Fit to Pass. The Job Related Fitness Test. Advice on the test and training. Know what your test involves. Ensure you can pass.

Transcription

1 Fit to Pass The Job Related Fitness Test Advice on the test and training. Know what your test involves. Ensure you can pass. Improve your cardiovascular fitness. Improve your strength. 1

2 Know what your test involves. Recruits, Transferees and Student Officers. Endurance Bleep test pass mark Level 5.4 End line End line 15 meters The test involves running to and fro along a 15 metre track, arriving at each end line in time with a series of audio bleeps. At the end of each level the time interval between each bleep will decrease meaning you need to run faster to keep in time. At the start, participants will be taken through a warm up which involves running to the start of Level 3. This gives opportunity to understand the bleep system as well as warming you up. The test then starts back at Level 1. Bleep Test (Shuttle Run) Explained Required Level is 5.4 = 5 levels and 4 shuttles. Total time Distance covered Shuttles completed 3 min metres 35 seconds Levels Shuttles per level Approx seconds per shuttle

3 Improve your cardiovascular fitness. IMPORTANT: If you are not used to exercise it is advisable to get yourself checked out by your doctor before you start. Always warm up before a session and cool down afterwards! See page 6 for more information. Endurance element: Rhythmic, aerobic type exercises involving large muscle groups are recommended for improving cardiovascular fitness i.e. running, cycling, swimming, aqua-aerobics, rowing, aerobics or use of machines such as a cross-trainer. Progression depends on your health status. It may consist of increasing any or all of the following: duration, intensity or frequency of activity. Any progression should be made gradually avoiding large increases to minimise risks of muscular soreness and injury. In order to make gains your system must be overloaded i.e. work harder than normal. Guidelines: Aim for 3 to 5 cardiovascular training sessions per week of 20 to 60 minute duration working at approx 55% to 90% of your maximum heart rate. Or put another way you are working hard and feeling puffed. (To roughly calculate your maximum heart rate: 220 minus your age i.e years = 180 beats per minute maximum. 75% would therefore be 135bpm.) As your aim is to run in the test, ideally your training should include running. Don t over do it though. One run could simply be a run at your own pace that over the weeks extends in duration so you are building up stamina. Another session could push boundaries (see interval or progressive training below). Running is a high impact activity so it is important to vary sessions allowing your body time to recover. Additional sessions could be anything that raises your heart rate: cross trainer, rower, swimming, cycling etc these are all low impact. 3

4 Rest: Don t over do it! Especially if you are not used to training, but in any case, your body needs to have rest periods to enable recovery and repair. Whilst basic walking can be done every day, increased movement of joint i.e. leaving the floor and landing whilst running will increase the amount of impact on joints, supporting tissue and muscles that if not managed will lead to overtraining. A good way of managing this is to engage in different activities, all of which raise your heart rate and get you fit. If you integrate low impact activities i.e. swimming, rowing, cycling etc with high impact activities i.e. running, you can reduce the pressure on joints. Couple this with one or two rest days a week and you will allow your body to adapt to fitness without breaking yourself! Starting out: Remember, if you are unused to exercise it is always a good idea to get your doctor to check you out before starting. Always start at a lower intensity & duration to allow your body to adjust to the new demands you are placing on it. Progression: You can improve your fitness by increasing any or a combination of the below: Frequency: gradually build up the number of times you exercise a week. Intensity: gradually build up the effort you put into the activity. Slowly increase the intensity of each session i.e. the amount of work your heart and related systems has to do. A simple example would be to initially walk, then to walk with running bouts in between and eventually build up to running the whole way. Then it would be a matter of running faster each time or up hills etc to make your heart work harder. Time: Duration; gradually increase the amount of time you exercise. As you increase your fitness you will be able to exercise for longer. An initial 10 minute run could increase over time to 30 minutes or more. Type of activity: the type of activity can vary in its level of demand on the body. Walking at a brisk pace on the flat would be a low level of demand. Walking up hills would increase the demand, start running and it increases further. Likewise the demand of a strength building exercise such as a free squat could be increased by adding dumbbells and further increased by adding more movement i.e. a squat to shoulder press. 4

5 Interval training. Interval training comprises of repeated work bouts interspersed with recovery periods. The bursts of harder work allow your body to adapt in a manageable way. Example: Once warmed up, run at your normal pace for 5 minutes. Then for 30 seconds to a minute, sprint as fast as you can without stopping, slip back into your normal pace for a couple of minutes to recover. Once recovered, repeat the short sprint and recovery. Aim for 3 times initially and then increase as your fitness improves. Ensure the last five minutes are a normal running pace and then cool down including stretching of the main leg muscles to end. Interval peaks where you are training hard. Start by warming up. End by cooling down. Progressive training. Progressive training comprises of gentle increases in intensity until high intensity is reached. This mirrors the demands of the fitness test albeit without twisting and turning which if done repeatedly in training could increase risk of injury. Example: Once warmed up, run at your normal pace for 5 minutes. Then every couple of minutes increase the pace slightly. Toward the end of your workout you will be running flat out and only able to sustain the speed for a matter of seconds. At this point, reduce speed substantially but keep running until you recover. Then run at a slower pace for a further 5 minutes and cool down. Increases in speed where you work harder. Start by warming up. Your normal running speed. End by cooling down. NOTE: Both methods can be adapted to a variety of exercises or sports. 5

6 Warm up Mobilise joints by gentle flexing or rotating the joint several times in the joint s natural plane of movement. This aims to generate heat and stimulate synovial fluid release that will cushion your joints when training. Gently and gradually raise your heart rate by moving your whole body; walking, jogging or low intensity work on cardio machines. This will also increase oxygen delivery to your muscles. After this if you wish to stretch ideally utilise dynamic stretches as these prevent cooling and assist with letting the body know it is about to work. A dynamic stretch is a controlled progressive range of movement of a joint. Start with a small range of movement and build to the end of the movement range over approximately 8 times. Continue raising your heart rate with whole body movement until you reach the intensity that you wish to train at. Cool Down Reduce intensity gradually. Keep moving for a few minutes at low intensity Whilst warm conduct static stretches of all major muscle groups used. Hold still for approximately seconds. This will help prevent blood pooling in your legs and ensure your body comfortably returns to a pre exercise state. It will also help reduce delayed onset of muscle soreness. Remember the importance of rest! You must give your body sufficient time to recover. Ensure you include a couple of rest days in your training plan. Help Bleep test. Download the 15m bleep test and give it a try. Various sites offer free download. It should be available on the PoliceUK.com site. Occasionally access to the download is not possible but blogs on the site usually suggest an alternative if this happens. 6

7 Additional information: Strength is NOT tested on entry. Strength is however an integral part of your fitness and fundamental in ensuring your capability to perform roles within the police service. We have therefore included advice on how to improve your strength. Improve your strength. Aim for 2-3 strength training sessions per week of approx minutes duration. For all round strength, resistance training of each major muscle group is recommended i.e. muscle groups of the chest, shoulders, upper and lower back, abdomen, hips, legs and arms. Sessions can train all groups (whole body) or each session may split the body into selected muscle groups so that only a few are trained in any one session. Both are effective methods as long as each muscle group is trained 2-3 times per week. Rest: Give yourself at least 48hours separating the sessions that use the same muscle group. This ensures your muscles repair themselves prior to the next workout. For example: if you train pushing muscles (chest, front of shoulder and rear upper arm) on a Tuesday, don t train them again until Thursday. You could train a different muscle group within that time period i.e. pulling muscles (back, biceps and rear of the shoulder) or do cardiovascular work on the days in between. 7

8 Starting out with strength training: Higher repetitions, lighter weights: this mode improves both endurance and strength allowing your body time to adjust to your new routine safely. If you have not done any strength training recently start off with a few weeks of light work i.e. 12 to 15 repetitions with a weight that on the 12 th to 15 th repetition feels an effort to achieve. After a few weeks, once your body is used to the training, you can move on to the progression mode below. Progression: Low repetitions, heavier weights: this mode gives you the best strength increase opportunities. Complete no more than 6-8 repetitions of each exercise for three or four sets resting at least 2 minutes between each set. On the 8 th rep you should find it very hard to lift, so judge the weight accordingly. i.e. Chest press 6-8 times, rest 2 mins, repeat 6-8 times, rest 2 mins, repeat 6-8 times then move on to the next exercise. You need to rest for at least 2 minutes between work on the same muscle in order that your body can replenish the expended fuel that is specifically used with this type of short heavy work. Start with exercises that move several joints (i.e. Seated row moving the elbow and shoulder) and finish with exercises that use only one joint (i.e. Biceps curl moving just the elbow). This ensures that in a group of working muscles, you don t exhaust the supporting muscles before the main muscle has had a chance to work effectively. There are many different exercises one could use in a training program. 8

9 Example exercises: Either do a whole body approach on both days i.e. an exercise for each body part or divide it up so you are training different muscles on different days i.e. first day do Chest and triceps, second day do back and biceps. You can build your own program from the menu below or jump straight to the pre-set program on page 11. If using the menu select 2 or 3 exercises for each body part. Dividing the days up allows you to do more exercises per body part as you will have more time. Key exercises to use are in bold. Aim to do Compound exercises first (i.e. ones that move more than one joint) and end with ones where only one joint moves. Compound exercises are indicated in the menu i.e. most chest exercises are compound exercises as you move the elbow and shoulder. Body area Exercise Compound or not Chest Bench press Yes Press ups Parallel bar Dips Pec Deck Flys No Dumbbell Flys Dumbbell Pullovers Back Seated row Yes Reverse Chin ups Chin ups One arm dumbbell row Lat Pull Down Shoulders Shoulder press Dumbbell Lateral raise No Anterior raise Posterior raise Arms (Triceps) Triceps pull downs Triceps kick backs Triceps Dips Arms (Biceps) Bicep curls 9

10 Pre-set Program: Keep in this order. Ensure if you do several sets to complete the sets of the first exercise before going onto the second i.e. Chest press, rest, chest press, rest, chest press rest and then go on to seated row. Work your way down the list and end with triceps extensions. 1. Chest press 2. Seated row 3. Squats to shoulder press 4. Chest dumbbell flys 5. Single arm row 6. Press ups 7. Lat pull down 8. Alternate front shoulder raises 9. Posterior shoulder raises 10. Bicep curls 11. Triceps extensions Rest. Give yourself 2 minutes rest between exercises. Ensure that you have one full day of rest in between (you could do cardio on that day if you wished). This is to ensure that the muscle damage caused by training has sufficient time to recover, mend and make itself stronger. Warning: If you are unsure of how to create a training program or perform an exercise please ensure you seek guidance from a qualified fitness instructor. Persons who do not seek guidance exercise at their own risk. 10