Reliability assessment of two militarily relevant occupational physical performance tests

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Military Medicine
• Human Performance

Background:

• Physical fitness is critical for military occupational tasks.
• Standardized testing is essential for evaluating soldier performance and readiness.
• Previous research has not clearly defined the number of sessions required for performance stabilization in specific military physical tests.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the number of test sessions needed for performance stabilization in an obstacle course (OC) and a repetitive box-lifting task (RBLT).
• To assess the reliability of the OC and RBLT for military personnel.
• To establish optimal testing protocols for accurate performance measurement.

Main Methods:

• Ten male soldiers performed an indoor 6-station obstacle course (OC) and a repetitive box-lifting task (RBLT) over multiple sessions.
• Obstacle course performance was measured by time to completion.
• Repetitive box-lifting task performance was measured by the number of boxes lifted in 10 minutes.

Main Results:

• Performance on the OC stabilized by the 3rd session, showing a significant improvement (p < 0.05).
• Performance on the RBLT stabilized by the 2nd session, also with significant improvement (p < 0.05).
• Both tests demonstrated high reliability, with intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.92 for the OC and 0.94 for the RBLT.

Conclusions:

• The obstacle course and repetitive box-lifting task are reliable physical performance tests for military applications.
• Two practice sessions are recommended for the RBLT and three for the OC to obtain reliable performance data.
• These findings inform standardized testing protocols to ensure accurate assessment of soldier physical capabilities.