Study Focuses on Strength Training for Women

As women prepare to assume more combat posts in the military, the Department of Defense is working to reduce the female injury rate which one study shows is 2.5 times greater than it is for men. A new clinical study is beginning at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina, that will study the effect of strength training to prevent overuse injuries in female runners and help the U.S. Armed Forces retain female recruits.

According to the press release, the $1.6 million study is intended to investigate ways in which female recruits can more successfully complete basic training and avoid leg and foot injuries. Lead investigator Stephen P. Messier, Ph.D., Professor of health and exercise science, who will begin recruiting participants in March, said, “A major problem with runners who sustain overuse injuries is a lack of strength. Similar to the civilian running literature, female soldiers tend to incur injuries to the lower extremities at a higher rate than their male counterparts.”

Messier and his team plan to recruit 150 women runners, ages 18 to 60, who run at least five miles per week and have not sustained an overuse injury during the past six months or participated in a formal strength training program.

The runners will be randomized into two groups. Half will participate in a strength training program in addition to their running while the other half will serve as the control group, maintaining their usual running routine.

The strength training intervention will consist primarily of lower body exercises with some core and upper extremity exercises, three days per week for nine months. Injuries for both groups will be monitored for 18 months from the day of enrollment. Messier believes that studying civilian runners rather than military trainees will limit the confounding effects of other activities that may contribute to overuse injury.

“We’ve seen consistently in retrospective studies that injured runners are weaker than non-injured runners, even in the healthy limb, ” Messier said. “This trial will provide the first prospective evidence on the effect of strength training in preventing overuse injuries in female runners.”

The press release from Newswise noted that approximately 225, 000 previously male-only military jobs will be open to female troops beginning April 1. Medical disability discharge rates in the military have increased 600% over the past 25 years, including a high proportion of recruits being discharged due to lower extremity musculoskeletal injuries suffered during military training.