Just. Don't. Suck (Part 1)

I lived my passion and mentor many cool young ones. But it is not always fun. It is a job. Not all kids are willing participants and the parents. I had some I know better then you kids and it is a job you just can’t turn them around.

I loved it. I was ready for something new but I was also the boss which is added stress.

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In the past I used to hear Urban Legends of young guys being taught to box or play basketball by police officers. Is there some way you could do like summer community outreach workout program for the youth? Of is that something you could do through your church? Could you use your wife’s education connections to somehow make it seem legit?

You genuinely sound like you want to become a PE teacher. Why not go back to school?

Do you WANT to do 20 years in the PD? Also, even if you did, and were eligible for retirement, would you actually retire at 50? That’s super young. If you had your degree you could teach well beyond 50.

Im all for you riding out your time as a cop, you just don’t sound very excited about it. Maybe I’m wrong.

@FlatsFarmer that’s also a phenomenal idea.

My heart says I want to teach and help people with health and fitness. I’d also like to teach people about managing their money. It’s not that hard, but many seem to fail (especially cops). I’m not really too biased about which group I help. I feel like I have to make a decision between going back to school to almost guarantee that I get to do that versus staying where I’m at and trying to build something from scratch. The problem with building is all of the people up the chain of command that have to approve it.

It’s definitely an old thing that’s not doable today. Our staffing hasn’t changed in decades but the 911 call load has skyrocketed. I hear stories of officers having to ride together because we had more people than cars. They’d just go around hunting people with warrants or patrolling high crime areas and stopping everyone they could to deter and catch criminals in the act. Now we’re lucky to have 2/3 of the cars full of people and there isn’t a lot of time to self initiate work. As a patrol officer my number one job is to respond to 911 calls.

And the current climate of policing is a bit discouraging. All over the country we see officers getting charged or jammed up for stopping a minority for a minor violation and then it escalating. Officers lose their jobs and get arrested/charged as criminals for doing what used to be regular police work. It has us all thinking about what we do. The nitty gritty self initiated work might cost you your job now. Is it worth it?

We also have a separate group of officers called Community Policing Officers. They get take home cars and cush schedules. Their job is to go to schools, community meetings and events, etc. They would be the ones in position to head up a program like what you mentioned.

A few years ago I worked with a high school basketball team where my wife works. It was all on my own time. I was there four days a week after school (2 of my days off and 2 days before my shift started). I did it for seven weeks and they paid me $500. I used the money to reimburse myself for getting my certifications back. It cost me $120 for my membership and $340 to take the exam again (I’d let my certs expire because I wasn’t using them).

Anything work related is always stopped because of staffing. To give you some perspective, our city is split into four “Bureaus”. Three of them have 10 beats and mine has 9. In a perfect world we’d have 9 officers on every shift–one for each beat, right? Today is a good day; we have 10 on 1st shift. 2nd has four or five.

Last Saturday my shift had seven and 2nd shift had three. We should have 18 officers on the streets but we had 10. We send two officers to every call so we could only cover five at a time (or less if one required more people).

Every supervisor is scratching and clawing for personnel. That’s the first and biggest hurdle I have to overcome.

Right now I’m trying to get approval to send out a survey to the entire department. It’s a simple cardiovascular risk assessment. I know people are in poor health but I would love to get concrete numbers as leverage. I’ve found research that estimates an on duty heart attack can cost a department $450-700,000. Surely they’d want to spend a little now to avoid that later, right?

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I know that as a Marine, when I saw other out of shape service members, it was hard to comprehend. Not a little extra fat - OBESE. Didn’t happen as often in the Marines, since you were put in a conditioning platoon and given a finite amount of time to reach weight or tape (happened a lot to more muscular guys since BMI is the stupidest health indicator ever), but it was everywhere. I think the same thing when I see out of shape cops. I think of a police officer as one of the most important jobs there is - first line of defense, quick decision making, all while protecting yourself and others. Not to mention, if you’re unable to catch a suspect due to being out of shape, what’s to stop someone from using a firearm in lieu of apprehension? Regular conditioning and checkups need to be a requirement…proactive, not reactive.

I admire your dedication to improve the quality of police officers’ lives, and also hear and respect your concerns with the criticism you all deal with on a daily basis.

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Remember that PE is a lot more than that, when I was in HS we went to the gym once a year. Of course the teacher would go with each group but that’s still not too much.

Is it possible for you to begin a “club” for young guys and girls where they can learn the correct lifting techniques and train as a group?

My old school has ads about those nowadays, and it’s not even organized by teachers.

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Thanks! And you are correct. I have a co-worker who lost 50 lbs in the past year so he can have a partial knee replacement. He lost the 50 pretty easily. All he did was track his food; he never worked out once. He reached his goal, and plateaued. Big surprise. He dropped from the 360’s to the 310’s. This past weekend he volunteered to sit at the coroner’s office with our fallen officer because his knee hurt. He was doing all kinds of yard work on his days off but was unable to come to work and do his actual job. It’s irritating.

I couldn’t catch a clone of myself once I put on my gear. We’re already losing the race when it comes to a foot pursuit due to our uniform. I weighed 264+ lbs last week in uniform (I was at the hospital and got curious). Older and fatter officers don’t even try to chase people. They just call it out on the radio. That’s not always the worst thing to do; smart work beats hard work.

My wife teaches PE here. They have eight classes spread over two days (block scheduling). She has a plan period each day so she only teaches three classes a day. Out of those six classes, two are weight lifting, one is aquatics (she can certify life guards), and the others are the more traditional PE classes.

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I missed this post yesterday. I don’t want to be on patrol forever. I think we all signed up to at least chase bad guys part of the time. The reality is that we usually show up after they’re gone. I write the case and go to the next call.

Here’s an example from today.

Lady calls in and says her boyfriend punched her in the face. I show up and he’s gone but can’t be far. I write the case and issue a “pickup” for his arrest. That’s similar to a warrant but hasn’t been signed by a judge yet. Eventually it will turn into a warrant but officers can arrest him based off my pickup until that happens.

We do this constantly. There’s not much time or resources to go hunt for people.

In addition to those calls we also respond to:
-Suicidal people (usually called in by their friends who received a whiny text)
-Welfare checks when grandma won’t answer the door or when “My ex has our kids and they didn’t call me at 7 like they usually do and I want you to go check on them”. But they wait til 1am to call it in.
-Man down calls–always a homeless person taking a nap.
-Disturbance where adolescent kid is out of control at home.
-Hang up calls where people call the police just to get their house guest to leave and then they’re mad at us for showing up at their house.

The majority of the rest are reports, accidents, and legitimate crimes.

It gets old.

I’d like to get on one of our specialty units where I’ll get to hunt down violent criminals and conduct follow up on violent crimes. I’m just waiting my turn.

If I can build a wellness program and get in a position where I can teach and train officers then I’ll stay for 30 years.

Being a first year teacher at the age of 40 is definitely an uncomfortable concept right now…so is going back to school.

I’m not going to do anything to negatively affect my family so I’m going to stay put until my son grows up and starts school. The way we have it set up now he’ll get to stay home with me Mon-Wed and only go to daycare twice a week.

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5.4.18

Woke at 238.6 lbs.

Work was fairly busy today, but it made the day go by fast.


Guaranteed Simple Strength & Size W7 D1 (triples!)

WARM UP
2 lap dynamic warm up on track

SQUAT
45 x 10
135 x 5
185 x 5
225 x 3
255 x 2
285 x 3 x 3 sets
superset first three sets with
JUMP SQUATS
BW x 5 x 3 sets (belt on last two sets)

POWER CLEAN
205 x 2 x 2 sets
220 x 3 x 4 sets

DEADLIFT
315 x 3
385 x 3 x 3 sets (belt and straps)

WALKING DB LUNGE
65s x 3 ea x 3 sets

FARMERS WALK (trap bar + straps)
335 x 25 m x 3 sets

CONDITIONING
Easy (but uncomfortable) jog for 1 mile. Took 9:45 so I was successful at the nice and easy part.

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5.5.18

Woke at 236.2/4 lbs. I don’t remember which one.

I’m supposed to do my upper body workout today but I’m going to do it tomorrow. It worked out for me last week. I’m only working a half day tomorrow so I can go to lunch with my mom for her birthday. I’ll take the kids to the Y in the afternoon so my wife can have some quiet time to get ready for her work week.

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Sounds like a nice relaxing family day! Enjoy. I’m about to hit some DL then head up to the equipment store to look for a set of bands and maybe a kettle ball (35-50lbs). May hit the hardware store and get some chains cut. Have a great day bud!

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Do you have knee or elbow sleeves? If so, any recommendations?

Rocktape 7mm is what I use on my knees

And shtick (sp ?) 5mm elbow sleeves.

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How do they feel? What are the benefits? I’m mostly concerned about knees for now. Mine are a bit cranky on this comeback.

The benefit I get from them is super warm joints. My knees will be so warm they will sweat. Warm joints for an older lifter means better blood flow. My son who has a bad knee uses them too. He loves his. He used to have some knee pain and since the knee sleeves he has no knee pain.

I think they provide some support, which is why I went heavy (7mm). They might provide some pop but I haven’t been able to squat enough near a max lift to realize any benefit… they just feel good.

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Tommy kono knee sleeves ftw
I need to buy a new pair. They are the truth.
Unlike other knee sleeves, the stitching isn’t on the sides so it won’t tear away. They are snug but don’t give too much rebound so you’re still doing the work
Downside is you’ll get real sweaty in them and get dark black droplets running down your calves

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Knee sleeves are great. I have some rehband 5 mm ones. Had them for 2 years, wouldn’t do legs without them. Lasted well, but will probably upgrade to a new pair soon.

Also considering elbow sleeves. Anyone can tell me if they are beneficial as the knee sleeves?

tweet

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I use these too.
They haven’t added anything to my squats but help keep joints warm and give a bit of stability.
Can help reduce warm up time/keep knees warm if your joints tend to get cranky.

Same idea as the knee sleeves, I’ve got a pair of rehband 5mm I use for and pressing and rowing.
It seems to have stopped any development of tennis elbow since I’ve owned them.
Admittedly though I ramp straight up to my working weight, there’s no real warm up/mobility work and normally my joints cooling down inbetween sets is when my problems start.

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What size? I just measured and my knee is 17". By Rocktape’s chart 14.5" and up needs an XL.

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I’ve got the xl size. Our knee is about the same size.