Profiling the New Zealand Police Trainee Physical Competency Test

Abstract

Police officers require a certain amount of occupational fitness to successfully perform physically demanding tasks. As such, trainees are required to undergo training to develop their ability to perform such tasks. The physical competency test (PCT) is a 400 m obstacle course consisting of key police occupational physical tasks used to evaluate a trainee's ability to complete tasks that a police officer is expected to perform whilst on duty. The purpose of this study was to profile the PCT in a police recruit population to provide an indication of the current level of occupational fitness within a policing population to inform conditioning requirements. Retrospective data for 813 male (age = 27.41 ± 5.92 years, body mass = 83.98 ± 14.03 kg, height = 179.23 ± 10.50 cm, BMI = 25.85 ± 3.92 kg/m2) and 372 female (mean age = 27.01 ± 6.45 years, mean weight = 67.14 ± 8.60 kg, mean height = 168.14 ± 6.46 cm and mean BMI = 23.61 ± 2.52 kg/m2) police trainees from the New Zealand Police Constabulary Recruitment database were provided for analysis. Anthropometric data, including height, body mass, and BMI were provided, in addition to trainee PCT time. Data were split by sex and age. Significant differences were observed between sexes for all anthropometric measures and PCT time (p < 0.001). Generally, in both the male and female groups, younger recruits tended to perform better than the older recruits with results between the “under 20” and the 20–24-year-old-age groups performing significantly better than the 35–39-year-old-age group in both sexes, and the 25–29-year-old-age group performing significantly better than the 35–39-year-old-age group in female officers. The data provided in this study provides a profile for performance of male and female recruits of various ages on the PCT in preparation for entry, or re-entry following injury, into the NZ Police. However, given that the PCT is considered a measure of occupational task performance, consideration should be given to the use of sex and age neutral requirements as the occupational tasks performed by police officers exhibit the same traits regardless of sex or age. Older trainees may therefore need conditioning to improve PCT times and subsequently occupational performance.

Biomotor Abilities for Law Enforcement Officer Readiness

“…Twelve studies examined male and female participants [15,19,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], whereas the remaining five included only male participants [16][17][18]20,21]. Table 4 displays the frequency of significant biomotor ability correlates to occupational tasks among these studies.…”

“…Regarding the frequency of evaluation, muscular strength was assessed in 9 articles [16][17][18][19]22,23,28,29,31], muscular endurance was measured in 17 articles [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], and muscular power was measured in 13 articles [15][16][17][18][22][23][24][25][27][28][29][30][31]. Other fitness measurements included aerobic capacity, assessed in 7 articles [16,[18][19][20]28,30,31] and anaerobic capacity in 4 articles [16,18,19,…”

“…Other fitness measurements included aerobic capacity, assessed in 7 articles [16,[18][19][20]28,30,31] and anaerobic capacity in 4 articles [16,18,19,30]. Agility was assessed in 9 [15,16,18,19,22,[28][29][30][31] articles, and the least commonly reported fitness measure was flexibility, which was assessed in 6 articles [15,16,19,22,29,31].…”

“…For instance, some studies utilised exercises that simulate occupational tasks like running and pushing objects to simulate foot chases and suspect engagement. Most studies included the victim rescue/body drag [19,22,23,26,29,31] and foot pursuit [19,22,24,25,31]. The 99-yard obstacle course [23,26,27], chain link fence [19,23,26,29,31], solid wall climb [21][22][23][27][28][29]31], and 500-yard run [23,26,27] were used less frequently.…”

Relationships Between Physical Fitness Assessment Measures and a Workplace Task-Specific Physical Assessment Among Police Officers: A Retrospective Cohort Study

“…The PAT is used during police academy recruitment to assess a trainee's level of fitness and consists of a 2.4-km run, vertical jump, push-ups, and grip strength assessments. Conversely, the PCT is a timed run on an obstacle course, which consists of various tasks (e.g., negotiating a 1.9-m solid wall and a 2.2-m wire fence, a 200-m run, a trailer push, and a victim drag) designed to represent simulated police tasks (15,40). It is mandatory for all police officers to complete and pass the PCT every 2 years to be deployed on duty (40).…”