Force Science News #262
I. Tests on controlling resistant suspects show
need for fitness scrutiny
Researchers at a police college in Norway have confirmed
what intuitively seems obvious: an officer's fitness level correlates
significantly with his or her ability to control resistant subjects during
arrest.
"[O]ne of the most critical and stressful physical
tasks" of police work is "getting control of a struggling
suspect," writes Thomas Dillern of the Norwegian Police University
College, who led the research team. Indeed, "the apprehension of a
strongly intractable subject...is described as the most commonly occurring
maximal physical exertion in the profession," Dillern says, sometimes
resulting in serious officer injury or death.
Yet "the relationship between general physical
fitness and the ability to cope" with that challenge has been
"scarcely examined," Dillern states, until the study by his team.
Their conclusion: All things considered, the data
"emphasize the need, and the justification, of implementing monitoring of
physical fitness" throughout an officer's career "to ensure the
police are capable of performing their job" as they age.
NOTE: Don't miss the sobering observations about the
study from Force Science Executive Director Dr. Bill Lewinski near the end of
this article.
PHYSICAL RIGORS. Dillern and his researchers selected 19
male volunteers who had completed three years of education at the Police
University College, including "mandatory courses related to physical
training and arrest handling." After such variables as age and body mass
index (BMI) were recorded, the subjects first completed four physical tests and
then, within two weeks later, executed takedowns and self-defense tactics
against a struggling or aggressive opponent, simulating a resisted arrest.
The physical capability tests, graded on a scale of 0-60
by experienced observers, consisted of:
• a bench press, in which the officers lifted as much
weight as they could for one rep, to assess maximum upper-body strength;
• controlled chin ups from a fully extended hanging
position, as many times as they could until exhausted, to measure upper-body
strength endurance;
• a standing long jump, to evaluate explosive power, and
• a 3,280-yard run without spiked shoes on a standard
track-and-field course, testing aerobic capacity and reflecting the exertion
that might occur during a foot pursuit.
Dillern explains that large-muscle strength in the upper
body is important "especially [for] the pushes and pulls during the
apprehension of an intractable subject," making the "the performances
in the bench press and the pull up tests...the most influential factors
affecting the arrest handling performance." However, to maintain a
balanced stance while struggling with a resister, "a higher strength and
power capacity in the lower extremities are beneficial" as well.
DEFENSIVE CONTROLS. The arrest-handling tests again
consisted of four elements: a one-on-one takedown; a two-officers/one suspect
takedown; a struggle in which the officers might have to counterattack an
attacking opponent with kicks and punches; and a self-defense exercise in which
the volunteers had to free themselves from a variety of strangleholds.
Each of these tests had four levels of difficulty,
ranging from little or no actual movement by the suspect role-player up to
full-sparring, aggressive and threatening behavior. The officers had to
successfully achieve and sustain control of their suspect with empty-hand
techniques to the point of handcuffing at a given level before moving up to the
next. They were scored according to how far they advanced.
"To the best of our knowledge," Dillern writes,
"this is the first study to examine [the fitness] relationship by the use
of a real struggling subject to assess the arrest performance."
STRONG RESULTS. "[W]e found a large correlation
between police students' general physical capacity and their ability to handle
a simulated arrest test," the researchers report. Namely: "[A] higher
physical fitness affects the outcome of the arrest situation in a positive
manner."
The study also documented a negative correlation between
age and both the physical tests and the arrest tests. Dillern terms
"disturbing" this finding that as age increases, performance
decreases.
An officer typically "spends much of the working day
carrying out low-intensity activity, and the occupation is therefore mainly
described as sedentary," he writes. However, regularly emerging
episodes...are often occurring and can be stressful, critical, and even life
threatening for both the officer and the surrounding civilians.
"Even if the major part of the job can be executed
independent of a police officer's physical fitness, some tasks still demand a
certain level of fitness to be handled, and if the officer is not capable of
managing these tasks, it can be questioned if he or she is capable of doing the
job at all.
"Consequently, to ensure that officers are capable
of performing their job, some minimum requirements of general physical fitness
ought to be upheld."
SOBERING OBSERVATIONS. The Force Science Institute was
not involved in the Norwegian study, but based on related research FSI has
conducted, plus his own professional experiences across a career in law
enforcement training, Dr. Bill Lewinski offers some sobering observations on
certain of the group's findings.
"The results of the physical capability tests are
remarkable," he told Force Science News. "These were the averages
among the study subjects: bench press--235 pounds; chin-ups--15; long jump--8
feet 4 inches; time for the roughly two-mile run--11 minutes 53 seconds. The
average participating officer weighed 181 pounds and stood just under 6 feet.
"In all likelihood, fewer than 10 per cent of
officers upon graduating from any academy in North America would be able to
match these performance standards. And from a fitness standpoint, that is when
officers tend to be at their absolute peak.
"In one survey of 226 US officers with time on the
job, only a minority felt they could 'very well' perform such relatively simple
tasks as completing 21 push-ups, negotiating an agility obstacle course,
performing 36 sit-ups, sitting and reaching 16 ? inches, and bench pressing
their own body weight. And these tests are far less demanding that what the
researchers in Norway used.
"In the study of physical exhaustion conducted by
the Force Science Institute a few years ago, we found that the average
officer's pulse rate hit 180 beats per minute within 20 seconds of all-out
exertion, such as would be experienced in a struggle with a resistant suspect.
That represents a dramatic stressing of an officer's physical system and
capabilities." For more about this study, go to: www.forcescience.org/fsnews/176.html .
Lewinski suggests that officers reading about the
Norwegian study measure their own ability against the physical capabilities
tests those researchers used, as cited earlier in this article. "The
message for many officers," he says, "will be: 'Get to a gym! Do it
now! Don't wait!' "
The Norwegian study, titled "Arresting a Struggling
Subject; Does the Forthcoming Police Officer's Physical Fitness Have an Impact
on the Outcome?", is reported in full in The Open Sports Sciences Journal.
Click here to access it without charge.
