{"id":1456,"date":"2026-07-20T14:09:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T14:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2026-07-20T14:09:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T14:09:57","slug":"pete-hegseth-you-call-that-a-pull-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1456","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth, You Call That a Pull-Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Pete Hegseth wants<\/span> us to watch him sweat. Videos of the secretary of defense in a T-shirt and shorts working out alongside military personnel have become a trademark of his tenure. He has been filmed running on Omaha Beach, swinging a kettlebell on a university campus, and doing jumping jacks on an amphibious assault ship. In one clip, Hegseth pumps iron with troops at the Guant\u00e1namo Bay naval base\u2014or, as a Defense Department X account put it, \u201cAmerica\u2019s @SECWAR CRUSHED 44 reps on the bench after a morning run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Atlantic Trivia: Your Own Odyssey<\/a><\/p>\n

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Explore the September 2026 Issue<\/h2>\n

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

View More<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

But did he really<\/em> crush<\/em> those reps? Each time a new episode of Boot Camp Pete<\/em> drops, critics skewer his form and mock his endurance. They insist that he\u2019s all flex and no fundamentals. In that bench-press clip, for example, he doesn\u2019t fully extend his arms, making the exercise far easier and inflating his total. A few seconds into the clip, you can hear someone yell, \u201cAll the way down, all the way up!\u201d Hegseth fails to heed that helpful cue.<\/p>\n

Such nitpicking would be uncharitable if Hegseth were just another 40-something dad getting a lift in at Planet Fitness. But these are highlight reels, posted by the Pentagon. Plus, the former Fox News host isn\u2019t exactly known for withholding judgment himself: Recall how, last September, he gathered the nation\u2019s generals and admirals together so that he could upbraid them for being overweight. He told them that leaders set the standard and that when \u201cyou let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Hegseth\u2019s wisdom in mind, let\u2019s examine what the United States military\u2019s training manuals have to say about proper exercise form. Short answer: a lot. You\u2019ll find hundreds of pages spelling out precisely how to perform all manner of movements, including how to stretch your thighs (\u201cgrasp the left ankle and pull toward the left buttock\u201d), how to plank (\u201cforearms flat on the ground, forming a triangle\u201d), and how to throw a four-pound ball from a seated position (\u201cdo not throw the medicine ball like shooting a basketball\u201d). These manuals are replete with charts, bullet points, and illustrations. The Army\u2019s Holistic Health and Fitness Testing<\/em> manual provides detailed instructions, accompanied by photographs, on the bench press, warning that you must not \u201cjerk or shrug the shoulders, arch the back, or allow the hips to rise off the bench\u201d (note to Secretary Hegseth: p. 65, Appendix B).<\/p>\n

Standards vary across branches, even for basic exercises. Take the push-up. For the Army\u2019s fitness test, soldiers must do what\u2019s known as a hand-release push-up, requiring them to stick their arms straight out to the side after each repetition. The Marine guide devotes several hundred words to describing how to do a traditional push-up, specifying that the chest may not rest on the deck \u201cexcept as required to ensure that the upper arms are at least parallel to the deck.\u201d In the Air Force, your feet cannot be more than 12 inches apart, and you must maintain a \u201crigid head to heel form.\u201d These are directives rather than suggestions. Failure to meet the standard results in a \u201cno-go,\u201d in military parlance, meaning you haven\u2019t passed that portion of the test.<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s push-ups wouldn\u2019t pass muster in any branch. Last summer, Hegseth and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. kicked off the \u201cPete & Bobby Challenge,\u201d in which participants attempt to do 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in less than 10 minutes. Hegseth\u2019s push-ups are more like half-ups: In the ones captured on video, he doesn\u2019t go through the full range of motion. His substandard technique is ironic because he\u2019s on record ridiculing others for their lack of push-up prowess. In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors<\/em>, Hegseth mocks women soldiers who can do only \u201cten push-ups at a pop\u201d and refers to a transgender woman as a \u201cten-push-up kind of guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be fair, Hegseth\u2019s pull-up form, at times, is more or less textbook. The issue is consistency: Hegseth can\u2019t seem to maintain the standard for the duration of the competition, and raises his knees to his chest to give himself additional oomph. This is known as \u201ckipping\u201d and is forbidden in an eight-page pull-up guide published by the Marines. In one clip, Hegseth kips while using an underhand grip, which technically makes what he\u2019s doing a chin-up\u2014an exercise often considered less challenging than a pull-up. (The Marine guide permits both, though kipping is always forbidden.) According to the guide: \u201cPoor quality work will prevent you from getting the most from your workout and can lead to injury.\u201d Hegseth\u2019s work is, by Marine standards, poor.<\/p>\n

Hegseth claims at the end of the video that he finished in less than six minutes, which would be impressive if he weren\u2019t flouting the rules and sacrificing form for speed. What\u2019s more, he\u2019s doing these exercises incorrectly during a challenge that bears his name. Given all of this, it\u2019s impossible to have confidence in the validity of Hegseth\u2019s self-reported feat.<\/p>\n

Read more The Wingman<\/a><\/p>\n

Granted, I am not a trained grader of military exercises. Prior to perusing these manuals, I wasn\u2019t aware that your arms need to be at a 45-degree angle in relation to your trunk for the modified bent-leg body twist, or that it is imperative to point your toes to the rear for the prone row. I was entirely unfamiliar with the squat bender and the quadraplex. Nor did I know, before watching an Army instructional video, how to swing a kettlebell.<\/p>\n

As it happens, neither does Hegseth, who, in January, was filmed swinging a kettlebell with recruits at UCLA. You\u2019re supposed to keep the kettlebell near your body and generate momentum with your legs and hips. Instead, Hegseth squats, as if doing deep knee bends, and brings the weight far too close to the ground, putting strain on his shoulders and back. This is wrong, according to Joel Del Rosario, a retired Marine and a kettlebell coach. Del Rosario told me he\u2019s glad to see Hegseth encouraging better fitness in the military, and he noted that, in his experience, pretty much everyone who gives the kettlebell a whirl fails at first. He said he\u2019d be honored if asked to show Hegseth how to do the exercise properly.<\/p>\n

I consulted other military exercise experts too. Among them was Stew Smith, a former Navy SEAL and the author of a series of books about prepping to qualify for the Special Forces, including one on the Ranger Physical Assessment. A former Army National Guard infantry officer, Hegseth has bemoaned slipping standards across the military, including at the Ranger School\u2014even though he never completed the famously grueling 61-day leadership and fitness course. Smith said he doesn\u2019t evaluate the performance of people unless they ask, and so wouldn\u2019t comment specifically on Hegseth\u2019s approach and abilities. But he said he stresses to his students the importance of going all the way up and all the way down, whether it\u2019s a pull-up, push-up, or bench press.<\/p>\n

I also asked Maureen LeBoeuf what she made of the \u201cPete & Bobby Challenge\u201d video. LeBoeuf is a retired brigadier general and the first and only woman to head the physical-education department at West Point, a position known as \u201cmaster of the sword.\u201d She said that nothing she saw from the defense secretary in that video would have counted if she had been the grader, and she has graded thousands of such tests. \u201cHis pull-ups or chin-ups and the kicking that he does\u2014you would never allow that. You\u2019d stop somebody; you\u2019d say, \u2018Okay, you\u2019re done,\u2019\u200a\u201d LeBoeuf said. \u201cHe just keeps kicking, and it\u2019s not a good look.\u201d She allowed that he might have been exhausted in those clips, but the Army doesn\u2019t usually recognize fatigue as an excuse. And it\u2019s hard to forgive such lapses and corner-cutting from someone who, as LeBoeuf put it, is \u201creal big on standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to an inquiry about the criticism of Hegseth\u2019s workouts, Joel Valdez, the acting Pentagon press secretary, insisted that Hegseth was being unfairly singled out. \u201cHave you ever seen Lloyd Austin\u2019s form? Did the Atlantic ever ask about it?\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe answer to both of those questions is no.\u201d That\u2019s true, but Austin, the previous secretary of defense, was not known for posting self-promotional exercise content on social media. He did, however, complete Ranger School and Airborne School, command the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, lead the fight against the Islamic State, and earn a Silver Star.<\/p>\n

This article appears in the <\/small><\/em>September 2026<\/small><\/em> print edition with the headline \u201cYou Call That a Pull-Up?\u201d<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Is Mild Autism Being Overdiagnosed?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Military fitness experts say the secretary of defense fails on form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-security"],"yoast_head":"\nPete Hegseth, You Call That a Pull-Up? - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1456\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pete Hegseth, You Call That a Pull-Up? - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Military fitness experts say the secretary of defense fails on form.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1456\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-20T14:09:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1456#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1456\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Pete Hegseth, You Call That a Pull-Up?\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-20T14:09:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1456\"},\"wordCount\":1506,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1456#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/eef4f38c40ca5b619988725f3cd982fa.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"National Security\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1456#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1456\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1456\",\"name\":\"Pete Hegseth, You Call That a Pull-Up? 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