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C-dub wrote:

Deltaboy wrote:McDonalds and Wendys offer Salads for the past 3-5 years. I pay their paychecks and insurance so I want them in good shape. 30 push ups, 30 situps, 30 jumping jacks, 40 yard dash under 30 seconds and the 100 under a minute plus a 8 min mile. Tested every 90 days.

I know they are at 3 times the divorce rate and other family issues. We need to give them more off time.

We might need to adjust those times a little. I could walk the 40 and 100 well under those times, but don't know if I could do an 8 minute any more. When I was running a couple years ago I think the best I got down to was about 9 minutes. That's twice what I ran in high school.

There's room for older officers on the force. Their wisdom and experience make up for the step or two they might lost over the years. We need them to be healthy and in shape - not necessarily college athletes for their entire career.

Another creative solution beyond paying for workout time or penalizing out-of-shape officers is to simply provide a financial incentive. . . e.g. 5-10% annual bonus for hitting certain fitness targets or body-shape characteristics. Even if it's just a few hundred bucks in a stipend, it would motivate a lot of officers to stay on a program of their own. It doesn't have to be a punitive solution.

Keith B wrote:In the defense of the officers, I will say that they have a mainly sedentary job riding around in a car. The are subjected to fast food stops and many times don't have time to get a more healthy meal. The cities don't always have a gym or exercise location for them, and don't allow them time for PT during working hours, so they end up putting on weight. It is a very common scenario. However, there is a point when a person (officer or not) needs to look at their overall well-being and take steps to preserve it. I am not talking about having the physique of a Marine, but at least not be overly obese.

The SS teacher I was talking about gave his force a few hours a week to workout on the clock before their shifts. The city manager agreed it was a worthy expenditure.

Officers have to re-qualify on firearms, take classes on the law / tactics / safety. . . all of that is on the clock. If a city can't afford its own gym, it should consider the cost of subsidizing private gym memberships for officers.

Some cities will always be too small to afford these costs, but all employers benefit from healthier employees. Productivity goes up, morale goes up, sick days and absenteeism go down, and long term health care costs can be significantly lower.

knotquiteawake wrote:

RHenriksen wrote:WHY, o why, are police not required to maintain an adequate level of physical fitness?

I was wondering the same thing. Couldn't you write into policy an ability to maintain a minimum level of physical fitness in order to be cleared for field duty?

Some do. . . growing up, my Sunday School teacher was the chief of police in Bedford. He put his officers on a fitness program with minimum requirements and yearly testing. I'd imagine some bigger cities will get flack from the officer associations for setting too high of a standard.

My BIL is an officer and takes a lot of pride in maintaining excellent physical conditioning. He's complained before about some of the officers letting themselves go to an extreme and having to rely on them to have his back in a pinch.

There's a decent fitness test to enter most departments. . . it seems reasonable to assume that 1) there's a reason for that fitness test and 2) there's a real benefit to having officers maintain it through their career.