Gabrielle Fitness Helps Summit Police Officers Improve Job Performance

At the beginning of every New Year, there are always countless resolutions made by people around the country to live a healthier, fitter lifestyle.

But the Summit Police Department got a head start last October by bringing in Gabrielle Fitness & Performance to help the officers learn more about their own health and fitness so they can perform their job duties to the best of their abilities.

“Bottom line — we want to make sure our officers are in the best physical shape they can be in to serve the citizens of Summit,” Police Chief Robert Weck said. “The police department wants the police officers to be in the best shape they can for a variety of reasons. If they are ever injured on or off the job, there’s faster recovery time, less sick time, better appearance, better morale and a better group environment.”

A lot of officers come in early or stay late to work out in the department’s well-equipped fitness facility, Weck said. Many officers also participate in Tough Mutter competitions, the Police Unity Tour, Special Olympics, Polar Plunge and Plane Pull, among others. Those types of activities can and do physically support the officers, but it’s not necessarily enough to physically prepare and sustain them for their daily job duties.

During a Summit Police Officer’s shift, it could be relatively peaceful with very few calls when, suddenly, they could get multiple calls, some of which may prompt an officer to sprint after someone, sprint up the stairs to deliver oxygen in a medical emergency call, and so on, Weck explained. After an officer has been sitting for hours on end, especially in the cold weather, it could be a recipe for disaster, one that could end in injury. So, it’s important for officers to be in the best physical shape possible.

That’s where Gabrielle Fitness & Performance comes in for the Summit Police Department.

Vince Gabrielle and Tom Langton, trainers from the Berkeley Heights-based business, met with more than 20 Summit Police Officers during their two-day visit in mid-October, 2012 and assisted each officer with his or her own individual fitness training inside the department’s well-equipped fitness facility.

First, participating officers were screened for risk of physical injury using the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), Gabrielle said.

“A Movement Screen accesses mobility and stability. So it’s essentially how their body moves and everyone’s body is different, especially with the police officers,” Gabrielle explained. “A lot of them sit in a car all day and they are very tight. Their bodies might sometimes not be ready for certain exercises. So our goal was to give them the right recipe of what they should and shouldn’t do in the gym.”

Second, officers were screened for body composition and health, which was performed by Langton using the BioSignature Modulation method. That method measures the body fat percentage and hormonal profile, revealing what part of an officer’s body stores the most fat and why.

“For example, a lot of the officers, due to lack of sleep, due to a high stress job, due to family life and things like that had very high skinfold measurements in their umbilicus, their belly button, and that’s an indicator of high stress levels and high levels of the hormone, Cortisol,” Gabrielle said. “So wherever they had the highest skinfold measurements, we told them what they needed to work on to get leaner in that area. It’s almost like spot reduction.”

Gabrielle and Langston also showed officers various exercises with a foam roller to alleviate pain in troublesome areas, such as the quadriceps, knees and shoulders, among others.

“A couple of the officers came up to us today and said, ‘hey, I’ve been rolling my quads every day or I’ve been rolling my back everyday, and I feel the difference,’” Gabrielle told Patch in December.

In about six months, Gabrielle and Langton plan to return to the Summit Police Department to evaluate any officers who didn’t participate in October and to re-evaluate participating officers to see how they are each progressing.

ABOUT GABRIELE FITNESS & PERFORMANCE

Gabriele Fitness & Performance is dedicated to improving the health and fitness of adults and the development and performance of Middle School and High School students.  The main goal is to inspire people to accomplish fitness goals and results beyond what they ever thought possible. This is accomplished through unique personalized training from their certified and professional coaching staff with an emphasis on nutrition and motivational lifestyle change. GFP is conveniently located in Berkeley Heights, NJ at 20 Locust Ave - just off of Snyder Ave between Springfield and Mountain Avenues - minutes from Route 78, New Providence, Summit and Chatham. For more information, call (908) 464-4441 or visit their website at www.gabrielefitness.com. For more information about Biosignature Testing and the Functional Movement Screen, visit www.gabrielefitness.com.