What Is the Army Fitness Test in 2026? The New AFT, Explained
Key Takeaways
The Army Fitness Test (AFT) replaced the ACFT on June 1, 2025. Five events, 500-point maximum, minimum 60 points per event: 3-Rep Max Deadlift, Hand-Release Push-Ups, Sprint-Drag-Carry, Plank, and 2-Mile Run.
The Standing Power Throw is gone — cut because it produced more training injuries than useful readiness data.
There are now two passing standards: soldiers in 21 designated combat MOSs must score 350+ under sex-neutral scoring; everyone else needs 300+ under sex- and age-normed scoring. Both require 60 in every event — fail one event and the whole test fails, regardless of total.
The combat standard has had teeth since January 1, 2026 for active duty (June 1, 2026 for Guard and Reserve): failing brings an administrative flag, and combat-MOS soldiers who can't meet 350 face possible reclassification.
If you're preparing to enlist or commission: train the deadlift and the 2-mile run hardest. One rewards absolute strength, the other exposes anyone who skipped their aerobic base — and they're at opposite ends of the fitness spectrum on purpose.
Get the free MOA Military Prep Guide. The AFT, Marine PFT, service academy CFA, and ROTC standards in one place — event breakdowns, where candidates lose points, and a twelve-week progression laid out week by week.
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What Is the Army Fitness Test in 2026? The New AFT, Explained
The Army has changed its fitness test three times in recent memory, which is why half the internet still says "APFT," the other half says "ACFT," and the test your recruit will actually take is called neither.
Here's the current test, why it changed, what the scores mean, and how to train for it — written for the people I coach: high schoolers heading to basic, ROTC candidates, and the parents trying to keep up with the acronyms.
The short version
Since June 1, 2025, the Army's official test is the Army Fitness Test (AFT). Five events, in order:
3-Repetition Maximum Deadlift (MDL) — heaviest weight you can pull off the ground three times on a hex bar.
Hand-Release Push-Ups (HRP) — max reps in two minutes, hands lifted off the ground at the bottom of every rep.
Sprint-Drag-Carry (SDC) — five 50-meter shuttles: sprint, sled drag, lateral shuffle, kettlebell carry, sprint. For time.
Plank (PLK) — max hold.
2-Mile Run (2MR) — for time.
Each event is worth up to 100 points, for a 500-point maximum. Every event has a floor of 60 points — drop below it on any single event and you fail the entire test, no matter what your total says.
Why the Army changed the test — again
Two reasons, and they're both instructive if you're the kind of person who trains for a living.
First, injuries. The old ACFT included a Standing Power Throw — hurling a 10-pound ball backward over your head. It turned out to be the test's biggest source of training injuries while telling the Army very little about combat readiness that the other events didn't already capture. So it's gone. Six events became five, and the old 600-point maximum became 500.
Second, the data said the standards needed restructuring. The Army analyzed over a million ACFT administrations and rebuilt the scoring around a dual-standard system:
Combat MOS standard: soldiers in 21 designated combat jobs — infantry, armor, combat engineers, and so on — are scored sex-neutral and must total 350 or better. Same tables for men and women. The job doesn't care who's carrying the litter.
General standard: everyone else is scored on sex- and age-normed tables and must total 300 or better.
That combat standard stopped being theoretical on January 1, 2026 for active duty (June 1, 2026 for Guard and Reserve). Failing now brings an administrative flag that blocks promotion and reenlistment — and a combat-MOS soldier who can't reach 350 can be reclassified out of the job entirely.
What the scores actually mean
The score questions people search — "is 432 good," "is 465 good," "what's the minimum" — sort out like this:
300 — minimum pass, general standard.
350 — minimum pass, combat MOS, and a respectable general score.
400–450 — above average, and where promotion competitiveness starts to live.
450+ — top tier. A 465 has had specific policy significance tied to body-composition rules, but that policy has been revised more than once — treat any claim about score-based exemptions as perishable and check the current regulation rather than a blog post, including this one.
500 — max. Rare, and requires being genuinely strong and genuinely conditioned, which is the whole design.
That last point deserves a sentence. The AFT deliberately puts a maximal deadlift and a 2-mile run in the same hour. Powerlifters lose points on the run; runners lose them on the bar. Maxing this test requires being good at both ends of the spectrum — which is exactly what a strength-and-conditioning program builds and a single-focus program doesn't.
How to train for it
The same base we build for every military-bound athlete covers the AFT, with two emphases:
The deadlift is free points for the trained and a wall for the untrained. The MDL is performed on a hex bar — the same tool we start teens on. If you've spent a year progressively deadlifting twice a week, this event is a warm-up. If you've never pulled from the floor, no amount of push-ups will save your total. Start here.
The Sprint-Drag-Carry punishes the unprepared more than any other event. It's 90 seconds of everything at once — sprinting, dragging a sled backward, carrying kettlebells. Loaded carries, sled work, and short shuttle intervals are the preparation. It's also the event where technique (low sled position, tight turns) buys real seconds.
The plank and push-ups reward the same trunk. Hollow-body holds, weighted planks, and honest push-up volume in clean sets. The hand-release standard removes the half-rep bounce, so train the full range from day one.
The 2-mile run follows the same rule as every military run: mostly easy aerobic mileage, a weekly dose of intervals at faster than goal pace, and strength work underneath so your stride holds up in mile two. If you read the Marine PFT piece, the run prescription is the same and so is the reason.
And rehearse the whole test. Five events in sequence is its own stressor. The deadlift you pull fresh and the run you start forty minutes into a test are different animals. At least two full rehearsals before test day.
If you're a parent reading this
The acronym soup — APFT, ACFT, AFT — isn't your kid's problem to solve. Their problem is simpler and older: get strong, build an aerobic base, and do both for months before they ship, not weeks.
A teenager who deadlifts, carries, does strict push-ups, and runs easy miles twice a week walks into any version of any branch's test prepared. The test names keep changing. What the tests measure hasn't changed since the Spartans.
Be strong to be useful.
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The Army Fitness Test (AFT) is the Army's official physical assessment, replacing the ACFT on June 1, 2025. It has five events — 3-Rep Max Deadlift, Hand-Release Push-Ups, Sprint-Drag-Carry, Plank, and 2-Mile Run — with a 500-point maximum and a required minimum of 60 points per event.
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Two reasons: the Standing Power Throw caused a disproportionate share of training injuries while adding little readiness information, and analysis of over a million ACFT results led the Army to restructure scoring into a dual-standard system separating combat and non-combat roles.
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The AFT has five events instead of six (the Standing Power Throw was removed), a 500-point maximum instead of 600, and a new dual standard: combat MOS soldiers are scored sex-neutral with a 350-point minimum, while all other soldiers are scored on sex- and age-normed tables with a 300-point minimum.
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300 total under the general standard, 350 under the sex-neutral combat MOS standard — and in both cases at least 60 points on every individual event. Scoring below 60 on any single event fails the whole test regardless of total.
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Failure triggers an administrative flag that blocks promotion, reenlistment, and favorable actions until a passing retest. Combat-MOS soldiers who cannot meet the 350 combat standard can additionally face mandatory reclassification into a non-combat specialty.
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For untrained candidates, the 3-Rep Max Deadlift and the Sprint-Drag-Carry — the deadlift exposes anyone who has never trained with a barbell, and the Sprint-Drag-Carry combines sprinting, sled dragging, and loaded carries into roughly 90 seconds of continuous output.
