Leg power characteristics of female firefighter applicants

The primary purposes of this study were to characterize the anaerobic power of a large group of adult female subjects and to analyze the relationship of body composition, leg power, and leg strength tests to performance on the Wingate Anaerobic Test (WAT) in these women. A secondary purpose was to observe the relationship of the WAT to a stair-climbing test used to select firefighters. The subjects were the top 150 of the 1,090 women who took a firefighter applicant physical performance test. Predicted dependent variables from the WAT were mean power (MP), peak power (PP), and percent fatigue (%F). Among the nine independent variables entered into multiple regression analysis (age, height, weight, fat-free weight, percent fat, leg press strength, vertical jump, maximal physical work capacity (PWCmax) and stair climb) 45%, 40%, and 16% of the variance in MP, PP, and %F were accounted for. Fat-free weight accounted for the most variation in MP and PP, and PWCmax accounted for the most variation in %F. There was little relationship observed between MP, PP, or %F and the stair-climbing test.