How long is the fight you train for? Conditioning question

[Joseph Svinth]

Washington State Patrol has a detachment in the building in which I work. Decades ago, WSP dropped the minimum height requirement from 6 feet to allow the WSP to recruit more women, but as a group, they still look fit and healthy. My guess is that WSP achieves this via a body fat test. Maintaining the percent body fat level WSP requires means most people are going to need to run, bicycle, or swim on a regular basis. http://www.wsp.wa.gov/employment/fitness_test.htm

[TonyU]

And dude, aren't you an administrator now?

Sadly, yes. Now, not only I have recently inherited the responsibility of "range master" for the department, they also want me to be the "training coordinator or liaison."

I think one of the problems with blowing many of the young ones doors off now is that, sadly, they are not taking the physical aspect of the job seriously enough. They are already having problems finding recruits fit enough for police and military - and that is before they even get on the job, and with embarassingly low PT standards to get in.

You just hit the nail on the head. Our local academy director has been lobbying the sate for years to have a standard. Unfortunately, it's been struck down. On top of that the constant litigation because of recruit failures has really lowered the pool of candidates.
It's gotten so bad that we're looked at as knuckle draggers, nut cases, and myriad of other descriptors.