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Firefighter Bodyweight Workout to Boost Metabolism and Performance
Total Body “Progressive” Bodyweight Challenge Workout. I get a lot of requests for example workouts from the various Fire Rescue Fitness Programs. This is one of the workouts you will find in the FRF Fat Loss for Firefighters Workout Program (click here to read more about this workout used by thousands of firefighters). It is a great Firefighter Body weight workout that doesn’t require a lot of equipment and is very efficient (like you need to be on a fire/rescue scene). It also incorporates the essential components that a fire rescue workout must have. The active warm-up will improve your flexibility and movement efficiency, the included core exercises will help reduce injuries, and the full-body movements and interval will jack up metabolism and improve your cardio. Want to lean up and gain functional strength, give this workout a try! You must perform the active warm-up first. The overview sheet below…
Every Firefighter, EMT and Medic Needs this Fitness Tool…
People tend to measure how effectively they’ve worked out by how sore they are the following days. Let me ask you: How good is a workout that leaves you so sore that you can’t workout for the next 3 days? What most people don’t realize is that your body improves and adapts to stress on the days you rest. The better and more rapidly you recover, the more quickly your body adapts.This is especially important for the Fire Rescue Athlete, a hard workout on Monday, followed by a difficult shift on Tuesday can lead to an injury on Wednesday. Have you heard about the foam roller? We all know that our job is dangerous and that we as Fire Rescue Athletes are more likely to get injured on the job than any other profession. So this brings me to the question, what is the best way to combat against this potential for injury?…
Portion Control Strategy for the Firehouse (or any house).
Cooking in the firehouse is pretty difficult. One of the biggest fears of every firehouse chef is not preparing enough food for the crew. This fear usually leads to an excess of available food and larger portions around the table. So, today I wanted to give you a quick and easy “trick” you can use to get your crew to take smaller servings. This post was inspired by a conversation had with one of the great people in the fire service, retired FDNY Chief Salka . Click the video to hear and learn from his experience on eating in the firehouse. To elaborate on the points made in the video. Take a look at the picture below and answer this question: Which is the larger black circle – the left or the right? Does the one on the right side look larger to you? Yes? If you said that the…
Firefighters- Improve your Performance with this Movement.
I have a confession to make…sometimes I skip my active warm-up exercises when I workout. We are all guilty of it (admit it). Let’s face it, sometimes you hit the gym or the workout room in the firehouse and are tired or short on time and will “sacrifice” the warm-up and stretching. I do not recommend EVER skipping your warm-up. If you have read my posts in the past you understand how important the active warm-up and flexibility portions of the workout are. Need a refresher, click here for a great post about active warm-ups and flexibility. So, today I wanted to give you a very quick active warm-up movement option that can be used as a substitute or as an addition to your normal active warm-up. You can use this movement to warm-up before your workout or drills and throughout your shift to increase flexibility and…
Healthy Nutrition Hacks for Firefighters, EMTs and Medics
Do you want to know how fit fire rescue athletes make nutritious meal choices? Here are some shortcuts, go-to recipes, cooking suggestions and go-to snacks for making the life of a fire rescue athlete a little healthier. Eating healthy with a demanding job can be difficult. Add in the fact that the firehouse is usually full of non-nutritious choices like cakes and baked goods and its no wonder that obesity, diabetes and heart disease are huge concerns in the fire industry. Yet, as any busy person, or appointed firehouse cook can attest, whipping up a healthy nutritious snack or meal at the end of a long shift can be time consuming and stressful. In fact, research by the American Sociological Association found that cooking can make many people stressed, anxious and unhappy. However, cooking and eating around the firehouse doesn’t need to be so stressful. Producing healthy meals and making the…
Firefighter Tabata Workout Option to Improve Performance
Have you heard of Tabata? This is an unusual style workout floating around a lot of gyms and firehouses lately. I wanted to explain what it is and how we, as fire rescue athletes, can incorporate it into an effective workout. “Tabata” is the name of a particular type of workout program that provides increased fat burning and oxygen efficiency in a short period of time. Instead of hours upon hours of exercise, Tabata can be completed in just 4-minute cycles. Tabata training was developed by a Japanese researcher named Dr. Izumi Tabata who was working with Olympic speed skaters. In his study, he found that a control group using his training method of 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest, for eight intervals, saw greater VO2 Max improvement than the other group that trained with 60-minute sessions. The real question that you want to know is: “How can this apply…
Fire Rescue Fitness Birthday Challenge Workout to Improve Performance
I like challenge or out-come based (OCB’s) workouts because: #1 They are tough, #2 They are a great way to measure your level of fitness and #3 they can improve performance (if they include an active warm-up and some stretching). The last 4 years (including this one) I have completed this special “Birthday” workout (on my birthday..lol) to help me measure my fitness and determine where I need improvement. This particular workout doesn’t require a lot of equipment and can be done at home or at the gym or firehouse (even if its 22 degrees below zero). I encourage you to do this workout (or a similar one) every once in a while to help keep you motivated and to gauge your level of fitness. This “Birthday” workout is difficult but can be scaled to meet your available equipment and level of fitness. Before you begin…
Stay Fit for Fire (and for Life) by doing these 3 things…
Lets face it, plateaus happen. There are certain days, months and weeks that you don’t feel like you are making any fitness progress. Maybe you just took a vacation or had a rough shift and just don’t want to workout. It doesn’t matter if you are a career firefighter, volunteer firefighter, an EMT or even a professional football player. We have all been there. Heck, I’ve been there too. And, when you hit a fitness plateau you start to search for motivation and for information. Unfortunately in this day and age, it seems like fitness information is coming from every angle. The so-called experts tell us that we need to “do yoga, do crossfit, do low intensity, do high intensity, do weights, don’t do weights, eat this, don’t eat that.” It can get to be very frustrating and in some cases overwhelming. My goal with FRF is to sift…
Top Five Fitness Trends in the Fire Service for 2018.
Every year I try to take some time to evaluate current fitness trends in the general public and in the fire service. I have been very fortunate to have some great connections in both industries, based on my research and numerous conversations with colleagues, I’ve identified some of the fitness trends we are most likely to see in departments this year. You would think that the correlation would be almost the same, but the budget restrictions and the fire service’s (sometimes) resistance to change can hinder progress and slow popular fitness trends. Another reason the popular trends you see in your health club may not make it to the fire services is due to workout outcomes. People in the health club are primarily working out for aesthetics and improved health while firefighters, EMTs and medics are (or should be) working out for performance, overall health and then for the six…