A team of Cumbria officers have performed well at an inaugural national police functional fitness competition.
The team consisted of four officers who competed in a two-day tournament held in Devon earlier this month. The competition consisted of six gruelling workout events with the Cumbria team finishing seventh overall.
The Cumbria team consisted of four officers based in Carlisle, they were; PC Mark Christie, PC Stuart Hill, PC Shane Mounsey and Special Constable Emily Hodgson.
All UK police forces were invited to participate with 32 teams, including the Metropolitan Police Service, Police Service Northern Ireland, South Wales Police and Police Scotland, competing. Teams were seeded following the first day’s events with Cumbria qualifying for the advanced category with nine other teams.
PC Mark Christie said: “We train together and when hearing about the completion we decided to take part simply to have fun. We never expected to finish as high as we did and, considering some of the forces involved, we have punched above our weight.
“Cumbria are one of the teams considering bidding to host the event next year with the competition expected to grow further.
“I would like to thank the Police Federation who sponsored our trip to Devon and we have already set our sights on improving at the next competition.”
Over the past two years the Constabulary has introduced a health and wellbeing strategy to support officers and staff in looking after themselves both physically and psychologically.
Superintendent Sarah Jackson, Head of People, said: “I would like to congratulate Mark, Stuart, Shane and Emily for their amazing performance in this competition.
“They trained incredibly hard for this event and their preparation and performance was vindicated in their final position.
“We take the health and wellbeing of our staff incredibly seriously. Officers and staff work in very demanding roles, both physically and psychologically. We have schemes that support their wellbeing and events such as this can help promote healthy lifestyles throughout the organisation.
“By looking after our staff we are able to provide a better service to the public of Cumbria.”
Cumbria Police & Crime Commissioner Peter McCall said: “To have been placed so highly is a credit to the hard work and dedication of the team and I am wholeheartedly supporting them in our bid to host the event next year. Functional fitness challenges balance and co-ordination whilst simultaneously improving strength and range of motion, all exercise that improves our daily life and activities and must be a great benefit in their physical daily work.
“I am sure our success will motivate others to get involved with this style of conditioning, whether as an all-round form of fitness or even when preparing for future National Functional Fitness competitions.”
More about the team:
PC Mark Christie, aged 40, is in his 18th year of policing.
Mark performed at county level in primary and secondary school in both Athletics & Tennis. In in adult life Mark became sedentary and went from 11 stone to 16.5 stone. After suffering with depression Mark decided he needed to get fit. Mark tried normal gyms but they didn’t work. He states: “I needed encouragement, a friend dragged me along to a CrossFit starter sessions in 2012 and I have been doing it three to five times a week ever since. I love the social and group element to the sport.”
Mark is a wellbeing advocate at Cumbria Constabulary with the goal of improving overall wellbeing for staff.
He added: “Anyone who is struggling with exercise, diet, sleeping, motivation or mental health problems, if you Google functional training gyms in your area, most have a free trial. Give it a month and you will be hooked.”
PC Stuart Hill, aged 32, is in his 9th year of policing.
Stuart, who is 6ft 8, was a professional footballer with Queen of the South until the age 20 and went onto part time football with Annan Athletic until age 24. In 2015 Stuart snapped his Achilles tendon which required surgery. Stuart became relatively inactive and started CrossFit in January 2017. His starting weight was 24st but since committing to the programme and enjoying the group training he is now down under 18 stone.
Stuart said: “CrossFit is just a great way to keep fit, active and meet new people, the benefits that come with weight loss are an added bonus. I love it.”
PC Shane Mounsey, aged 24. has been a constable for two years and has been functionally training doing CrossFit for just over a year.
Shane stated: “Growing up I played various sports but took to rugby from a young age until 2016 when I gave up the sport to get settled in my policing career. I struggled finding motivation in a typical gym and took to CrossFit after noticing other colleagues at work enjoying the sport.”
SC Emily Hodgson, aged 21, has been doing CrossFit for two years since she was at University.
Emily has competed internationally on Horseback for 10 years, whilst also playing hockey and netball for local clubs.
She said: “I decided to take CrossFit up as normal gyms began to bore me, it was the same thing every time I went in and not getting the results I wanted. Since I started functional training and weightlifting I have never looked back.”
