Orr, R., Canetti, E. F. D., Gough, S., Macdonald, K., Dulla, J., Lockie, R. G., Dawes, J. J., Blacker, S. D., Milligan, G. S. and Schram, B. (2025) Police fitness: an international perspective on current and future challenges. Sports, 13 (7). pp. 1-15. ISSN 2075-4663
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Abstract
Poor officer fitness can lead to decreased occupational task performance, injuries, increased absenteeism, and a variety of negative health sequalae further adding to the challenges of staffing law enforcement agencies. Optimizing the physical fitness for both serving officers and new recruits is critical as their loss is, and will increasingly be, difficult to replace. However, maintaining and recruiting a physically fit workforce faces several challenges. For serving officers, shiftwork is known to decrease motivation to exercise and negatively impact sleep and diet. Additional factors impacting their fitness includes age-related declines in fitness, increasing obesity, long periods of sedentarism, and negative COVID-19 effects. Concurrently, recruiting physically fit recruits is challenged by declining levels of fitness, reduced physical activity, and increasing obesity in community youth. Ability-based training (ABT), individualizing physical conditioning training based on the existing fitness levels of individuals within a group, offers a potential solution for delivering physical conditioning to groups of applicants, recruits, and officers with a range of physical fitness capabilities. Law enforcement agencies should consider implementing ABT during academy training and ongoing fitness maintenance to minimize injury risk and optimize task performance.
Publication Type: | Articles |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | capability, law enforcement, physical fitness, recruitment, occupational fitness |
Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV201 Physical education and training G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure > GV557 Sports > GV711 Coaching U Military Science > U Military Science (General) |
Divisions: | Academic Areas > Institute of Sport > Area > Exercise Physiology Research Entities > Centre for Health and Allied Sport and Exercise Science Research (CHASER) |
SWORD Depositor: | Publications Router Jisc |
Depositing User: | Publications Router Jisc |
Date Deposited: | 13 Oct 2025 10:53 |
Last Modified: | 13 Oct 2025 10:53 |
URI: | https://eprints.chi.ac.uk/id/eprint/8195 |