Protocolo de teste de aptidão física operacional para bombeiros militares brasileiros

Abstract

Physical fitness tests are commonly used to select and evaluate physical conditions in military firefighting institutions. However, it would be more appropriate to evaluate these professionals in a more specific and functional way, similar to the daily work service. This dissertation was organized into two studies. The first had the main objective of validating an operational physical fitness test protocol for Brazilian military firefighters. The sample was made up of 231 firefighters (185 men and 46 women) who performed a battery of physical tests (fixed bar, sit-ups, push-ups, 50 m run and 3200/2600 m run) and the new operational physical fitness test (a continuous sequence of firefighter-related tasks). We used simple and multiple linear regression, accepting p < 0.05 and 95% CI. The results presented the justification for logical validation, concurrent validation (r = 0.52 and 0.54; for simple and multiple linear regression, respectively; p < 0.001 for both) and construct validation (r = 0.29 to 0.43; p < 0.001 for all). In the second study, we verified the reliability of the operational physical fitness test protocol. The sample consisted of 68 firefighters (57 men and 11 women) who took the test at two separate moments, with a single attempt on one day and two attempts (30 minutes apart) on the other day, in random order. The Student's t test and intraclass correlation coefficient analysis were used, accepting a significance level of p < 0.05 and 95% CI. There was no statistical difference between the performances in the two situations. The intraday reproducibility was t (62) = - 0.04; p = 0.967, while the interday reproducibility was t (62) = - 0.05; p = 0.963. The ICC for the intraday and interday tests were 0.967 and 0.972 respectively. We concluded that the proposed operational physical fitness test proved to be a valid and reliable tool for evaluating Brazilian military firefighters.