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Influence of carrying heavy loads on soldiers' posture, movements and gait

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posted on 2015-03-18, 15:26 authored by Renee L. Attwells, Stewart A. Birrell, Robin H. Hooper, Neil Mansfield
Military personnel are required to carry heavy loads whilst marching; this load carriage representing a substantial component of training and combat. Studies in the literature mainly concentrate on physiological effects, with few biomechanical studies of military load carriage systems (LCS). This study examines changes in gait and posture caused by increasing load carriage in military LCS. The 4 conditions used during this study were: control (including rifle, boots and helmet carriage, totalling 8 kg), webbing (weighing 8 kg), backpack (24 kg) and a Light Antitank Weapon (LAW, 10 kg), resulting in an incremental increase in load carried from 8, 16, 40 to 50 kg. Twenty male soldiers were evaluated in the saggital plane using a 3-dimensional CODA™ motion analysis system. Measurements of ankle, knee, femur, trunk and craniovertebral angles and spatiotemporal parameters were made during self-paced walking. Results showed spatiotemporal changes were unrelated to angular changes, perhaps a consequence of military training. Knee and femur ranges of motion (control, 21.1º ±3.0 and 33.9º ±7.1 respectively) increased (p<0.05) with load (LAW, 25.5º ±2.3 and 37.8º ±1.5 respectively). The trunk flexed significantly further forward confirming results from previous studies. In addition, the craniovertebral angle decreased (p<0.001) indicating a more forward position of the head with load. It is concluded that the head functions in concert with the trunk to counterbalance load. The higher muscular tensions necessary to sustain these changes have been associated with injury, muscle strain and joint problems.

History

School

  • Design

Published in

ERGONOMICS

Volume

49

Issue

14

Pages

1527 - 1537 (11)

Citation

ATTWELLS, R.L. ... et al, 2006. Influence of carrying heavy loads on soldiers' posture, movements and gait. Ergonomics, 49 (14), pp. 1527-1537.

Publisher

© Taylor & Francis Ltd

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2006

Notes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Ergonomics on 20th February 2007, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/

ISSN

0014-0139

eISSN

1366-5847

Language

  • en

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