Physical Fitness & Survival Motor Skills

How important is physical fitness to officer survival? The correlation seems obvious to most. Officers are expected to arrest and detain combative subjects, pursue violators on foot, withstand long assignments in extreme conditions, and manage vast numbers of other situations that require muscular strength and endurance. It is equally important to note that officers need motor skills to perform many of the above tasks, especially those that involve physical confrontations and use of force situations, including deadly force.  Motor skills are typically divided into 3 categories - Gross, Fine, and Complex.

Gross Motor Skills
The movement and action of large and/or major muscle groups. They are also referred to as strength events employing symmetrical movements. Gross motor skills are also considered cognitively simple and require very little decision making. Survival gross motor skills are typically push and pull type movements that include strikes with arms, legs and batons.

Fine Motor Skills
Skills that use small muscle mass groups such as hands and fingers and frequently involve hand-eye coordination. Fine motor skills require more cognitive processing and include handcuffing, baton strikes, and precision shooting with a firearm.

Complex Motor Skills
Movements that involve a series of muscle groups requiring eye-hand coordination, precision, tracking and timing. Survival complex motor skills use more cognitive processing than fine or gross skills and include the Weaver shooting stance (because of its asymmetrical movement) or take-downs using multiple independent components.

When the human body experiences or perceives stress, adrenal hormone production increases along with individual heart rates. High and moderate levels of stress appear to interfere with muscular control and decision making. Research shows that fine and complex motor skills perform best during low levels of stress.

Physical Stress & Motor Skill Performance

As stress levels increase, cognitive processing tends to deteriorate. This becomes critical during survival and subject control applications. Defensive maneuvers that require more fine and complex skills also command higher levels of cognitive ability. As stress and blood pressure levels rise, so will tactical reaction times for fine and complex motor skills. For example, do you recall a time when you were physically tired from exertion and then attempted to sign your name on a piece of paper or handcuff an arrestee? Did your hands shake? The increased stress levels in your body from physical exertion effect your motor skill abilities.

Escalating heart rates can have a dramatic impact on motor skills. Studies have found that fine motor skills (precision and accuracy) deteriorate at 115 beats per minute (BPM). The average person’s heart rate can easily surpass 115 BPM after a few seconds of moderate exertion. Complex motor skills deteriorate and the visual system begins to narrow at 145 BPM. A heart rate of 145 BPM can be reached in as few as 20 seconds - even for athletic individuals. When the heart rate exceeds 175 BPM, hearing and vision (peripheral & depth) becomes impaired.

Physically fit (with emphasis on aerobic fitness) officers cope with dramatic increases in heart rates due to stress or physical exertion more efficiently. Heart rates stabilize and decrease faster which aids in the reacquisition of fine and complex motor skills much sooner than those officers who are not in good physical shape. Obviously, officers should incorporate cardiovascular training into exercise routines. Refer to the Strategies to Improve Cardiovascular Endurance article for ways to improve cardiovascular fitness levels.

References:  Siddle, Bruce K. " The Impact of the Sympathetic Nervous System on Use of Force Investigations." PPCT Management Systems Inc., 1999.

If you have questions or comments regarding this column, or if you would like to see any physical fitness, wellness, or nutrition issue addressed, please contact me by telephone at (910) 525-4151 ext. 262, or by email.