The role of functional movement testing in tactical professions
Hussien Jabai, MS, CSCS, TSAC-F, CPT

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With unique job descriptions and occupational status, physical preparedness and evaluation of such should be designed around the analysis of the workforce. Exercise testing and prescription should be a foundation to any physical preparedness agenda within a recruit academy or agency wellness unit.

Physical Preparedness

Physical preparedness of personnel can be explained as the overall evaluation of a workforce and their physiological status regarding meeting the demands of current or upcoming occupational demands. Creating a “physical preparedness” program involves understanding the movement and bioenergetic demands of the workforce. Additionally, you must be familiar with the injuries and illnesses that the workforce is susceptible to (both for the general population and for occupation-specific risks). In conjunction with the job-specific analysis, you must consider where personnel are within the timeline of their career. Are they a recruit? Are they new hires? Are they administration or pushing for a specialty team? Do they have one year of experience or 20 years? Understanding previous history and long-term goals of the workforce will give you a better understanding of how to navigate their current situation or mitigate future bumps and bruises.

Physical preparedness can be evaluated by various testing or monitoring methods. Very common methods include movement screening and physical ability testing. These methods can be administered to evaluate the efficacy of a physical training program, the impacts of operations or occupational training, deployment readiness, or the trending status of the workforce over time. All testing methods can be meaningful, but it will take a combined effort of leadership and instructor engagement to understand and determine the viability of specific testing methods for the organization’s agenda.

Movement Screening and Functional Testing

Movement screening is a component of fitness testing that observes the biomechanics unique to movement patterns performed by the individual. This form of screening is vital for understanding mobility and stability deficiencies of the workforce, analyzing:

  1. Areas to target during mobility regimens
  2. Risk of injury when job tasks have potential range-of-motion demands
  3. Risk of injury is associated with performing specific physical training exercises.

When creating the movement screening battery, instructors should consider unique job tasks during the selection of movement screening protocols. To create an efficient battery, the instructor must understand factors such as movement patterns associated with the job, load carriage movement restrictions, over-reliance on certain limbs/joints during job tasks, asymmetries developed due to habitual tasks, and common musculoskeletal injuries experienced within the profession. Movement screenings can be done at a local (individual joint) or global (compound movement) level.

  • Local screenings tell us the flexibility of a single targeted joint
  • Global screenings tell us the mobility status of joint-coupling, involving multiple joints to complete a specific task.

Both local and global movement screenings have a time and place for implementation.

As a peer fitness trainer or physical fitness support team working with incumbent personnel, your workforce will be performing job tasks, whether you deem them to have the mobility or not. In most cases, your primary role is to aid the personnel in reducing the risk of injury as one maintains deployable status. (Note – athletic trainers or rehabilitation specialists may aid in an expanded or different role when working with designated “light-duty” personnel.)

Movement screenings can be leveraged as both a teaching tool and a prescriptive variable. As a teaching tool, mobility screenings should be informed by the purpose, evaluation, and indicated level of risk explored by the tests. The workforce should be educated on why mobility is important, how it is utilized during in-field duties, how compromised mobility hurts performance (and health), and how mobility can degrade over time without proactive measures.

As a prescriptive variable, mobility deficiencies should be considered within training programming and exercise selection. Modification or regression should be included to accommodate for restrictions in motion, range-of-motion limitations, and joint health. Mobility can be gained through flexibility and mobility tasks or acquired through specific strength training with exercise selection that challenges the mobility of targeted joints.

Physical Ability Testing

Physical ability testing should be comprised of a fitness testing battery pertaining to the health- and skill-related attributes observed during occupational tasks. The testing battery can also involve job-simulation testing, such as a course reflecting the capabilities of job-task performance. Although having a higher level of face validity, job-simulation testing should be accompanied by fitness attribute testing (such as muscular power, strength, agility, and aerobic testing) for deeper investigation of physiological status.

While the physical ability course tells individual personnel (and instructors) the performance level of the individual as it pertains to performing various job tasks consecutively, individual fitness tests can define the attributes that may contribute the most to improvements or regressions of course performance.

Exploring Example Programs in Law Enforcement

The East Texas A&M University Law Enforcement Training Academy has integrated a physical ability course for job-simulation testing, accompanied by mapped out fitness tests to segment which areas of performance the recruits are improving or regressing in.

The physical ability course involves various tasks performed by law enforcement, such as going over and under objects, sprinting, crawling, serpentine around cones, recall of license plates, victim rescue, and pushing an object. [Note: Other programs may include handcuff skills and mock-firearm trigger pulls.]

The course is administered periodically throughout the basic peace officer course (BPOC) to project performance improvements and periodic goal setting for recruits. The test focuses primarily on anaerobic performance, as such displayed during immediate emergency action during critical calls by patrol officers.

The physical fitness tests pertaining to individual fitness attributes administered throughout the academy course involve the following:

  • Power: Broad Jump and Medicine Ball – Overhead Throw; Vertical Jump (Force Plates)
  • Strength & Endurance: Push Ups, Horizontal Rows, Pull Ups, Mid-Thigh Pull
  • Anaerobic Capacity: 300-yard shuttle
  • Aerobic Fitness: 2,000m Row Test

Test Selection

Depending on factors such as time restrictions, staff number and qualifications, and equipment access, your testing battery can be as simple or as robust as you see fit. The issue can potentially turn into what you will or won’t do with that data. If you are limited on time, your organization must establish the critical physical attributes that allow personnel to be the most successful at performing job duties. Going back to the job analysis, which fitness attributes, movement patterns, and energy systems are vital for in-field operational tasks? Once these are established, you can then start building your assessment selections.

Your assessments may also be limited to the type of equipment (or budget) that you have access to. Low-tech options may not be the most innovative, but high-tech options usually come with a large price tag, periodic subscription fees, and professional development to operate and analyze. Test administrators should, at minimum, be qualified in areas to utilize low-tech “in-field” methods, while being open to learning advances in technology integration for fitness testing.

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Once you have clearly defined what you are looking for and the associated protocol for the specific assessments, you will then place your assessments into a full “testing battery.” Your testing battery sequence should ideally be structured in the following format:

  1. Anthropometrics (and vitals) at the beginning
  2. Flexibility/Mobility Screening (local or global)
  3. Power testing (non-fatigue)
  4. Agility Testing
  5. Muscular Strength (& Power as needed)
  6. Muscular Endurance
  7. Anaerobic Capacity
  8. Aerobic Capacity at the end

Physical preparedness assessments could include components from each (or a few) of the above fitness testing categories, as attributes are deemed relevant to job tasks by the organization. Note: Additional factors involve identifying the body segments that require those attributes (such as lower body power versus upper body muscular endurance). These considerations will allow fitness instructors to determine preferred assessments to measure established targets.

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Adjusting to Reality

As an instructor or entity performing physical fitness testing, one must understand the obstacles to testing a workforce that might have active duties or curricular energy demands. To efficiently assess the status of or physiological adaptations acquired from physical preparation training, test administrators should consider the following:

  • Address the testing schedule based on operational tempo
  • Allow for accumulated strain (fatigue) to dissipate before testing (as best as possible)
  • Adjust the testing schedule based on curriculum adjustments or delivery throughout the academy setting
  • Provide testing periodically to assess adaptations

From Test Results to Actionable Direction

Physical fitness testing should be observed with multiple perspectives in mind – Where are you at? Where are you going? How far do you need to get there? And is it possible within a given timeframe?

Physical fitness testing should provide you, the instructor, with whether your intervention (programming and/or delivery mechanism) is working and by how much. As an instructor, you should always reflect on areas you did well, areas that could be improved, and other interventions that could aid the overall impact of a physical preparation program. Consider other areas of program development, such as nutritional factors, stress management, cognitive/mental resilience, and levels of equipment or facility access.

In an academy, there could also be dialogue between instructors and leadership to make possible (and logical) accommodations for curriculum delivery as it impacts the physical training program. Most of the time, the curriculum will be delivered as is, and the physical training program becomes secondary. But in some cases, with leadership buy-in and involvement, you may be able to impact the schedule of certain curriculum topics that would positively influence both sides of the house. The instructor would need to have a clear understanding of the curriculum and inner workings within the academy.