Fitness is essential to specialist police forces, who have higher occupational demands than general police, and vital to performance and mission success. However, little research has been done profiling the metabolic fitness of these units and how they compare to other populations. The objective of this study was to profile the aerobic fitness of a specialist police unit.
Body weight was measured to account for any impact on metabolic fitness, while VO2 max was estimated via number of shuttles completed on the 20 m Progressive Shuttle Run Test (PSRT) (n=47) on two dates one calendar year apart.
There were no significant (p=.116) differences (mean difference 0.40±1.70 kg) in body weight between the initial measures (mean=88.84±8.25 kg) and the final measure (mean=89.24±8.77 kg) 13 months later. PSRT results increased significantly (p<.005) between the initial (mean=72.62±11.76 shuttles) and final assessments (77.51±11.46 shuttles), with a mean increase of 4.89 (± 2.94) shuttles and a small effect size (d=0.42). The mean VO2 max of the specialist police unit was 51.06±3.61 ml/min/kg following the first assessment, and 52.56±3.46 ml/min/kg following the second assessment. This was a significant finding (p<.001), with a mean difference of 1.19±1.27 ml/min/kg and a small effect size (d=0.23).
Elite police forces have a higher metabolic fitness than the general population and general duties police officers. Having and maintaining this fitness level is imperative for their operational success and preventing injuries. This research suggests that despite the challenges posed by operational requirements, high fitness standards can not only be maintained, but also improved.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 July 2020.
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#2
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Altmetric has tracked 23,105,443 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 69th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 568 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its peers.
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