Association of military-specific reaction time performance with physical fitness and visual skills

Danica Janicijevic; Sergio Miras-Moreno; Alejandro Pérez Castilla; Jesus Vera; Beatriz Redondo; Raimundo Jiménez; Amador García-Ramos

doi:10.7717/peerj.14007

Association of military-specific reaction time performance with physical fitness and visual skills

PeerJ. 2022 Sep 1:10:e14007. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14007. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Danica Janicijevic^{1

2

3}, Sergio Miras-Moreno⁴, Alejandro Pérez Castilla⁴, Jesus Vera⁵, Beatriz Redondo⁵, Raimundo Jiménez⁵, Amador García-Ramos^{4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Sports Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
² Research Academy of Human Biomechanics, The Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Ningbo University, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
³ University of Belgrade, Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, The Research Centre, Belgrade, Serbia.
⁴ Department of Physical Education and Sport, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
⁵ CLARO (Clinical and Laboratory Applications of Research in Optometry) Research Group, Department of Optics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
⁶ Department of Sports Sciences and Physical Conditioning, Faculty of Education, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile.

Abstract

Background: The aim of the present study was to explore whether military-specific reaction time (RT) test performance is affected by individuals' physical and visual skills.

Method: In a single testing session, the military-specific Simple and Go, No-Go RT, aerobic power (20-m Multistage Shuttle Run test), maximal upper- and lower-body mechanical capacities (bench press and squat against different loads), and visual skills (multiple object tracking and dynamic visual acuity) of 30 young men (15 active-duty military personnel and 15 sport science students) were evaluated.

Results: The main findings revealed that the Simple RT and Go, No-Go RT presented (1) with aerobic power non-significant small correlations in military personnel (r = -0.39 and -0.35, respectively) and non-significant negligible correlations in sport science students (r = -0.10 and 0.06, respectively), (2) inconsistent and generally non-significant correlations with the maximal mechanical capacities of the upper- and lower-body muscles (r range = -0.10, 0.67 and -0.27, 0.48, respectively), (3) non-significant correlations with visual skills (r magnitude ≥ 0.58) with the only exception of the Go, No-Go RT that was significantly correlated to all visual variables in the group of students (i.e., students who achieved better results during visual tests had shorter RT; r magnitude ≥ 0.58), and (4) none of the physical and visual variables significantly predicted the Simple RT or Go, No-Go RT.

Conclusion: Altogether, these results indicate that military-specific RT performance is generally independent of physical and visual skills in both military personnel and active university students.

Keywords: Bench press; Go; L-V relationship; No-Go reaction time; Shuttle run test; Simple reaction time; Squat.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Electrocardiography
Humans
Male
Military Personnel*
Physical Fitness
Reaction Time

Grants and funding

This project was funded by the CEMIX (Centro Mixto UGR-MADOC, Army of Spain; grant reference: 5/4/20 TR-COMBATE). This work was also supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia under the grant 451-03-9/2021-14/200154. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.