Making The Jump

With the help of The Citadel’s Army ROTC department, Brennan Textor recruited Army contract cadets to participate in a study to investigate the relationship between jumping biomechanical characteristics and performance in the ACFT.

by Brennan Textor

What do jump performance and the U.S. Army’s newest physical fitness test, the 2020 Combat Fitness Test (or ACFT), have in common, and how could this data be important to the Army and other military organizations?

In my thesis research I compared jump performance and force production in the takeoff phases of the countermovement vertical jump (as in jumping to make a basketball shot) and the standing long jump (as in jumping over a stream). Jump performance is how far or high a person can jump. Force production is how much force a person produces with the jump.

Jump performance is something that can be easily assessed, especially because jumping is a great measure for neuromuscular performance—strength and power as well as sport performance. Leg muscles produce an impulse that accelerates body mass. Whether in a high school physical education class, military recruiting station or basic training assessment, jump testing may provide an early indication of a person’s ability to withstand successfully the rigors of basic training or any exercise and help tailor training protocols to minimize injury.

The purpose of my thesis was to investigate the relationship between jumping biomechanical characteristics and performance in the ACFT. By investigating levels of bilateral symmetry between lower limbs, I attempted to determine how these differences might correlate to the ACFT.

With the help of Capt. Jason Dubyoski in The Citadel’s Army ROTC department, I recruited Army contract cadets to participate in the study. We created a makeshift lab on a Deas Hall racquetball court where cadets performed both the countermovement vertical jump and standing long jump. The force plates measured the ground reaction force of the cadets during the jump. I also measured jump height and took measurements of the left and right legs to help detect asymmetries, meaning I was able to see if the subjects were using one limb more than the other to push through the ground to create movement. I then compared the jump data to each of the cadets’ Army Combat Fitness Test scores to look for relationships between jumping biomechanics and ACFT performance. Specifically, I looked at maximum deadlift, standing power throw and sprint-drag-carry as well as the overall ACFT score.

The conclusion—there is a strong correlation between performance in the standing long jump and countermovement vertical jump, meaning if a cadet is able to perform well biomechanically, then the cadet is able to jump far, and vice versa. In addition there is a positive relationship between jump performance and the overall score of the ACFT, which indicates that performance in the maximum deadlift, standing power throw and sprint-drag-carry as well as the overall score can be predicted simply by jump performance.

The findings are important, especially to the Army, because the results help confirm that performance in the new ACFT is largely anaerobic and reflects lower-limb muscular strength and power capacities. It is unlikely that we would see the same relationships with the previous Army Physical Fitness Test, which focused largely on aerobic endurance.

Understanding these relationships allows us to better understand what components of fitness are reflected in physical fitness tests such as the new ACFT and may help the U.S. armed forces and other paramilitary units, such as fire departments and law enforcement agencies, to refine their readiness assessments and training for optimal fitness among their personnel. Additionally, the countermovement jump and standing long jump are fundamental movement skills, often learned through participation in K-12 physical education and youth sports. Poor jump performance, therefore, may indicate a lack of exposure to physical education or youth sport participation.

On my thesis panel were Health and Human Performance professors Capt. Christopher Sole, Capt. Ryan Sacko and Maj. Dan Bornstein, who are now collaborating with the Commandant’s Department to expand this project to track cadet jump performance, ACFT scores and injuries. Findings from this four-year longitudinal study could assist the college in improving current and lifelong fitness among our cadet population and may have implications for fitness and injury prevention among military and other organizations.

When I started working on my master’s degree, my goal was simply to graduate and start my career, but these three professors challenged me to complete a thesis as part of my degree, an idea that seemed impossible at the time because I had never been particularly interested in research. Now, having learned from professors actively engaged in research on fitness in the military, I am grateful for the opportunity to conduct research and work on publishing the results, in the hopes that we can contribute to the science of preventing injuries and improving fitness among our military service members.

Brennan C. Textor graduated in August with a Master of Science degree in Health, Exercise and Sport Science. A native of Raleigh, North Carolina, she received her Bachelor of Science as a Health and Fitness Specialist from East Carolina University in 2016.

Earning The Bubble

2nd Lt. Garret Usrey, ’19, was the only Citadel cadet and one of 11 ROTC students from across the country to pass pre-dive school at Eglin Air Force Base.

by Jennifer Wallace

2nd Lt. Garret Usrey, ’19, was the only Citadel cadet and one of 11 ROTC students from across the country to pass pre-dive school at Eglin Air Force Base.

It was a relaxed summer for 2nd Lt. Garret Usrey, who graduated in May—a nice contrast to the summer of 2018, when he earned his combat diver certification. An exercise science major and an Army contract cadet, Usrey began aggressively training in the spring semester of his junior year to qualify for the Combat Diver Qualification Course (CDQC). After exams, he spent two weeks at pre-dive school and then a month at Advanced Camp, the summer training required of junior Army contract students from all over the country. And then he was off to CDQC, one of the most elite training courses the military offers.

Pre-dive school, which is held at Eglin Air Force Base, near Destin, Florida, is an intense qualification course designed to single out the best candidates for CDQC.

“In my experience, 50 to 60 percent didn’t make it through pre-dive school,” said former ROTC instructor and retired Army Capt. Shawn McNeil, who trained Usrey. McNeil is a medically retired Special Forces officer who recently started a leadership consulting firm in the Upstate. He earned his diver certification, or “bubble” as he calls it, in 2013.

Before going to pre-dive school, Usrey worked up to a static breath hold of three minutes and 45 seconds. In addition to breathing exercises, candidates performed arduous training exercises in the pool. A 50-meter swim on just one breath of air. Drown-proofing, a bobbing exercise in which the diver’s hands and feet are bound. And ditch and don, an underwater exercise that requires the diver to remove gear (a mask, a 16-pound weight belt and fins), assemble the gear in a specific order, surface for air and then go back down to don the gear again.

“When you’re standing on the surface watching someone ditch and don, it seems really easy,” said McNeil. “But it requires attention to detail while holding your breath, and once you start panicking, your movements become less deliberate and more frantic. The more you freak out, the more oxygen your body uses up and the more painful it becomes. It’s a mindset of just staying very calm.”

Usrey’s six weeks of training paid off. He was the only Citadel cadet and one of 11 ROTC students from across the country to pass pre-dive. Of those 11, five were rising senior Army contract students bound for Advanced Camp.

“The hardest part of my summer was staying in shape for dive school because at Advanced Camp, you don’t have access to the gym. You’re essentially out in the woods for 30 days. You get out of shape and you aren’t eating right, so to stay in shape, I walked around holding my breath, and at night I did 300 pushups and 300 four-count flutter kicks before going to bed.”

In Key West, Florida, at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School, Usrey was the only one of the five who had attended Advanced Camp to pass CDQC.

A six-week course, CDQC begins in an indoor pool where an ambulance crew sits alert for anyone in distress as more divers are weeded out during grueling challenges.

“In the first week, they’re testing to make sure you’re still comfortable and that you can pass the events to their standard,” said Usrey. “We probably lost four or five people that week.”

After the first week, Usrey and his classmates practiced open-circuit scuba diving, diving that uses a traditional air tank where the diver exhales into the water, producing air bubbles that rise to the surface. They also trained in closed-circuit diving, a system that recycles diver air so that bubbles don’t give away a diver’s location. Then they were off to open water.

“We got out of the pool, and that’s when it really started to get fun because you’re actually out in the ocean doing closed circuit with fish and boats, and you do navigation dives with a compass, you do buddy dives, and you jump out of helicopters into the water with Zodiac boats.”

The dive candidates learned to fix a Zodiac engine and to deflate the boats, sink them, and then inflate them again. They practiced pushing their boats out of helicopters and jumping in the water after them.

Usrey is one of two Citadel cadets to become combat-diver certified. As a junior, Forrest Kimbrell, ’17, earned his certification. Cadets Paul Vargas and Sam Eckert, now seniors, trained for pre-dive school last spring under Usrey and McNeil, both attaining static breath holds of more than four minutes. Unfortunately, they were not able to attend pre-dive school because of conflicts with their mandatory summer training.

“There are a lot of seasoned Green Berets and a lot of seasoned Army Rangers who don’t earn that bubble,” said McNeil, “so you know the ones who do are the ones who are never going to quit, no matter what the circumstances are.”

Usrey, now an Army second lieutenant, is currently in training again, this time at the Infantry Basic Officer Course at Fort Benning outside of Columbus, Georgia. With his grit and determination and the little bubble he earned one summer, his future is bright.

The Plastic Breakdown

As plastic pollution continues to spiral out of control and have an alarming impact on the environment, the need for hard data about the damage caused by plastic pollution is more critical than ever.

by Cadet Nicolás Trocha

As plastic pollution continues to spiral out of control and have an alarming impact on the environment, the need for hard data about the damage caused by plastic pollution is more critical than ever.

As plastic pollution continues to spiral out of control and have an alarming impact on the environment, the need for hard data about the damage caused by plastic pollution is more critical than ever. Over the last half-century, plastic production has increased at an astonishing rate due to its low cost to manufacture and its ease of use compared to other materials, such as glass. While plastic is indeed a pollutant, the full extent of the damage it causes is unknown. Marine animals, particularly fish, sea turtles and seabirds, are being seriously injured and often die when they consume or become entangled in plastic debris. Not only does plastic damage marine ecology, but its byproducts are extremely harmful.

Over time plastic begins to degrade, becoming brittle and breaking down into smaller plastic pieces called microplastics. Microplastics may even be more damaging than whole plastics because of the way they affect the food web. Organisms like shrimp and plankton that filter feed through the water accumulate microplastics because they cannot digest them. These organisms as a result are nutritionally deprived, suffer obvious physical damage and transfer these deleterious plastics up the food chain. As microplastics in marine ecosystems become increasingly prevalent, organisms essential to the ecosystem will die out and the ecosystem will fail.

Despite public assertions that plastic bags, straws and other materials take 500 years to decompose fully, there is no scientific evidence to support these claims. In his research, Col. John Weinstein, Ph.D., chair of the Biology Department, found that there were more than seven tons of plastic debris in Charleston harbor. From Weinstein’s research, I do not believe that it takes anywhere close to 500 years for straws, plastic bags and Styrofoam cups to degrade because in previous experiments conducted in his lab, he recorded the emission of microplastics—the first step in the overall breakdown of plastics—in materials that had only been exposed to salt marsh conditions for a couple of weeks.

In my research, which is taking place over a 14-month period, I have introduced plastic straws, bags and Styrofoam cups to the marsh. Fifty samples of each plastic item were attached to wooden planks which were anchored in the marsh behind the rifle range on campus. The materials are submerged for 12 hours in the salt water, followed by 12 hours of direct sunlight. Every four weeks, I return to the site to collect three samples of each material to measure the rate of breakdown. I took my first sample two weeks after the project’s deployment in February and every four weeks thereafter for a total of 16 collections. During each collection, a sample from each of the plastics is placed in a microplastic emission chamber where it spins for a six-hour period. To decrease the risk of outliers, this process is repeated three times. Conducting this research in the marsh is important because there are tide cycles in the marsh, and the plastic samples found there have spent periods fully emerged in saltwater and, alternately, exposed to direct sunlight. Both cycles contribute to the breakdown of plastic.

The goal of my research is to gather quantitative results about the time plastics actually take to break down so that public policy and debate can focus on plastics and the impact plastic pollution has on marine life. With renewed awareness, more research will be conducted, with a long-term goal of solving the environmental issues that plastics are causing.

Cadet Nicolás Trocha is a defensive back for the Bulldogs and a senior biology major from Greenville. His plastic research is an interdisciplinary project that he is conducting through the Honors Program. A member of Phi Kappa Phi, the academic honors society, he has received Gold Stars for academic excellence every semester. He plans to attend medical school after taking a year to travel and conduct research.

Learning Through Engagement

by Conway Saylor, Ph.D.

It’s a steamy summer evening at the community park complex, and athletes are warmed up and ready to enjoy soccer, bocce ball, Frisbee golf or kickball. Sweaty players pass high-fives and turn their attention to the next teammate up, making sure everyone is cheered on. What makes this experience exceptional is that young adults with special needs are paired with cadets to learn and play together.

For the last three summers, the City of Charleston Therapeutic Recreation program and the nonprofit PlayToday! Foundation, along with The Citadel Service Learning and Civic Engagement (SLCE) program, have collaborated to offer a Sports Sampler, which includes a shared supper designed to teach participants how to independently prepare healthy, nutritious food. Cadets in the SUCCEED program, an eight-week summer service learning intiative, look forward to their Tuesday nights on the Charleston Miracle League field in spite of being weary from their long days in Title I school programs and camps.

For many of the SUCCEED fellows and other cadet volunteers, the Sports Sampler provides a first opportunity to spend time with young adults who have disabilities. As developing leaders, the SUCCEED fellows experience diversity in the context of a shared team effort, which prepares them for future leadership roles in which they will interact with people with differing abilities.

Aaron Fowler, a sophomore cadet who plans to go into a healthcare profession, was drawn to the program because of the opportunity to teach the importance of nutrition. Junior cadet and varsity soccer player Hannah Roth found joy in sharing her love of sports and fitness with people who might not often access group recreational opportunities. Sophomore Cadet Dakota Durham summed up the common feeling of most of our cadet volunteers: “I was definitely excited about going to help out at the Sports Sampler,” she said, “but meeting the people there made the experience outstanding. I cannot wait to participate again.”

For Community Engagement Fellow Mike Akers, ’19, the Sports Sampler program was a fitting example of how the Four-Year Leadership Model—prepare, engage, serve and lead—can be applied to organizations. “This summer those who volunteered prepared for each Tuesday event, engaged with the young adult participants from as soon as they arrived to the moment they left, served the larger Charleston community by working to empower youth who have special needs, and led in either an athletic sports game or a healthy dinner explanation,” he said.

The Sports Sampler is part of a long Citadel tradition of learning by serving with people who have special needs. The site of the Sports Sampler, the Charleston Miracle League field, was founded by Channing Proctor, ’91, who ensured that cadets had an opportunity to work with Miracle League baseball players, Title I school children experiencing team sports through Wiffle ball, and now the Sports Sampler. The Halloween and Valentine’s Day Buddy Dances, started by Mike Palazzo, ’94, and his fellow psychology majors, have been some of the most popular and high-impact events on campus for the last 25 years.

For more than a decade, Citadel volunteers have stepped up as coaches for unified sports and Special Olympics, locally and regionally. They have been a mainstay in the Down Syndrome Association of the Lowcountry Buddy Walk since its inception. Likewise, cadet volunteers have played a critical role in the success of Camp Rise Above, volunteering in the summer, serving on the boards and engaging in scholarly collaboration to help evaluate the programs. In all of these experiences, cadets who sign up in an effort to help someone else often report that they were helped as much as or more than those they set out to serve.

How important are these experiences? The influence for Wes Hayes, who graduated in May, was so great that he chose to wear his Camp Rise Above t-shirt under his graduation uniform as testimony to its impact on his life.

The participants in the summer SUCCEED program devote eight weeks to working with high-risk youth in a variety of settings. This summer they collectively served more than 5,000 hours with high-risk youth in 16 community settings. They tutored and mentored children from Title I schools in six different settings, and they supported camps and summer enrichment programs for children and youth with a variety of special developmental and healthcare needs. After the summer SUCCEED program experience, the majority of the 10 to 15 participating cadets will go on to be leaders in service learning, in the community and in the Corps of Cadets. Many will be more effective and empathetic leaders after their experiences with the summer Sports Sampler.

Psychology professor and Service Learning and Civic Engagement Director Conway Saylor, Ph.D., is passionate about creating opportunities to bring cadets and people who have disabilities together in work and play. Recreational activities allow people to move beyond preconceived notions about limitations and begin to recognize the value and assets of others. Saylor volunteers alongside the cadets at the summer Sports Sampler program.