Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Physical Fitness in Volunteer Firefighters.

Forty-seven percent of volunteer firefighter line of duty deaths are caused by cardiovascular events. Aggressive cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factor reduction and improved physical fitness could reduce CVD mortality within this population. We assessed CVD risk factors and physical fitness in a large cohort of volunteer firefighters to help establish a health and fitness profile of this population, which may serve as evidence for the need to initiate programs aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality caused by CVD in the volunteer fire service.

Barriers to resistance training among college-aged women.

Objective: To examine resistance training (RT) barriers among college-aged women.

Participants: Female college students (n = 223) from a Midwestern university.

Methods: Data were collected in September 2014.

Body mass index as a predictor of percent fat in college athletes and nonathletes.

Introduction: Body mass index (BMI) is used as a surrogate for percent fat (% fat) in classifying obesity. However, there is no established criterion for % fat and health risk, and few studies have examined the accuracy/validity of BMI as a measure of % fat. By default, BMI is used to classify athletes and young adults as obese.