One of our most common questions we get asked is whether you can improve your overall Victoria Police applicant score if you can do better on the Fitness Test. Watch the video to see what Russ has to say about this subject.
In this video:
00:19 Fitness test as pass or fail arrangement
00:30 No extra points for scoring well above the minimum standard
00:45 Meeting the standards comfortably and making a good impression
01:28 Losing your position as a recruit in the academy
01:32 Building a big buffer zone
01:45 Importance of a buffer zone
02:02 Being confident about your fitness
02:29 Reduced fitness levels
02:43 Importance of maintaining a reasonable fitness standard
Russell Kempster here with a Victoria Police fitness news update
Does your police fitness test score impact your overall application score?
Since the last video, we’ve had some emails from people wondering whether or not they could impact on their final score as a Victoria Police applicant by doing well at the fitness test.
The fitness test you will do as a police applicant is a pass or fail arrangement and you must meet the minimum standards to pass. If you don’t, you will fail, it’s really as simple as that. Now, scoring well above the minimum standard does not earn you any extra points because the fitness test is not based on a point scoring system. It’s based on a pass or fail minimum standard system.
What sort of impression will you make at your test?
However, you will make a good impression if you can comfortably meet those minimum standards. You won’t get the opportunity to show them that you can do 500 push-ups because when you meet the minimum standards, you’ll move on to the next test, but you will make a good impression if you meet those minimum standards comfortably. At the same time, if you are not meeting them comfortably and you are huffing and puffing like a choo-choo train and then collapse that’s not going to make a good impression at all. But nevertheless, you will still pass the fitness test.
Build a buffer zone for when you get to the Police Academy
When you go off to do your academy training as a recruit, you will still be required to pass those standards. If you fail to meet those standards, ultimately, you can lose your position as a recruit at the police academy. So what you need to make sure that you’re doing is to build up a nice big buffer zone between those minimum standards that are required and the standards that you can actually achieve.
If you’ve ever been to any of our fitness training sessions, you’ll know that we bang on about the importance of that buffer zone. There is a number of reasons to that. Obviously, the first is that it makes a good impression. Second, when you are doing your academy training, you won’t have to be stressing about the fitness test along with everything else. You can be confident about your fitness and you can worry about more exams, firearms training, defensive tactics, all of these other things that you need to be meeting standards on as well. So just one less thing to worry about.
Don’t stop your training, especially if you have passed everything and in the candidate pool
Another thing, if you are fit and well conditioned, you are going to cope with the physical aspect of the training as a recruit far easier than you would if you weren’t in good condition. So if you find yourself in this situation where are you are currently on the order of merit, you’ve passed everything. There’s a reasonable chance, if you haven’t kept up your fitness training, that your fitness has dropped. Of course if you go into the academy then with that reduced fitness level, that is going to place you under more pressure when you start training.
Just be mindful about maintaining a reasonable fitness standard so you won’t have any issues when you get to the academy. Okay guys, that’s enough for now. Get stuck into things and I look forward to chatting with you again in the next video.
