Physical fitness test for women at Toronto Police College

To encourage more women to consider policing as a career option, Toronto Police Service held a six-week Physical Fitness Training program at the Toronto Police College.

“It has been a great success and they have all shown great progress,” said Constable Cedron Deane who is a Recruiter in the Talent Acquisition Unit.

A total of 13 women attended the last session at the Toronto Police College.

“Our intention with this program was to help build the physical resiliency and fitness of the females who participated by doing an assortment of workouts along with sprints and body weight exercises that could be completed at home,” said Nicholas Witczak, one of the Physical Fitness Coordinators for the Service. “We wanted to instill really good habits for making sure when we are not around, they are able to work on their physical fitness, keep up the progress they have made and go further with that. In this job, physical fitness is a requirement for a good reason.”

Constable Jennifer Fox said fitness was a challenge when she joined the Service 15 years ago.

“It took many months to get to where I wanted to be and I wish something like this existed back then,” she said. “I have watched many women who took part in this program drastically improve their skills and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive in terms of how successful this was in building their confidence.”

Kara said she joined the program to improve her fitness.

“Before coming in, I struggled to get to Level 7 on the Shuttle Run,” she pointed out. “This program has allowed me to do that and go beyond.”

The next program will be held in either March or April.