The years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks have meant more stress for agents, more sedentary work and less time for physical fitness, which was an obsession under former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The Bureau started administering the tests at the end of last year, giving 13,500 agents until October to train and pass the test.
"The lives of your colleagues and those you protect may well depend upon your ability to run, fight and shoot, no matter what job you hold," wrote FBI director James B. Comey in an October internal memo to agents obtained by the New York Times.
"I want you to look like the squared-away object of that reverence. I want the American people to be able to take one glance at you and think, 'THERE is a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.'"So the FBI is reinstating fitness tests for agents.
— Malinda Lo (@malindalo) April 6, 2015
While agents faced mandatory fitness testing in the 1980s and 1990s, and new agents still face rigorous fitness requirements, testing for current agents ended in 1999.
Shifts in the structure of work at the Bureau after 9/11 saw fitness fall as a priority. Rather than normal schedules, some agents now tasked with a focus on terrorism end up with 20-hour work days. And a new focus on cyber surveillance and intelligence means more agents sitting at desks rather than out in the field.
The changes brought an uptick in weight gain, but also anxiety and depression.
“You could see that health and fitness was not the priority it used to be,” Zachary Lowe Jr., the chief of instruction at the FBI’s academy in Quantico, Va. where the test was created, told the Times.
Are You Fit Enough for the FBI?
The test involves performing four exercises, with a five minute break in between each: sit-ups, push-ups, a 300-meter run, and a 1.5 mile run. There are different targets for each exercise depending on the sex and age of the agent. The fitness requirements are much lower than for military personnel or other more highly physical positions in law enforcement.
— Serineh™ (@serinehmanokian) October 18, 2014
Most agents, it appears, are waiting to take the test, to give themselves time to get in shape and get the highest score they can. At the Washington field office, only 75 of 800 agents have so far taken the test.
“Most agents wouldn't be satisfied in just coming out and making the minimum, " said Jennifer Schick, the agent overseeing the Washington field office's tests. "They would be embarrassed by that, and that is why they’re waiting.”
Hoover first instituted fitness tests, and took the physical condition of his agents very seriously, after he became concerned about his own rather chubby physique. Apparently his decision to diet himself spurred him to asses the fitness of his agents and he instituted "weigh-ins" for all agents.
“All of us were overweight,” writes Cartha D. DeLoach in his book “Hoover’s F.B.I.: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant,” the Times reports. “Hoover watched the weigh-in, glowering at us in disgust.”
Hoover, however, “never got on a scale for anyone, and we noticed that he didn't seem to get any smaller around the waist either.”
