The Effect of Cardiovascular Fatigue on Trunk Muscle Activation and Spine Postures during Firefighting Tasks

The Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT) is used to assess the physical fitness of firefighter candidates. The test is comprised of eight tasks which simulate real firefighting duties and demands. These tasks, whether executed during the CPAT or during a real firefighting scenario, are often performed in a cardiovascularly fatigued state. Given that cardiovascular fatigue is a large component of both the CPAT and real firefighting scenarios, it is important to understand the effect of such fatigue on firefighting tasks. Therefore the primary purpose of this study was to examine the effect of fatigue on trunk muscle activation patterns, and three-dimensional spine postures during three standard CPAT tasks. The secondary purposes of this study were to examine the effect of gender and CPAT experience (previous completion of the complete CPAT protocol) during the same standard CPAT tasks.