll kind of ask general client if there's anything I missed if not We can jump right into the questions Ready for question ready question may Okay, let's do it Yes, may our first question comes from the new york national guard. So I'll turn it over to them Right. We were waiting for pfc. Wingo new york national guard. Okay So then we'll go to uh nevada national guard, uh specialist morgan go ahead Good afternoon sir major of the army is specialist moran My question is why did the army change from the language of NDA 2015 and come up with the standards for age and gender? Why did we go? I think I heard uh, why did we go with age and gender neutral? Um, I thought I kind of said that doing the brief but uh, maybe maybe I didn't but uh, that was one of the recommendations from the rand study When you look at what it said it says in there It says we rec they recommended a to go to an age and gender normed as opposed to gender neutral And we kind of went with their recommendation in order to get the army combat fitness test And that was a recommendation from the rand study Uh, jill clon anything you think I need to add with that No, uh, yeah, we just we also just couldn't make the argument to keep the tie there, you know with the mos is so And we needed a test. So here we are Okay, thank you Thanks our major I submit if you could also um, talk about the the opat and the role that that plays in uh, making sure that we Have an assessment fitness assessment for occupational specialties Okay, uh That's probably a really good one for uh, general climb But I'll kind of throw in there a little bit the occupational physical assessment test Is still um alive and well where you still have to Um achieve a higher score Based off your occupation If you're a combat arms, you have to have an higher score and to get in order to go those high physical demands Jobs, uh, if you do that you're allowed to go in the combat arms if you're not Then you have to to go to into a different job based off how you score on the opat So there are some things that are still available that says a Um, you know, if you're in a high physical demands job that is still there Um general climb Yep, the only thing I would add is the opat is uh, it is not based off of uh age of gender, right? So that's still a neutral test for your occupation Okay, thanks, sir Right our next question comes from the Idaho national guard Sorry major the army. Good evening Is there a concern that without intervention Gender norm scales could cause a regression in the fair treatment and respect of females throughout our organization What would your recommendations be to help combat males from looking down on females? Based on the scales and cause problems with individual soldier health as well as unit morale at any echelon Uh, that's a great question. I'd probably go back to what were you doing for the apft? So I did have it for 40 years So, uh, no, there shouldn't be any regression. There's still plenty of things that are age and gender neutral Uh, we've had 100 over 100 women graduate through ranger school. So Um, I hope any of those men that would be saying different things to women Because of this test, I hope um, I probably just ask them. Did they get a ranger school once they had and why not? so there's there's plenty of things that are age and gender neutral and We have the opatz one of those it's right there We have ranger school and and believe it or not the expert infantry badge The physical assessment for the expert infantry badge is also age and gender neutral and we've had several women go through there so there's a plenty of Other ways that you can say that women have excelled physically Um, and for those folks that would regress in their mind Um, probably needs to have some counseling. Um, but You know, there's there's other ways to To show that we've done that but for anybody that's narrow minded We just need to go back and say we treat everybody equally Um, and we have some very good schools that people go to they're clearly physically demanding And I just talked about a couple areas that we have but there's others Esme, we'll take our next question from social media. It says Army personnel were not a army personnel We're not allowed to see DTMS scores But was rammed able to see any improvement or trends in individuals or groups on events and track any success or progress Up to this point Yes, uh, Ram was uh had the ability to track all the scores But none of us could see individual Names so ran could say Here's a person and they've uh, they did better over time and that's they actually said that they said hey People can pass this test when given time For everyone. It just said that's kind of why we faced it in and gave a little more time To extend the the timelines is because they they looked at the data All 630 000 scores But what we couldn't do is we couldn't correlate it to a name or a person so that that caused some problems Uh, and not having a test of record. It was the test of record, but it wasn't held accountable Um, if you read through the round studies said that was a problem too because until until you know, you're going to be flagged Do you really put forth the effort? Um, do until you know, you're going to be separated or chaptered, you know Did you do your best and we saw some scores, you know for two mile run time for like You know 30 35 minutes and that's that's an extremely You know a long time. I think, you know, most people can walk that, you know and in 30 30 minutes so In the evidence base they looked at it um By individuals and then We did see improvements over time for most or all subgroups and groups Um with the version that they looked at Um, but again, there were problems. We couldn't apply resources so they couldn't they didn't know what would happen You know if we did, you know a remedial pt plan And they didn't couldn't tell what would happen when you know when it counted and you had to pass For real. What what was that motivation? That would be uh, so there were some limitations to the test But to answer your basic question is yes, we we did see improvements over time with the the old army combat fitness test Um Sir anything to add on that Nothing to add sir major. Okay. Thank you All right our next question will come from the west virginia national guard I believe it's a captain Lopez from the west virginia national guard So i'm not i'm not i'm glad i'm not the only one that has worked through their Mute problems here because I can see him talking But uh, he's working through the mute sir. Uh, you want to try one more time? Sir major are you able to hear me? Okay Hey after good evening. Uh, sir major is captain Lopez from the west virginia national guard Being in the diagnostic phase we're in now Before we go into full implementation Do you foresee potential any changes to the a cft? No No, no, sir. No no changes um Yeah, we're you know, there may be maybe something on a scale here or there, but Uh, right now I really you know, we got to stop changing. No, that's you know We we met a lot of changes in three years, which is abnormal It took us 40 years to get to this point. So um, you know, we made minor tweaks But I really don't see Probably major changes, you know on the army coming through this that's probably for the next Yeah 20 years There'll definitely be some changes probably in the scoring Do we need 180 days to to pass the PT test or the active component? Do we want to make that shorter? Do we increase the max of the bends but? You know major changes adding exercises or anything like that I I don't I don't actually see that in the near future Um, it's just taken us a long time to get to here one thing we we may do Um, is look at you know, could we look at an occupational Occupational physical standard for combat arms for infantry one standard because you know You know, you're all infantry and what's what's that baseline in other words? Re-look the occupational standards and that's what we originally that was part of what we're doing trying to do in the beginning Like I said, it's why this is general fitness test Um, do we want to re-look that so those are the things I think the structure is going to go look at but the basic test I'd be extremely surprised if there's any changes To how that test is going to be done in the near future And I have a follow-up question if you have time Sure, I'm on your time sir So what are the expected timelines for units to perform the a cft? For example with all the safety Concerns and time constraints with this ACFT do you foresee a unit having to use an entire weekend to perform the a cft safely? um No, I think I think you're I'm not sure about your question because it would depend on a unit Um a unit to me could be company battery troop all the way to brigade or division so Uh, I'm not sure what unit but um a normal You know unit company size can complete the army combat fitness test in about two hours um, so You know, we extended that all the way out from now for the the national guard till april 23, but Sergeant major rains. You may be able to help me out with this If i'm not understanding the question correctly Sergeant major you're muted at the computer sergeant major You know, I definitely don't feel bad Hey, how about how about now we got you? Hey, uh, nobody's been in this room. So I don't know how that happened, but uh Hey, I take that into two phases. Uh, the safety concern first, uh, you know, one of the purposes of the a cft is to reduce injuries You know, uh more so than what we saw when we were using the apft So so how do we do risk? You know management is we put things in place like uh, like the chain teach like sma is doing with us tonight He teaches, you know, teach your soldiers, which we got a requirement In the directive to do this chain teach and teach everybody about the a cft But also to the diagnostic phase get out there and do it. Yeah, the the risk are going to be Great for somebody who's not doing pt and not doing anything and not putting their body in motion There's a greater risk for them to go out there if they're doing a deadlift and get hurt So so we've got some things to mitigate the risk for one Which one of that is getting bodies in motion and actually getting after physical fitness training And then the other thing is your basic troops to task. You already did that when we did apft You figured out the size of your unit you figured out how many lanes you were going to have how many instructors It was going to take to do it. So, uh, it's no different. Uh, it's it's a little more intensive as far as the requirements go To administer the test with numbers of instructors But it's still a basic troops to task that you're going to have to look at So you look at how many lanes you got you look how many big your unit is And then you look at the time that it's going to take and either you add Uh, cadre to ncoic's graders or either you add lanes or either you say, hey We're gonna we're going to power down the smaller elements so we can get it done So so the answer I guess is that we hope it's not going to take a whole drill weekend We would hope that you would do that troops to task and put it in a manageable amount where it would only take You know a couple of hours out of each element's day and that's decides elements that you would be Given the test to Thank you both for your response. Yeah, I think the only thing I would add Unless we want to talk about the Also talk about master fitness trainers. There's a lot of master fitness trainers and not just in the active component and there's a lot in the You know in the garden reserve. I don't know your exact numbers But I do know that most of the instructors at the master fitness corps are um active guard soldiers And they've helped me out on my fitness plan. So There is expertise to teach you how to train before you get to the test That's number one. Number two is The army combat fitness test was supposed to be taken by all soldiers Starting in october of 2020 That was active guard and reserve. So I'm kind of hoping you know We've kind of worked on a little bit of the kinks on the army combat fitness test since we told everybody two years ago and One october 20 to take the test Um, and there's been a lot of units. Um, and I actually pull it by state For the last year. I can tell you What your state did on army combat fitness test, but I've watched those numbers So a lot of states in the army national guard have already taken the test. So um We just took away a leg duck. The bank was already there So I'm really hoping that we've worked out some of the kinks already and this shouldn't be oh my goodness Now let's all of a sudden take the army combat fitness test um general plan, uh, could you talk about our uh, master fitness trainers that we've got? Yeah, sure can sma and I would start that you know in terms of mitigating riskoscope Um, you know, look look at the doctrine. Look at seven dash 22 Look at the atps that are associated with it too. I mean it's it shows how to do each one of the exercises And then uh sma is all over it. Um, you know within cimt We've got the army physical fitness school and then and they're producing master fitness trainers Um, I think we did a quick count before we started this sma and I have started doing the traveling road show If they were trained um post 2019 Then they are trained on how to do a cft and that four week course and we have About 2,500 that are circulating right now. There's more than that that For graduates that you know attended the course prior to 2019, but When we factor since 2019 and those that are probably still in a position whether you know performing as master fitness trainers About 2,500 out there. We also doubled the capacity out the school. So we used to only do about 800 a year We're gonna we started this month producing up to 1600 a year So I'm gonna encourage your folks to get into atars and schedule a slot for for mft All right, sma. We'll go back to social media for our next question Um, and we have seen this one a lot. Uh, and I know that there is guidance incoming, but uh, can you talk a little bit about? Using an acft score to clear a legacy apft flag Yeah unfortunately Just like we said in the old X order that is What the old x order said in case you didn't read it or Arm and directive. I can't remember which one it was and said You cannot clear a apft flag With an acft score And that was because at the time it was written the national defense authorization act Said, um, you should be flagged. Uh, you can't use the acft So, uh, if for some unreasonable amount of time since uh, june of 2020 Which is when we put that out that's been almost two years. Uh, you've been flagged that long and you're still in the army um Personally, uh, you can't use You know clear a flag with the acft until Uh, your timeline meaning it's only a diagnostic you can you can't get that Flag removed if you're the active component until one october So that's when you can officially use it Um on that date now I can take it I can pass it. Um, but Uh, one october is the date that we could put it in and go You know, you can do administrative flags both positive and negative That's why one october is adding it to the score, but that would be an extremely long time to be flagged Uh, waiting for the acft to come in. Um So right now there is no intent, uh, to Take an acft to remove your flag. You should pass the apft That's may just uh before we move on just to clarify one october for active and agr and then one april 23 for national guard Yes, you're correct. One april 23 Our next question comes from the florida national guard go ahead Good evening sna. Um, this is some first class alluring with the florida army national guard on behalf of the florida army national guard My question, uh Is why did the army? Like not revise the two mile run into like a one mile run or A mile and a half run like the other components and why does why did the army decide to use the hex bar versus just a regular straight bar for the three max deadlift I'm assuming when you say the other components, you're assuming the other services Uh, because the army and the army national guard and the army reserve has always had a two mile run um, so we stuck with the two mile one run because We did not want to appear that we were going to lower our standards and we made that decision um, probably about 2018 so, uh We weren't going to change it. There was no need to change it. You know, it checks your vo2 max um, it is it's a good uh representation of the vo2 max and I believe if you went into the science you need about 12 minutes to do that Check to see if you can achieve your Good assessment of your vo2 max 12 minutes You know, can you do that a mile or two miles? um, but we we went with the two miles and I don't see us changing that either anytime soon so uh hex bar versus uh I believe a straight bar was the question I think the hex bar allows you to Get into a little bit better body posture and get those hips a little bit more forward What you don't want with a deadlift is to bend your back forward. I think even though a lot of times I use a straight bar um Because you can find those more commonly, but it's more um conducive to watching people bend over more when you use a Um straight bar, but doesn't mean you can't use a straight bar um, I I normally use a straight bar and when I go to the deadlift I use the hex bar and um Still works out well for me I I did the max once. Um, even at my ripe old age of over 50, but um The set hex bar technically probably would get not technically or probably would just get those hip flexors a little more stable Get that back straight So to make sure you're doing the proper form and not have to bend over and I'm not sir, sir did anything I miss on that Now you nailed a better body alignment with that hex bar. It's just uh, yep um Yeah, and two miles because we're we're the army All right, this may our next question uh back from social media. Is there any uh hard definition or guidance? um on Field condition to conduct or not conduct in a cft So I think what they're asking is, you know, kind of what are those conditions that we're looking at? to Either use a a piece of land or not use a piece of land to conduct the ap of a cft um There was some language in the august 21 ATP 7-22.01 But nothing solid and and jump climb maybe Something that you may have a little bit more insight on just that guidance Yeah, I it and I'd have to look at the ATP 7-22.01 Um, just the language intent behind that though because the only thing really that you need to do is the two mile run Right, so you can do the rest of that test inside of a gym or other places So as a plot you're looking for the same kind of uh parameters that you would look for for the apft You know what you don't want to be doing something where you're you know, you're climbing a mountain Or something like that we give leadership some latitude and they're the same thing that the SMA was talking about earlier too Right that in terms of if you're in an environment, it's very high altitude or high temperatures You know when it was listed in 7-22 as well You know when it applied to like combat environments, you know, we don't have to do it in combat environments But leadership should make sure that the environment is the best it can be For them to take the test because you don't want to disadvantage your soldiers But um, you know, that's also not an excuse for you to not take the test You're just looking for the optimal conditions. You got a blizzard or something like that going on It's probably not the time to do it. You may want to slide a little bit same thing If it's in the middle of the day and you're in portless, texas, you know, you may want to adjust the time It's the same same kind of parameters Um, sir another thing, um, we did do um a like a drag coefficient For if you want to do a sprint drag carry, you know on a parking lot and believe it or not We did it on a parking lot. Some people said well, maybe I don't have grass So can I do a sprint drag carry in a parking lot? And what's the drag coefficient that that increase or decrease actually it doesn't didn't and uh, you know, unfortunately for me um, we tested this down at cint and I had to do A drag in the grass then I had to do a drag in The parking lot and then I did the drag in the gym You know and the only difference was on the drag coefficient for a like a gym surface We would add weight because Of the gym if you did it strictly on a gym floor not just inside on, you know an artificial turf The drag coefficient was less and it would slide more so we Added weight. I think it was Not, you know 90 pounds Yeah, we doubled it. So that drag coefficient inside the gym on a gym floor not a um artificial turf Uh would be less therefore you added the weight. Um, I believe that's what you're asking I don't think that changed That way you can do it pretty much anywhere and somebody says, ah, you're gonna tear up my sked Skeds those skeds were wrote for the army perspective were really relatively inexpensive So if you tore up the sked by using it on a parking lot, we just order another little sked pad All right That's my next question comes from the kansas national guard Yeah, good evening sma. This is First-hand conference with kins army national guard the question we had from the state is more in line with um looking at the deadlift versus the leg tuck You look at it. Why was it removed? But that was a question you've also already answered earlier as far as measuring the true core Um, so that answered the question already, but the the secondary question to it was more When looking at the deadlift have they considered changing the uh the actual grip bar at left Or some of the female soldiers in the state have mentioned Sometimes it's harder for them to get a good grip just because the bars are a little bit thicker versus Your actual pull-up bar that we were Yeah, we haven't actually looked at making the bar any changes um Probably one of the big reasons we haven't done that is The number one past event is the max deadlift So pretty much everybody passes it. So not everybody but there's a lot of people that actually passed the max deadlift so Nobody's we didn't see that in the study. Nobody's made a recommendation Um, because believe it or not, the most failed event was the two mile run Um, and again, we're not we're not trying to design a paid PT The gold ultimate goal was not just to go Okay, but uh, you know make it so everybody passed what we really want to do is increase fitness That's why you had the six, you know Uh events on the PT test that measures all 10 components of fitness But right now like I said, there was no We've seen no data on people not being able to execute that event Okay, thank you very much. Uh estimator next question Comes from social media and it's uh, I think For sergeant major Reigns. So I'll get him here on the screen And essentially the the question gets after the the different Uh titles and authorities and and if there's any change to the timelines for like a title 10 versus Title 32 national national No, um When you look at our titles and you look at our statuses There's really only two things that come into consideration. Are they are they on extended active duty orders? Are they On a traditional, uh schedule. It doesn't matter if they're under the governor's control Are they're under a commander's control on the title 10 side? If they're active duty and serving on an extended active duty order for over 90 days They will go by the active duty Timeline if they're on a traditional You know Status they will go by the one that we've been calling the army national guard Timeline, but but really that status is what dictates what timeline they will be on Okay, thank you very much. And then Going back to social media again one of the things that Maybe confusing for some of the people out there is when we talk about making this a general fitness assessment It seems that that they're being confused at these events that these exercises We're not using them to predict performance on warrior tests and battle drills But can you still talk about the relationship that that these fitness events and the training in fm7 dash? 22 still has on your ability to conduct those warrior tests and battle drills and at your metal tasks And I will kind of jump in but jill climb usually gives this does a much better job than I do so um So basically I would say it still measures more components of fitness and that's what the The ran study also said that the the army combat fitness test is Is better than the old test and I think it says it right up front. It says yeah, you need it We made some recommendations. They didn't just go. Hey, you know, you just stop it all together. So Um, but when you read the ran study, we were trying to validate Um, and that's why when you read it, there's a lot of statements about validity It's not that it's a bad test or it doesn't measure good, you know Um more components of fitness. It doesn't say, you know, it's not a better test than the old test It's just that they they were trying and what we'd asked them to do was validate that this was Uh, exactly what we were trying to do on the warrior task and battle drill simulation test And a couple of those things they said they couldn't validate Uh, and I'll turn it over to general client to talk about, you know, how the it measures the other components of fitness Yeah, thanks sma and I you know, we love this question Because it's really important in terms of the narrative, right? Um, and all of you readers on the on the screen here You can help this narrative, but they uh, we we started the Looking at this about 2012 Um, we had all the right people um working on the a CFT and then, you know, 2019 when we came out with version 1.0 but there was a a series of studies that we did your army did to Um Connect the linkage if you will between your warrior task and battle drills and the a CFT they started off with When they looked at all the warrior task and battle drill, they started off with the 25 most physically demanding Um things you needed to do, you know of the tasks And we developed exercises that, you know, over time got necked down to the six events that we have right now So there's a lot of science and thought that went into the development of these particular Events and as the sma alluded, you know, as you stated before Um, you know, this is a test now that measures all 10 components of physical fitness The apft Was really focused on one and that was physical endurance a cft is when you get into Uh, i'm sorry muscle endurance was the apft now you got muscular endurance You got muscular strength power flexibility agility aerobic capacity And so it's a, you know, much more well rounded test And if you are active in functional fitness, you're going to do better on this test Because that's what this test is designed to do. It's certainly going to make you more ready out there as well. So Um, hopefully that answers the question We just couldn't we just couldn't make the the final connection A lot of it came down to um female sample size. Honestly Um, we just didn't have enough females in the sample for us to uh, you know, it lost validity Joan fine. Uh, while I have you uh question from social media about increasing the limit of four soldiers in a testing line I believe the x-sword Says five Per grader on the plank. Um, but can you can you elaborate if you if you happen to know that? No, I think this comes down to to answer your question. No, not off the top I think this comes down to just a greater's ability to be able to observe so many people that are in a You know particular position There was concern initially when we said we were only going to do the plank and within my headquarters and within the planning team was What was this going to do in terms of this idle time if everybody was hypothetically was able to max, you know It, you know, three and a half minutes or whatever the case may be You could have this big lag of time in there while you're doing individual Uh, you know, the planking um, and so we we expanded that um, and I think it is for right now It's all right. So sorry major. I'm uh, I'm pretty sure I think we extended it to five because of that Uh, I thought it was five. I think we changed it the next Either way a good example that you know, these lpds are good the chain teachers are good There's a lot of video a lot of resources on army.mil slash acft But nothing replaces the policy and doctrine and and x-word and so encourage all of our soldiers and leaders That x-word and or the army directive Is available at army dot mill slash acft um And sorry, major on this point before we close it out is you know units will figure this out too so um, I'll use the example in the beginning And we thought and you know, if you go way back, you know three years ago The first test is like, oh my goodness. We got to have every weight in every lane And then we figured out because if that's what it originally was like all these weights were in one lane You had walked up and you could put your weight on that lane They're like, man, that's probably not the way to do that. It's like, why didn't we do the deadlift? And you know those that could do, you know heavier weight would go to the heavier weight lane and those would do less Go to the less weight lane So, you know, I think those are the things we're going to figure out. We're going to figure out how to do this You know a good first sergeant will figure this out in a nanosecond You know, you know, I think that the spirit of intent will be done um, and to measure the fitness but I wouldn't get wrapped up in too much on exactly this is the way it's always been done Now you can't change the order. You can't do any of that. That's You know, that's it's it's designed in that order to be done that way But there'll be a little tweaks that I think people will figure out on how to to do this in an efficient manner All right gentlemen, I think uh, we're kind of coming up to the end of our time here, but I do want to just um go back around and uh, sergeant major reigns beginning with you If there's anything that you would uh, just kind of like to uh Hey, I would just like uh to thank everybody for for for tuning in To the uh chain teach if you would SMA, thank you Thank general client for uh for being with us this evening and then to uh all the soldiers That that are listening right now. Hey, we got an acft now and it's time to get started and we should have already got started But uh, there's still opportunity for those who have put it off to uh, never too late to get the body in motion And I will be visiting a camp post our station our state With you soon and and I would love to take the acft with your units when you're out there doing the diagnostic test so uh, so so hey hit me up and uh, invite me out to uh to to see what you got on the acft That's all I've got. I appreciate it Thank you so much sergeant major and uh, sir anything uh from your perspective, um We one thing we didn't talk about was uh h2f and and how uh that relates to uh national guard. Um, just Any final thoughts there Sure Yeah, if you for those of you that are you know watching, uh, what the active component is doing what they see with h2f um Yes, it's predominantly the the resources and you're seeing anyway, um with uh, you know, these teams that are getting embedded with brigades was uh, it's it's it was a uh a uh Initiative that was uh resource by um the chief It's at the center point of putting people first, but it was primarily active component as it relates to the teams that are embedded with the brigades break That being said the philosophy the idea behind h2f is multicompo absolutely is and so If you're if you're looking in 7-22 and it's I would encourage everybody to get familiar with the five domains And what does that mean for your? formations, um and in many cases the resources are available to you But they just may not be co located in one particular Soldier performance readiness center as the case may be for the active component Army wellness centers are still available to you the master fitness trainers are still available So look at what you can do within your own formation And in a lot of cases you may I would encourage you to you know Invite a registered dietitian to come over to your formation and talk about nutrition Um have the occupational therapists come over and talk about We know what they bring to the fight and that's that's the kind of the idea behind it We'll have a you got a big thing that's planned this month. Um, I think the estimate is coming down as well I think even the cx coming down. We're going to do an industry day down here And so hopefully we'll have some great conversations and kind of help put this together I I would coming off of the h2f um For those of you that may not know this I think this might be the 20th time that your sergeant major of the army Has addressed crowds out there. It's something like that. I think this might be his last one that is actually scheduled um, I can see the smile on his face, uh He has been through now years of fighting this fight So we're super proud of what he's done to spike the ball and put this get this test across the line So thank you sma for for what you've done Um, I would also say don't shoot for the minimum shoot for the max Don't get hung up on what the minimum scores are and you think oh, well This is you know, we we lowered the bar and these other conversations um You know, I you can't max it Stay out of that conversation shoot for the max and then lastly Sma blink twice If you are being held captive All right, I we'll we'll call off the rangers. They're not coming to your house anymore. You're safe But thanks for it. Thanks everybody for dialing in Thank you sir and and sma I couldn't let you completely off the hook We had one last question come in something especially for this audience I wanted to make sure we addressed so from ngb. Uh, we'll turn it over to sergeant alize How are you gonna closing comments and then ask one more question? It's a good one. I promise Hi, it's the ma'am staff sergeant alias from ngb Uh for soldiers who are not located near their armory What advice would you have for soldiers to get creative on training or finding equipment to practice on? Um Well, I think general clients several times it's getting the in the army training publication It's got a lot of good exercises on body weight. Um, I've done a lot of those basically because of covet When covet shut down all the gyms like everywhere active guard like every gym was closed Um, you know, I didn't stop doing fitness. I'm helping everybody else didn't either So there's a lot of good body weight things you can do and believe it or not Uh, two good sandbags actually, uh, are really helpful. You can do a sprint direct carry You can do your standing power throw Uh, you can do standing power jumps. You can do deadlifts. You can do all kinds of things with a couple sandbags So if you don't have like a whole bunch of equipment, there's that and there's even when you go to master fitness school They show you how to do all that with a duffel bag So believe it or not, they give you some exercises that will actually show you how to use weight in a duffel bag to do To get better for the army combat fitness test. So they'll give you things that you just have right there That you're issued or you're assigned to the soldiers But there's all kinds of equipment all over the place I'd say it may not be at your armory. Well, what about the recruiting stations that have Um equipment because we issued all the recruiters Stuff to do the opat and one of the tests for the opat is a deadlift So and what about an rotc program? So there's also rotc programs. Those are active component soldiers. They'll have equipment You just gotta go out So there's a lot more equipment and things and resources that are available to you But bottom line, you really don't need any of that because there's a lot of great body weight And if you can't do the body weight, there's other methods like like I said, they literally have a A designed method to help you out with the things like this It's either rucksack or a duff bag that you can use for weight and just put your your gear in there And then still do some of the the training with it. So I encourage you all to go ahead and do that. So hopefully that answers your questions and Are there any more questions? No, sma. We'll uh, we'll we'll call it here and turn it to you for closing remarks Okay Okay, well, I'll just close. Uh, it sound like uh, uh, john sar major reigns has owned up to do a lot more acfts And I will challenge you that uh, you know, sar major sanpa actually beat me on the sprint drag carry He was really proud of that. So no pressure there on on you as you go her out Do doing that So and then congratulations to you being selected at army national guards Our major really proud of you and all the work and we've known each other for a while And uh, general Klein, thank you for those kind remarks We've uh, I've had a partner in crime and it's been the center initial military training with uh, General hivered and yourself now and both of you have been excellent partners. Um as we've been in this journey Uh a long time. I have not been in this journey alone and I really appreciate All your uh help and your guidance and you've been an outstanding teammate and I appreciate it and um And in closing, I'll just say for those soldiers that are out there Uh, we're really proud of you Um, we're proud of all the work that you've done for to save your country. Uh through covid national disasters all the things that I mentioned before so um, we're going to continue to call on the army national guard and your focus Is uh be ready When your nation calls Uh, we're not going to ask, you know, hey, are you fit and you're ready to go? The nation's not going to call and say, hey, is your is your equipment ready? Uh, we're not going to ask any of that. We're just going to say, okay It's time to go and it's time to go now and that's how our country's been with us And we've never let them down and you all have never let us down on any mission that we've asked you to do Uh, and that's going to continue in the future and I'm extremely proud of all of you and all that you've done for your country And yes, I am safe and secure. So, uh, have a wonderful day and thank you for joining us