Age-related influence on physical fitness and individual on-duty task performance of Portuguese male non-elite police officers

Abstract

(a) to analyse the effect of age on physical fitness (PF) and on-duty task (ODT) performance of male police officers (PO); (b) to analyse the relationship between PF and ODT performance of male PO; and (c) to identify the set of PF attributes which better predicts the ODT performance of male PO. A total of 97 Portuguese male non-elite PO (Public Security Police) took part in this cross-sectional study. Participants were allocated to four age categories (20-29, 30-39, 40-49, and >49 years old), and performed fourteen PF evaluations and one on-duty task simulation test (ODT-ST). MANOVA, partial correlations and multiple linear regression analysis were used. We observed (a) a significant decrease of performance with aging (PF attributes, partial eta-squared=0.763; total time on ODT-ST, partial eta-squared=0.498); (b) significant positive associations between body mass index and fat mass with total time on ODT-ST; (c) a significant negative association between standing broad jump (SBJ), sit-up, push-up, bench-press ratio and aerobic capacity with total time on ODT-ST; and (d) that SBJ, abdominal muscular endurance and aerobic capacity were significant predictors of total time on ODT-ST (R 2 =0.983). PF attributes and ODT performance of Portuguese male non-elite PO decrease significantly with aging. To prevent the observed decrease of performance it seems advisable to implement regular strength and conditioning programmes, which should include muscular power, core strength and aerobic fitness development, to maintain physical capacity and occupational duties.

Age-related influences on somatic and physical fitness of elite police agents (Influencias de la edad en la aptitud física y somática de los agentes de policía de élite)

“…Maybe the specific physical activity that elite SPU agents are engaged on their daily police work life, but also their commitment to keep in shape as a professional duty, can explain these differences. This supposition is supported by the results presented by non-elite Portuguese police officers that show a clear age detrimental effect on this same somatic variables (Teixeira et al, 2019), namely a strong increase of relative fat mass (η 2 =0.357), and a small augmentation of their BMI (η 2 =0.153).…”

“…Relative to maximal strength, both right and left handgrip mean values of our sample were classified as above average from the general population (p50=50 kgf) (Dodds et al, 2014), but similar to the Portuguese non-elite Police officers (105.6 vs 106.6 kgf for the sum of both hands) (Teixeira et al, 2019). The bench press average value was close to the 90 th percentile of the general population reference values (ACSM, 2014a), and significantly better than the average Portuguese police officer within the same age range (93.0 vs 84.7; p<.001) (Teixeira et al, 2019).…”

“…Information on age-related effects on this specific population is still scarce (J. J. Dawes, Orr, Siekaniec, Vanderwoude, & Pope, 2016;Lockie et al, 2019;Teixeira, Monteiro, Silvestre, Beckert, & Massuça, 2019) and, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have looked for the effect of age in the physical fitness and somatic composition of special force's officers.…”

A Comparative Analysis of Physical Fitness in Korean Police Officers: Focus on Results between 2014 to 2019

“…As an important strategy to prevent a decline in the physical performance of police officers, Lagestad et al [16] proposed the need to provide opportunities for exercise during work, while Sörensen et al [17] reported that regular systematic training could help middle-aged police officers maintain physical fitness. Teixeira et al [9] reported that a regular strength and conditioning program, including power, core, and aerobic fitness, should be implemented for police officers to prevent a decline in performance and maintain physical capacity and occupational duties.…”

“…For this reason, Korean police officers undergo an annual physical fitness test; the records are stored and used as a reference for career promotion [8]. Additionally, the range of the interests of sports scientists has recently expanded to include tactical populations such as police officers [9]. These trends can be observed in reports by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) [10][11][12][13][14].…”