Charles Poliquin: Physical Readiness Tests

[Bo]

Interesting read. I wonder what he would say about the CF's standards...

Fat Cops and Physical Readiness Tests

Q: Charles, you mentioned in another article that you've done some consulting with the US Army about updating their physical readiness tests. Everyone knows that most of these tests for the military and law enforcement don't have much application to real life. What changes did you suggest?

A: Most of these tests are like giving someone a Japanese test to see how much Italian he can speak. A foreign language is a foreign language, but the carryover is very poor.

There are some organizations that are doing better physical readiness tests though. For example, Montreal has the best firemen and law enforcement tests around the world because they're task driven.

One of the most important things is this: It doesn't really matter how fit you are if you can't make important decisions in conditions of fatigue. In that state, your level of fitness doesn't do shit for you.



Any physical readiness test, whether it's for a S.W.A.T. team or for the military, should have you doing a series of physical tasks and then, at the end of the circuit, have you make a decision. If your lactate is really high and you either can't make a decision or you make the wrong decision, then you're endangering your teammates.

I just designed a new test for a Federal agency where the person is asked to drag a body of 90 kilos for 50 meters. The scenario is that someone on your team gets shot and you have to pull him to safety. They don't know what the test is either, so they can't practice.

Then they have to run ten flights of stairs with a 40 kilo first aid kit. At the top they have to deploy the kit and decide which mouthpiece to use on a mannequin waiting there. Then the guy has to make a decision on full lactate. It's amazing how many people can't do it.

After the mouthpiece is on, what we do is project pink triangles and green circles on the wall. Then they've got to shoot the green circles, which represent the bad guys, while avoiding the pink triangle civilians. What you'll find is that guys huffing and puffing can barely draw their guns, and when they do draw them then they start shooting the wrong stuff. We've found that these types of tests are much better predictors.

Oddly enough though, these tests are highly correlated with a caber toss. In other words, your ability to throw something backward for distance is highly correlated with that test. So what we're thinking now is to do a caber toss as a pre-screening, then only taking the top 5% for the task driven test. So with the Army, I suggested something similar.

Also, one of the toughest things a soldier has to do is take a case of 50 caliber ammunition and put it on the back of a truck. So that's another task I suggested to the Army. No amount of push-ups will correlate with that!



But any time you do something like that you piss off a lot of people. They just like tradition because of tradition. What we're trying show is that dragging a body under fire is a lot more correlated to what happens in Iraq than how many pull-ups you can do. You can train for those kinds of tests, but it doesn't mean you're a good soldier.

Another test I suggested was wall climbing. Wall climbing with gear and weighted pull-ups are two different things. One of the first things you have to do when applying for the counter-assault team of the US Secret Service is put on 88 pounds of equipment and do four pull-ups. If you can't do that then you're not even allowed to do the other tests.

Now, 40 kilos of gear on your back isn't like using a weight belt with 40 kilos attached. The fact that the center of mass is far away from the center of gravity makes it a really different pull-up — the firing patterns are very different.



Of any organization I've ever seen, I think the Secret Service is the most clued-in about real life. I did some consulting for them last year and they're considered the gold standard. They're the ones that will set the standard for any new type of testing.

By the way, many police departments are starting to revaluate officers when it comes to body fat. The University of Montreal did a study and found that the average cop has a body fat of 23%. The average felon's body fat was 8%. The average cop's VO2Max was 37; the average felon's was 55. There is a trend toward changing this, but if you look at European cops verses North American cops, the difference is stellar.



Here's another story that you might be able to apply to athletic pursuits. During the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery in 1997, where two felons wearing Kevlar and carrying automatic weapons had an hour-long shootout with police, several of the officers were seen raising their hands in the air when their guns jammed. Why? Because during their training on the gun range, they were taught to hold up their hands when their weapons jammed so the instructor could clear them.

 

The lesson here is that during stress, you go back to your most basic training. This again shows why most law enforcement and military physical readiness tests need to be revamped. Hopefully the agencies I've worked with will make the needed changes.

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1257805

 

[medicineman]

Interesting - I was thinking many moons ago of applying for Winnipeg's EMS.  You first had to pass the Cooper's test and then a flexibilty test of the lower back.  If all went well, you then had to - (1) Take a Defib, O2 Kit, and jump bag totalling about 45-50lbs, and walk quickly up 5 flights of stairs; (2) Do perfect CPR on a mannequin for 10 minutes; (3) Carry 110 lbs backwards down those same stairs; (4) place the weight on the floor; (5) bring the weight up to waist height; (6) and then replace it on the ground.  A little more realistic than the Cooper's test.

MM

 

[The_Falcon]

Interesting article for sure.

Alot of what he has said has already been implemented in the PREP test in Ontario, body drag, scaling a wall, running up and down stair, simulated arm restraint stations, all while wearing a weighted belt to simulate a duty belt, it could be improved.  Right now it is not that difficult, you have to complete in under a specified time, but it pass or fail, so buddy who storms through is measured the same as buddy who barely runs, as long as both pass.

Also, one of the toughest things a soldier has to do is take a case of 50 caliber ammunition and put it on the back of a truck. So that's another task I suggested to the Army. No amount of push-ups will correlate with that!



But any time you do something like that you piss off a lot of people. They just like tradition because of tradition. What we're trying show is that dragging a body under fire is a lot more correlated to what happens in Iraq than how many pull-ups you can do. You can train for those kinds of tests, but it doesn't mean you're a good soldier.

HMMM, that sounds familiar (ammo crate lift).  Oh wait that is one of the tasks on the APFT  but for some reason, has still not been implemented yet.

 

[missionessential]

I realize that this is an old thread, however it is very relevant to what is happening at my unit.

Over the next month or so, Charles will be conducting physical testing at my unit. This is in an effort to revamp our fitness testing to better prepare members for the job we do and to prevent the numerous injuries that members are getting through traditional training methods.

I will post again when the results of the testing are complete.

 

[ZipperHead]

Good article. I missed it the first time around, I think.

I would like to see training, not just testing, like he mentions (bring on fatigue, and then force pers to do complicated tasks). As it is, how many people here know of units that stand down their pers (or have in the past) after the 13km march?!?! I have seen people incapacitated for days, if not weeks, after this. Then the knee-jerk reaction is to think about REDUCING the standard, because if people are done in by it, it can't be good for them?!?! Sadly, that is how some people think, as though the most important thing in the world is to have a high pass rate, not a high fitness/performance level.

As I alluded to before, and the CDS's message awhile ago emphasized, it shouldn't be about testing, it should be about instilling a culture of fitness (not just physical, but mental). Training like you fight (i.e. doing tasks that you would likely do in combat) and working-in difficult tasks that challenge your mental capabilities as well, is what we need, not watered down testing that causes people to train exclusively for the test (i.e only doing ruckmarches, or pushups, or situps, or whatever the test consists of).

In case I haven't mentioned it in the last 2 minutes, and if you haven't heard of it before and are interested in actually performing at a level higher than the lowest common denominator, here you go: http://www.crossfit.com/. It will hurt, and it will suck, but it's a good type of hurt/suck!!!!!

AL

 

[missionessential]

Al, I couldn't agree more. Along with the individual testing and developing a new testing procedure for my unit, Poliquin will also be working with the members to develop training regimens to address the needs of tactical police work. Also being in the infantry, I suspect this will also have a bearing on how I train for military tasks as well.

ME