Conflict Management | Personal Safety | Dynamis Training

A Restraint Procedure Under Scrutiny

This post is about conflict management | personal safety | dynamis training. This image was first published in an article about the types of physical restraint practices being carried out on children in schools in the USA. What it reveals is worth examining closely — because there are a large number of things in this “procedure” which are likely to fail during a floor restraint intervention.

For anyone involved in training for restraint, these failures are worth drawing out point by point:

Four Critical Failures in This Technique

Never restrain alone. If you are going to make it work solo, you will need to use a lot more force than you would in a team — and you are likely to use more force, or more risky types of force, than you would in a team scenario.
Protect the integrity of your posture. You need to keep your spine in as neutral a position as you can, so that when unpredicted forces act on it during the chaotic physical geometry of a physical intervention, it has some range of motion left to absorb that movement or pressure. Twisting your back as part of a procedure is bad practice — terrible design.
Keep your weight off them. There is a huge issue out there in the world called “restraint positional asphyxia” or “compressional asphyxia” which causes restraint-related sudden death. One of the key issues is when people lie on top of the person being restrained.

When you do floor restraint, you’ve got to keep your weight off them.

⚠️ Warning: Restraint positional asphyxia is a real and documented cause of restraint-related sudden death. Any technique that places weight on the restrained person’s torso or back is inherently dangerous. Responsible training providers must design this risk out from the start.

Conflict Management | Personal Safety | Dynamis Training: The Bottom Line

We’re not saying that the floor restraint technique won’t work — but the chances of an injury while trying it are probably unacceptably high. Responsible training providers would steer well clear of it.

More of these posts are in the pipeline — comment on our Facebook page if you have something to say!

All the best for now,

Gerard O’Dea
Director of Training, Dynamis
www.dynamis.training

💡 Key takeaway: Good restraint training isn’t about finding techniques that “work” — it’s about eliminating techniques that carry unacceptable risk. Posture, teamwork, and weight distribution are non-negotiable safety factors.

This guide on conflict management | personal safety | dynamis training is part of our ongoing work with schools and academies.

A Restraint Procedure Under Scrutiny

Four Critical Failures in This Technique

Conflict Management | Personal Safety | Dynamis Training: The Bottom Line

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