The effects of a 6-month mandatory military police academy training on recruits’ physical fitness

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Barbosa, Wélere G.^{a; b} | Saint Martin, Daniel R.^a | Soares, Edgard de Melo Keene von Koenig Soares^a | Fontana, Keila Elizabeth^a | Lan, Fan-Yun^{c; d; e} | Kales, Stefanos N.^{d; e} | Molina, Guilherme E.^a | Porto, Luiz Guilherme G.^{a; e; *}

Affiliations: [a] Faculty of Physical Education, University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil | [b] Military Police of the State of Tocantins, Palmas, Brazil | [c] Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan | [d] Department of Occupational Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA | [e] Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

Correspondence: [*] Address for correspondence: Luiz Guilherme Grossi Porto, B.P.E., MSc., PhD., Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, Zona Central, Brasília, DF 70910-900, Brazil. E-mail: luizggporto@gmail.com; lgporto@hsph.harvard.edu.

Abstract: BACKGROUND:Physical fitness for health and professional performance play important roles in police workforce considering that policing is a dangerous job, associated with high physical demands. OBJECTIVES:(1) To evaluate the effects of a 6-month course of police academy training on health-related physical fitness (HRPF) of military police recruits. (2) To investigate whether recruits’ HRPF still met the academy entry standards after an unsupervised 7-month period prior to academy. METHODS:We conducted an observational and longitudinal study with 219 male police recruits (aged 25.5±3.6 years; BMI of 24.4±2.5 kg/m2). HRPF parameters included the Cooper 12-min running test for cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), curl-ups, pull-ups and push-ups for muscle strength/endurance which were evaluated 3 times: 7 months prior to academy course and pre- and post-academy training period. RESULTS:Participants maintained optimal age-related HRPF during the unsupervised period prior to academy. After academy training upon graduation, all HRPF parameters further increased an average of 7.7 to 69.0% (p < 0.001; calculated Cohen’s d effect size ≥0.95). CRF was the only HRPF that improved less than 10% after the academy course. CONCLUSIONS:Police recruits that had passed the application fitness standards maintained their HRPF prior to academy, and all their HRPF parameters increased after a 6-month academy training period which was not primarily focused on exercise training. Among all components of HRPF, CRF appears to be the most challenging one to improve among police recruits. Our findings suggest that regular training with minimum physical standards could be potentially beneficial to police officers’ health and career longevity.

Keywords: Cardiorespiratory fitness, fitness assessment, training, motivation, candidates

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-210031

Journal: Work, vol. 73, no. 4, pp. 1297-1306, 2022