Review of Musculoskeletal Injuries Resulting from Military Training, Risk Factors and Prevention Strategies, Narrative Review study

Physical fitness is one of the most effective factors in optimal military missions’ performance. Doing exercises to increase fitness is associated with musculoskeletal injuries, which besides reducing the quality of performed tasks, it costs a lot for the health care system. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and type of musculoskeletal injuries due to military training education and its risk factors. Finally it provides suitable solutions to reduce them.

This narrative review study has been performed by searching military, injury prevention, and skeletal muscle keywords in various databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct databases, Google Scholar search engine and Persian articles.

The findings indicate a high prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries during military training. The most common injuries are overuse, stress fracture, muscle strain and sprains, especially in the lower extremities. The prevalence, type and area of injuries are different dueto differences in the type of military task. For example, Stress fracture and overuse and infantry Stress fracture are common in the Marines. In general, injury risk factors are divided into intrinsic and extrinsic types. Internal risk factors include age, sex, physical activity and fitness, body mass index, fatigue, and body structure. Extrinsic risk factors include heavy loads carriage, footwear, running surface, type of exercise, malnutrition and insomnia. Many solutions have been recommended to reduce these risk factors. For example, designing exercise according to the level of fitness and physical structure of soldiers, using new training methods that are associated with less damage, adequate nutrition and rest, training of instructor and medical staff and optimization military equipment such as footwear and backpacks.

It seems that successful modifying of these risk factors can be effective in reducing injury and improving military training.