Effects of a pre-training conditioning programme on basic military training attrition rates.

The medical attrition rates of 4 cohorts of recruits undergoing basic military training (BMT) were studied. They were grouped as follows: Group A (n = 3475), a mixture of fit and unfit recruits; Group B (n = 2081), consisting only of fit recruits; Group C (n = 940) comprising only unfit recruits who underwent a 4 to 6 weeks conditioning programme prior to being subjected to a similar 3-month BMT for all 3 groups and Group D (n = 2613) comprising unfit recruits who underwent an extended 4-month BMT. It was found that Group B [Relative risk (RR) = 0.26 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.21, 0.33] and Group C (RR = 0.45 95% CI = 0.38, 0.62) had significantly lower medical attrition rates compared with Group A (RR = 1). Group D, however, did not show significantly lower attrition rates in spite of a more gradual training pace. When the unfit cohorts were compared, Group C (RR = 0.52 95% CI = 0.40, 0.67) had significantly lower attrition rates than Group D (RR = 1). The major cause of medical attrition in all groups was musculo-skeletal injuries sustained during training. Our results showed that a formal pre-training conditioning programme resulted in lower attrition during BMT and this reduction was more effective than training the recruits at a slower pace by extending the BMT by one month.