Background: Physical fitness is one of the most important causes of superiority in the battle fields so determining and ability to predict fitness is always an important goal for all armed forces universally. In this project the authors try to measure physical f itness of Iranian army personnel and simultaneously measure some of the physiologic indices to investigate their relationship with physical fitness indices.
Materials and methods: 200 personnel of Iranian Army aged 22 to 59 years old enrolled in the study. First the subjects filled a questionnaire about their history of previous illnesses then physical examination was performed by a sport medicine specialist, followed by Anthropometric and flexibility measurements and the body composition estimation using Bioelectric Impedance Analyzer. The cardio-respiratory fitness of subjects was measured. Fasting serum total cholesterol, Triglyceride, LDL, HDL and FBS and Hemoglobin concentration were also measured. The data were analyzed using Enter and Backward Linear Regression and the best model for predicting physical fitness indices determined.
Results: The mean average and maximal force of subjects were 48.52±13.7 and 77±18.6. The mean flexibility measured using Sit & Reach test was 42.44±9.92. We could find statistically significant relations between Fitness indices and physiologic Biomarkers but only two models could predict the variation of Stress test time and distance (R2=0.746, P Value<0.001).
Conclusion: Estimation of cardio-respiratory fitness using measured biomarkers is possiblei it is highly suggested to measure indices and physiologic biomarkers in operational personnel of army.