Citation

Foulis SA, Redmond JE, Frykman PN, Warr MB, Zambraski EJ, Sharp MA. J. Strength Cond. Res. 2017; 31(12): 3245-3252.

Affiliation

Military Performance Division, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Natick, MA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, National Strength and Conditioning Association)

DOI

10.1519/JSC.0000000000001894

PMID

28368954

Abstract

Recently, the US Army has mandated that Soldiers must successfully complete the physically demanding tasks of their job in order to graduate from their Initial Military Training. Evaluating individual Soldiers in the field is difficult; however, simulations of these tasks may aid in the assessment of Soldiers' abilities. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of simulated physical Soldiering tasks relevant to Combat Arms Soldiers. Three cohorts of ∼50 Soldiers repeated a subset of eight simulated tasks four times over two weeks. Simulations included: sandbag carry, casualty drag, and casualty evacuation from a vehicle turret, move under direct fire, stow ammunition on a tank, load the main gun of a tank, transferring ammunition with a field artillery supply vehicle, and a 4-mile foot march. Reliability was assessed using intraclass correlations (ICC), standard errors of the measure (SEM), and 95% limits of agreement (LOAs). Performance of the casualty drag and foot march did not improve across trials (p>0.05) while improvements, suggestive of learning effects, were observed on the remaining six tasks (p≤0.05). The ICCs ranged from 0.76-0.96, and the SEMs ranged from 3%-16% of the mean. These eight simulated tasks show high reliability. Given proper practice, they are suitable for evaluating the ability of Combat Arms Soldiers to complete the physical requirements of their jobs.

Language: en