Welcome to Leg Tuck Nation
The leg tuck was only an exercise…until the Army killed it.
Like many other martyrs, it became a symbol – a symbol of our refusal to keep lowering
the bar until everyone can step over it.
If you’re new to the MOPs & MOEs community – and especially if you found us through the podcast instead of social media – you might be confused when you hear us talking about Leg Tuck Nation. To explain where it came from, we need to first cover a bit of Army fitness history…
As far as I know the leg tuck, at least by that name, originated with the 2012 introduction of Physical Readiness Training (PRT) as laid out in the original Field Manual 7-22. The predecessor (TC 21-20) contains such legendary exercises as the overhead log toss, the knee and ankle rotation (every old timer’s favorite warm-up), and the infamous sport of pushball; however, it does not include any leg tucks. While hanging knees-to-elbows is a popular exercise, by performing them in line with the bar the Army seems to have inadvertently “invented” the leg tuck.
PRT introduced the Army to the climbing drills, arguably one of the best parts of the entire manual (alongside the guerilla drill). Climbing drills 1 and 2 consist of almost exactly the same exercises, but the latter is performed wearing body armor, helmet, and rifle. In addition to the now famous leg tuck, these include the straight arm pull (replaced with the flexed arm hang in climbing drill 2), heel hook, pull-up, and alternating grip pull-up. Surely if the entire Army was consistently performing these drills, then there would be no problem adding one of the exercises to the fitness test, but it was not meant to be.
Army leaders, observing soldiers’ performance in combat and in light of unsustainable injury rates, directed a three-part study into fitness testing protocols in 2013. The need for more accurate fitness testing was particularly important and with women gaining access to ground combat roles, standards were necessary to determine which women (and men) were physically capable of performing these jobs. The resulting order contained three specific directives:
(1) Determine the baseline physical readiness requirements of the physically demanding, commonly occurring, and critical Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills and Common Soldier Tasks (WTBD/CST)
(2) Determine if the current 3- event Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) adequately assessed the baseline physical readiness required to accomplish physically demanding WTBD/CSTs
(3) Determine if there were other physical fitness test events that better predicted Soldier performance on physically demanding WTBD/CSTs
To answer these directives, researchers embarked on two studies: the Physical Demands Study (answering the first directive) and the Baseline Soldier Physical Readiness Requirements Study (answering the second and third directives). These studies formed the foundation for what eventually became the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT).
The Army officially announced the ACFT in 2018, with field testing starting that October. Roughly one year later slides were leaked to the public showing alarming failure rates, particularly on the leg tuck. This should have come as a surprise to no one. The test was designed to address shortfalls in soldier fitness, and it succeeded in highlighting those problems. But rather than discussing the training protocols necessary to help soldiers improve (and improve they did), numerous articles were published demanding the new test be canceled.
While these attacks did not kill the ACFT outright, they did result in the creation of age and gender scoring scales to account for scoring discrepancies. But the most significant loss was the replacement of the leg tuck with the plank. While Leg Tuck Nation existed prior to this, it became a movement on March 23, 2022, when the Army officially released updating testing standards with only the plank.
I remember this day vividly, as I had somehow become “the leg tuck guy” by that point. When the news broke, my phone immediately started going off so frequently that I had to turn it off to focus on work. Coincidentally, work that day was meeting with human performance teams at Ft Bliss, Texas – many of whom expressed their sympathies for my loss (and joined me in knocking out a few leg tucks in memoriam). Things really got out of control when I got an email informing me that leaders at the Pentagon had become aware of #LegTuckNation and found it traced back to me.
While the vaguely threatening nature of that email had me worried I was going to be fired, I soon realized that I was not the only one mourning the loss of the leg tuck. It has been a year now since the exercise was removed from the ACFT, but #LegTuckNation is stronger than ever. Leg tuck stickers can be found in the offices of some of the highest leaders in the Pentagon. They have been requested by numerous officers with stars on their shoulders. I occasionally get notes from people serving across the world who recognize fellow supporters by the stickers on their water bottles. And I have even shipped Leg Tuck Nation stickers to members of foreign militaries who want to show their solidarity.
In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” The leg tuck lives on in doctrine as an exercise all soldiers should include in their training, but it has also become a symbol. Members of Leg Tuck Nation aspire towards higher standards. When faced with an obstacle, they seek to overcome it rather than demanding it be removed. Whether they’re working hard to get their first leg tuck or they can knock out twenty with ease, they thrive when challenged.
Whether you’re a soldier or not, when you hear us say “welcome to Leg Tuck Nation” it’s because we know you’re up for the challenge.
