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US Army Physical Fitness Test: Normative Data on 6022 Soldiers (1994)
- doitLP 3y agoDownload link to the data is the red pdf icon in the upper left.
- 1differential 3y agoOh gosh, the good old army and it's effective measurements techniques. I remember wanting to be a military officer after undergrad and getting disqualified at MEPS for a nonsense issue (which I'll omit for privacy) and the guy next to be getting green lit to continue processing with the Marines with a ...wait for it... 11/100 on the ASVAB.
- enkid 3y agoOfficer vs enlisted has very different recruitment criteria.
- jeffbee 3y agoI don’t think you can fail the ASVAB? If you score 11 you will simply become a rifleman.
- weatherlight 3y agoI got a score of 96 on my ASVAB and made the decision to pursue a career in Infantry as an MOS 11-B after completing OSUT. As a highlight, I had the opportunity to attend Airborne School, which was an incredible experience. At that time, when I was 20 years old, the Army offered a substantial $60,000 signing bonus, the highest among all branches (save the Navy). Although I did explore the possibility of joining the Navy, they turned me down due to my GED qualification. Fast forward to today, at 39 years old, I can honestly say that despite some challenges with my lower back, I have absolutely no regrets about the path I chose.
- ryanchants 3y ago99 ASVAB, 132 GT score. Went 0311(rifleman), and eventually 0313(LAV Crewman). High ASVAB scores in the infantry are more common than people think. My recruiter tried to push me to computer networking, but I had already done that in real life, and wanted to try something I couldn't do in the real world.
- throw2132490132 3y ago> but I had already done that in real life, and wanted to try something I couldn't do in the real world. Would you mind answering how old you were when you went in?
- ryanchants 3y ago24.
- throw2132490132 3y agoThank you. It's the kind of thing I fantasize about as a very bored mid-late 20s dev who likes fitness and the outdoors, so datapoints like yours are always interesting.
- jeffbee 3y agoThat sounds like a really amazing early life experience. I definitely do not side with people who denigrate military enlistment as beneath intelligent, skilled individuals, a set of people which included my parents at the time (early 1990s).
- boppo1 3y agoWould you recommend it to a young man, given the state of the military today? I'm old for the military (31) but was seriously considering it around 24-26. But I just couldn't get past report after report of the military happily doing obviously stupid/harmful stuff to its own, like burn pits.
- InvaderFizz 3y agoYou can fail. You can't even enlist with a score of 11 without a waiver, and that would be a sight to behold for a score that low. Strangely enough, the minimum score is significantly higher for GED holders[0]. The minimum Army score goes from 31 to 50. 0: https://uniontestprep.com/asvab/blog/minimum-asvab-afqt-score-for-each-branch-of-the-military https://uniontestprep.com/asvab/blog/minimum-asvab-afqt-scor...
- jeffbee 3y agoTIL, then. I know abilities have a range, and some people have a bad day, but my personal impression of that test was that it would be impossible to fail it, as such.
- bmiller2 3y agoIs 11/100 not the almost ideal marine infantryman score?
- Retric 3y agoThey care about those scores primarily because the army trains people for various jobs and it takes longer to train dumb people for extremely complex jobs especially when you include the possibility of failure. However, even people scoring 1/100 is still someone that graduated high school so it’s not as incompetent as you might think. They just aren’t sending someone like that to flight school.
- bandrami 3y agoOddly USMC combat arms have some of the highest ASVAB scores going in. We're not dumb, just mean.
- short_sells_poo 3y agoSorry, what is a MEPS and an ASVAB? I'm always mesmerized by the number of acronyms that ex military people throw around.
- colechristensen 3y agoASVAB is a standardized test like the ones you took in school or the SAT or whatever with subject matter appropriate for evaluating military recruits.
- thewildginger 3y agoIt's not really like the SAT at all. The SAT is pure academics. >Appropriate for evaluating military recruits Again, not clear if you're trying to be condescending. The ASVAB has logical reasoning portions (order the shapes based on labels of points), mechanical questions, I remember getting asked questions about force distribution of pulleys and tackle, but also questions like volume of a cone, basic trig, knights and knaves questions, what is the name of this screwdriver orientation, what's this engine piece called? ( Camshaft), and now there's even a computer science focused addition the Air Force uses. It's a test that actually tells you about what you know and can understand, and is far more useful than an SAT or ACT exam.
- colechristensen 3y ago> It's not really like the SAT at all. The SAT is pure academics. I mean, it's a test that takes less than an afternoon where you answer questions by filling in bubbles and such. That's quite a lot like the SAT. >The ASVAB has logical reasoning portions (order the shapes based on labels of points), mechanical questions, I remember getting asked questions about force distribution of pulleys and tackle, but also questions like volume of a cone, basic trig, knights and knaves questions, what is the name of this screwdriver orientation, what's this engine piece called? ( Camshaft), and now there's even a computer science focused addition the Air Force uses. Is this not all "subject matter appropriate for evaluating military recruits" ? You may be reading a bit much into what I wrote. My high school had everyone take it to fulfill a state requirement that we take so many standardized tests which gave schools the option of which ones to give. >It's a test that actually tells you about what you know and can understand, and is far more useful than an SAT or ACT exam. Being a bit condescending yourself here. It's a standardized test appropriate for military recruits. For somebody who doesn't know was ASVAB means at all... this would seem a pretty good concise description.
- torstenvl 3y agoThe Marine Corps minimum is 35. And it isn't "x/100," i.e., got x questions right and everything else wrong. It's xth percentile, i.e., better than x% of graduating high school seniors.
- 1differential 3y agoI actually remember them half-joking about this - it's been years, but I would guess it's not a hard minimum
- imwillofficial 3y agoNo it isn’t. It’s x/99. Also, it’s 35 today, but waivers are often granted and standards have changed throughout the years. Lowest I’ve seen was 18.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- giantg2 3y ago"better than x% of graduating high school seniors." A very easy standard. I think I got a 96 or something like that and I missed a question about what was written on a light bulb (I said lumen which they largely do have, but they wanted watts). Stupid mistake still bugs me even though the score was meaningless.
- ke88y 3y ago> failed MEPS not allowed in... poor ASVAB okay It's the Army, not Harvard College. Anyways, if my anecdotal experience interacting with the military is accurate, the main requirement for being an Officer is enjoying LOTR/super hero/Sparta movies. Being able to do pull-ups or string together coherent sentences are less important. If you want to know what's actually valued in the military, look at the names of recent defense contract startups. That tells you everything you need to know.
- roarcher 3y ago> That tells you everything you need to know. Your entire comment is evidence of the contrary.
- coolbreezetft22 3y agoI used to love doing these fitness tests as they are very straight forward with no equipment, quick to do, and progress is easily measured. If I remember correctly the Marines had a 3-mile run instead of 2 and the top target time was 18 min which I would always aim for
- CapricornNoble 3y agoCorrect. It's still 3 miles @ 18:00 for max score until you get over 40 years old. We recently replaced crunches with planking though.
- coolbreezetft22 3y agoInteresting - what prompted that change and what is the max score/time for plank?
- lehi 3y ago"In the past decade, every branch of the U.S. military has begun to phase out sit-ups and crunches from their required testing and training regimens, or else they have made them optional, alongside more orthopedically sound maneuvers such as the plank. Spokespeople for the Army and the Marines confirmed to me that these decisions in their branches were made in part to avoid the high rates of lower-back injury found among troops training for speed sit-up and crunch tests." https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/05/sit-ups-crunches-lower-back-pain/639437/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/05/sit-ups-c...
- darkclouds 3y ago>these decisions in their branches were made in part to avoid the high rates of lower-back injury found among troops training for speed sit-up and crunch tests." And yet if you are in the USAF, the GP's will prescribe 500mg-1g of nicotinic acid and ibuprofen for lower back problems, to be taken when working out in the gym. The nicotinic acid on an empty stomach spikes your growth hormone well above peaks seen during puberty, and believe it or not, can have you mobile and working doing hard exercise and lifting within 30mins, in fact you dont need the ibuprofen, just the nicotinic acid when the flush strikes. The only downside with doing nicotinic acid long term is it will increase the chance of osteomalacia, aka putty bones, where you can push your finger into your bones and leave an indent in the bone, like pushing your finger into fresh putty around a window. Its not nice and it will deform your bones unless you take appropriate action namely changes to your diet to increase you vit k and omega 3 intake. The pain killing effect of nicotinic acid comes from the release of calcium which binds to the body's own catecholamines because calcium binding to the catecholamines amplifies their effect. Its probably also explains those video's of people lifting weights when their bones snap and break, you dont feel osteomalacia until its too late. Nicotinic acid can also harm the liver so appropriate dietary changes need to be made to compensate for taking it, even though it can be prescribed as a statin, and was the first drug used in the US for chemo purposes, decades ago.
- Der_Einzige 3y agoI've seen what the training is like for those who do direct commissions (e.g. Jags, doctors, high end computer specialists) and it looks like a god damn daycare compared to even regular officer school. I think their basic training is half as long and less than half as difficult. Also no one was yelling at them. Not saying that's a bad thing. Quite the opposite, it convinced me that even I could have a place somewhere in the military if necessary. And don't even get me started on "state defense forces".
- imwillofficial 3y agoIt’s fit for purpose. I make more than my local SDF. The members are under funded, under trained, and volunteering their time unpaid. I see it as altruistic giving back to the community. As for “fork and knife school”, I don’t need my JAGs as fit as I need my infantry.
- zip1234 3y agoMedical/JAG/chaplain corps officers are generally not considered 'line officers' and cannot command combat forces which is one of the reasons for the different training.
- ameister14 3y agoI believe this is true for branches other than the Marine Corps
- AlbertCory 3y agoI dodged the draft and in partial atonement, I did some work with Operation Code, which is for vets and their spouses to learn to be techies. I did a podcast with them: https://operationcode.org/podcast https://operationcode.org/podcast These people are not in any way, shape, or form "dumb." A lot of them go to 4-year colleges on the GI Bill, but a few did code school. One works for Google now. Almost none of them actually saw any combat. My favorite was Dick Sonderegger, who enlisted in the Marines during the Vietnam era. He said he wanted to fly close air support in 'Nam, and they said, "No, you're going to be a computer programmer." He never left the States. They do yell at you in Basic Training, all of them said.
- renewiltord 3y agoI didn't consider them dumb but I have to say that everyone insisting "they're not dumb" is changing my mind a little bit now.
- horns4lyfe 3y agoThere are a lot of dumb people in the military. There are also some, usually in special forces, that can run mental laps around most of the people here, then physical laps, then shoot you in the chest from a half a mile away, then give an incredible speech about it all.
- AlbertCory 3y agoGood answer.
- psychphysic 3y agoThere is a sense of "doth protest too much, methinks"
- appplication 3y agoVet in tech here. Vets are generally socioeconomically disadvantaged compared to the average tech employee. They rarely come from great school districts, and the military is one way to give them a leg up on the system that held them down, via a decent paying job, and path to “free” college education and retirement. Rich kids and those from top school districts (generally) don’t end up in the military. In the end, it’s all about education and opportunity. Most folks who enter the military see it as a way to get more of both.
- mikeInAlaska 3y agoSpeaking for myself and my coworkers, the numbers required for software engineers to pass will need to be set differently.
- gonzo41 3y agoIf people are willing to memorize CLRS cover to cover for google. they can also probably also master the enjoyable(with time) study of being able to do 60 push-ups.
- mrleinad 3y ago[flagged]
- nateb2022 3y agoThe Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) was replaced with the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) which is currently being rolled out. Many soldiers find it much easier, at least to meet the minimum requirements. The ACFT comprises six events: 3 repetition deadlift (MDL), standing power throw (SPT), hand-release pushup (HRP), sprint-drag-carry (SDC), plank (PLK) and 2 mile run (2MR). Minimum scores for the ACFT for males 17-21 are as follows: MDL - 120 lb x 3 reps SPT - throw a 15 lb ball 6 meters / 19.685 ft HRP - 10 pushups SDC - 3:15 PLK - 1:30 plank 2MR - 23:22 for 2-mile run All of that is quite easily achievable for the majority of males 17-21, I would say.
- kccqzy 3y agoThe 99th percentile for a two-mile run was 11:50 for 17–21 year old males. I managed to beat that exactly once in life and then never again. These days I purposefully slow down when running if I find my heart beating too quickly. I wear a Garmin heart rate monitor. Even if I feel like I could push myself to a heart rate of 200+ per minute, it's best not to.