On Duty Physcial Fitness Training, Good or Bad??

Hello Folks, This is the start of my new blog, Fire Fit brought to you by 1st Due Fit. This blog I'm going to cover everything from physical fitness, to nutrition , to station life, to living the dream of being a firefighter!

Physical Fitness On-Duty: Good ? Bad? How much should you do while on duty? How hard should you push yourself ? What does your department expect from you as far as P.T goes while on duty? Does you department have a Physical Fitness S.O.P or S.O.G? Does it tell you what you allowed to do while on duty? All good questions right?

Well I will just speak on "MY" look at this topic and some may agree where some will not. I have to look at this topic from two different stances due to the fact that some folks may not be in the physical condition to do much as it is, unless push themselves to the point of exhaustion where they will be pointless the rest of the shift.  Then you have the folks that do physical fitness training on and off duty without anyone or any policy or procedure telling them to do so. 

I am a true believer in, YOU have to be ready for anything at anytime! As a full time firefighter or volley your physical fitness and conditioning should be at a top level rating! You should work and train as a professional athlete. Think about it, going from dead asleep at 3 am to wide open pulling hose lines or throwing ladders and working at a high rate of intensity in a matter of seconds. Yes we need to have the tools to do the job that is asked of us from a medical call to a car accident to a working house fire. But your department can give you all the latest and greatest tools out on the market today, if the main tool (YOU),  is not ready to work at anytime how good are you? If you cant get the job done due to the fact that you are not physically fit enough to perform what is asked of you or better yet what is NEEDED from someone that NEEDS our help at that time? Is it the rest of your crews fault? Is it the chiefs fault? WHO is to blame? I will cover both ends of this topic now. I know both sides due to the fact that I have been on both ends of the spectrum of being overweight and lazy full of excuses to now being fit and love to physically train myself to be the best at what I can offer on or off the job. I know its not easy to turn the leaf over and CHANGE your life and make the changes to become a more fit person, but at some point YOU have to do it!

SO being overweight and or just not into physical fitness at all . Where do you start while on duty? How hard should you push yourself? Does your department have an outline as to what physical fitness training you should be doing? 
1. START!
That was hard, just do something ! If its a brisk walk its more then you where doing before! 
2. Do it every shift!
If you do it everyday at work and make it part of your workday you will see how much you with progress with it!
3. PUSH YOURSELF!!!!!
No one, no chief, no trainer, no coach, NO one knows your body and what you can do but yourself! Again push yourself. Don't Kill yourself but don't cheat yourself! 

So with No real prior Physical Fitness training start with those three above. Find something that is going to get your heart rate up and make you move. Do some body weight exercises, push ups, sit ups, air squats, jump jacks, jogging etc.. Don't go into this thinking that you will see great changes in your on scene fitness levels or your everyday fitness levels. But this is a great start for someone that doesn't do much or anything at all. If you get this going and follow the three steps above you will start to think about moving this to your off days also. By doing this when someone is not telling you that you have to makes it more beneficial and you will put more into it! 

When doing physical fitness training on duty as a "newbie". Make sure you get a good sweat on, but don't kill yourself. Just do enough to make a change in your body and still have enough in the tank in case you are called to do YOUR job that requires you to be ready and fit to get it done.

For the "Seasoned" folks that have or are in a routine or a program whatever it maybe stick with it! Some folks that have there own routines tend to baulk at the idea of a policy or procedure telling them how to train when they have been doing physical fitness training on there own for some time now and long before the department jumped on board. Trust me I know first hand .. Just go with it, give suggestions help others that are not used to doing physical fitness training. Be open to different ideas from others that have been training and the ideas that are come up with to do as company training. When you get the whole crew involved it really helps the folks that are not really into the fitness swing become more interested and it pushes them more. It will also help them to know that "YOU" are willing to help and work with them and not look down on them for not knowing what to do. We are firefighters, we help people! So lets get together and help our own!

No matter what kind of physical fitness training you do, strength training, cross fit, long distance runner, cycling, or just going to the local gym and throwing some weights around. Help out others that don't to make your department a more healthy and fit department. 

I will say that at my department we have a good push with our Physical fitness program and we have a lot of guys that are coming up with weekly workouts as individuals and as teams. It has helped folks that wouldn't do anything get out there and are getting involved.

In closing if you are a " newbie" or "seasoned" don't push yourself with your daily physical fitness training while on shift to the point that you cant go if the tones drop during or right after your training session... And make sure you will be able to do what is asked/expected of you! Be smart! Be Safe!

Next post I will go over some basic nutritional input to help with losing weight, maintaining a good healthy lifestyle, and what and how much you should be eating and when! Until then take everything you do to the next level!

#getsome
Jay