Your Match: The Army Fitness Test (AFT)

Your Match: The Army Fitness Test (AFT)

The Army Fitness Test, which replaced the older Army Combat Fitness Test in 2025, is built around five events: a 3-repetition-max deadlift, a standing power throw, hand-release pushups, a sprint-drag-carry, and a plank hold. What sets it apart from every other branch's test is that opening deadlift -- no other service's fitness test asks for a maximal strength lift as its first scored event, which makes the AFT the clearest match for someone whose training already centers on the barbell.

The deadlift event alone rewards a skill most branch tests ignore entirely: moving genuinely heavy load safely and efficiently. A lifter with a strong deadlift 1RM (or the ability to accurately estimate one) has a real head start here that doesn't transfer nearly as directly to a pure-running test like the Air Force's or a max-rep bodyweight test like the Marine Corps'. The sprint-drag-carry event -- a combination of sprinting, dragging a weighted sled and carrying kettlebells -- similarly rewards explosive strength and power more than pure aerobic capacity.

That said, the AFT isn't purely a strength test -- the standing power throw (a backward overhead medicine-ball throw for distance) demands explosive full-body power, and the plank hold tests core endurance under fatigue, both of which round out a well-balanced physical profile beyond just how much you can lift. A lifter who's never trained explosive power movements or a longer isometric hold will still need to add those specifically rather than assuming raw strength alone covers it.

Standards scale by age and sex, with scoring bands from minimum passing up to maximum points per event, and the overall test requires passing every event individually, not just hitting an average score across all five. That structure matters for training: a very strong deadlift doesn't offset a failed plank hold, so a genuinely balanced training approach across all five events beats specializing heavily in just the deadlift.

If you're using the AFT purely as a benchmark rather than for actual enlistment, it's one of the more interesting fitness standards to train toward precisely because it rewards a combination most gym-goers don't usually test together: a big compound lift, explosive power, muscular endurance and a timed sprint-and-carry event, all in one session.

Source: official Army Fitness Test event list and general scoring structure as published by the U.S. Army (standards updated 2025). Always verify current age- and sex-specific scoring tables directly with official Army sources before relying on them for enlistment purposes.

How Army Fitness Test (AFT) compares

* Illustrative figures -- use the calculators below for your exact numbers.