Strength, Jump Height, Landing, and Mobility Metrics Predict High and Low Performers of a Fire and Move Assessment: A Machine Learning Approach.

Purpose: Combat manoeuvrability is critical for soldier survivability. Military organisations ensure effective combat manoeuvrability through routine assessments. Advanced statistical analyses may improve combat movement efficiency practices.

VALD HumanTrak Measures Valid Hip and Knee Joint Angles With and Without Body Armor.

Introduction: Assessing kinematic information within military populations can assist in optimizing physical performance and identifying inefficient movement patterns patterns as part of a regular health screening. The HumanTrak is a portable markerless motion capture system capable of quantifying lower body kinematics within field-based settings. The literature to support HumanTrak validity is novel and has not been assessed in a military context.

Wearable-Assessed Biomechanical and Physiological Demands during Load Carriage and Tactical Mobility Tasks among Male and Female Military Personnel.

Purpose: Load carriage and tactical mobility are military tasks that pose significant risks for musculoskeletal injuries (MSKIs) in military personnel. This investigation compared biomechanical and physiological demands of a load carriage and tactical mobility task and examined their differences between sexes using reliable and validated wearables among United States Marine officer candidates.

Methods: Forty-one candidates (16 women) performed a 15.

Predicting Maximal Military Occupational Task Performance from Physical Fitness Tests Using Machine Learning.

Purpose: Optimal performance in military tasks is crucial for operational success. These tasks are often simulated in training, assessing personnel performance within a military environment. However, these assessments are time-consuming and a potential injury risk.

Load increases IMU signal attenuation per step but reduces IMU signal attenuation per kilometre.

Background: Despite deleterious biomechanics associated with injury, particularly as it pertains to load carriage, there is limited research on the association between physical demands and variables captured with wearable sensors. While inertial measurement units (IMUs) can be used as surrogate measures of ground reaction force (GRF) variables, it is unclear if these data are sensitive to military-specific task demands.

Research Question: Can wearable sensors characterise physical load and demands placed on individuals in different load, speed and grade conditions?

Methods: Data were collected on 20 individuals who were self-reportedly free from current injury, recreationally active, and capable of donning 23 kg in the form of a weighted vest.

IMUs Can Estimate Hip and Knee Range of Motion during Walking Tasks but Are Not Sensitive to Changes in Load or Grade.

The ability to estimate lower-extremity mechanics in real-world scenarios may untether biomechanics research from a laboratory environment. This is particularly important for military populations where outdoor ruck marches over variable terrain and the addition of external load are cited as leading causes of musculoskeletal injury As such, this study aimed to examine (1) the validity of a minimal IMU sensor system for quantifying lower-extremity kinematics during treadmill walking and running compared with optical motion capture (OMC) and (2) the sensitivity of this IMU system to kinematic changes induced by load, grade, or a combination of the two. The IMU system was able to estimate hip and knee range of motion (ROM) with moderate accuracy during walking but not running.

Evaluating the intra- and inter-day reliability of output measures for the VALD HumanTrak: dynamic movements and range of motion of the shoulder and hip with body armour.

The HumanTrak captures human movement through markerless motion tracking and can be a crucial tool in military physical screening. Reliability was examined in eighteen healthy participants who completed shoulder and hip ROM, and dynamic tasks in three body armour conditions. Generally, for all conditions, good to excellent reliability was observed in shoulder abduction and flexion, hip abduction and adduction, and dynamic squats knee and hip flexion (ICC ≥ 0.