ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Physiol.
Sec. Integrative Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1505363
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Resilience in Military Personnel: Insights into Physiological, Physical, Psychological DimensionsView all 8 articles
Physical and metabolic requirements of elite military divers
Provisionally accepted
- 1Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, United States
- 2Leidos (United States), Reston, Virginia, United States
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The purpose of this investigation was to characterize the physical and physiological profile of elite military divers. The profile included anthropometric (height, weight, fat free mass, fat mass, percent body fat), performance testing ( O2max, 3-mile run (4.82 km), 0.5-mile swim (0.8 km), weighted pull-ups, estimated 1-rep max for bench and deadlift, and broad jump) and physiological functioning via the awake response (cortisol, testosterone, and dehydroepiandrosterone). Anthropometric and performance results presented as MEAN ± SE include: age: 28.0 ± 0.5 years; height: 70.7 ± 0.3 in (179.6 ±0.8cm) ; weight: 193.3 ± 2.0 lbs (87.9±0.9 kg); body fat percentage: 18.2 ± 0.6%; O2max: 55.3 ± 0.7 ml · kg¬ -1 · min-1; bench-press 1RM: 278.7 ± 7.7 lbs (126.8±3.5 kg); deadlift 1RM: 397.9 ± 10.6 lbs (172.7±4.8 kg). Significant associations were found between anthropometric measures and measures of magnitude in testosterone and DHEA. Physical performance metrics showed significant associations with summary parameters in all salivary hormones, with quartile splits yielding significant differences in absolute DHEA and 1RM deadlift (F (3, 30) = 2.97, p = 0.048), AUCg testosterone and broad jump (F (3, 37) = 2.86, p = 0.05), and AUCg T:C ratio and 25lb weighted pull ups (F (3, 35) = 4.66, p = 0.008). Linear mixed models revealed a significant effects of evolution/collection time point on AUCg DHEA at time points three (B = -2735.96, t (177.32) = -2.39, p = 0.018) and four (B = -3089.92, t (178.97) = -2.7, p = 0.008); and on peak testosterone at time point five (B = 28.12, t (215.4) = 2.4, p = 0.017) with reference to time point one. The data presented herein indicate there are certain periods of training that elicit significant changes in testosterone and DHEA while cortisol remains stable throughout the training cycle. To our knowledge, this effort is the first to document changes in stress biomarkers over time in elite military divers.
Keywords: cortisol, Testosterone, military, Diving, caloric expenditure
Received: 02 Oct 2024; Accepted: 18 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kelly, Palombo, Givens, Bernards and Bennett. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Karen R Kelly, Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, United States
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