Pre and Post Assessments of Indiana National Guard Soldiers on Cardiorespiratory Endurance

Material created as part of Fundamentals of Exercise Prescription, an Immersive Learning course taught by Nicole Koontz. Created with the cooperation of the Indiana National Guard.INTRODUCTION: Cardiorespiratory endurance (CRE) is a reflection of health and is related to the circulatory, respiratory, and musculoskeletal systems. Soldiers of the National Guard are expected to have sufficient CRE, however, many soldiers fail this portion of the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). PURPOSE: To evaluate the success of home exercise prescriptions in improving CRE between the Indiana National Guard (ING) soldiers’ pre- and post-tests. METHODS: Participants were 21 ING soldiers (25±6y) who failed or had a history of failing a record APFT and who had completed a pre- and post-testing day ranging from spring 2015 through spring 2017. Soldiers completed a timed two-mile run, push-up and sit-up tests per APFT regulations. Additional health measures were collected or self-reported, including height, weight, resting heart rate, blood pressure, handgrip strength, sit-and-reach scores, waist and hip circumferences and 3-site skinfolds. SPSS V.24 was used to perform descriptive statistics and univariate analysis of variance to assess differences between pre- and post-assessment CRE. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between pre- and post- tests for CRE (p=0.639). Furthermore, there were no significant differences between pre and post-tests for any of the other health parameters assessed. However, trends were observed in the desired direction according to the program’s desired goal of passing the APFT; indicating minor improvement. CONCLUSIONS: CRE is an integral part of the APFT. Although there were no significant differences found between the pre- and post-testing for CRE, there was a trend observed indicating the potential for the home-based exercise prescription program to have success. Limitations include the length of each soldiers program between pre- and post-tests and the efficacy of each soldier completing the home-based exercise prescription. Therefore future research should assess CRE improvements in soldiers of the ING over a longer follow-up period and using a method to track adherence to the exercise prescription