[Closed] How fit do you need to be to do your job? Actually fitness tested!

I'm a cop and have to do a yearly fitness test aimed at all operational staff, followed later in the year by an enhanced test for my particular role. In all honesty the basic test which consists of a bleep test is too easy and I can see it being tightened up in the coming years. The enhanced test is part of a two day course that I have to re-classify in every year and is only knackering because of the kit worn whilst doing it.

You've got to be reasonably fit to do mine. Not athletic or anything, just decent stamina and a bit of manual handling getting in and out of venues and that. Not a lot of older folks doing it (my boss is in his 60s but he's fitter than me, he's a full on gym psycho).

But there's no fitness test or owt, you'd just soon discover you can't actually do the job.

We have 15 minute stand-ups most days. Sometimes you have to stand-up for the whole entire thing #yesreally!

The coffee machine is also nearly 20 paces from some desks.

9.10 on the bleep test will buy you 6 months currency in our place. The higher you go, the less frequently you'll be required to run the test.

Had one of our apprentices from another plant working with me a couple weeks ago. He is a pretty fit young rower/sculler. "My" plant has a lot of stairways, his is on the flat. We use lots of biggish spanners, mostly 22mm, 27mm and 32mm. We do a fair amount of vertical ladder climbing and heavier lifting than he is used to. By the end of the first week he admitted to being knackered and amazed at my fitness being 61!!!!! 😆
We do have occ health on site who do various health checks. I have a lung function test in a couple of weeks. As an asthmatic from birth the only thing this shows any weakness in is the oxygenation part of the readout, 75% last time 😕 Everything else is over 100% :-). Doing the beep test is optional, I pass easily.

I need to make it from my bed to my desk, roughly 10 metres.

long as I can make it round to the sweety machine, it's all good! 😆

No actual phys tests but you'd need to be reasonably fit to pass the 3 yearly reassessment.
Actually working, well hauling kit & ropes around, plus the actual jobs we do often being quite physical does keep me fit. Spent a summer a couple of years ago aid climbimg around the roof of a swimming pool painting it, we measured 40deg plus in the roof space quite regularly. Came off that job the fittest and leanest I've been for years. Didn't keep it up mind you...
(Rope access technician).

Builder level fitness. It's elite shit that only those in the know know how to reach. It involves tea that's all I can say...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

Work in IT....

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

At work theres been a bit of a crackdown by the hse for fitness to pass our yearly medicals. I found out that I've got to be a higher fitness level than a fireman! I'm not a fireman

Snap !

I'm a lawyer. I usually outperform the fitness requirements of my job by a wide margin.

🙂

strange mix of sitting on my arse in an office of car and then running about like a maniac for days and hauling SCBA through confined spaces, climbing stacks, mauling tonnes of kit about an so on. the last confined space and rescue course I was offered a job with the instructors as I was happy to dive back in and go again when most folks were sitting in a sweaty puddle on the floor. Not too bad for a 40 something mostly desk based geezer these days

For my main, day, job, not very at all. In fact, given that I work in the technical side of IT, I'd say that being fit is almost a rarity.

For my other job, the weekend one, I need to pass a basic fitness test every six months and one if/when I mobilise. To be honest, that's not so difficult and I'm stunned that people are able to fail.

fireman. fitness test (chester step test) which is a bit of a joke really, anyone can pass it. youd be more likely to lose your job on capability grounds than actually fail the fitness test.

No fitness requirement here.

I spend all day sitting at my desk, replying to email or working on spreadsheets or presentations, or wandering around the office to attend a meeting or make a coffee.

I avoid the escalator and run up the stairs in an attempt to keep some activity in my day 😛

I work in healthcare...you'd be amazed at all the overweight/ill folk that work in the industry...

No formal requirement (finance/asset mgmt). However firness helps a lot with early starts, long days, stress and agressive travel schedule. A decent portion of the office work out/cycle/play reguoar sports. A subset are the psychotic overachiever that have to be "best best" at everything. Was certainly easier when I was in my 20's

Saddened that I can no longer pass the fitness test required, let alone the enhanced one I used to sail through. When I joined there was a pretty stringent test that was replaced by a ridiculously low bleep test requirement. Despite that I had a girl on the team who couldn't pass it without a colleague running alongside her screaming at her to make an effort.

Now there's an annual requirement, but I don't know of anybody who has failed it. When my osteoarthritis got so bad I couldn't get through the day in my current role, and was injured in a cycling accident so badly that I can't have the hip replacements I need to regain my fitness, I've had to throw the towel in.

I just have to be able to stay awake, that's a bit of a challenge today as i'm working from my parents house and the chair in the home office is really rather comfortable.

Biglee, HSE as in the health and safety executive, or some internal department? What is the role?

I generally find my outside of work fitness activities impact my work, I'm often too tired at work to fully concentrate!

It's a legal requirement in Luxembourg that you're certified fit to do your job so every time you start a new one you have to go for a test at a government doctor. An hour of queueing to have your blood pressure taken, be asked to read the top 3 lines of an eye test (fun in a foreign language) and asked half a dozen questions. For driving licenses you also need to be fit; a friend of mine was asked to jump up and down for 10 seconds for theirs.

My job is 95% office based - with the occasional site visit thrown in.
In short - as long as I can stagger up the one flight of stairs to the kitchen - it's all good.

Poly, yep, Health and safety ex. Job= Diver 😀

Are we talking about athletic fitness or fit for purpose? Some folks round here don't qualify under either criteria.

chester step test we use. Rumours are the older end will be weeded out for new blood, no concession for age or sex.

a friend of mine was asked to jump up and down for 10 seconds for theirs.

Are you deemed unfit if you carry on moving for 10 seconds after stopping?

I'm an IT bod which requires little fitness apart from being able to lift the odd box, server or obscenely large bacon baguette, but I'm also a retained firefighter and so have to pass the 3 same 3-yearly medical and intermediate on-station assessments as the wholetime crews. Target is 42 V02 max on the treadmill test.

I passed fine last time (in August), but the somewhat ironic fact is that I was much fitter before I signed up with the fire service as I had loads more time at evenings and weekends to ride my bike and do other exercise.

Poly, yep, Health and safety ex. Job= Diver

My export job involves two-week business trips to Africa, which are intense and exhausting as we have to try to get as many countries and customer visits done as possible in 10 working days. There can often be 10 to 12 different flights involved along with all the stress and hassle. On top of that you seldom sleep well and are often up late entertaining customers and agents, then getting up at stupid times to catch onward flights and then go straight from airport to office. On top of that you've usually got a tummy problem. The only saving grace is that the worst time change I have to cope with is 3 hours when I go to East Africa.

I'm certain that I couldn't do these trips if I wasn't as fit as I am and moving over to road cycling six years ago has taken my fitness to a much higher level.

nickc - Member
I work in healthcare...you'd be amazed at all the overweight/ill folk that work in the industry...

I'm not, my Grandfather has had a few short spells in hospital recently, I'd say well over half of the hospital staff I've seen when I've been visiting him have been overweight, a lot excessively so. I won't go into the difficulties that arise from staff with strong foreign accents talking quietly into the 'worse' ear of a very deaf 97 year old farmer, whose hearing aids haven't been put in.

Near enough bails but the water isn't as clear 😀

I often have to walk over to Greggs.

Day in the tractor just requires plenty of cake and big shoulders to run the winch.
Pulling the cable out needs plenty of agility and stamina.
Felling is a full work out if you are going at a productive rate or in amongst the big stuff.

Not tested, but you won't last long if you aren't fit. Most trainees don't last 2 days, let alone the week and they tend to be fairly active outdoor people.

Also work in IT Industry, we never had any fitness requirement (and frankly it shows) until we all got Fitbits, now you need to maintain 10k steps a day or face ridicule.

I work in Hospitality so trying to keep my liver fit is my main concern...

Lots of HCA's n nurses smoke ,they are just totally knacked out after running after absconding clients n need extra fag break.

I just sit back n smile while i eat my bacon buttie n mug of tea with full fat milk.

While they have their vegan salad n soya milk or lesbian tea's.

Quite often have to pull >500kg of wood burners up a slope with a pallet truck, can be pretty testing when the ground is icy.