AUTHOR=Scott W. Casan , Hando Ben R. , Butler Cody R. , Mata John D. , Bryant Jacob F. , Angadi Siddhartha S. 

TITLE=Force plate vertical jump scans are not a valid proxy for physical fitness in US special warfare trainees

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physiology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.966970

DOI=10.3389/fphys.2022.966970

ISSN=1664-042X

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> The United States Air Force Special Warfare Training Wing (SWTW) administers a comprehensive physical fitness test to active duty Airmen entering the Special Warfare training pipeline. The Sparta Science™ system utilizes proprietary software to analyze the force-time curve of a vertical jump and purports to serve as a proxy for traditional military fitness tests. The Sparta Science™ system produces four proprietary metrics, including the Sparta™ Score, which is correlated to high magnitudes of force production purportedly <italic>performance.</italic> This study investigated how Sparta™ Jump Scans correlate to components of a physical fitness test utilized within the SW training pipeline.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> At the entry and exit of an 8-week Special Warfare Training Wing preparatory course (SW PREP), 643 trainees completed both an initial and final Sparta™ Jump Scan and a Candidate Fitness Test (CFT). The Candidate Fitness Test consists of eight components and tests several different domains of fitness including strength, power, muscular endurance, swimming proficiency, and cardiovascular fitness. Paired t-tests were used to determine if Sparta™ Jump Scan metrics and CFT components changed during SW PREP. Sparta™ Score’s correlation was assessed against every other Sparta™ Jump Scan metric and all CFT fitness measures.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> This study found that the Sparta™ Jump Scan metrics decline slightly over SW PREP (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05; negligible-small effect size), while most CFT measures improve (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05; small-medium effect size). Changes in Sparta™ Jump Scan metrics did not reflect the changes in CFT performance over SW PREP (<italic>r</italic><sup>2</sup>: 0.00–0.03).</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> The Sparta™ Score was not correlated to the most tactically-relevant fitness measures (rucking and swimming), and only weakly correlated with the only jumping measure on the fitness test, the standing broad jump.</p>