Chapter 20 Physical Training to Optimize Load Carriage

Flashcards generated from lecture notes on physical training to optimize load carriage for tactical athletes.

Tactical athletes are often required to perform a myriad of physical tasks such as __ while carrying loads.

Negotiating obstacles, crawling, climbing, and marksmanship

__ are important considerations of mobility, reaction time, and maneuverability.

Strength, power, and agility

Circumventing adverse outcomes requires knowing the __ responses to load carriage and incorporating appropriate PT program design.

Physiological and biomechanical

Advances in technology have driven the need for soldiers to carry weapons and equipment for the purposes of __.

Firepower, protection, and communication

An accurate representation of load carriage stress can only be determined by evaluating occupational physical requirements and tasks through a __.

Needs analysis

Firefighting often requires __ while performing physical tasks.

The wear of PPE

The study found that __, but not bottle size, significantly affected gait.

SCBA bottle weight (mass), obstacle height, and walking speed

The hazards of wearing PPE are further compounded when operating in environments with limited visibility, where reliance on __ is all that much more important.

Proprioception

A literature review of the impact of load carriage on mobility was published in 2014. The authors defined mobility and found that as load increased, __.

Mobility decreased

During an acute road march (__) while carrying 24 kg (53 lb), the hip region was rated significantly more comfortable than any other region.

One hour

During an acute road march (one hour) while carrying 24 kg (53 lb), the __ was rated significantly more comfortable than any other region.

Hip region

During an acute road march (one hour) while carrying 24 kg (53 lb), the __ was rated significantly less comfortable than any other region.

Foot

Three energy pathways within the body (__) contribute to a tactical athlete, each potentially being the primary energy system contributing to a given occupational task.

Phosphagen, glycolytic, and oxidative

Collectively, these studies demonstrate that performing physical tasks with load carriage __.

Increases metabolic and physiological stress concomitant with decreased performance

A study by Huang and Kuo (33) examined body center of mass and joint work in 8 adults walking at 1.25 m/s (1.37 yd/s) with varying backpack loads of up to 40% of body weight and demonstrated that the increase in metabolic cost was predominantly due to the work about the __.

Knee and ankle

__ are the most common load carriage injuries, caused by friction between the sock and skin from boot pressure on the foot.

Foot blisters

__, another common injury, occurs from repetitive overloading of bone tissue.

Stress fracture

It is postulated that rucksack palsy occurs from the __ or the top portion of individual body armor, which can cause a traction injury of the C5 and C6 nerve roots of the upper brachial plexus.

Shoulder straps of a backpack

Two decades of research suggests that a combination of __ are most effective for improving load carriage performance

Resistance training, aerobic, and specific load carriage exercise

A high __ strongly correlates with absolute maximal oxygen uptake ( O2max) and predicts load carriage performance.

LBM

This demonstrates that __ are vital for load-bearing tasks (47).

Both aerobic capacity and local muscular endurance

One of the most important concepts for improving load carriage performance is __.

The principle of specificity

The longest load carriage march in the Patterson study was 30 minutes, which is much shorter than the 15 km (__) event normally used to assess performance in the U.S. Army

9 mi or 165 minutes

Interestingly, the __ group showed greater improvements in the 1RM bench press and squat, peak power output at 30% 1RM squat, average peak power output at 60% 1RM for squat, vertical jump height, and performance on a firefighter-specific job-task test (65).

Undulated training

TSAC Facilitators should select multijoint resistance and cardiorespiratory exercises that are job-specific and designed to mimic the movement patterns of the task, and they should train the tactical athlete to use the actual equipment (i.e., __ ) used on the fireground.

Hoses and ladders

Strength and power training is best facilitated by __ .

Intensity (load), followed by training frequency (sessions per week) and then by volume (distance)

In the Visser study, the higher frequency condition (__) resulted in enhanced performance on the load march test compared with the lower frequency (once every two weeks).

Once per week

Rudzki (75) published findings in support of this concept by demonstrating that both a improved similarly in measures of aerobic fitness, but only the improved their performance of military tasks.

Run group, load-marching group

When designing strength and conditioning programs to improve load carriage, loaded marching should be conducted at least __ , with enhanced improvements demonstrated when frequency increases to once a week (42).

Two times a month

To stimulate __, the intensity (e.g., load, speed) of the training must be sufficient enough to elicit a training response.

Aerobic adaptations

TSAC Facilitators have the important task of ensuring that the strength and conditioning programs they prescribe are based on __ and are appropriate for the tactical athletes they are coaching.

Sound research