Defence Physical Employment Standards Report:No.6

Military operational tasks are physically demanding and incur the risk of injury. In order to address the issues and costs associated with the high injury rates and focus on ways to reduce the risk of injury to Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, the ADF Chiefs of Service Committee (COSC) has endorsed a number of injury prevention strategies aimed at examining, analysing and evaluating injury-related risks and hazards within the ADF. In line with those strategies, COSC has affirmed that ADF employment policy is to be competency based and agreed that physical employment standards should be developed for combat arms trades. The purpose of the Defence Physical Employment Standards Project (DPESP) is to develop these performance-based competency standards. The ADF has employed the services of the University of Ballarat (UB) to undertake the DPESP. This involves reviewing combat arms trade tasks (CATTs), establishing a set of criterion CATTs, developing a battery of simulation and predictive tests based on the criterion CATTs to be used to assess the physical competency of ADF combat personnel, and making recommendations for associated physical employment standards. In the initial phase, the study is focused on one Army corps - Infantry, and one Air Force mustering - Airfield Defence Guards (ADG)1

Defence Physical Employment Standards Report: No 12

Military operational tasks are physically demanding and incur the risk of injury. In order to address the issues and costs associated with the high injury rates and focus on ways to reduce the risk of injury to Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, the ADF Chiefs of Service Committee (COSC) has endorsed a number of injury prevention strategies aimed at examining, analysing and evaluating injury-related risks and hazards within the ADF. In line with those strategies, COSC has affirmed that ADF employment policy is to be competency based and agreed that physical employment standards should be developed for combat arms trades. The purpose of the Defence Physical Employment Standards Project (DPESP) is to develop these performance-based competency standards. The ADF has employed the services of the University of Ballarat (UB) to undertake the DPESP. This involves reviewing combat arms trade tasks (CATTs), establishing a set of criterion CATTs, developing a battery of simulation and predictive tests based on the criterion CATTs to be used to assess the physical competency of ADF combat personnel, and making recommendations for associated physical employment standards. In the initial phase, the study is focused on one Army corps - Infantry, and one Air Force mustering - Airfield Defence Guards (ADG)

Defence Physical Employment Standards Report. No. 4

Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, the ADF Chiefs of Service Committee (COSC) has endorsed a number of injury prevention strategies aimed at examining, analysing and evaluating injury-related risks and hazards within the ADF. In line with those strategies, COSC has affirmed that ADF employment policy is to be competency based and agreed that physical employment standards should be developed for combat arms trades. The purpose of the Defence Physical Employment Standards Project (DPESP) is to develop these performance-based competency standards. The ADF has employed the services of the University of Ballarat (UB) to undertake the DPESP. This involves reviewing combat arms trade tasks (CATTs), establishing a set of criterion CATTs, developing a battery of simulation and predictive tests based on the criterion CATTs to be used to assess the physical competency of ADF combat personnel, and making recommendations for associated physical employment standards. In the initial phase, the study is focused on one Army corps - Infantry, and one Air Force mustering - Airfield Defence Guards (ADG

Analysis of the physical requirements of tasks undertaken by Australian infantry soldiers and airfield defence guards - abstract

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has resolved to establish a series of physical employment standards for Infantry soldiers and Airfield Defence Guards. A key stage in establishing these standards is to analyse the physical requirements of the two jobs. The purpose of this study was to analyse the physical requirements of the key physical tasks required within the two jobs. The jobs were divided into over 100 component tasks. Some tasks were common to the two jobs while others were specific to the respective jobs. ADF subject matter experts identified 36 tasks that were considered to be the most physically demanding. These tasks were observed to determine the movement patterns (actions) and muscle groups involved, the duration, velocity and estimated of exercise intensity. An estimate was also made of the involvement of each of seven activity types (endurance, strength-endurance etc) in each task and the exercise volume contained within each task. The tasks were ranked based upon the volume of work involved within each classification of activity type and movement action. Based upon these analyses, a series of tasks were chosen as those which best reflected the range of physical requirements of an Infantry soldier and an Airfield Defence Guard. These tasks were: marching while carrying support weapons, carrying ammunition boxes, assaulting, wall climbing, sandbagging, jumping from a height, pursuiting, rope climbing, patrolling in an urban environment, population protection, patrolling in marching order, building forced entry and stair climbing, casualty evacuation, loading stores and digging

Defence Physical Employment Standards Report: No. 2

Military operational tasks are physically demanding and incur the risk of injury. In order to address the issues and costs associated with the high injury rates and focus on ways to reduce the risk of injury to Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel, the ADF Chiefs of Service Committee (COSC) has endorsed a number of injury prevention strategies aimed at examining, analysing and evaluating injury-related risks and hazards within the ADF. In line with those strategies, COSC has affirmed that ADF employment policy is to be competency based and agreed that physical employment standards should be developed for combat arms trades. The purpose of the Defence Physical Employment Standards Project (DPESP) is to develop these performance-based competency standards. The ADF has employed the services of the University of Ballarat (UB) to undertake the DPESP. This involves reviewing combat arms trade tasks (CATTs), establishing a set of criterion CATTs, developing a battery of simulation and predictive tests based on the criterion CATTs to be used to assess the physical competency of ADF combat personnel, and making recommendations for associated physical employment standards. In the initial phase, the study is focused on one Army corps - Infantry, and one Air Force mustering - Airfield Defence Guards (ADG)1. The aim of this work package was to identify a range of potential tests that may be used by the ADF to predict performance on trade tasks that involve a significant endurance component and potentially a significant strength-endurance component. The work package also aimed to identify a battery of kinanthropometric tests for use within the Defence Physical Employment Standards Project (DPESP). The method used was to review the relevant academic and Defence literature and to conduct a oneday workshop attended by subject matter experts from the UB team and the ADF. The workshop was conducted in a manner that enabled the participants to comment on the literature provided by way of a background briefing paper and to use their collective experience and expertise to identify a number of potential tests and measures in keeping with the overall aim of the work package. It was assumed that the criterion endurance trade task would be the 50 km pack march. The literature review identified a range of approaches to the selection or development of a test to predicted performance on the 50 km pack march. These approaches include the prediction of endurance capacity from: • a direct measure of a related trade task (e.g. a shorter pack march) (Approach A)

Treadmill velocity best predicts 5000-m run performance

In this study, we aimed to investigate physiological determinants of endurance performance that best predict 5000-m average run velocity before and after endurance training. Thirty-nine previously untrained participants completed a 5000-m run; a constant velocity test (measuring running economy); and an incremental treadmill test to determine maximal oxygen uptake, final treadmill velocity, and velocity and oxygen uptake at lactate threshold, before and after six weeks of endurance training. Maximal oxygen uptake, final treadmill velocity, and velocity and oxygen uptake at threshold all increased significantly after training (p < 0.05). Average velocity for 5000m increased significantly (p < 0.05). Running economy was not significantly altered. Correlation analysis revealed final treadmill velocity was most strongly related to 5000-m performance, in both untrained and trained states (r = 0.89, 0.83). Lactate threshold velocity (r = 0.73, 0.76), maximal oxygen uptake (r = 0.55, 0.51) and oxygen uptake at threshold (r = 0.45, 0.45) also showed significant correlations. In contrast, running economy was not significantly related to performance. These results demonstrate that final treadmill velocity in an V̇O2max test is the single best predictor of 5000-m performance in untrained and trained states. Furthermore, stepwise regression analysis showed that only velocity at lactate threshold significantly improved the accuracy of prediction provided by final treadmill velocity alone. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart