Note
The following is an excerpt from my new book “Beat the Beep Test” which will be available in November 2009
Part 1 – Getting ready
If you are reading this book then chances are that you fall into one of two groups.
The first group are people who have applied to join or are thinking of joining the police, military or another similar organisation and who have just come across references to the beep test in the application pack.
If you are in this group and have never run a beep test in your life don’t worry, this book will guide you through the process from the first workout where you lace up your shoes to the day when you fly through the test and impress the recruiters with your superior fitness.
The second group are people who have perhaps had experience with the beep test but who want to improve their fitness and their results in order to join a special unit or because you’ve let your fitness slip (hey it happens to the best of us) and need to get back to a certain level for a yearly fitness test.
If this is you then I still recommend that you read the whole book as you may pick up some valuable tips in the early sections. You may however be able to skip the introductory programs and get stuck straight into the intermediate and advanced programs.
Ok so let’s look at a few preliminary issues before we get into the programs
Fitness Testing vs Fitness
Believe it or not being fit and being good at passing fitness tests are not the same thing!
While fitness tests obviously measure some specific aspect of fitness they don’t tell the whole story. This is particularly true in complex physical jobs like police and military work. The guy who can run 3 minute kilometres is definitely aerobically fit but if he weighs 50kg and can’t pick up his backpack without being crushed like a bug then he’s going to be a useless soldier.
Preparing specifically for a fitness test is sometimes missing the point that after the test you’ll actually have to do a job that’s radically different from what was tested.
Another thing that many people don’t realise is that fitness tests are a skill and that like any skill you can get better at doing the test even if physiologically your fitness hasn’t improved. If you need to pass a test then you can use this to your advantage (something we’ll talk about extensively in this book) but don’t be fooled into thinking that improved scores are always a result of improved fitness.
Ideally you should be aiming to develop a high level of real world, job specific fitness so that you can pass a fitness test (beep test or anything else) at any time without notice. Specific test preparation should be used to polish your performance and ensure a comfortable buffer for test day.
In writing the programs I’ve aimed to both improve your fitness and provide specific test preparation.
Job specific fitness
Consider for a moment the following pairs of scenarios each testing one or more aspects of fitness and see if you can figure out which situation in each pair you are more likely to encounter as a police officer, emergency services worker or soldier.
Aerobic fitness
Scenario 1 – Dressed in shorts, running shoes and t shirt, run 2.4km in a straight line along a perfectly smooth, flat road.
Scenario 2 – Wearing boots, long pants and carrying 10 – 15 kg of belt kit including water, weapons and tools, sprint 400 – 800m over varied terrain.
Anaerobic fitness
Scenario 1 – Dressed in your PT gear, complete a progressive warm up before doing a short hard run on a flat surface in a temperature controlled gym.
Scenario 2 – After 2 weeks of minimal sleep, in freezing cold or desert heat, while wearing 10kg of body armour and 15kg of weapons and other equipment perform multiple 10 – 20m sprints over rough urban terrain while someone tries to kill you.
Upper body strength
Scenario 1 – Perform one set of pushups until you can’t do any more.
Scenario 2 – Tackle and then restrain a series of violent offenders during a brawl some of whom outweigh you by 20+ kilos
What is the beep test?
The beep test is a multi stage running test performed as a series of 20m runs with a turn at each end.
Running pace during the test is controlled by a series of beeps each indicating the completion of one 20m shuttle. The aim is to reach the opposite end of the course at or before the next beep. Failure to reach the end in time results in elimination from the test and the number of beeps completed gives the score.
The beeps start out relatively far apart and the time gap decreases each minute. The first 4 levels are a built in warm up and from there the test gets progressively harder.
What’s being measured
I like to think of the beep test as three fitness tests in one.
In stage one the beep test is a test of aerobic capacity. This is the longest phase of the overall test and if your aerobic fitness is good enough you should be able to pass the test without dipping into the next two stages.
In stage two the beep test becomes a test of anaerobic lactate tolerance. During this stage of the test (which may last several shuttles or even a whole level) you’ve gone past your bodies ability to process oxygen and you are living on borrowed time! Continuing through this point relies on a certain tolerance for discomfort.
In the final stage of the beep test you’ve basically overdrawn your bodies aerobic and anaerobic reserves and you are in what’s called the Alactic zone. This section of the test is only going to last 2-4 shuttles but you may need to dip into this zone to eek out the final shuttle or two to pass. At this point you’ll be in severe discomfort but the good news is that the test will soon be over.
The beep test is fundamentally a test of your aerobic fitness. This is your bodies ability to draw in air, extract the oxygen and then distribute this oxygen to working muscle cells so that the oxygen can be used to oxidise (burn) fats and carbohydrates to sustain muscular contraction over a moderate to long period of time.
The aerobic energy pathway kicks in when exercise lasts for longer than about 90 seconds and is increasingly the dominant energy pathway as exercise duration increases from a few minutes up to several hours.
There are several things that can limit your aerobic fitness but the good news is that through training you can reduce those limitations and improve your ability to maintain a given level of work output.
Briefly, here are some of the key limiters of aerobic fitness.
- Lung capacity and efficiency – bigger lungs can process more air and through training it is possible to improve both your lung capacity and the efficiency of your lungs. Stronger muscles around the lungs can draw more air into the lungs and this improves performance too.
- Blood physiology – The only thing that can carry oxygen around the body are red blood cells and the proportion of your blood which is made up of red blood cells varies from person to person. This level, known as Hematocrit can make a huge difference to aerobic capacity. Aerobic training increases hematocrit and makes it easier to get oxygen to the working muscles.
- Muscle structure – Muscle contractile fibres cannot themselves oxidise nutrients from food to produce energy for muscular contraction. The production of energy for muscular contraction by aerobic metabolism actually happens in areas within the muscle right next door to the contractile fibres. These microscopic powerhouses are called mitochondria. Training increases the number of mitochondria in the muscle which means nutrients and oxygen can be oxidised at a greater rate, supplying the working muscles with more energy and allowing them to work harder for longer before exhaustion sets in
Anaerobic lactate tolerance
If at any time the workload you are asking your body to perform outstrips your capacity to provide the working muscles with oxygen then you will go into oxygen debt. At this point you have a limited amount of time that you will be able to continue working at this elevated rate.
During anaerobic metabolism the body breaks down sugars to provide working muscles with the energy to contract however without enough oxygen the sugar can’t be completely metabolised and the process is quite inefficient. The lactate that builds up in the muscle can be used for energy once the workload drops and oxygen becomes available but during the latter stages of the beep test you won’t have to worry about this until it’s all over.
Once lactate starts to build up muscle acidity goes up and eventually interferes with the chemical process that allow a muscle to contract. When this happens exhaustion sets in and you will be forced to stop.
The beep test as a fitness test
The beep test was designed as an easily administered field test for aerobic / anaerobic fitness and as such it does a fairly good job of assessing your overall level of conditioning.
However as discussed it’s not a great measure of job specific fitness for a lot of situations.
At the end of the day the fact remains that a large number of organisations use the beep test and if you want to be a police officer or soldier chances are you’ll need to pass the beep test at some stage.
The problem of over-specific preparation
A lot of people when faced with fitness tests for police and military jobs become extremely blinkered and end up doing way too much specific preparation for the tests while failing to develop the overall fitness required for the job.
They also get fixated on achieving the minimum numbers required for the test without realising that simply passing the tests with the minimum numbers is going to and them in a world of hurt when they enter training and find themselves struggling at the back of the group during PT.
Too much specific preparation can also lead to overuse injuries and muscle imbalances which will cause issues further down the track.
Remember your focus should always be on becoming as fit as possible and then simply polishing up your “test fitness” to ensure an above average or outstanding result on test day.
“Beat the Beep Test” Contains 9 separate 8 week programs divided into three levels to allow anyone from complete beginner to advanced athlete to improve their beep test score!
Available in Hard copy and E-Book from November 2009.
Enquiries fitness@octogen.com.au