Anyone go through one over a body weight of over 220 while reasonably lean? did you have any trouble with pullups, joint stress from running, that sort of thing?
Learn to eat lots of doughnuts and sit on your ass…
All kidding aside I went through fire academy at the start around 225 and didn’t have too many issues. Stuff was sore but by the end I had dropped close to 15#. Ibuprofen and Tylenol will be your friend.
Big guys who were in shape did not have any more injuries/pain than lighter recruits who were also in shape. Everybody made friends with Advil and ice. However, big guys that were out of shape had a much harder time than littler guys who were at a similar level of fitness.
Keep in mind ‘in shape’ needs to apply to the activities at the academy. On this board, ‘in shape’ is more likely to mean lifting heavy on the Big 3 and running sprints. In the academy, ‘in shape’ means banging out 400-600 push-ups, squat thrusts, mountain climbers plus 50-100 pull-ups every day for discipline before getting to PT, 2-3 days/week, where you are going to spend a 2-3 hours doing whatever including running 3-6 miles at a 8:30 or faster pace on the street. Make sure your body is use to the high volume of body weight exercises and running LSD on asphalt.
The training requirements of acadamies all across the nation vary from no PT at all to enough to puke in a trash barrel. Find out what the academy you want to go to expects then let us know.
I wouldn’t worry about the fitness standards at the academy. I’m not sure what it’s like in the states but here in Oz the fitness standards are a disgrace. I put it down to the fact they want a certain percentage of women in the job. If they made the minimum fitness requirements higher then this target would not be met. Call me sexist, call me whatever you want. I don’t give a fuck. I’m just telling the truth.
Anyone training, reading and asking questions on this site shouldn’t have any problems.
[quote]bundy wrote:
I wouldn’t worry about the fitness standards at the academy. I’m not sure what it’s like in the states but here in Oz the fitness standards are a disgrace. I put it down to the fact they want a certain percentage of women in the job. If they made the minimum fitness requirements higher then this target would not be met. Call me sexist, call me whatever you want. I don’t give a fuck. I’m just telling the truth.
Anyone training, reading and asking questions on this site shouldn’t have any problems.[/quote]
I just assumed there were low standards in the first place instead of having any standards lowered to meet female recruits.
They definitely dumped the standards here in most states to bump up the number of women. I graduated from the Victoria Police Academy a few years back and some of the women (and some of the blokes) in my squad were a worry to say the least. It’s just not a focus at all. In twenty weeks at the academy we did 7 PT sessions in total. We’re talking like 7 hours worth of dedicated physical training in 5 months. Pathetic.
On the bright side Victoria Police have just raised their standards a little, they’re still too low but at least they’re going the right direction now.
I’ve just gone through the selection process for WA Police as I’m planning to head over there. They have a much higher standard than Victoria, the blokes have to do a 10.1 beep test as a minimum requirement, it’s lower for the ladies but at least they have some type of decent fitness requirement.
[quote]sands wrote:
bundy wrote:
I wouldn’t worry about the fitness standards at the academy. I’m not sure what it’s like in the states but here in Oz the fitness standards are a disgrace. I put it down to the fact they want a certain percentage of women in the job. If they made the minimum fitness requirements higher then this target would not be met. Call me sexist, call me whatever you want. I don’t give a fuck. I’m just telling the truth.
Anyone training, reading and asking questions on this site shouldn’t have any problems.
I just assumed there were low standards in the first place instead of having any standards lowered to meet female recruits.[/quote]
If they made minimum requirements 10 chin ups, 50 push ups and 11 on the shuttle test then that would mean 0.0001% of women applicants would get in. Don’t get me wrong it would also cut out a large amount of the dead weight male applicants but that’s not my point. The requirements haven’t been lowered to cut out the dead weight males.
To the original poster I would follow the advice Mixicus gave you. Unless your academy requires a bench press test of some sort I would not focus on the weights. I would follow a good body-weight program, because your going to do a lot of push ups and pull ups for sure mixed in with whatever evil lower body work your instructors throw in.
My best advice to you is to get a good pair of running shoes and since your a big guy start slowly man to avoid shin splits you don’t want to be the guy in academy who can’t finish due to shin splits or knee pains for that matter.
Also when you do start running I would suggest that you AVOID the treadmill and run outside because majority of your runs will be outside unless your indoors due to weather. AND I can’t state this enough RUN HILLS, this will get you ready for academy. IMHO I would also got down to your soccer or football field and starting a sprint routine. Aim to finish a 1/4 of it going full speed and build your way up to the whole field, because you will be doing long distances runs and sprints at your academy. Good luck and let us know how you make out.