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INTRODUCTION: This study characterized a sample of the first women to complete elite United States (US) military training. METHODS: Twelve female graduates of the US Army Ranger Course and one of the first Marine Corps Infantry Officers Course graduates participated in 3 d of laboratory testing including serum endocrine profiles, aerobic capacity, standing broad jump, common soldiering tasks, Army Combat Fitness Test, and body composition (dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, three-dimensional body surface scans, and anthropometry). RESULTS: The women were 6 months to 4 yr postcourse graduation, 30 ± 6 yr (mean ± SD); height, 1.67 ± 0.07 m; body mass, 69.4 ± 8.2 kg; body mass index, 25.0 ± 2.3 kg·m(−2). Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry relative fat was 20.0% ± 2.0%; fat-free mass, 53.0 ± 5.9 kg; fat-free mass index, 20.0 ± 1.7 kg·m(−2); bone mineral content, 2.75 ± 0.28 kg; bone mineral density, 1.24 ± 0.07 g·cm(−2); aerobic capacity, 48.2 ± 4.8 mL·kg(−1)·min(−1); total Army Combat Fitness Test score 505 ± 27; standing broad jump 2.0 ± 0.2 m; 123 kg casualty drag 0.70 ± 0.20 m·s(−1), and 4 mile 47 kg ruck march 64 ± 6 min. All women were within normal healthy female range for circulating androgens. Physique from three-dimensional scan demonstrated greater circumferences at eight of the 11 sites compared with the standard military female. CONCLUSIONS: These pioneering women possessed high strength and aerobic capacity, low %BF; high fat-free mass, fat-free mass index, and bone mass and density; and they were not virilized based on endocrine measures as compared with other reference groups. This group is larger in body size and leaner than the average Army woman. These elite physical performers seem most comparable to female competitive strength athletes.

Purpose Body surface area (BSA) is an important measurement for many thermophysiological, pharmaceutical, toxicological, environmental, and military applications. Unfortunately, BSA is difficult to quantify, and existing prediction methods are not optimized for contemporary populations. Methods The present study analyzed data body measurements from 5603 male and female participants of a US Army Anthropometric Survey to determine optimal methods for estimating BSA in modern US Army Soldiers. This data included 94 individual body measurements as well as three dimensional (3D) whole body scans for each participant. We used this data to assess and compared 15 existing equations to the measured data. We also derived best fitting nonlinear regression models for estimating BSA from different combinations of sex, height, and weight and iteratively included the remaining 91 measurements to determine which combinations resulted in the highest goodness-of-fit. Results We found that inclusion of armspan measurements as a third body dimension maximized the model goodness-of-fit. Conclusion Some of the existing formulae provide reasonable estimates of 3D-scanner derived BSA; while our new formulae derived from this study allows for more accurate estimates of BSA using one or more common input variables.