Comparing Levels of Fitness of Police Officers between Two United States Law Enforcement Agencies Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONPolice officers are required to perform tasks that are highly varied in terms of type and duration. Toperform these duties safely and effectively, it is important for an officer to have sufficient muscularpower, strength and endurance, and cardiovascular fitness. However, it may be assumed that asaspects of policing duties may be similar across different cities, counties, and states, all policedepartments and their officers may have the same levels of fitness. The aim of this study was toinvestigate whether fitness levels between police officers from two different United States lawenforcement agencies (LEA) would be similar.METHODSRetrospective data were collected from two U.S. LEAs. LEA1 included 79 incumbent officers (♂ = 72,mean age= 39.43 ± 8.28 years, mean weight= 87.46 ± 11.59 kg; ♀ = 7, mean age = 38.14 ± 3.84 years,mean weight = 62.72 ± 4.49 kg), while LEA2 had 319 incumbent officers (♂ = 315, mean age= 37.9 ±7.71 years, mean weight= 88.84 ± 12.93 kg; ♀ = 4, mean age= 32.0 ± 7.07 years, mean weight= 73.14± 18.36 kg). The data of officers from both agencies included: age, weight, vertical jump, 1-minutepush-up, 1-minute sit-up, 2.4 km run (LEA 1) and 20-meter Multi-Stage Fitness Test (LEA 2).Independent samples t-tests were used to compare anthropometric and fitness data by wholecohorts and by male cohorts. Female cohorts were excluded from analysis given their small samplesizes (n = 7 and n = 4 respectively). Alpha levels were set at 0.05.RESULTSOfficers from LEA1 weighed significantly less and performed significantly better than officers fromLEA2 on all fitness measures. When comparing male officers alone, there was no statisticaldifference in age and weight; nonetheless, officers from LEA1 significantly outperformed officersfrom LEA2 on all fitness measures.CONCLUSIONSThe results from this study indicated clear differences in fitness between two different agenciesfrom the US. This occurred despite the potential for similarity in certain law enforcement job tasksand academy training across different agencies. Based on the significant differences in officerperformance found in this study, it is important for each LEA to develop fitness standards andtraining protocols for their officers that are contextualised to their specific populations and trainingneeds