My name is Taylor Day and I am a senior at George Mason University, majoring in Athletic training. One day, one of my professors in my program came in
and spoke about an opportunity to do research this summer on police and
firefighters in Prince William County. To this day, that’s all I remembered before I knew I would apply.
Eventually, I learned that I would be doing research working with a team in order to conduct a descriptive, cross-sectional analysis of health-related quality
of life (QoL), movement capabilities and fitness levels of police and firefighters in Prince William county. This opportunity, I felt was huge and paralleled right into my field of study and my future career goals. Additionally, I
knew that this was a unique and interesting population to work with, knowing that there was
little information and previous knowledge on firefighters and police.
In this program, we meet once a week as a whole to discuss protocols, duties, weekly assignments, and
scheduling. Throughout the week, we fitness test police and firefighters by appointment and
then work on fitness reports and exercises programs catering to the police and firefighters
needs and goals physically. The fitness report is a form that exemplifies the subject’s movement capabilities, scores them on the fitness test, and gives recommendations on what should be the focus based on
their performance during testing. The exercise program is a six-week program focusing on six weeks of strength exercises, corrective exercises, and six weeks of conditioning.
This project really taught me a lot and
really broadened my horizon on health and fitness
promotion as a whole. Furthermore, it provided me opportunities to learn new things outside of my realm of
athletic training and practice skills outside of the classroom. My research definitely
has an impact on not only me but the community.
