The Effect of Personal Protective Equipment on Firefighter Occupational Performance

Lesniak, AY, Bergstrom, HC, Clasey, JL, Stromberg, AJ, and Abel, MG. The effect of personal protective equipment on firefighter occupational performance. J Strength Cond Res 34(8): 2165–2172, 2020—The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of load carriage (LC) and LC plus respirator use (LC + self-contained breathing apparatus [SCBA]) on firefighters' work capacity to enhance our understanding of occupational demands. Twenty-one male structural firefighter recruits (age: 28.6 ± 4.3 years; height: 178.6 ± 7.2 cm; body mass: 94.1 ± 15.4 kg; body fat: 22.9 ± 6.1%) participated. Occupational performance was assessed by time to complete a simulated fire ground test (SFGT). After 2 familiarization trials, recruits performed the following SFGT conditions in a randomized order: PT (physical training clothes), LC only, and LC + SCBA. To describe within-group differences between SFGT conditions, relative difference scores were calculated as follows: % difference = ([experimental trial outcome − PT trial outcome]/PT trial outcome) × 100. Statistical differences between conditions were assessed with repeated-measures analysis of variance. The level of significance was set p
Source: Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research - Category: Sports Medicine Tags: Original Research Source Type: research