Long-term monitoring of physical fitness of soldiers of the army of the czech republic

Our study deals with long-term monitoring of physical fitness of soldiers, namely members of the 31st Regiment specialising in Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection (prchbo) in order to determine whether the annual fitness test has rising trend, or in another words, whether the military service physical training process is fittingly effective. The study was carried out by comparing the assessment of physical fitness each year between 2012 and 2019. The monitored group consisted of 316 professional soldiers, who participated in this assessment regularly, without interruption in the same disciplines. Due to the managed long-term military physical training process, overall improvement in the strength and endurance disciplines throughout the monitoring period took place. Men improved by 0.32 sit-ups, 0.74 push-ups and 0.24 pull-ups in the strength tests. Women improved by 0.83 sit-ups and 0:21 min in pull-ups endurance test. Men improved by 55.8 meters in Cooper test and 0:17 min in swimming in the endurance tests. Women improved by 135.6 meters in Cooper test. Increase in the number of overall rating excellent and good and decrease in the assessment of satisfactory and unsatisfactory occurred concurrently in men throughout the monitoring period. Significant increase in the number of excellent assessments, while at the same time reduction in the number of evaluations good and satisfactory occurred in women. None of the women was assessed as unsatisfactory during the whole monitoring period. Based on the acquired data, it may be stated that in the monitored years, the annual testing showed rising trend and thus the efficiency of the in-service physical training process proved to be good and appropriate.