On-Duty Strength and Conditioning Programming Considerations for Police Officers

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to review the physiological determinants of police work, provide the strength and conditioning professional with an overview of common constraints associated with training police officers, discuss the role of autoregulated training, and provide programming recommendations for training police officers around their patrol shifts. Police officers are expected to maintain physical abilities to withstand the chaotic demands and scenarios they may face on duty. While sedentary tasks such as deskwork and sitting in a patrol vehicle may comprise the majority of a police shift, police officers must be physically prepared for sporadic high-intensity tasks inherent to the occupation. These tasks may include, but are not limited to: sprinting, climbing, carrying external loads (e.g., weaponry, specialist equipment, or body armor), grappling with a perpetrator, or any combination of these tasks (9,10,19).

Police cadets complete fitness training and assessment for the physical demands of policing while in academies (7). Compared to cadets, incumbent police officers (i.e., police officers with multiple years on the job) tend to possess lower aerobic and anaerobic fitness, reduced muscular endurance, and increased body fat percentage (16). As these variances are not fully explained by age, one may conclude incumbent police officers lose fitness with time on the job (16). Longitudinal studies reporting changes in fitness of the same recruits at 12-year and 15-year follow-ups support this conclusion (4,22). A recent longitudinal study following a cohort of incumbent police officers for five years and reported small or trivial losses in fitness (8). These data suggest greater fitness losses are experienced by recruits as they transition to early career police officers, and fitness tends to be lost—not gained— throughout the career of police work (8). To counteract loss of fitness and improve occupational performance within their ranks, police agencies may seek the services of qualified strength and conditioning professionals.

CHALLENGES OF POLICE OFFICER FITNESS

In addition to facilitating improved job performance, physical fitness may support a police officer’s physical and mental health as well as their ability to mitigate stress—all key potential facilitators of a healthy and long career in law enforcement. These features express the importance of physical fitness training throughout the established police officer’s career. However, several potential challenges may interfere with efforts to improve physical fitness in incumbent police officers.

At the organizational and individual levels, multiple factors may interfere with a police officer’s ability to maintain physical fitness. Many police agencies are suffering from greater personnel shortages than ever, which may result in shifting of personnel and limited time resources (1,2). Presumably, strength and conditioning professionals, facilities, and equipment may also be in short supply. Moreover, a challenge common across police work is planning physical fitness training around the patrol shift schedule. While there may be variability between police departments on how patrols are scheduled, here is a typical layout

• Patrol scheduling is divided into 2 – 3 time slots over a 24-hr period—days, midnights, and, occasionally, evenings.
• Time slots are further divided into two distinct days: A Days and B Days. An individual police officer is assigned to a time slot on an A Day or B Day for a 10 – 12+ hr shift.
• The police officer works a consistent schedule of multiple days on, followed by multiple days off (e.g., two days on, two days off, three days on, two days off, then repeat).

If police officers have the opportunity to perform physical fitness while on duty, training will typically take place at their assigned station and be performed immediately prior to or following their scheduled patrol shift. When performing on duty fitness training, regardless of modality (e.g., strength training, cardio, yoga, etc.), it is imperative to consider training factors that could affect the police officer’s job performance and recovery. Workouts cannot interfere with a police officer’s job duties and should not appear as an extra hassle in their already busy lives; instead, fitness training should rejuvenate and energize the police officer.

If training pre-shift, exercise must be carefully programmed to ensure physical abilities are not masked by fatigue. If training post-shift, a police officer’s vigor or desire to perform strenuous training may be diminished. The strength and conditioning professional should be prepared to make adjustments to training variables, such as rest periods, intensity, volume, and total duration to preserve readiness for patrol or account for varying levels after patrol. A brief subjective readiness assessment or objective test, such as a handgrip dynamometer squeeze or vertical jump, may help inform training modifications. 

Police officers benefit from fitness programming constructed around evidence-based training principles. However, the influence of occupational conditions may warrant considerations, such as exposure to high-stress situations, experiencing potentially dangerous work operations, lack of sleep due to long patrol shifts, and poor nutrition due to lack of access to nutritious foods while on patrol. For example, a single work call may lead to lasting residual stress—physical and emotional—that could affect readiness throughout the remainder of the patrol and beyond.

FITNESS PROGRAM PLANNING AND AUTOREGULATED TRAINING

Police officers benefit from fitness programming constructed around evidence-based training principles. However, the influence of occupational conditions may warrant considerations, such as exposure to high-stress situations, experiencing potentially dangerous work operations, lack of sleep due to long patrol shifts, and poor nutrition due to lack of access to nutritious foods while on patrol. For example, a single work call may lead to lasting residual stress—physical and emotional—that could affect readiness throughout the remainder of the patrol and beyond.

Police officers may also contend with additional stressors related to health, families, finances, relationships, and other factors outside of work. A police officer’s readiness and availability varies day-to-day; therefore, offering fitness training flexible enough

to meet the needs of police officers helps to ensure training adherence and progress. Volatility in the professional and personal lives of police officers makes planning the “perfect” training program unlikely, if not impossible. Rigid programming may be unsustainable. Long-term adherence to unsustainable programming may lead police officers to feel they have failed or believe that their lifestyles are not conducive to fitness training. Instead, educating and encouraging police officers to regulate aspects of their own training may be a more viable strategy for long-term success. Autoregulation of exercise intensity, volume, and exercise selection can be accomplished through programming methods. For example, the strength and conditioning professional may provide Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) targets to encourage autoregulated selection of exercise load (24). The strength and conditioning professional may choose to include acceptable repetition ranges alongside RPE targets rather than fixed repetition targets to facilitate autoregulation of exercise volume. Another strategy would be to offer a menu of alternative exercise selections with varying neuromuscular demands rather than a single option. Anecdotally, providing police officers with a degree of autonomy in their training can lead to greater workout adherence and overall buy-in, helping to solidify physical fitness training as a long-term element in their lifestyles.

PROGRAM DESIGN

Designing a physical fitness program for police officers begins with a needs analysis. Similar to a needs analysis for sport, a needs analysis for policing identifies occupation-related training needs and helps guide programming. The needs analysis includes the definition of the tasks or demands of the occupation, a description of the characteristics of the police officer, identification of goals and priorities, and analysis of the resources and limitations of the program (21). The latter three categories of the needs analysis

are heavily dependent on factors unique to the police officer. Meanwhile, directives of the program, characteristics unique to the department (e.g., funding, time allocation, and equipment availability), and task analysis that considers physiological, biomechanical, injury-risk, environmental, and psychological features of law enforcement may be generalizable across the occupation. The task analysis for police officers provided in Figure1 is based on synthesis of relevant literature and the authors’ personal occupational experiences (5,9,14,15,17,18,23). While a task analysis provides general guidance for program design, the strength and conditioning professional must also consider the individual features of police officers, which requires assessing.

ACCESS THE ARTICLE

This article originally appeared in TSAC Report, the NSCA’s quarterly, online-only publication geared toward the training of tactical athletes, operators, and facilitators. It provides research-based articles, performance drills, and conditioning techniques for operational, tactical athletes. The TSAC Report is only available for NSCA Members. Read more articles from TSAC Report 

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