TRU Update: May 2022
Men's Health Magazine
Dr Rob Orr was an invited panellist for a special event held by Men’s Health magazine and the National Strength and Conditioning Association, which saw mentees from the Men’s Health Mentorship program talk to mentors in various fields. Dr Orr was invited to provide guidance on entering and working in the field of tactical strength and conditioning and shared his experiences as an Australian Army physical training instructor.
Welcome HDR student - Whitney Tramel
Whitney's research Examining objective and subjective measures of physiological stress in tactical personnel in stressful environments and tasks will focus on identifying and employing means of monitoring physiological stress measures faced by tactical operators in order to ensure their optimal performance in unpredictable and austere environments.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Dr Rob Orr recently delivered a series of invited speaker presentations to Division Fitness Coordinators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The presentations formed part of the 2nd Annual DFC Tactical Training Virtual Workshop with attendees from F,G,H,L & K divisions situated across Canada. The presentations were on ‘building resilience into the lower legs’ and ‘building resilience into the lower back’, with the primary intent of helping Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers mitigate injuries to their two leading sites of injury as well as optimising their return to work following injury.
Doctor of Physiotherapy mini congress
Doctor of Physiotherapy students undertaking their two research subjects recently presented their work at a mini congress. Four groups of students completed a systematic review and original research to inform the tactical field. Two studies looked at specialist duties and injury risks comparing injuries sustained by general duties police to police dog squad officers or police highway patrol officers. One study compared differences in fitness between two specialist police groups, and another study compared the differences in body armour impacts between men and women. Of this work, one paper has already been submitted (a literature review on occupational driving injuries) and another study has been filmed to feedback to Australian Defence Apparel and will also form part of an upcoming microcredential. The e-posters for the literature reviews can be found here.
Research with Bond's Translational Simulation Collaborative
The TRU recently undertook another round of research with fellow Faculty Research Centre, the Translational Simulation Collaborative. Working with Dr Victoria Brazil, the TRU collected objective measures of stress in Emergency Department staff undertaking high-level and high-stress simulation events. The intent of the research is to validate high-stress simulations to assist in the training of mission-critical teams.
Australian Defence Apparel's occupational footwear
Dr Rob Orr recently caught up with Travis Sawers, the National Business Development Manager for Australian Defence Apparel, to film two videos on occupational footwear. The videos were requested by the Occupational Health and Safety Body Of Knowledge and will be hosted on their website as well as the TRU website. The TRU would like to acknowledge and thank Ben Griggs for all his work behind the scenes to help produce these videos which can be viewed here and here.
Elbit Systems Australia (ELSA)
The TRU recently hosted a team from Elbit Systems Australia (ELSA) at the Bond Institute of Health and Sport (BIHS). ELSA staff from around Australia, including their Chief Engineer and Project Engineering Manager talked about research capability and the TRU's support to the Australian Army’s LAND 125-4 project. The ELSA team particularly praised the ability of the High Performance Training Centre (HPTC) to test soldiers at altitude, in different thermal environments and even equipment buoyancy potential for water borne operations. Following the meeting’s success, the TRU were funded to aid in building ELSA Human System Integration research protocols.