Prof. Michael Spivock, PhD (Research Manager in Human Performance. Canadian Forces) FIT TO FIGHT: DEVELOPING AND DELIVERING OPERATIONALLY RELEVANT FITNESS STANDARDS AND PROGRAMS IN THE CANADIAN FORCES

FIT TO FIGHT: DEVELOPING AND DELIVERING OPERATIONALLY RELEVANT
FITNESS STANDARDS AND PROGRAMS IN THE CANADIAN FORCES

MICHAEL SPIVOCK, PhD;
TARA REILLY, PhD;
SUZANNE JAENEN, MSc;
LINDSAY GOULET, PhD;
PATRICK GAGNON, MSc.

Canadian Forces, Director General Personnel and Family Support Services, Director of Fitness,
Ottawa, Canada.

In conjunction with the release of the Canadian Forces Health and Fitness Strategy in 2008, four research teams were constituted to develop environment-specific fitness standards for each of Navy, Army, Air Force and Special Operations Forces. Given the Canadian legal context dealing with Human Rights and Employer Discrimination, the development of these standards is an intricate and detailed process involving extensive task analyses in order to select representative tasks, as well as the use of various sources of information in setting performance standards. Such standards are developed in a way to satisfy the criteria of a Bona Fide Occupational Requirement in a court of law. In order to develop fitness standards which are fully representative of the common, critical and physically demanding tasks in operations, the following general steps are followed: populating a project management team, job familiarization, physical demands analysis, developing a representative subset of essential physically demanding tasks, characterization of tasks, development and standardization of test protocol, establishing scientific accuracy of test protocol, developing performance standards and
evaluating any adverse impacts, implementing the test protocol and reviewing issues. The methods rely heavily on surveys, focus groups with military subject matter experts as well as in-field assessment of biomechanics and physiological responses to work. The information obtained from the task analysis is also used to develop physical fitness training programs to help ensure maximal operational performance at all stages of the deployment cycle. This paper will detail the steps involved in this multi-year process, drawing on examples from past and present research projects to highlight physiological, methodological, legal and implementation dimensions of occupational fitness testing in the Canadian military.

Intention: Session 3: Physical test, armed forces, fertile universe for scientific research.