For Guard and Reserve Soldiers Without Easy Access to Equipment, ACFT Training Costs Pile Up

General Mott summed it up pretty well.

That’s not feasible for RC units though. The only thing the Army could do is compensate RC soldiers for Gym memberships. Even then there’s the issue of injuries as someone else stated.

Oh injuries are for sure happening and will continue to happen. I also wonder how many will fail height weight and tape test by doing more strength training vs aerobic training to meet the strength needs of the new ACFT? I have gained 10 lbs of muscle in the last year alone just trying to train more upper body strength for the leg tuck event and dead lift. I know several other soldiers who were not weight lifters before have been pumping iron and bulking up. SSG (Join to see)

Early in the rollout someone high up said something about every reservist living in a town with a gym with a medicine ball and that was quickly shown to be not accurate. I fortunately have a gym at work (thanks largely to sharing a building with fire fighters) so I can more or less prep for the ACFT at my civilian job but that is the exception. Additionally there is a big difference for a an active duty solider with access to a free gym on base that is almost certainly close to where they work or on their commute and a reservist in a rural area who would have to pay for a gym if one is even available and probably commute. A huge impediment for anyone to exercise is if their is added time on the front and back end. There is an aspect of personal responsibility for each soldier and when two thirds of the prior test could be prepped in the living room and most, though not all (intercity, mountain dwellers like me) could go run out their front door easily we would reasonably hold reserve soldiers to the standard. Arguably it took no money, aside from shoes, and as little as twenty minutes a few days a week to maintain the APFT standard.