Overview
- Multiple military fitness authorities reviewed Secretary Pete Hegseth’s posted clips and told reporters his push-ups, pull-ups, and bench presses show technical flaws that would not count under service grading.
- Critics identified concrete problems in the videos such as incomplete range of motion on push-ups and bench presses, use of kipping where strict pull-ups are required, and underhand chin-up grips that change the exercise.
- Those technical breaches matter because U.S. branch fitness tests use precise standards and failing to meet them can be graded a 'no‑go,' which means the rep or event does not count toward a passing score.
- Hegseth previously posted a viral “Pete & Bobby Challenge” video with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that promoted 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in under ten minutes and drew wide online attention and mockery.
- The Pentagon’s acting press secretary, Joel Valdez, defended Hegseth and called the Atlantic analysis unfair, while critics say the episode highlights tensions between the secretary’s public fitness campaign and the standards he enforces on troops.