Analysis of the physical requirements of tasks undertaken by Australian infantry soldiers and airfield defence guards

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has resolved to establish a series of physical employment standards for Infantry soldiers and Airfield Defence Guards. A key stage in establishing these standards is to analyse the physical requirements of the two jobs. The purpose of this study was to analyse the physical requirements of the key physical tasks required within the two jobs. The jobs were divided into over 100 component tasks. Some tasks were common to the two jobs while others were specific to the respective jobs. ADF subject matter experts identified 36 tasks that were considered to be the most physically demanding. These tasks were observed to determine the movement patterns (actions) and muscle groups involved, the duration, velocity and estimated of exercise intensity. An estimate was also made of the involvement of each of seven activity types (endurance, strength-endurance etc) in each task and the exercise volume contained within each task. The tasks were ranked based upon the volume of work involved within each classification of activity type and movement action. Based upon these analyses, a series of tasks were chosen as those which best reflected the range of physical requirements of an Infantry soldier and an Airfield Defence Guard. These tasks were: marching while carrying support weapons, carrying ammunition boxes, assaulting, wall climbing, sandbagging, jumping from a height, pursuiting, rope climbing, patrolling in an urban environment, population protection, patrolling in marching order, building forced entry and stair climbing, casualty evacuation, loading stores and digging. Copyright © 2005 Sports Medicine Australi