Will soldiers be quick marching in their trainers?

MARCHING around a parade yard with boots shiny enough to see your face in – as a sergeant major barks in your ear – is a classic scene from military life.

But ‘square-bashing’ could be a thing of the past as it is damaging soldiers’ health, a study warns.

Drilling in the wrong footwear is causing musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries, resulting in troops being invalided out.

Experts claim soldiers should be wearing trainers instead of combat boots.

The Ministry of Defence is carrying out its own inquiry into the issue, the principal cause of medical discharge in the Army for the past five years.

Up to two thousand soldiers leave annually because they are no longer fighting fit, many badly injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been found that almost half of British Army recruits suffer MSK injuries during the 26-week initial training programme. Now a study led by Dr Alex Rawcliffe of Napier University, Edinburgh, has warned standard-issue combat and ammo boots boots are responsible. He said: ‘The stiffer landing patterns/ strategies of foot-drill may predispose recruits to bone strains within the single- load failure threshold, typically resulting in bone micro- damage and subsequent stress fracture.’

Dr Rawcliffe’s report said the ‘unique landing techniques of foot-drill combined with the lack of shock-absorbing capabilities of standard-issue footwear,’ were to blame. Currently troops are issued Hi-Tec Silver Shadow training shoes, which are a better fit for drilling in, along with combat and ammo boots. The study, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, recommends that ‘recruits wear a form of shock-absorbing footwear similar to that of the training shoe, to reduce the cyclic high-impact loading forces of foot- drill, that may contribute to an increased risk of lower-limb MSK injury’.

Women are particularly at risk – with a US study showing that the discharge rates for musculoskeletal conditions have been as high as 140 per 10,000 Army women per year, compared with 81 per 10,000 Army men per year.

A report following an independent MoD inquiry into MSK injuries is due in 2019. A spokesman for the MoD, which was not involved in the trials, said: ‘The health and wellbeing of our personnel is of paramount importance, and we equip and train them to the high standard required for a successful Army career.’