The standing power throw is out as new Army fitness test goes 'sex-neutral' | Hacker News Reader

The standing power throw is out as new Army fitness test goes 'sex-neutral'

taskandpurpose.com

14 pointsPaulHoule15 comments

Kind of burying the lede with the headline. I haven't been in the Army in nearly 15 years and hadn't heard of the standing power throw, but sex neutral standards are a pretty massive change. Women being graded on the men's scale are going to have an extremely hard time. My wife from back then routinely scored near 400 on the extended scale, well above the maximum for a woman, but was a full two minutes slower than me on the two-mile. We didn't do the deadlift, but we did it recreationally and I lifted triple what she did, not a huge surprise since she was barely 110 lbs.

Of course, women couldn't legally serve in combat roles at all back then, so they've still got a better shot now even if they need to meet male standards.

> To pass the deadlift event with 60 points, women 17 to 21 years old previously had to deadlift 120 pounds, but under the new standard, they would have to lift 140 pounds.

Maybe my powerlifting background is coloring my thought process but this doesn't seem crazy to me? Assuming a small ~100lb woman that's 1.4x bodyweight and that's the extreme end. I imagine for most it's closer to 1x.

I have no military and definitely no combat background so in this area I don't feel like I have the context to form much of an opinion.

> Women being graded on the men's scale are going to have an extremely hard time.

That may be true. However with a consistent scale for everyone, means the comrade next to you passed the same test. And those around them passed the same test. Man? Passed the test. Woman? Passed the test.

If the test isn't fair, then it should be reevaluated for all.

The counter is 'women have it easier cause its dumbed down for them', which flies in the face of all that equality stuff.

Seems actually pretty fair. Instead of sexist rules, its the same rules for everyone.

"We don't care what's between your legs. Pass these tests and you qualify."

...I think I'm inclined to agree. They should decide what is necessary to do the job, and make that the standard.

It may the case that the standards are higher than necessary and should be lowered—but then why wouldn't you lower them for both men and women?

Put another way, I am wondering... if there weren't previously any problems, why wouldn't you use the old women's cutoff as the new baseline for both men and women, instead of using the men's cutoff?

> Put another way, I am wondering... if there weren't previously any problems, why wouldn't you use the old women's cutoff as the new baseline for both men and women, instead of using the men's cutoff?

Because women are a small minority (< 20%) of the US military. You might be able to argue for a lowering of the new common standard to somewhere in between the old standards.

Men are genetically stronger. That's a sober fact. But if it's alright to have women in the army, then why is then there a higher standard for men? Minority is a bad excuse, because in the army, people die. So does the army accept lower baselines for women, because they don't care when they die in the conflict? Or is it more that the higher standard applied to men is indeed too high as a baseline?

> An early version of the ACFT held male and female soldiers to the same physical fitness standards, regardless of age. In 2019, initial testing showed that 84% of women who took the test had failed while men across 11 of 63 battalions had a 70% pass rate. The test trials prompted criticism from the Service Women’s Action Network, which called the Army’s implementation “rash” because “too many otherwise qualified soldiers are failing elements of the test.”

That's actually pretty striking. Only 30% of men fail vs 84% of women. And I am assuming women probably train harder and more intentionally.

It would be interesting to see which events caused the most failures for women.

I imagine that it is the push-ups, backwards throw (which they removed), and Sprint drag carry (in that order) but would like the data.

Looking through the actual requirements, most reasonably fit young men should be able to pass without much effort (e.g., 10 pushups in 2 minutes, 2 miles in 20 minutes, plank for 75 seconds, etc.)

https://www.armycombatfitnesstest.com/calculator (It scores on the current system, but I believe it's the same if you just throw out the standing throw)

I found this article with a breakdown:

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/05/10/nearly-half-o...

It's just across the board - no single event. Even the events where you are using your own bodyweight they did worse on, so it's not just a matter of them on average being smaller.

Given how everything is moving to drones, wouldn't you want recruits who are capable of focusing at a desk for a long periods of time

> Army fitness test changes will mean “sex-neutral” standards for soldiers in 21 combat jobs.

I don't think desk jobs count as combat jobs.

① “Drone” covers a very broad selection of scales

② “Everything” is a massive overstatement.

Interesting that a US Army test use meter as the measure

https://www.armycombatfitnesstest.com/calculator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcDiEr3Meds

If they end up taking few(er) women, readiness will take a hit as I don't recall news stories about turning away people wanting to join. And if they really don't want women in the service, guess they're going to have to rent contractor medical people?

Or are they limiting it to the grunts at the pointy end of the spear? Last time I checked, people seem to prefer the higher-paying, higher-employable military jobs - officers, pilots, IT/communications, engineering...

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