Lifestyle before Recruitment and Stress Fracture Occurrence during 12-months of Strenuous Training

Military training, especially army basic training, is a completely new environment for the new recruit. For many, it is a hostile environment and they either will get injured or not complete the basic training course. Soldiers at the beginning of their military training are especially prone to stress fracture (SF) development as indicated by as high as a 31% occurrence rate in a 14week basic training course [1]. Recruits face high physical demands aimed to improve their physical fitness in order to perform their tasks successfully. This is especially true among combat recruits who face much greater physical demands due to their expected future tasks. In recent years different studies were performed in order to evaluate why some recruits develop SF while others do not. A low level of physical fitness at recruitment [2, 3] and lower levels of physical activity prior to recruitment [4, 3, 5] were found to increase the risk for SF. However, this correlation was not consistent in all studies [6]. One study evaluated the type of the performed physical activity and found that recruits who played basketball at least three times a week for at least 2 yrs had a low risk for SF, while long distance running was not protective [1]. The aim of this study was to evaluate different aspects of lifestyle before recruitment in addition to physical activity that contribute to the SF occurrence rate among highly trained combat recruits.