The Impact of Physical Strain on Performance in Basic Shooting Drills

There are many situations in the daily routine of military personnel and first responders where tasks that require a high degree of concentration and calm are performed during or immediately after strenuous physical activities. The resulting physical exhaustion and fatigue can affect performance in such tasks. While special training and general fitness might mitigate the impact on performance and outcome quality there still are open questions regarding the factors influencing the magnitude of an impact physical strenuous activity has and how such performance changes can be predicted.To get new insights, we analysed the shooting performance of 137 highly trained military personnel before and after a set of physically highly strenuous tasks. Questionnaires were used to assess, among other variables, amount of weekly physical training, pre-experience with the specific shooting drills, sleep quality, daily mood, and the rate of perceived exertion.The results indicated significant associations between the perceived exertion after the strenuous tasks and the change in the amount of false hits. Furthermore, there are correlations between the amount of physical training that participants conduct regularly and the amount of false hits after the strenuous tasks. Seeing false hits as an indicator of inhibitory processes, it is, from this kind of explorative study, conceivable that that good training status might mitigate detrimental effects of highly strenuous tasks on inhibitory ability. The study motivates for focusing future work on clarifying open questions and to provide more details.