Effect of Prolonged Military Exercises With High Load Carriage, on Neuromuscular Fatigue and Physiological/Biomechanical Responses

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne10 enrolled

Overview

Land military missions generally combine prolonged walking/moderate-pace-running and other physical actions such as creeping, jumping, shooting,… which are associated with the direct carrying of high to severe loads of equipment and supplies (20-30 to 50 kg) by soldiers. For an infantry section, "typical" intervention phases last about 20-24 h and combine variable intensity grades. Consequently, military mission characteristics are an interesting investigation field of human fatigue. Previous studies have investigated human neuromuscular alterations after prolonged "normal" locomotion exercises \[Millet et al., 2004, 2009\], thus the aim of this study is to characterize the neuromuscular determinants of fatigue induced by a 24-h Simulated Military Effort (SME) and a 4-h Military Road March (MM), both performed with high load carriage. Additionally, the consequences of fatigue on physiological and biomechanical parameters of locomotion will be investigated.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

Conditions

Healthy

Interventions

military equipmentOTHER

Military exercise of 24 hours

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * to be a male * to have a VO2max \> 45ml/min/kg (mean observed value in military subjects) * to be aged from 30 to 45 * to be recently retreated from National Army * to be highly experienced in military efforts * to be trained in exercises involving load carrying * to benefit from a social security insurance Exclusion Criteria: * All subjects with recent (\< 3 month) bone, articular or muscle diseases. * All subjects presenting a clinic sign of intolerance to testing procedures, especially subjects with knee, ankle, hip or back diseases. * All subjects intolerant to muddy or wooded environment. * All subjects presenting a clinic sign of intolerance to exercise, and particularly to running or walking while carrying a load * All subjects involved at the same time in another medical research * All subjects militarily active * All subjects with cardiac or pulmonary identified and known diseases

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Central fatigue quantification based on voluntary and electrically-induced force measurement on activated muscle.