11.5 Wellness Lab: Resistance, Aerobic & Anaerobic Training

Wellness Lab: Resistance, Aerobic & Anaerobic Training

Unit IX.B — Wellness Lab (24 required hours) is tied with Report Writing and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing and D.U.I. Enforcement as the largest sub-topic allocation in the Colorado POST academic program. Twenty-four hours of supervised physical training is a deliberate statement that fitness is curriculum, not conditioning filler.

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1. The Mandated Structure

The POST curriculum sets specific requirements for how the lab runs:

  SUPERVISED by an Academy Instructor        (every session)
        ↓
  STRETCHING AND WARM-UP PHASE               (begins every session)
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  ONE-HOUR INCREMENTS, each dedicated to ONE of:
        a. RESISTANCE  — CrossFit, weight training, or swimming
        b. AEROBIC     — jogging, biking, or swimming
        c. ANAEROBIC   — sprints or interval training
        ↓
  VARIETY REQUIRED — the program may not exclude any of the three

The "not to exclude any of the before mentioned forms of fitness" language matters. An academy that runs 24 hours of distance jogging has not met the requirement, and neither has one that runs 24 hours of weight training. The requirement is deliberate breadth.

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2. What Each Modality Develops, and Why Policing Needs It

Anaerobic work deserves emphasis. Real police physical demand is almost never a steady 30-minute effort. It is a 40-second sprint, followed immediately by a 60-second maximal-effort struggle, followed by an attempt to speak clearly on the radio and make a legal decision while at maximum heart rate. Interval training is what develops the capacity to still function at the end of that sequence — and "still functioning" is exactly what the C.R.S. 18-1-707 use-of-force standards require of an officer who has just run 200 yards.

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3. Warm-Up and Stretching Protocol

Because every session begins with a stretching and warm-up phase, the sequence should be done correctly:

1. General warm-up (5–10 minutes). Light aerobic work to raise core temperature and heart rate.
2. Dynamic stretching. Leg swings, walking lunges, arm circles, hip openers, inchworms — movement through the range the session will use.
3. Movement-specific preparation. Lighter versions of the session's actual movements.
4. The session.
5. Cool-down. Gradual reduction of intensity rather than a hard stop.
6. Static stretching. Hold 20–30 seconds per position, after the work, when tissue is warm. Prioritize hip flexors, hamstrings, thoracic spine and shoulders — the areas that patrol seating and vest load shorten and stiffen.

Static stretching cold, before maximal effort, is the classic error. It temporarily reduces force production and does not prevent injury. Dynamic before, static after.

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4. Colorado's Altitude Factor

Academies across Colorado train between roughly 4,300 feet in the eastern plains and well over 9,000 feet in the mountains. At altitude, maximal aerobic capacity is reduced, heart rate at a given workload is higher, respiratory fluid loss increases, and recovery takes longer. Recruits arriving from sea level should expect a measurable performance drop for the first two to three weeks, increase fluid intake substantially, and scale intensity rather than pushing through. Altitude illness symptoms — headache, nausea, unusual shortness of breath at rest — are reported, not endured.

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5. Injury Prevention in the Lab

Recruits routinely hide injuries out of fear of failing the academy. That instinct produces the chronic conditions that end careers. Report it.

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6. Building the Post-Academy Program

Academy fitness is supervised, structured and mandatory. Nothing after graduation is any of those things, and that transition is where officers lose their conditioning. A realistic maintenance program:

The program that gets done is better than the optimal program that does not. Schedule training the way you schedule court — as a fixed appointment — and build it around the shift rotation rather than fighting it.

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7. The Connection Back to the Rest of the Curriculum

The wellness lab is not an isolated block. It is the physical substrate for the arrest control program (62 hours), the firearms program (72 hours), the rapid emergency deployment block (16 hours), and the tactical casualty care skills stations. An officer who cannot maintain a stable shooting platform after sprinting, who cannot control a resisting subject without escalating, or who cannot drag a downed partner to cover, has a training gap that no amount of classroom instruction closes.