Only the Strong Survive : Course Helps Police Applicants Meet Physical Fitness Standards

No one has to tell Gwen Alferes Akins how difficult it is to become a police officer.

A part-time waitress, Akins, 33, knows that she must first get accepted by the Sheriff’s Academy in Camarillo and then endure 22 weeks of physical and academic training there.

For that reason, Akins is enrolled for the second time in an 18-week course at Ventura College designed to prepare students for the physical demands made of recruits at the academy.

Akins said she used to have a membership at a gymnasium but rarely took advantage of it. Now she boasts that she can jog more than two miles in 20 minutes. “I’m now running all the time,” she said. “I never ran before.”

The class, which meets twice a week, was designed by a former Ventura police officer and is intended to address one of the main reasons why recruits fail to make it through the academy: poor physical conditioning.

Only two of every 1,000 people who apply to the academy graduate and become probationary officers, said Lt. Ken Kipp, the academy’s commander.

Most applicants are eliminated during a screening process that includes a background check, a polygraph test and a series of psychological, academic and physical tests, he said.

Once applicants are accepted by the academy, there is a 17% attrition rate, which Kipp attributes mostly to poor physical conditioning and weak academic performances.

A final physical fitness test at the academy, required by the state for police officers, requires recruits to, among other things, scale a six-foot chain-link fence, drag a 165-pound dummy for 35 yards and then sprint 440 yards on solid concrete.

Richard Goff, the professor who teaches the course at Ventura College, said he cannot guarantee that his students will pass the test. But he hopes that it will improve their chances.

“Here, we don’t talk about passing the academy,” he said. “We talk about surviving the academy.”

In the class, Goff puts his students through a tough physical fitness routine that includes long-distance jogging and weight training. Each student is required to keep a daily record of his or her progress.

“A lot of kids come to me looking physically good. But they don’t make it,” said Goff, a tall, bespectacled man. Twenty percent of his class already has dropped out since the course began last month.

On a recent visit to the class, Goff had his students jog nonstop on the college track for 30 minutes before sentencing them to 30 minutes of bench presses, pullups and arm curls in a weight training room.

Goff said that as a final test he will require his students to perform at least 10 pullups, 30 push-ups and 50 sit-ups, and to run at least three miles in 30 minutes.

“If you get a B or better, you should be able to survive our police academy,” he said.

Even Mike Marostica, a 20-year-old aerobics instructor from Ventura, found himself exhausted after the 30-minute run. “Just because I can do aerobics doesn’t mean I can do running,” he said.

For Anthony Juliano, 29, the most difficult aspect of the class is learning how to discipline himself. Before he took the course, Juliano used to eat fast food, drink beer and stay out late. Now, he said, he eats healthy food and rarely goes out on a date.

However, Goff acknowledged that many recruits forget the importance of physical conditioning after they pass the academy. Then “it’s doughnut time,” he said.

The academy does not focus entirely on physical fitness. During a 21-week stint, recruits are also trained in firearm techniques, the contents of the state penal code and self-defense.

But preparing recruits for the physical demands of being a police officer is a major part of academy training, Kipp said. The final physical test, commonly known as the Peace Officer Standards in Training exam, or POST, is mandated by the state for police officers.

“We don’t need world-class runners,” he said. “We need a person who can do the job right.”

The test, done at the academy’s training facility at Camarillo Airport, begins with a 50-yard sprint around a series of orange cones. A deputy stands nearby, noting times with a stopwatch.

The second segment requires recruits to dash 20 yards, climb over a six-foot chain-link fence and run to a finish line another 30 yards away. They repeat the exercise, with a solid wooden wall substituted for the chain-link fence.

Each recruit must then grab a 165-pound dummy that is stuffed with sand and drag it 35 yards as fast as possible. A deputy explained that the exercise is intended to demonstrate how much strength it takes to drag a wounded person out of the line of fire.

Although there is no time limit for each test, more points are given for completing the tasks as rapidly as possible.

The final part of the physical fitness examination requires recruits to sprint 440 yards on a paved street.

While female recruits may not have the upper-body strength to drag the dummy, Kipp noted that the overall score for the test is cumulative, and women can bolster their final scores during the running and climbing elements of the test.

Akins said Goff’s class has made her realize that being in shape is a vital part of being a police officer.

“This is the one thing that is going to keep you alive on the street,” she said.