Background: Servicemembers are required to operate at high levels despite experiencing common injuries such as chronic low back pain. Continuing high levels of activity while compensating for pain may increase the risk of musculoskeletal injuries. As such, the purpose of this project was to determine if servicemembers with chronic low back pain have reduced lower extremity performance, and if they use alternate strategies to complete a functional performance task as compared to healthy servicemembers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) deploys teams of operators (OP) and enablers (EN) to accomplish special operations missions. OP and EN are required to train and deploy together to accomplish these missions; however, they have different training and selection pipelines. Advanced strength and conditioning training strategies are applied to both OP and EN to enhance physical preparedness; however, it is unclear how the selection pipeline of these two personnel types affects overall physical preparedness and the relationships between performance variables.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Marines must complete an intensive Assessment and Selection (A&S) course before becoming a U.S. Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) Raider.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Sports Phys Ther
December 2020
Background: The specialized roles of many military personnel require specific skills and high physical demands, placing unique stresses on the shoulders and increasing risk of injury. As normal dominant/nondominant shoulder asymmetries have been established in military personnel, bilateral strength comparisons must be understood in context of daily physical demands to monitor patients' progress or readiness to return to duty.
Purpose: This study aims to assess bilateral differences in strength and explosive force in United States Marines with a history of dominant or nondominant shoulder pathology.
Introduction: Kinetic military units operate in austere training environments and deprivation not commonly experienced by competitive athletes. Nutritional strategies to protect against decrements in performance and potential injury risk may differ for these two groups. A cross sectional analysis was conducted to determine energy and macronutrient characteristics associated with performance metrics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Strength Cond Res
July 2021
Winters, JD, Heebner, NR, Johnson, AK, Poploski, KM, Royer, SD, Nagai, T, Randall, CA, Abt, JP, and Lephart, SM. Altered physical performance following advanced special operations tactical training. J Strength Cond Res 35(7): 1809-1816, 2021-The purpose of this study was to determine how the unique challenges of specific military tactical training phases influence overall physical performance characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Military personnel are at an increased risk of shoulder injuries due to training and deployment demands, however, there is a lack of information on the tactical athlete's upper extremity profile. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine shoulder musculoskeletal characteristics, including range of motion (ROM), strength, and function, and the relationships between these measures in Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) personnel without history of shoulder injury.
Materials And Methods: Participants included 195 full-duty male MARSOC personnel (age: 25.
Introduction: Tactical demands of a Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) Critical Skills Operator (CSO) require high levels of physical performance. During combat deployments, teams of CSOs are supplemented with enablers who specialize in mission-specific tasks. MARSOC CSOs and enablers serve alongside each other in extreme combat environments, often enduring the same physical demands, but the selection process for each group is very different.
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