NC Guard Leaders Army Combat Fitness Test Familiarization

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Story by Sgt. 1st Class Robert Jordan
North Carolina National Guard

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Several North Carolina National Guard (NCNG) Leaders learned about the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) at the NCNG Joint Force Headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, June 3, 2019. 

The NCNG's State Fitness Improvement Contractor Bobby Wheeler, a retired NCNG Army Master Sergeant and master fitness trainer, familiarized the participants with the six-event test. The six events are: deadlift, standing power throw, hand-release push-up, sprint, drag, carry relay, leg tuck and two-mile run. The ACFT is meant to better prepare Soldiers for combat. 

"The way to get better is to do it (the ACFT)," Wheeler said.

The participants were federal technicians who hold civilian jobs at the headquarters but drill as Soldiers or Airmen with their NCNG unit. Others serve full time with the NCNG. They gathered at the JFHQ track, some in physical fitness uniform, the technicians in civilian workout gear, to stretch and prepare for the ACFT. 

Wheeler and Sgt. 1st Class Derrick Cox, NCNG State Coordinator for ACFT, shared pointers on each event and showed what equipment would be needed to take and administer the test. Participants asked questions and practiced the techniques that their instructors showed them both to improve their own scores and to prepare other Soldiers to take the test as it is phased in across the Army. The ACFT will become the Army’s official record fitness test by October 2020.

"People have a bias, asking why we are changing and this helps them (the leaders) understand the benefits and they’ll take it back to their unit," Cox said. 

Once the test begins the events occur at a rapid pace with only a few minutes rest between them. 

Each event is designed to improve performance in combat; deadlifts, ranging from 140 to 340 pounds, evaluates muscular strength, the power throw explosive power, the hand-release push-up evaluates muscular endurance, the relay is a variety of sprints with some of them carrying or dragging heavy weights and evaluates muscular endurance and strength, anaerobic power, anaerobic endurance. The fifth event is the leg tuck, bringing knees to elbows while on a pull-up bar and evaluates muscular endurance and finally the 2-mile run for aerobic endurance.

N.C. Army National Guard units will be issued equipment and provided training for the ACFT by the time it is the record fitness test.


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