Analysis and assessment of fatigue level after 5-km armed off-road training in army special operations force

Objective To evaluate the training intensity and fatigue level after 5 km armed off-road training in army special operations forces (SOF), and to screen sensitive indicators for fatigue evaluation. Methods Twenty soldiers at professional posts were collected from a SOF unit during May and June 2018 by simple random sampling. They conducted a training of 5 km armed off-road strictly according to the assessment criteria of SOF. Their fatigue indexes were collected before and after training, and the results were compared and analyzed. A survey questionnaire about training conditions was conducted on 44 officers and 420 soldiers selected from a SOF unit by cluster sampling. The fatigue levels of different SOF training subjects was quantitatively scored and ranked. Results ① Compared with the resting values before 5 km armed off-road training, the peripheral blood level of lactic acid (P < 0.001) was increased significantly, while the pH value of saliva was decreased obviously after training (P=0.013). ② Their heart rate (P < 0.001) and blood perfusion index (P=0.015) were elevated remarkably, but the oxygen saturation was reduced (P < 0.001) after training. ③No significant differences were found in the handgrip strengths of the dominant and non-dominant hands and skin space thresholds before and after the training. ④The training reduced the indicators of neurobehavioral ability, such as memory scanning (P=0.030), visual attention span (P=0.007) and curve fitting ability index (P=0.001) in the subjects when compared with the data before training. ⑤Among the 16 training subjects, there were 6 SOF training subjects causing higher fatigue level than that of 5 km armed off-road training. Conclusion Five-kilometer armed off-road training is an activity of sub-severe intensity. Blood lactic acid, saliva pH value, heart rate, oxygen saturation, visual attention span, and curve fitting ability index can be used as sensitive indicators to evaluate the training fatigue of soldiers in SOF.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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