Plymouth cop earns Top 10 slot in national officers fitness challenge

PLYMOUTH — Arthur Hoffman is passionate about fitness. So when the National Tactical Officers Association announced a nationwide physical fitness competition last spring, he decided to give it a shot.

The NTOA recently released the results in its quarterly newsletter, The Tactical Edge. Hoffman stood out among his colleagues, earning a top 10 slot.

“I’m thinking that’s because I can run and a lot of these guys can’t,” he said. “The other event that I really went with was the squats. I really popped out the squats.”

Hoffman’s outstanding achievement is even more remarkable given his age. The retired county sheriff’s deputy and auxiliary officer for the Plymouth Police Department is 78 years old. 

Up until the COVID-19 pandemic, he regularly competed in triathlons.

“They tell me I’m the oldest living cop in Ohio,” he said. 

Hoffman wasn’t sure of his exact score, but the newsletter states that 180 contestants earned scores of 50 or more (considered “the gold standard”) and the top 21 operators achieved more than 100 points.

The top scorer, Jason Payne of the Westchester County Department of Public Safety, earned the highest score at 150 total points.

Hoffman has been in law enforcement for about 50 years, but began his career in the military.

After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Air Force and spent four years at a base in Glasgow, Montana — a desolate environment with bitterly cold winters. 

“The climate was brutal,” he recalled. “We think of Montana as Yellowstone park or something like that. The further north you go, the less there is.”

He was stationed with the 13th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, where officers were charged with watching the skies to intercept any Russian bombers soaring towards Alaska.

“There was some sightings, but from my memory never any combat contact,” he said.

After his time in the Air Force, Hoffman began working full-time at Shelby Insurance Company and training to become a police officer. He trained with the Mansfield Police Department, where he stayed for about a year before transferring to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.

Hoffman went into law enforcement for reasons he believes are fairly common. He was a young man wanting action, but also to make a difference and serve the community.

“I’d like to think that most of us have a keen sense of justice,” he said. “My favorite part of the job is knowing you have sincerely helped someone. It’s a good feeling.”

He spent his first few years in the metro narcotics unit, the predecessor of the Metrich Enforcement Unit, but spent most of his 38 years with the sheriff’s department as a road deputy.

“The drugs were as prominent then as they are now, maybe more so. . . that was the psychedelic generation,” he recalled. “We were a very active sheriff’s office under Tom Weikle. At one time we had 48 cars.”

For the last five years, Hoffman has served as an officer with the Plymouth Police Department. These days he serves on an as-needed basis, but he’s still required to meet all the same fitness standards and training as full-time officers.

But Hoffman far surpasses standards. Earning a top spot in the NTOA’s PFQ Challenge was no small feat.

The contest included running a quarter mile with a 25 pound weight in each hand and running a half mile in full gear and a respirator. Contestants were also asked to complete as many burpees and squat thrusts as possible in a given time frame. The final challenge was achieving as many pull-ups as possible. 

Each officer had to do the tasks consecutively with at least one other person who could vouch for their scores.

Hoffman did 22 pull-ups for the NTOA challenge. He noted that a young marine should be able to do 35, but most grown men can’t do ten “straight, clean” pull-ups.

Hoffman couldn’t recall his other stats — probably because he doesn’t care much about the figures. 

“Numbers don’t mean anything. Results do,” he said.

What matters in Hoffman’s view is overall fitness — which includes multiple components like flexibility, balance, muscle and cardiovascular strength, agility and endurance.

“Some of the crowd I hang with, the gym folks will say, ‘Well I do 87,000 whatever a week,'” he said. “That’s fine that you do that. But are you fit?”

“Are all NFL players fit? No,” he added.

Hoffman focuses on a well-rounded exercise routine. He runs to get his heart pumping, but also makes time for calisthenics, weight-based training and stretching.

“Nothing new here. Fads come and go,” he said “The basics are still there and they still work.”

Hoffman has also trained other aspiring tactical officers to take their fitness exam or simply improve themselves. He estimated that he’s helped train hundreds of people over the years, from police and firefighters to Navy SEAL divers and Marines.

He believes that even though much of police work is collecting and inputting data, every first responder will eventually find themselves in a situation that demands strength and swiftness.

“Even as an EMT, they’ll get people on a high and they’ll have to wrestle with them and get them on that cot and get them in,” he said. “It becomes physical, so you have to become physically like an athlete.”

“There is a correlation between your fitness level and your ability to recover from trauma and injury,” he added. “That’s why I teach and preach it.”