The Development of a Competence-Based Physical Test for Dutch Police Recruits

Identifying and characterising the physical demands for an Australian specialist policing unit

“…When examining the operational performance frequency of tasks, the minority of tasks (5 out of 11) actually had a frequency of 'every three months' or less. Evidently, the majority of criterion tasks are typically performed less than four times a year by SPU personnel, supporting previous descriptors of police duties comprising only intermittent high intensity work (Andersen et al 2001;Mol and Visser, 2004). The tasks performed most frequently during operations included 'Carry additional equipment during deployment' and 'Load/unload equipment' which have been reported as common tasks amongst other general duty policing roles (Anderson et al 2001;Arvey and Landon, 1992).…”

“…However it is also well documented that policing roles can be characterised as highly sedentary (Lonsway, 2003), often with prolonged periods of inactivity. On the basis of such fluctuations in physical demands, policing roles have been described as low-intensity interspersed with relatively short periods of high-intensity activity (Andersen et al 2001;Mol and Visser, 2004). The current state of knowledge regarding the physical demands of police work largely originates from research that has profiled the physical demands of general duty police officers, (Charles, 1982), or analysis of the task demands inherent to specific job roles (Mol and Visser, 2004).…”

“…On the basis of such fluctuations in physical demands, policing roles have been described as low-intensity interspersed with relatively short periods of high-intensity activity (Andersen et al 2001;Mol and Visser, 2004). The current state of knowledge regarding the physical demands of police work largely originates from research that has profiled the physical demands of general duty police officers, (Charles, 1982), or analysis of the task demands inherent to specific job roles (Mol and Visser, 2004). Where general duties officers are responsible for the prevention of crime and maintenance of the law, specialist policing units (SPUs) provide operational response capabilities above and beyond the general duties policing role, often in high-threat situations.…”

“…Where validated job task analysis procedures have been documented amongst North American and European police officers (Bonneau and Brown, 1995;Farenholtz and Rhodes, 1990;Gledhill, 2001;Mol and Visser, 2004), there is a paucity of research detailing the inherent job demands of Australia police officers. Furthermore, there is little published research outlining the job demands of SPUs in any international jurisdiction.…”

Fitness testing at police academies: Optimal fitness for duty

“…However, job-specific fitness standards are commonly developed to secure only a minimum level of physical conditioning needed to perform job-specific tasks (i.e. criterion-referenced) (Mol and Visser, 2002, 2004; Petersen et al, 2016; Tipton et al, 2013; Zumbo, 2016). Consequently, job-specific fitness tests do little to optimize the fitness levels of officers beyond the minimum requirement to perform the job.…”