A comparison of role-related physical fitness between British Army trainees and trained soldiers.

British Army basic training (BT) and initial trade training (ITT) enable personnel to develop role-related physical capability to perform in-service job-roles. The study aimed to compare physical performance of trainees (completing ITT) and trained soldiers, on a series of gym-based fitness tests and representative military tasks. A total of 316 British Army personnel [68 trainees (63 men: 22 ± 3 years, 71.

External workload and cognitive performance of a tactical military scenario-based field exercise.

Introduction: Military personnel must manage a multitude of competing physiological and cognitive stressors while maintaining high levels of performance. Quantifying the external workload and cognitive demands of tactical military field exercises closely simulating operational environments, will provide a better understanding of stressors placed on personnel to inform evidence-based interventions.

Methods: Thirty-one soldiers completing a dismounted 48 hours tactical field exercise, participated in the study.

Development of an evidence-based swimming representative military task to assess swimming competency in the British Army.

Background: There is a requirement for British Army personnel to operate in/around water. Assessing role-related swimming/water competence will support personnel to conduct their job-roles safely and effectively.

Objective: To undertake a Job-Task Analysis (JTA) of British Army personnel when working in/around water and use this information to develop a Swimming Representative Military Task (RMT) to assess swimming/water competence.

Metabolic, cardiovascular, neuromuscular and perceptual responses to repeated military-specific load carriage treadmill simulations.

Bouts of military load carriage are rarely completed in isolation; however, limited research has investigated the physiological responses to repeated load carriage tasks. Twelve civilian men (age, 28 ± 8 years; stature, 185.6 ± 5.

Food for thought: dietary nootropics for the optimisation of military operators' cognitive performance.

Nootropics are compounds that enhance cognitive performance and have been highlighted as a medium-term human augmentation technology that could support soldier performance. Given the differing ethical, safety and legal considerations associated with the pharmaceutical subset of nootropics, this analysis focuses on dietary supplementation which may enhance cognition during training and operations. Numerous supplements have been investigated as possible nootropics; however, research is often not context specific or of high quality, leading to questions regarding efficacy.