If you call the police because somebody is breaking into your house or attacking you, it’s reasonable to expect the attending officers to be fit enough to give chase so they can quickly and safely catch the perpetrator. Sending overweight or sluggish officers incapable of performing this very basic policing function would not only be failing the public but failing those officers too.
What Is the Police Fitness Test – and What Does It Actually Measure?
To ensure that officers have a sufficient level of fitness to help the public in their moments of need, a “Job Related Fitness Test” exists for those joining and serving. Initially it involved both a bleep test and a push-pull strength test. Now it’s just a bleep test which involves running back and forth between two lines, fifteen metres apart, so as to reach the line before each bleep. As the test progresses, the interval between the bleeps gets shorter thus requiring greater speed. The pass level is 5.4 which equates to running around 525 metres in three minutes thirty-five seconds reaching a top speed of 10 kmh. This tests stamina rather than strength or speed alone which, whilst important, does not reflect day to day officer activity.
Why One Standard Doesn’t Fit Every Police Role
All officers must reach the same standard, be they recruits or serving. There are no age or gender adjustments. For older and less able people, it’s not necessarily easy but is achievable with a reasonable level of fitness. I have taken this test and it requires a moderate effort over a relatively short period of time. However, some officers, through no fault of their own, lack the physical ability to achieve this level and some roles do not require it.
Policing takes many forms including frontline response, neighbourhood policing, detective and intelligence roles and more specialist functions including public order and firearms. Each role requires vastly different skills, experience and fitness levels. For example, it’s rare for a homicide detective to chase a fugitive down the street and if I found myself doing that in my last police job, something would have gone seriously wrong.
Because officers hold a warrant card and the Office of Constable, there is always the potential they might have to burst into a sprint or restrain a violent person but that is a daily requirement for few. Those in less dynamic roles tend to be more experienced thus older. Some carry work related injuries from years gone by.
Years of Reviews, Still No Change: What’s Going On?
The quality and suitability of the fitness test has been under review since 2020 when a College of Policing and National Police Chiefs Council found no evidence it accurately reflected the physical requirements for personal safety training, as it was designed to. A further review found that as safety training had become longer but of lower intensity, the fitness test minimum standards should be lowered. Another review recommended that the current 5.4 level should apply only to recruits and serving officers should be expected to achieve level 3. Chief constables rejected that but commissioned yet more research into the issue.
Last week it was reported that had now concluded and Chief Constables are to review it next year. Why it must wait so long is unclear but I share the hope of others including staff associations and the Disability Police Association that any recommendations are more nuanced and reflective of roles, age, gender and ability rather than a one size fits all. Surely after so many years of cogitation there will be a change from what one Police Federation official describes as an “annual oxygen intake test” to something that promotes overall health and wellbeing while ensuring officers are being measured on what they can physically achieve and the reality of their role.
Time for a Fitness Test That Reflects Real Police Work
No one wants to see morbidly obese police officers in any role and, with the warrant card comes certain powers and expectations, so an appropriate degree of fitness is necessary but for those in less street-based roles, surely this does not have to be at exactly the same levels as their colleagues who might be young enough to be their children.
The police service is a broad and diverse organisation and the requirements and thus the ability to perform each role of varies, so let the fitness test reflect that rather than be just a glorified hundred-yard dash.
I originally wrote this for my weekly column in The Argus, published on Monday, 30 March 2026.
