Another possible factor is that women tend to carry more of their body weight in their lower body, so they are lifting a relatively higher proportion of body weight doing the tuck.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m going to keep saying this until it gets across.
The new APFT is not in use yet. The data cited in the OP is from personnel who were not yet trained.
Just like the current APFT, the new APFT will determine whether personnel **who have been through the appropriate training **have succeeded.
When it’s implemented, the military expects to see women pass at approximately the same rate as they did the old APFT.
Why does anyone want to argue in advance and against all evidence that women who’ve been trained will still be unable to do leg tucks?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that the pass rates for trained women - while presumably being higher - will be no better than those for untrained women relative to men. Unless you are aware of some evidence that womens’ physical abilities improve more with training than mens’.
If that one specific test is really testing overall physical ability, Really Not All That Bright, you might be right; though it seems unlikely that it’s doing that, as women did at least as well on all the other such tests; and it’s also possible that female recruits tend to be less fit relative to their own individual capabilities than men are, at the time of first being recruited.
If it’s testing specifically the ability to climb and/or to lift weights without injuring oneself: even if it’s a good test for the muscles used in doing that, we’d need to see results and statistics on how well trained women climb and/or how often they injure themselves relative to how well trained men climb and how often they injure themselves; because having more or less of this particular physical strength is only one of the factors affecting either of those things.
If it’s testing the ability to move one’s body in a particular fashion that, because of differences in body weight distribution and/or hip structure, is much harder for most women to do than for most men: then it probably isn’t testing grip or core strength equally for the genders and women who fail the test may have as much of those abilities as men who pass it. For one thing training in how to perform that specific movement might well cause the women to catch up to the men; and for another being able or unable to accomplish that particular movement may be not relevant to whether women can accomplish the actual work they’ll be expected to do.
And, of course, I repeat: we don’t know whether there’s some other area(s) of training entirely in which women, at least before training, do statistically better than men.
The leg tuck isn’t some kind of new exercise that was just introduced for this test. The leg tuck is Excersie 4 of Climbing Drill 1 (CD1). That’s been part of the Army’s Physical Readiness Training (PRT) for years!! Every soldier is supposed to be doing PRT every morning. If they were doing it properly, then the CD 1 should be popping up in the schedule once a week–at least once every other week. Even in units that are not conducting proper PRT (pretty much all of them–hence the issue), every soldier who went to Basic Training in the last ten years was exposed to proper PRT, including CD1 which involved ten 5-10 repetitions of the leg tuck. So lack of familiarity with the exercise is not an excuse.
Bear_Nenno, thank you for the insights you bring to this thread. Really great posts!
It’s already been stated, but it isn’t testing a “skill”. It’s testing physical fitness. The Leg Tuck requires a coordinated effort of several major muscles groups, but foremost, the leg tuck is a core exercise. The importance of a strong core cannot be overstated, not just for physical performance, but also injury prevention. Ironically, it’s one of the least worked, most neglected parts of the body. I know of more soldiers who fail or struggle with the sit-up event in the current APFT than probably the run and the push-ups combined.
As a drill sergeant, if I really wanted a soldier to suffer, I didn’t make him do push-ups, I made him do the Leg Tuck and Twist (not to be confused with the Leg Tuck) or the Bent Leg Body Twist. Those exercises absolutely destroy soldiers. I wouldn’t have believe it without experiencing it. I always thought those exercises were comparatively easy. But for whatever reason, even people who spend a lot of time in the gym, who can do lots of push-ups and run really fast… they struggle with those core body exercises.
And people who spend no time in the gym or working out… they’re going to struggle even more! And the fact is, that the old APFT, combined with the general overall culture of the Army, did not require female soldiers to perform at the same standard. The gender bias scoring of the old APFT allowed female soldiers to pass while doing less than half the push-ups than their male counterparts, and running several minutes per mile slower.
Human nature being what it is, many people are only going to train to the minimum standard. The minimum standard for females was quite low, and naturally, many (perhaps as much as 84%) were just not training as hard as they should have been to maintain an appropriate level of fitness. They weren’t doing it, because nobody–to include the Army as an organization–was forcing them to.
Can women meet the standard? Of course they can. And they will. That’s kind of the point here. What this 84% statistic is showing isn’t that women can’t meet the standard. It’s evidence of what many people have been complaining about for quite some time. It’s that, while they can meet the standard, the Army hasn’t been asking them to. The Army has been saying, “It’s okay for you to perform at a much lower fitness standard than is required for your job, because you’re a fragile little girl”. And many have simply enjoyed that lax attitude. After all, if the Army only asks you to do 20 push-ups, instead of 45 then why bother pushing yourself every morning to reach an unnecessary goal, right?
The test is not sexist and it’s not biased. But, when compared to the female scoring standards of the old APFT, this new ACFT is much more difficult. The problem isn’t learning or training to perform a particular new skill. The problem is working out and pushing the body to a level of fitness and performance that hasn’t been required of females up until now. This is a good thing. It’s good for the military and good for female soldiers, and it’s a step forward for gender equality. Now that the Army demands more from them, the vast majority of them will step up to the challenge and meet the standards.
So I see this 84% statistic not as a dire warning for the future of the Army or the future of women in the military. I think it shows the failing of our current system and is evidence that a change to something like the ACFT was necessary and prudent. While it’s not a perfect test, and I take issue with the logistical hurdles of such a complicated, equipment-centric series of events, I do feel that a new test is needed that is 1) gender neutral, and 2) better tests overall body fitness. The ACFT certainly meets both of those criteria.
I’m starting to ramble here. I hope this made sense.
As for your comment about “leg swing”. I’m not sure what you’re saying. Swinging the legs is not authorized in that event. One must go from a dead hang, straight to the leg tuck position or the repetition doesn’t count. But it’s not a bid deal. You have two minutes, and you only have to do one…
So you’re saying that women in the army, currently, are in dramatically worse shape than their male counterparts due to decades of inadequate standards. And the only component of the ACFT that revealed this discrepancy is the leg tuck?
Color me skeptical. If requiring women to do less than half the pushups of their male counterparts resulted in a drastic reduction in women’s upper body fitness, why wasn’t that revealed on the components of the ACFT that test upper body strength? How is it that these dramatically out-of-shape women were able to do just fine on 5 out of the 6 components of a gender-neutral fitness test?
eta: I’d also like to challenge your assertion that passing the previous APFT required a regimented fitness program. I just compared my AF fitness test scores to the 2019 APFT standards and I was not surprised to find that I, a scrawny out of shape comm guy who doesn’t really work out ever, would have passed just fine. Certainly some people need to work at it, but 99% of the time that has to do with being overweight and not lacking in exercise practice. My point is, I don’t think male soldiers are out there busting their asses to pass the APFT while women are slacking off. I’m pretty sure everyone of both genders is generally slacking off unless they’re overweight or just like working out for other reasons.
No. I didn’t say that.
Because the scoring standards were normalized to take into account the fact that it would be gender neutral. It’s why the number of push-ups required to pass is now ten! Ten fucking push ups. Yes, they are “hand-release”, but it’s still only 10! Do you think ten push-ups is closer to the old male standard or the old female standard??
Because, while it is “gender neutral” it is not “job neutral”. And right now, women still make up a very tiny percentage of the “HEAVY” category of occupational specialties. So, while jobs like the infantry are open to women, they are still 99% male. Those males need to do 30 hand release push-ups, compared to the “MODERATE” category jobs which only need to do 10. There is a much greater percentage of women in those jobs than the other. Can you not see how that is going to skew the statistics? You can’t just look at the percentages and say, “Women did about the same as men in most of the events” by just looking at pass vs fail. That would only work if the percentages were divided by job category.
Also, think about that one event for a second. It’s one repetition. They only need to do one to pass. So either they can do a single leg tuck, or they just can’t. It doesn’t matter if most of the people who pass can actually do 10 or 12, while the failures can’t do any. It’s not going to change the percentage of pass vs fail. Even though there is a drastic difference in the level of fitness, you’re not going to see it. All you see is a pass or a fail. So you really need to look at the scores that soldiers are getting to get an understanding of what these results indicate. The difference in fitness can’t be shown just looking at the percentage of soldiers who can’t do a single leg tuck, vs the number who can. That’s like using employment index to conclude that 96.5% of Americans are all equally wealthy, because only 3.5% are unemployed. The rest have a job. Doesn’t matter if they make billions of dollars or hundreds, it’s all the same, right? So doing a single leg tuck doesn’t show that someone is the same level of fitness as someone who does 10.
And by the way, the male-dominated HEAVY jobs have to do five times as many leg tucks as the MODERATE category. So you’re going to have many male soldiers in the HEAVY category who maybe could do 4 leg tucks, but couldn’t get their knees to touch on that 5th one. They’re going to be counted as a failure in the statistics. Just like the person who couldn’t do a single one. Does it mean they are of equal fitness? Of course not.
As for the other events, like I said, this test was normalized to account for the gender neutrality. The passing run time for this test in the MODERATE category is 21 minutes! For a 27 year old male, the APFT passing score was 16 minutes. For a female, it was 20:30. Again, it doesn’t matter if the male soldiers taking the ACFT all ran faster than 15 minutes and all the females ran it in 20 minutes. If you’re only looking at pass vs fail, they’re both going to be a statistic in the passing side.
I didn’t say it did. Take your time and read what I wrote. Just because I said that soldiers who only have to do 20 push-ups aren’t going to work as hard as those who need to do 45, doesn’t imply that it takes a “regimented fitness program” to meet that standard. I just said it takes more effort to do 45 than it does 20. Go ahead and challenge that if you want.
Good for you!
And how do people get over weight, among other things? Lack of exercise, perhaps?
Everyone of both genders is generally doing only as much as is demanded from them. Yes, I would agree. And because of the old APFT, females were only asked to do 20 push-ups and run two miles in less than 21 minutes.
What did the Soviet Red Army in World War Two do when there was no choice but to fight to the death with every person available? How did they use female soldiers?
That may be true, but it kinda reminds of one of Murphey’s aphorisms -
The race doesn’t always go to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that’s sure the way to bet.
add in physiotherapists and kinetics experts - I know some ‘old school’ exercises are/were counterproductive, as an example one form of situp is now suspect because it can damage the neck, and honestly pushups are hell on wrists …
While they are not common, I can see the need to have our people ready for a 50 mile forced march with full gear, unmounting in field conditions should be trained for - what if you are in wherethefuckarewestan and the rockslide has taken out 5 miles of narrow mountain road and the only way to get to wherever is a 50 mile march with gear, if you don’t train for it, you are fucked.
mrAru as a Navy submarine auxiliaryman is considered ‘substitute infantry’ when marines are not available, he trained with various weapons, did PRT including running and at one time took some course in combatives. Did he do anything except topside watch? Nope, but I suppose it was handy he was familiar with weapons for bear watch on ICEX runs …
<shrug> mrAru did the test in his 20th year, at 38 and the numbers he got were maxed out for male 18-22, he used to do his running in combat boots. He consistantly maxed out shooting both long arm and hand gun. I can attest other than shooting for leisure at home on the farm, he did not exercise at all.
The did what I personally would do, grab a gun and ammo, get into my husbands pants and boots and go kill the Germans.
Me, I have combat gear, from my days as an armed response guard. Though my pants are actually 70s era utes [way sturdy, cotton vice poly blend, and all olive drab …] and my coat is one of my Dad’s m1943 field jackets, and my body armor is not the newest spiffy plate carrier on the market, and if I needed a helmet, I would have to make due with a WW2 vintage SS helmet my dad ‘salvaged’, my choice of weapons is based upon the available ammo - a ‘salvaged’ Sauer and Son 38H my dad ‘salvaged’ and his issue M1. I would have to find a place to set up a short range ‘sniper bed’ because my ability for movement is very limited, but I could turkey shoot a unit straggling along in a line not expecting anything. If I was stuck in a town, I would sacrifice my medications and poison my stockpile of booze [we keep a small bar on hand for entertaining] I regularly give a casual demonstration on not ignoring how deadly a little fat lady in a wheelchair can be. If I have a 3 month loadout of my medications, I can terminally deal with between 20 to 40 men depending on if they share [let me pour shots] or if they grab and pig out. [opiods, benzos, colchicine, BP meds that can act as sedatives … grind everything and combine except the colchicine and dope the booze. Colchicine gets handled separately, the equivalent to 12 pills causes cascading organ failure within 48 hours.]
And physical can be odd - I regularly use a Molle large pack for my luggage, fully packed with my clothing and stuff it weighs around 60 pounds, on crutches if I can get it on and balanced, I can schlep it from car to desk to room in a motel. Thanks to my PT, I can do 50 proper sit ups in 2 minutes [I may be fat, but I have a killer core] My point is if you have time to prepare for specific exercises, you can nail them. I have no doubt that next year the women will be passing because htey will modify which exercises they point on for the test, it is just like our bogus school plan of nobody left behind, they study to the test, not for general knowledge.
For much of WWII, the Red Army didn’t have much equipment so physical strength wasn’t an issue. Soldiers were sharing firearms at the battle of Stalingrad.
How does this test even TEST some of those attributes? Balance, flexibility, agility, reaction time, and coordination are completely ignored in favor of stuff that men----being bigger and having more muscle mass----have less trouble with than women.
If the military wants to get rid of women, just do it openly and stop pretending. Weight lifting is what this amounts to. That does not make you a good soldier. It makes you a good weight lifter. I guess the linguists, analysts, interrogators (me!), translators, and everybody but the 11Bs can bugger off, then.
The leg tuck event is only one of six exercises in the ACFT. Collectively, those six events measure the physical attributes the US Army cares about (among them muscular strength and muscular endurance). The leg tuck event specifically is a measure of “the strength of the Soldiers grip, arm, shoulder and trunk muscles”. It seems like it demonstrates some elements of flexibility too (e.g. if one struggles to bend at the elbow, shoulder, back, hip or knee this test would be a significant challenge).
ETA: as has already been mentioned, the test is gender-neutral, but job-specific, so someone like an interrogator might not be expected to meet the same demanding physical fitness standards that are expected of an infantryman.
Correct. In order to pass the ACFT, a 35M Human Intelligence Collector is only required to dead lift 70% of the weight, throw the medicine ball 56% of the distance, do 30% of the push ups, 20% of the leg tucks, and run the 2 miles 85% as fast as an 11B Infantryman.
True. But don’t underestimate it’s difficulty. Part of the challenge is the fact that the entire test must be completed in under 90 minutes. So there is only a few minutes rest between events. Doing the leg tuck after having exerted your maximum effort into the dead lift and the push-ups isn’t the same as just randomly walking up to a bar and knocking out a couple reps. And then after having expended effort in all of the events, one must complete the 2-mile run. So run times are going to be slower than what people are used to. The maximum score on the run is now 13.5 minutes, where it used to be 13 flat for a 17-22 year old male soldier. So there is going to be a little bit of energy management that soldiers will need to get used to, which will come with experience from taking a few diagnostic tests. No doubt, some soldiers failed a later event because they put all of their effort into trying to max the dead lift. After doing three repetitions of 340 lbs, the Sprint Drag Carry isn’t as easy as it looks. But then, after maxing that in under a minute and a half, how much energy is left over for the run? Most soldiers I know aren’t looking to pass. They’re looking to score the highest they possibly can.
There are no longer any age-related differences in scoring. However, at a certain rank (nominative sergeant major, I believe) a person only has to pass at “Moderate” standard, regardless of occupational specialty. And for those with permanent injuries there are alternate events.
The name “leg tuck” is really misleading.
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