Rehabilitating Soldiers for Load Carriage Tasks: An International Perspective

Soldiers are likely to suffer an injury and require rehabilitation at some stage of their career. Load carriage, whilst a fundamental requirement, is also a source of injury risk. To optimize the rehabilitation of soldiers and prepare them for a full return to operational duty, load carriage requirements need to be considered throughout their rehabilitation pathway. In addition, injury risks associated with load carriage need to be considered to inform mitigation of reinjury. During the initial injury treatment stage, loss of key fitness elements associated with load carriage performance, being aerobic fitness and relative strength, need to be minimized. Any losses of these same elements of fitness then need to be considered in the overall reconditioning stage. Finally, with injury being a predictor of future load carriage injury, the conditioning stage must move beyond general occupational conditioning to include load carriage-specific conditioning to make the soldier physically resilient against future injury and confident of their capability. By synthesizing evidence from the latest research in load carriage, this narrative review provides pragmatic considerations and guidelines for optimizing soldier load carriage capability following injury.