Anaerobic power performance of incumbent female firefighters

Prior studies have indicated that anaerobic power tests correlate highly with firefighting performance tasks. This investigation measured peak power and mean power of 10 incumbent female firefighters (age, 29.8 +/- 2.1 years; height, 169.7 +/- 7.9 cm; weight, 66.8 +/- 9.9 kg) who underwent a 30-second Wingate anaerobic power test. Peak power and mean power were recorded as 451.6 +/- 69.6 W and 314.1 +/- 32.7 W, respectively, compared with a control group. Results revealed that incumbent female firefighters did not score significantly greater than the control group in either peak power or mean power. Although the level of anaerobic power needed to perform firefighting tasks is unknown at this time, it does not appear that incumbent female firefighters are reliant on anaerobic power as operationalized in this study.