Indiana SWAT Challenge

This week is the 9th annual 3-day Indiana SWAT Challenge.

The local FIAT SWAT Taskforce (comprised of police officers from DuPage, Will, and Cook County Illinois departments) will be sending a squad of 6 officers down to Muncie for the competition this year. The Delaware Co (IN) Sheriff's Office is the host agency for the ISOA....and we expect another great event, as always.

This competition has proven itself as a great test of technical abilities and FITNESS....but not fitness in the sense of endurance athletes. Instead, these courses are short and intense!! Most events last under 5 minutes. They require speed, agility, coordination, running under load, flexibility, and accuracy....which are some of those much-neglected DynaMax "10 components of fitness." Much like real police SWAT missions, success in this competition does not require endurance, but rather serious abilities in short-duration high-intensity struggles.

I was recently contacted by a sergeant friend from the Indiana State Police Emergency Response Team (ISP ERT). His team and ours have always been very competitive yet supportive of each other. He wanted to let me know that most of his ERT has been CrossFitting. Well..... most of our 6 officers on the competition squad have been CFting as well....so there! (We love trash-talking.)

Some of you might recall my personal tale of embarrassment that this same competition gifted me a handful of years ago in my CrossFit Journal article SWAT Shapes Up. (If you're not a CFJ subscriber, I can get you a free copy if you email me. Also this free ITOA News article was the precursor to the CFJ article.)

FIAT...Let's get some!