(9) CHANGES IN MOVEMENT QUALITY ACROSS A FIREFIGHTER ACADEMY

The firefighter academy prepares recruits for occupation-related tasks and demands. The strenuous nature of these tasks put firefighters at a high risk of musculoskeletal injury. Functional movement quality has previously been used to predict the risk of injury in athletic and tactical populations; however, it is unknown how movement quality changes across the fire academy.

Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to examine movement quality in firefighter recruits across the fire academy. 

Methods: Nineteen career firefighter recruits (1 female; age = 24.9 ± 4.3 years; BMI = 26.7 ± 3.1 kg/m²) visited the laboratory at the beginning (week 1 [W1]), midpoint (week 15 [W15]) and end (week 30 [W30]) of a fire academy. During each visit, lower body movement quality was assessed using a movement efficiency (ME) test. After performing one practice trial, participants performed five double leg overhead squats and five single leg squats on each side. The double leg squat was performed with feet shoulder width apart and arms extended vertically above the head. Participants squatted to maximal, comfortable knee flexion and returned to the starting position. For the single leg squat, participants stood on the test foot with the non-weight bearing leg flexed 90º at the knee, 45º at the hip, and hands were placed on the hips. Participants squatted on the weight-bearing leg to the maximal, comfortable position and returned to standing. Movements were recorded with digital video and analyzed with commercially available software. Compensations made during each movement (e.g., knee valgus, loss of balance) were denoted and subtracted from 100 to determine the ME score. A mixed model approach and compound symmetry covariance structure were used to examine separate one-way repeated measures analysis of variance to determine potential changes in movement quality throughout the academy.

Results: The mean±SD for movement quality scores at W1, W15, and W30 were 81.7±8.8, 78.2±9.1, and 76.0±6.7, respectively.  There was a significant main effect for time for movement quality (P=0.048).  Movement quality significantly decreased from W1 to W30 (P=0.015) but there were no significant differences between W15 and the W1 (P=0.135) and W30 (P=0.299) testing points.

Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that movement quality worsened in recruits from W1 to W30. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: The decrease in movement quality across the fire academy may put firefighters at a higher risk of musculoskeletal injury as they transition into their active-duty careers. These findings may be helpful for fire administrators and tactical strength and conditioning professionals who provide fire academy training recommendations.  However, future studies are needed to determine what may cause movement quality decrements across the fire academy.

Acknowledgements: None