By John Morgan
Those of us in the Executive Protection industry spend a lot of time, energy and money training – and rightfully so. We live and work in a world where we can’t afford to be wrong. Therefore, repetition and training is vital to our long-term success. However, one area seems to be consistently overlooked or neglected and that is our physical fitness.
Be honest with yourself; if given the choice between trigger time at the range and busting your butt in the gym, which one are you going to choose? In no way am I suggesting that range time is unimportant. However, I want us to take a step back and put things in the proper perspective as we make decisions regarding our training regimens.
Any detail that you are on is probably going to consist of long days, spent mostly on your feet, getting in and out of vehicles, potentially walking long distances while carrying a fair amount of weight on your belt and/or back and, of course, a heightened sense of awareness which naturally increases your stress level and heart rate.
And that’s a normal, uneventful, detail. Now consider a “worse-case-scenario” where you have to spring into action, run those long distances you were originally planning on walking, man-handling your protectee into a vehicle, and even potentially engaging in close-quarter combat with an assailant.
As professionals, we have to be prepared to handle both of these scenarios…and both require a certain level of physical fitness.
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