Development of a Treadmill-Based Military Initial-Entry Fitness Screening Test

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Military training requires significant investments of time, money, and personnel. In the U.S. Army, there is growing interest in minimizing costs related to the loss of recruits due to failure to meet Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) standards, especially 3.2 km run. The establishment of a simple and reliable recruitment-level fitness screening test could help minimize these costs and optimize limited resources. Because an outdoor running test is not feasible in most recruitment settings, a treadmill-based fitness test was examined. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to predict APFT 3.2 km run time based on simple anthropometrics and maximal treadmill grade attained on a standardized treadmill protocol in order to enable recruiters to assess recruits' capacity to obtain a passing 3.2 km run time. METHODS: Twenty-nine males (mean+SD: 29.0±4.5 yr, 177.4±7.3 cm, 87.7±11.8 kg) completed a maximal 3.2 km run and a standardized treadmill protocol to exhaustion (Table 1).Table 1: Standardized treadmill protocolA stepwise linear regression was performed to determine if 3.2 km run time could be predicted from height (cm), mass (kg), body mass index (kg/m2), and maximal treadmill grade (%) achieved. RESULTS: The stepwise linear regression produced the following equation that incorporated only maximal treadmill grade: 3.2 km time (min) = 27.67 min - 1.299 * Grade (%) r2=0.58, p<0.001. CONCLUSIONS: The standardized treadmill protocol presented here can predict 3.2 km run time, and the prediction equation can be used to identify recruits who are unlikely to successfully pass the APFT. This prediction equation may also be used to gauge aerobic fitness for athletes and recreational exercisers.