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Body Shape, Body Composition, and Performance on the US Army Combat Fitness Test (310017)

The new United States Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) consists of 6 events developed to assess the strength required for Army physical tasks. Despite the backward design, the ACFT has been the subject of a vigorous debate because of high female failure rates. Because females are on average smaller than males, we wished to understand the role of gender and body size on ACFT performance. To this end, we obtained body circumferences at 14 different sites using an automatic imaging device in 266 cadets at the United States Military Academy. Pearson correlation constants between circumferences and ACFT event performance were calculated. A k-means cluster analysis was performed over the circumferences that resulted in 5 distinct body types. Bicep and forearm circumferences, and a chest to waist circumference ratio had the highest Pearson correlation constants on all events (e.g. bicep circumference correlated to dead lift event (r=0.841). The highest ACFT performance was observed clusters consisting of males with large circumferences. The lowest performance were held in clusters with smaller circumferences.