A Model of Fitness : Other Cities Study San Diego Police’s Mandatory Exercise Program

Four times a year, hundreds of San Diego police officers converge in the parking lot of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, stretch out on royal blue mats, and engage in a mass tangle of grunts and groans.

Not by choice. Since October, 1988, five years after a citizens task force recommended fitness as a way to keep police from getting shot, officers have been asked to follow a regular exercise regimen and health program.

A year later, it was made mandatory, and, for the first time, those who repeatedly failed could eventually lose their jobs.

It might seem natural for law enforcement agencies to set up fitness programs to build strength and endurance, just as they set guidelines for firearms proficiency. But the San Diego Police Department is one of the few in the state that forces officers to do routine sit-ups, pushups and running once they graduate from the academy.

Increasingly, however, as the nation becomes more health-conscious, many departments in the state are looking toward San Diego as a role model.

The Los Angeles Police Department, for example, which abandoned fitness testing in 1979, has resurrected a plan similar to San Diego’s that has been approved by the chief’s office and is to be part of labor negotiations in 1992.

For the first time, the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) has created a voluntary fitness program, with the same cardiovascular and muscular strength tests San Diego uses. Expected to be in place by early next year, the test will be the first standardized exercise exam ever available for law enforcement agencies.

Among those who have inquired about San Diego’s FIT (Fitness, Image, Training) program are police departments in Fullerton, Clovis, Menlo Park, Redlands, Long Beach, Modesto and Arroyo Grande, as well as sheriff’s departments in Los Angeles, Riverside and Contra Costa counties.

Outside the state, police in Baltimore County, Md.; Minneapolis; Springfield, Va., and Provo, Utah, have asked for details about the program.

“From our perspective, it’s for the safety of the community and the officer,” said Paul Schmidt, an exercise physiologist for the San Diego department. “The more fit they are, the better they can do the job.”

Departments with fitness programs rank in the minority. A 1985 POST study showed that 22.8% of 333 sheriff’s and police departments had a fitness program. Of the 76 agencies with programs, only 45 were mandatory. The numbers have not increased substantially since then.

The situation is changing, however.

“Law enforcement is finally identifying the fact that fitness programs do have a carry-over into job performance,” said Bob Rogers, the supervisory special agent for the FBI’s physical training unit in Quantico, Va.

“There has never been as much interest in fitness in law enforcement as there is now,” said Rogers, who has taught dozens of fitness trainers for other agencies during the past 11 years.

Police labor unions have fiercely resisted attempts to establish exercise programs, arguing that the ability to do a set number of pushups or sit-ups has little to do with everyday police work.

“I’d like to have a program,” said San Diego County Sheriff Jim Roache. “But when someone who is 5-foot-3 and 280 pounds who is a great investigator asks why it’s important that he be able to do three pushups, how do you respond?”

Unions often reject mandatory programs, fearing for their members’ job security.

“One of the reasons it’s atypical to have a program is that it becomes an issue of collective bargaining,” said John G. Berner, POST’s bureau chief in Sacramento. “If you make it a condition of employment, there’s a chance that someone might lose his job.”

That San Diego’s police chief and labor union agreed at all to a mandatory program, complete with sanctions, is surprising. But it was not without concessions.

San Diego’s police union negotiated two changes to the exercise regimen. First, officers hired before Jan. 1, 1988--while they had to undergo testing--could not have the results used against them. Second, the percentage of an officer’s body fat, once used in the overall calculations, was no longer included.

Schmidt, who administers FIT, calls the regimen a “moderate” exercise program.

For example, a male officer aged 27 to 31 must do a minimum of 43 pushups and 47 sit-ups within two minutes each. Those between 20 and 29 must also run a mile and a half in no more than 13 minutes and 24 seconds. The requirements for women are somewhat less demanding.

Younger staff members must do more, older ones less. Walking can be substituted for running.

When San Diego’s program was created in the fall of 1988, the average department score was 80 out of a possible 100 points. At that time, about 8.3%, or roughly 125, of 1,500 officers who took the test failed.

By last summer, the average score was up to 87.5 and the failures were down to 1.8%, or about 30 officers.

Each officer--other than those with medical exemptions or those on probation--takes four tests a year. The four scores must average out to at least 64 out of 100 points. If they don’t, a retest is permitted to replace the lowest score. If the average is still below 64, an officer receives a note of counseling but can still be promoted.

If the average score doesn’t reach a passing grade by the fourth retest, an officer can be recommended for firing, but Schmidt said nobody has been fired yet from the San Diego force.

“This is not a fitness-for-duty test,” he said. “This is a program to maintain health and fitness. We used to have five heart attacks a year in this department. We had none this year.”

San Diego Officer Harvey Love, who does regular weight training and takes long runs, says the program is a cinch.

For his age, 35, Love must do at least 38 pushups and 43 sit-ups in two minutes. He must also finish his 1.5-mile run in 14 minutes and 5 seconds or less. But he doesn’t even look at the passing score. His attention is focused each time on the maximum goal: 73 pushups, 78 sit-ups and breaking the mile and a half in 10 minutes or less.

“The minimum? Forget it,” he says. “You just have to be breathing to pass that. . . . And if you couldn’t do that, you shouldn’t be out there, because you’d get yourself or someone else hurt.”

San Diego police supervisors should be commended, he said, for having a program at all. For some officers, four times on the mats is the only real exercise they get all year, he said.

Equally demanding is the California Highway Patrol’s program, which offers bonuses for those who do well and job loss for those who consistently fail.

Shortly after it began testing in 1982, the CHP tried to fire three of its troopers. Two of them fought back. The rules were changed to forbid disciplinary action against employees hired before Jan. 1, 1984, who could not meet the physical rigors of the program.

A third patrolman, hired after that date, resigned before he could be fired.

The CHP’s test, one of the most demanding in the state, is administered annually and includes a bike pedaling exercise, a long jump, a side-step test, an upper-body strength test and a measure of trunk strength.

Each test simulates an actual task an officer may have to face. For example, the trunk strength and upper-body tests both measure the ability to carry a stretcher uphill.

If any part of the test is failed, it can be taken again four more times before an officer can be recommended for termination, according to Officer Susan Ward, the CHP’s physical performance coordinator.

Failing the CHP test can also cost money and job promotions. A bonus of up to $130 a month goes to those who pass the test each year.

The CHP started its program two years after it discovered that work-related disabilities increased nearly 200% between 1973 and 1980.

The Los Angeles Police Department once had a program, but budget cuts helped scuttle it more than a decade ago.

Sgt. Greg Dossey, the department’s physical fitness coordinator, has submitted a new voluntary health plan, which includes bench presses, rowing, abdominal crunches, flexing exercises and other tasks.

Although incentives are included, such as extra cash or days off, problems persist in the city budget, and it is unlikely the bonuses will remain in Dossey’s plan, which was sent to the chief’s office last year and will be submitted to the police union next year.

Agencies without programs recite a familiar refrain: Is there any correlation, they ask, between the number of pushups and sit-ups an officer can do and his or her ability to perform police duties?

“Once this gets into court, you’ll have someone say, ‘We’ve got officers who can’t run, much less walk, getting commendations and being loved by one and all,’ ” said Dossey of the LAPD. “How can you tell us our plaintiff is unfit for work when for 10 years he’s been injured less and had fewer days off than anyone?”

When POST conducted its 1985 survey to determine which departments had fitness programs, it found four benefits among the departments that had such regimens.

The Dallas Police Department found a drop in blood pressure levels among its officers and increases in muscular endurance and breathing capacity. New Orleans reported that 73% of those who participated in a weight-reduction program lost their targeted amount of weight within seven months.

After one year into a semiannual fitness program, the Ohio State Highway Patrol showed a 16% decrease in sick leave and a drop in the number of overweight officers from 29% to 2%. And the city of Glendale, Ariz., which started a voluntary health program, received a $226,000 refund from its medical insurance carrier.

San Diego’s police force boasts similar gains.

From the time the program began three years ago, the number of people in the department with hypertension fell from 16% of the force to about 11%. Those with a dangerously high level of cholesterol was cut in half, from 14% to 7%. The percentage of body fat also dropped.

Even Police Chief Bob Burgreen, 53, who has had a weight problem for years, has gone through the program and passed the test, although he opts to walk 3 miles rather than run a mile and a half.

“Last time I took the test, I got an 83,” said 220-pound Burgreen, who is up 40 pounds from several years ago. “I would like to have my weight down. If it weren’t for (the fitness program), I might not get any exercise at all.”

Police Fitness The San Diego Police Department requires its officers to meet fitness standards four times a year. The following are the minimum and maximum standards for male and female officers and the age groupings for each: Men

Pushups Sit-ups Age Minimum Minimum 17-21 47 57 22-26 45 52 27-31 43 47 32-36 38 43 37-41 37 38 42-46 31 34 47-51 27 32 52 and up 21 31

Two-minute limit for each category.

1.5-mile run 3-mile walk Age Maximum Maximum 20-29 13:24 40:48 30-39 14:05 43:00 40-49 14:46 45:18 50-59 16:05 48:18 60 and up 17:42 51:15

Running times are in minutes and seconds. Women

Pushups Sit-ups Age Minimum Minimum 17-21 23 55/90 22-26 21 50/85 27-31 19 45/80 32-36 17 40/75 37-41 16 35/70 42-46 15 32/67 47-51 12 29/64 52 and up 11 27/62

Two-minute limit category.

1.5-mile run 3-mile walk Age Maximum Maximum 20-29 17:36 42:48 30-39 18:06 45:11 40-49 18:42 47:30 50-59 19:07 50:30 60 and up 20:17 55:12

Running times in minutes and seconds.