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Top 5 Firefighter Fitness Excuses…debunked
Excuses are like____________ (fill in the blank). We all have them and use them… But, do you (personally) let excuses impede your fitness progress? That’s really a trick question. If we are all brutally honest with ourselves we know that excuses are inevitable and using them is going to happen. The trick however, is to not let the excuses to continue to hold us back. I’ve had the privilege to work with thousands of clients over the past 25 years and have heard every excuse on the planet on why people are not making progress. I honestly should’ve written a book about them all. Today I wanted to talk about the 5 most common excuses we all use and give some tips to OVERCOMING THEM. EXCUSE #1: I don’t have time This is probably the most common fitness excuse of them all. First off, when you say you don’t have…
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5 Reasons Every Firefighter Should do Yoga…
You may never thought the word yoga would be said in the in the same sentence with “firefighter.” If you ask someone who’s never done yoga (or any form of it) what they think it involves, the usual response is “stretching and meditation.” It’s always great fun to see someone in a yoga class for the first time who thinks it’s going to be a workout for lightweights. Fifteen minutes into it, when they haven’t left their 6′ x 2′ mat and they’re sweating like crazy, you can tell it begins to sink in that this workout could be better than they’d originally thought. The truth of the matter is yoga can be as mellow or as arduous as you make it, just like any physical practice. The beauty of yoga is that it goes beyond just the physical. For firefighters yoga can be a really great way to relieve…
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Healthy Snack Options for Firefighters, EMTs and Medics…
Calls, training, and other responsibilities can get in the way of good nutrition. Be prepared with these great snacking options. Nutrition plays a very large roll in your health and fitness. Unhealthy eating habits have contributed to the obesity epidemic in the United States and especially in the fire service. A poor diet is associated with major health risks that can cause illness and poor performance when it counts. Poor nutrition can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and numerous types of cancer. Let me repeat that…. Poor nutrition can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and numerous types of cancer. Currently, in the fire service, the number one reason we die in the line of duty is sudden cardiac arrest. Also, the number of strokes and incidences of caner are growing at alarming rates. In the fire service we are taught to risk a lot only when you can…
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Firefighter Tabata Workout Option to Improve Performance
Looking for an efficient and effective way to improve your cardio performance on (and off) the fireground? Try this FRF Firefighter Tabata Interval…
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Firefighter Fitness- Do this to take your workout to the next level.
Interval training is very applicable to what we do on the fire ground. A unique component that I’ve added to the end of my workouts is a 10-minute Interval Overhaul or “afterburner.” These interval Overhauls are a combination of exercises that challenges the total body, allows me to work on firefighter skills and simulates work on the fire ground. And they really “jack-up” my metabolism too! I challenge you to try one at the end of your next workout. Here is an example of an Overhaul I did after my strength workout the other day: I performed each exercise 3 times for 30 seconds with 30 seconds of rest. Then for the last minute I held a plank. The exercises I used were: -DB Crawling -Floor to ceiling press (try with about 25% of your bodyweight) -Medicine ball slams Then hold a plank for the last minutes. You can substitute…
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Workouts that Incorporate Fireground Movements..
FRF Afterburners are a great way to burn fat and incorporate fireground movements into traditional workouts. Give them a try!
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Exercises that Improve Firefighter Performance and Reduce Injuries…
Shoulder pain, knees ache, back hurt? These are common themes for firefighters bodies. Aches and pains are common but they don’t have to be. Here are 3 exercises that will help alleviate those aches and pains and help you perform better on (and off) the fire/rescue scene.
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How to Reduce Workout Injuries in Firefighters
Reduce injuries with these fitness tips. Some people know exactly when it happened. They may have heard a pop in their shoulder, or felt like someone slapped them hard across the back of their leg. For others, it wasn’t a sudden snap that sidelined their workouts; it was just gradual overuse that caused joints or muscles to wear down and eventually start to fail. No matter what or where it happens, firefighters are getting injured working out. If you’ve injured yourself during a weight lifting workout, you first thought it “what did I do wrong” followed by some “expletives.” There is some irony getting injured in the weight room, especially as a fire rescue athlete. After all, your working out to avoid injuries (or at least you should be). In today’s post I wanted to give you five easy ways to avoid injuries during your next workout. Please take note…
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Firefighter Fitness- 4 Reasons You are Not Seeing Results
Simple adjustments can go a long way to help your fitness progress. Its the dead of winter (at least here in the US), football season is over and spring seems so far away. This is also the excuse season, the time of the year where most people fall off the fitness wagon and start to make excuses. Its especially easy to make excuses and miss workouts if your not seeing results. So, today I wanted to give you a little guidance and motivation to help you stay on track and make some fitness progress. If you’re working out, you should be progressing. If you’re not, there’s something wrong with your program (or lack of a program). Simple. Right? What’s not so simple is understanding why you’re not progressing. Progress means so much more than extra weight on the bar, or another repetition, or a smaller waist size. Good progress means…
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