You’ve heard the phrase, “Every Marine a rifleman.”  It’s true.

It’s also generally true that Marines stay in great physical shape.  According to USMC policy:

Every Marine must be physically fit, regardless of age, grade, gender, or duty assignment…

One way the Marines maintain and test their fitness levels is through the Combat Fitness Test, or CFT.

The purpose of the CFT is to assess a Marine’s physical capacity in a broad spectrum of combat related tasks.

Basically the CFT exists to test how fit a Marine is.  Through three events (Movement to Contact, Maneuver Under Fire, and Ammo Can Lift), a Marine’s combat fitness level is assigned a numerical value.  This value is used for a number of different things, chief of which is as a way to compete for promotion.

So how can you make sure you’re actually competitive?  Well…look at the numbers.  The newest CFT standards and how to score your results were released in mid-December 2016, but here they are to make life easier for you hard-chargers.