Strength and conditioning has become a major profession over the past few decades. One of the big buzz phrases in the strength and conditioning field is “sports specificity,” which is quite an elusive concept. Specialty personal training types have made good money offering golfers a more powerful swing with the use of rubber bands and cable machines. The same could be said for baseball or tennis swings, for that matter. Throwing an overweight ball is said by many, to improve a pitcher’s velocity on a pitch. Specials run on ESPN showing the UFC champions flipping tires, throwing heavy bags, and doing long runs to prepare for the rigors of battle in the Octagon. The implication is that this is the key to their success. What’s missing, aside from some genetic advantages, is the history of training that most high-level athletes have. For an advanced athlete, there is more pinpointing, more sport specific training that needs to be done. In other words, the closer an individual gets to his/her genetic potential in a task or physical trait, the more specific their training must become. This is the top 1 percent of all people training, not the general population. What the general population needs to focus on is General Physical Preparedness (GPP). As we will see later, law enforcement is, physically speaking, a fair sampling of the general population. Unfortunately, it is not composed primarily of elite level athletes. It is comprised of good men and women with a need to serve. So the question becomes, should we train law enforcement officers/agents like elite level athletes or should we take a more basic developmental approach? As we ponder this question, let’s explore how other areas of law enforcement training have evolved over the years.
 
Other areas of law enforcement training have moved in a positive direction over the last few decades. The area of control tactics (defensive tactics), for example, has changed a great deal and continues to do so. It has evolved from teaching a large pool of techniques, each of which is designed to thwart a specific line of attack to nowadays teaching a more conceptual approach. Concepts such as striking an attacker more effectively or not allowing a suspect to take an officer to the ground are now taught. Some strategies for improving striking power or preventing a takedown are presented, but not as specific, step-by-step choreographed movements. Firearms training has also progressed in a similar fashion. While the static target shooting is a valuable method of teaching marksmanship, it is now just the beginning of gun fighting. Once good fundamentals of marksmanship have been established, the training moves to more dynamic representations: shooting while moving, shooting a moving target, and doing both of these from different positions. 
 
Unfortunately, fitness for law enforcement has not changed for most departments across the nation. Traditional PT typically consists of low intensity, long duration activities such as three and four-mile runs, or an hour on the elliptical cross trainer. This is not at all the way cops should train. As the cliché goes, “law enforcement is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent excitement,” and the 1 percent is what needs to be physically targeted. This 1 percent looks like a brief fight with a struggling suspect or a foot chase lasting seconds. Physical dominance in this type of encounter will not be accomplished through traditional PT.  
 
Instead of this low-intensity training, physical preparation should consist of high intensity, explosive activity, and strength development. Physical training for law enforcement officers should primarily consist of overwhelming force production for a relatively short period of time, just like this theoretical fight or chase with a suspect. So let’s train like a developing athlete should train. Because, make no mistake about it, the 1 percent portion of the law enforcement is athletics. It is not a sport, of course, but it requires a physical element that few jobs require.   Athletes train in, just like the name says, strength and conditioning. For the purposes of this article, I will discuss the strength side of physical conditioning, because it undergirds the other physical skillsets (cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, flexibility, power, speed coordination, agility, balance, accuracy) and takes the longest to develop. 
 
Strength is a display of one’s ability to apply force, which I have already suggested is vital for law enforcement. At the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) they administer a fitness test to basic recruits which tests their upper body strength (force application) using the machine bench press. This test estimates a recruit’s ability to lift their maximum amount of weight, for one repetition. The weight lifted is then compared to the recruit’s bodyweight and given a percentage of bodyweight lifted. This will give a measurement of relative strength. After decades of testing recruits and compiling numbers from the test, they now have an enormous database that can give us a glimpse into the strength capabilities of federal law enforcement officers and agents. While this will not be statistically perfect, the numbers will be pretty darn close. The average male from age 21 to age 39 can just barely manage to exceed his own bodyweight on the bench press test. As a comparison, The Cooper Institute in Dallas, TX has a database comprised of the general population in the same bench press test. This general population seems to be similar in strength, if not a little stronger in the test, according to the Physical Fitness Specialist Handbook. Good people can differ on whether it is critical for an officer to have the ability to bench press more than his own bodyweight, but there is something we should all find troubling. Law enforcement officers/agents have essentially the same upper body strength as everyone else. Being an accountant, baker, plumber, or sales clerk is valuable to society.  These professions, however, do not carry with them the inherent danger of law enforcement and thus are not punished by a lack of physical dominance like an officer might be. 
 
Unfortunately, strength development is not a priority in basic law enforcement academies. In a typical police academy, there is an enormous amount of material that takes priority over making the recruits stronger. Firearms training, legal training, interviewing, patrol skills, control tactics, and driving are just a few of the topics that need to be covered in a short time frame. In addition, making someone strong is a skill just like teaching them how to shoot a handgun. Not just anyone can teach a recruit to progressively get stronger in a safe manner.
 
Getting strength training placed higher on the priority list in a training academy is a tough sell because it is not usually a requirement like firearms qualification or academic achievement. Furthermore, there are no milestones incorporated into the training to measure the strength of cadets. Firearms offers an immediate measure of their ability based on how many rounds hit the target. Interviewing labs are graded on their success in retrieving vital information or confessions. Driving abilities are measured in a quantitative speed as registered on the speedometer. But there is not a single test to measure strength training among recruits.  
 
Not only is strength training not deemed a top priority in the academy setting, but it takes a back seat with officers and agents in the field as well. I believe that there are a couple of reasons why it is rarely trained. First of all, it is very hard to get strong, and it takes a long time to do. Second, to safely get stronger you need some degree of technical proficiency in the movements. Third, some people just don’t enjoy going to the gym and lifting weights. So instead of putting in the time to learn some basic movements and going to the weight room for an hour and a half per week, many choose to go for a long run, or worse, do nothing. 
 
The most efficient way to improve one’s overall strength is a tried and true method: barbell training. The basic lifts of the back squat, deadlift, bench press, and the overhead press are the best place to start. While there are some calisthenics-based prerequisites to these movements, these are the standards for getting someone stronger in the long term. There are other methods to improve strength, but these seem to be the most efficient. Most bodyweight movements only seem to strengthen participants in the beginning and then by necessity turn into endurance activities because the overload mechanism tends to be the addition of repetitions. Additionally, prominent strength coach Mark Rippetoe makes a case for barbell training by saying, “the primary exercises (barbell lifts) are systemic in nature – they inherently affect the entire body because the entire body is involved in the exercise. Squats, presses, and deadlifts produce enough stress to induce hormonal changes and structural adaptations system-wide. These fundamental movements all have a kinetic chain that starts at the floor and ends with the bar in the hands.” This is similar to the mechanics of controlling a suspect. Rippetoe goes on to say, “the arms aren't in the kinetic chain of the squat because they don't move the bar, but they stabilize the weight.” He then adds: “Basic heavy barbell movements are what the strongest, biggest men of the past century have used to get that way. Assistance exercises are merely the things these men do in the gym after they've trained, while they're resting.”
 
I have done my best to diagnose the problem that I see in the physical fitness preparation side of law enforcement, and it is that we cloud the issue far more than it should be. Strength coach Mark Rippetoe said, “strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and are more useful in general.” I tend to agree with this sentiment. We need to understand that, all other things being equal, a stronger officer is a better officer.