Art De Vany: Evolutionary Fitness for Cops

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Evolutionary Fitness for Cops

August 14, 2005 01:25 PM

From one of NYPDs finest comes a question about fitness for cops.

"I'm a 41 year old Detective with the NYPD. I also train law enforcement personnel in Officer Survival methods for a private training facility. Obviously fitness is a component of surviving. It is difficult to motivate cops to engage in any type of fitness training even though their lives may depend on it.

My question is:

What would you recommend to an officer in fair shape regarding a training program or protocol taking into account that most cops sit in a car or at a desk most of their tour, but may have to chase someone then fight for their lives?

Please take into account that most cops don't get proper sleep due to shift changes and or working odd hours."

Great question. It turns out that sitting isn't so bad; rest is important. But, you have to do the right things to make the sitting constitute recovery. I do understand the fight or flight issue; that is the essence of my training.

Brief, high intensity workouts of no more than 30 minutes 2 to 4 times a week will do the job. Any more than that is too tiring and will compromise their abilities.

Example work out.

Thrusters. db in each hand and an inflated ball against the wall. Small of back to the wall. Drop into a squat, keeping the ball against the wall, explode upward as you also thrust the dbs over head. Do 20 with a light weight, then 5 with a heavy weight. Head high and spine against the ball will encourage excellent posture. Drop to parallel thighs the first set, a bit less the second set and really explode up the second set.

Six 15 to 30 second sprints on a reclining bike. Max effort. Rest no more than half a minute of easy cycling between sprints. Work to get the rest down to 10 seconds.

Dead-lifts, bent legs. Keep the arch in the back and focus on getting the weight onto the heels. Engage the buttocks fully. 8 reps easy first set. Rest 20 seconds and do 4 hard ones. Eventually an officer should be able to do a double body weight dead lift.

Bent over bb rows. 8 easy ones, 4 hard ones. Pure form. Bring the weight high one work out and low the next.

Power front squat. Use a smith machine and set the lower stops so the cop can hold the bar across the chest with elbows high in a half squat position. Don't over extend the wrist, set the bar partly on the deltoids to support it. Set the bar on the upper stops at shoulder height. Get under the bar, lift it from the stops and lower slowly to the lower stops and then accelerate up. Do 8 with an easy weight. Then up the weight and do negatives, only lowering the bar to set it on the lower stops. Help raise the bar to the upper stops whence the cop takes it again to lower it slowly to the lower stops. No more than 4 of these.

They are done. During all these exercises make sure your trainees pull in their belly button and take it high into the abdominal cavity.

Twice a week at this, upping the pace as they progress will give excellent results. A third day is useful, but it should be stretching, throwing heavy medicine balls, some indoor sprinting and light play. Have them balance on a single foot when they brush their teeth or shave. Alternate feet on alternate days.

When in the car suck in the belly button hard and high and hold it for a minute. Arch the lower back. Grip the wheel hard and push it. A few deep breaths to relax.

No jogging, treadmills, or long stationary cycling. It will just wear them down.

Cut the carbs like pasta, donuts (I know), bready sandwiches, pizza, rice and soft drinks. A cop will stay more alert on less food rather than more food. Lean and hungry works. Read the greyhound post coming up soon.

You will find other work outs at CrossFit.com.

I have great respect and admiration for you cops. If there is any thing I can do to help you let me know.

· Evolutionary Fitness

Comments

Posted by: Flower Online at September 27, 2006 6:28 AM

Posted by: Flower Online at September 27, 2006 6:26 AM

The reason I asked about the added weight in the JAP article was the mention of "Wingate tests" in the abstract. In a Wingate test, a resistance is added to the flywheel that scales up in proportion to the bodyweight of the subject.

I'm probably getting this wrong, but added weight seems to me to be the equivalent of increasing the gear.

Dan Majerle(Fire Up Chips!) did not invent the term "suicides". I've been thinking of taking up something similar though. I remember in school taking the President's Physical Fitness test every year. The Shuttle Run would seem a pretty good sprint exercise. I would think the stopping and starting would hit the FT's ok.

I think for the difference between the high row and the low row a video would help me figure it out. I always thought that for the rows you should be bent over at a full 90 degrees. I don't see how I could even reach the ground to pick up the weight if I'm only bending over 30 degrees.

Posted by: dfobare at August 15, 2005 7:36 PM

Here is a link to a CrossFit Journal dealing with Police, LEO, military training:
http://www.crossfitnorcal.com/info/resources.php?section=articles

Robb

Posted by: Robb Wolf at August 15, 2005 4:17 PM

A few more points on my Evolutionary Fitness for Cops.

Don't hold your breath or grasp the wheel hard when you do the belly/push against the car wheel. It raises blood pressure and pressurizes the chest cavity, denying blood to the heart and brain. Breath out as you do it.

A high row means to the chest with the body at 30 degree inclination. A low row means to the pelvis at a 45 degree inclination. Keep the neck in line with the spine; you don't want to shorten you back neck muscles.

Now and then have your cops do suicides, so named by former NBA player Dan Marleighy (spelling?).

Sprint from the end of a basketball court to the near free throw line and back. Then sprint to half court line and back. Then to the far free throw line and back. Then to the far boundary and back. Start with a 10 second rest and eventually get down to none.

After this is no longer too hard, do full suicides by throwing in 5 fast pushups with each sprint. Do these on a day when a break is coming up in the schedule so officer can get some rest.

This can be made competitive between individuals or a team event between teams of partners who do different legs.

Posted by: Art at August 15, 2005 1:34 PM

Chris: Thanks for the thrusters video. These are done just as the video shows but with a large training ball against the back and pressed against a wall.

Dave: You didn't need to Goggle, I had the link right there, dark print. No weight was added, they pedaled against resistance.

The 4 minute break between sets is of no significance for the results as these hold with much shorter intervals. It may have been done for the researchers to set equipment and other matters.

That is far too long to have the training be time efficient. And, I doubt a cop and a bad guy would take a 4 minute break during their confrontation.

You got to train for what you got to do.

Posted by: Art at August 15, 2005 1:24 PM

There are videos / slide shows of thrusters at Crossfit

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html

Posted by: Chris H at August 15, 2005 2:03 AM

Doc: I know its supposed to be contrary to EVFit, but I love it any time you prescribe a workout. Now I have to search the Web for video of a "thruster", as I'm quite unfamiliar with it. Which is why I'm always eager for workout recipes and specific details. You've collected a lot of knowledge concerning various weightlifting movements and their appropriate use in an EVFit framework.

Despite being quite athletically involved for much of my life, weight rooms and their proper use have always been very foreign to me. So while I'm quite comfortable discussing say, the philosophy behind the run-n-shoot offense, sentences like "Bring the weight high one work out and low the next" might as well be written in Latin for me.

I've got a couple of questions concerning the JAP article you mentioned in "Sprint Training", the routine you outlined there, and the cycling you mention here in this post:

1) In the JAP article, a weight was added(how I don't know) for additional resistance. If I Googled right, it was about 45g per kg of bodyweight. Do you know why this was done, and what effect does this have on the test results?

2) In both the JAP article and your own recommendation for cycling, the gear is not mentioned. As I understand it, the heavier the gear the more the FT fibers are hit. Presumably, under the EVFit regime a heavier gear would be preferable, no?

3) Your recommendations in both the "Sprint Training" post and this one emphasize very short rest periods, while the JAP article used a protocol in which I believe 4 minutes was the length of the rest phase. Why the difference?

Posted by: dfobare at August 14, 2005 6:19 PM

Evolutionary Fitness for Cops

August 14, 2005 01:25 PM

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