Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) operators are specialized law enforcement officers who traditionally perform their duties with higher anticipated workloads because of additional body armor, weapons, and equipment used for enhanced operations and protection. This elevated workload increases the need for SWAT operators to improve or maintain their physical fitness to consistently perform routine operations. Typical tasks require trunk rotation, overhead upper extremity use, upper and lower body strength use, and long waiting periods followed by explosive movements while wearing additional equipment. Eleven male SWAT operators from 1 SWAT team performed flexibility, strength, power, and aerobic capacity tests and a variety of job-related tasks. Data were compared with age- and gender-based normative data. Fitness testing revealed that officers ranked high on tests of muscular strength (leg strength, 90th percentile; bench press, 85th percentile); however, body composition (55th percentile), core body strength, and flexibility ranked lower. Furthermore, aerobic capacity and muscular power had a wide range of scores and were also not ideal to support maximal performance during routine operations. These data can assist exercise specialists choose fitness programs specifically for job-related tasks of SWAT operators when creating fitness programs. Fitness programming for law enforcement should focus on improving aerobic fitness, flexibility, core strength, and muscular power while maintaining muscular strength to meet the needs of these specialized officers.
Objective
We compared two active cooling devices to passive cooling in a moderate (≈22°C) temperature environment on heart rate (HR) and core temperature (Tc) recovery when applied to firefighters following 20 min. of fire suppression.
Methods
Firefighters (23 male, 2 female) performed 20 minutes of fire suppression at a live fire evolution. Immediately following the evolution, the subjects removed their thermal protective clothing and were randomized to receive forearm immersion (FI), ice water perfused cooling vest (CV) or passive (P) cooling in an air-conditioned medical trailer for 30 minutes. Heart rate and deep gastric temperature were monitored every five minutes during recovery.
Results
A single 20-minute bout of fire suppression resulted in near maximal HR (175±13 - P, 172±20 - FI, 177±12 beats•min−1 - CV) when compared to baseline (p < 0.001), a rapid and substantial rise in Tc (38.2±0.7 - P, 38.3±0.4 - FI, 38.3±0.3° - CV) compared to baseline (p < 0.001), and mass lost from sweating of nearly one kilogram. Cooling rates (°C/min) differed (p = 0.036) by device with FI (0.05±0.04) providing higher rates than P (0.03±0.02) or CV (0.03±0.04) although differences over 30 minutes were small and recovery of body temperature was incomplete in all groups.
Conclusions
During 30 min. of recovery following a 20-minute bout of fire suppression in a training academy setting, there is a slightly higher cooling rate for FI and no apparent benefit to CV when compared to P cooling in a moderate temperature environment.
The XCollar provided superior cervical stabilization without augmentation by manual stabilization in healthy adult volunteers in both the seated and supine positions when compared with other one-piece and two-piece rigid cervical collars. Although maximal stabilization was achieved only after the subjects were secured to a long spine board with a cervical immobilization device, the XCollar can provide an acceptable alternative to manual cervical stabilization in situations where the number of patients exceeds the number of EMS providers available to provide care.
This is the first study to examine the physiologic effects of structural firefighting work intervals on recovery and subsequent performance. Both groups experienced maximal cardiovascular strain during fire suppression but extending the work interval worsened heat stress and negatively affected certain aspects of performance immediately following the recovery period.
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