Introduction. Police officers in the process of apprehending offenders have to use physical force. The law obliges to take into account the nature and degree of danger of the offender's actions. Nevertheless, at present, the issue of permissible physical impact is insignificantly considered in the literature, while police officers are subject to disciplinary or criminal liability depending on the severity of the consequences. The question arises: how to teach police officers the lawful use of physical force in the conditions of initial training at universities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Methods. Analysis and synthesis were used as the main methods of research for solving the set question, which allowed, on the basis of legal norms, to develop methodological recommendations and exercises for working out the lawful use of physical force and pain techniques. Results. Based on the model of lawful use of physical force developed by S.V. Kuznetsov and A.N. Volkov, we propose exercises to teach the process of detention. This process is divided into stages of interaction between the police officer and the offender: the stage of identification of signs of an offence (crime), the stage of verbal communication, the stage of coercion, the stage of forced use of physical force and pain techniques, the stage of restriction of mobility. The stage of forced use of physical force and pain techniques provides for different strength of resistance of the offender: ‘Ignore’, ‘Lazy offender’, ‘Energetic offender’, ‘Offensive offender’, ‘Aggressive offender’, ‘Dangerous offender’. Depending on the strength of the resistance, the officer uses permissible physical force or physical force with painful techniques.