When facing threats of violence and terrorism, law enforcement officers are often critical first responders. The ability of these officers to be alert, physically ready, and mentally prepared to handle the hazardous situations that are a regular part of the profession is essential to their agencies and the communities they protect. Fit for Duty, Third Edition With Online Video, provides practical information on creating and implementing physical fitness and wellness programs to help law enforcement officers fulfill their demanding job requirements.
Authors Robert Hoffman and Thomas R. Collingwood offer a comprehensive resource with job-specific training and strategies supported by more than 60 years of experience helping law enforcement officers achieve physical fitness and lead healthier lives. Now fully updated with current statistics, anecdotes, and research from agencies across North America, Fit for Duty, Third Edition, contains the following:
- Expanded content on physical readiness that provides guidelines and helps readers understand how their fitness affects their ability to perform
- A new chapter on nontraditional training that provides instruction on incorporating stability and medicine ball exercises, circuit training, plyometrics, Pilates, and yoga into exercise routines
- Accompanying online video that demonstrates 40 test protocols and exercises, showing officers how to properly perform the recommended activities
- Reproducible checklists and forms that make instruction easy and allow officers to incorporate fitness into daily routines
- An image bank that contains all the forms, figures, tables, and technique photos from the book
Fit for Duty, Third Edition, is divided into four progressive sections. The text starts with big-picture information on fitness assessment, beginning with the general fitness levels of the entire nation and then focusing on how fit law enforcement officers compare to the general population. Part II explains the importance of physical fitness and how to train in each of those specific areas to increase cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, explosive strength, flexibility, agility, speed, and anaerobic power. Part III focuses on lifestyle components of fitness, including diet and nutrition, weight management, stress management, smoking cessation, and the prevention of substance abuse. Part IV ties together all information from the previous sections into achievable plans and goals. It also explains how to avoid common hurdles and pitfalls of adopting lifestyle changes so that officers will have positive results. Throughout the text, exercise drills are featured in a numbered, step-by-step format so that people of all fitness levels can easily follow them.
With this text, law enforcement instructors and administrators can establish complete and customized fitness programs that prepare current and future officers in every branch of service. Individual officers will receive the tools they need to improve their fitness levels, which will help them in many situations they might encounter.
About the Author: Robert Hoffman, MS, retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1991. During his 22 years in the military, Hoffman completed assignments around the world. He commanded a brigade headquarters company in Germany, a ranger company in Vietnam, and a Special Forces SCUBA detachment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He also commanded the 4th Ranger Training Battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia, where in addition to working with rangers, Hoffman trained U.S. drug enforcement agents who were being deployed in South America.
Hoffman spent three years as the director of training for the Army's Soldier Physical Fitness School and helped to develop the Army's Total Fitness program. He also spent four years as a professor in the department of physical education at West Point. While there, he was an assistant cross country and track coach and a junior varsity basketball coach.
Hoffman was certified as a fitness instructor by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and as a master fitness trainer by the U.S. Army. He received a master's degree in physical education from Indiana University and was a member of the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers. Hoffman was also the author of Running Together: The Family Book of Jogging, and he helped write the army's Physical Fitness Training field manual.
Hoffman passed away in July 2016.
Thomas R. Collingwood, PhD, has been involved in implementing law enforcement programs for 40 years. He developed and directed the continuing education division of the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, where he created the institute's police instructor course that has trained more than 10,000 police fitness coordinators. He also designed the FitForce national law enforcement fitness program. Collingwood has worked with more than 200 law enforcement agencies worldwide to design fitness programs and has conducted validation studies to define job-related fitness standards for 100 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. He is the author of 10 books and more than 100 publications in the field.
Collingwood was a military policeman with the U.S. Army, a police psychologist with the Dallas Police Department, and a training director for the Kentucky Department of Justice. He has served as the national fitness director for the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers and as a special advisor on law enforcement fitness to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). He also was an advisor for the redesign of the U.S. Army's Physical Readiness program.
Collingwood holds a master's degree in exercise science from the University of Kentucky and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Buffalo, and he is a certified health and fitness director with the American College of Sports Medicine. The IACP, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service, and U.S. Secret Service have all recognized Collingwood for his work in the field of law enforcement fitness. He was the recipient of the Healthy American Fitness Leaders award presented by the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the National Jaycees.
Collingwood resides with his wife, Gretchen, in Richardson, Texas.
