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Vote for the 2016 FRF Fit for Duty Challenge Top 5 Places!
Congratulations too all the 2016 FRF Fit for Duty Challenge participants! This year over over 100 Firefighters, EMTs and Paramedics entered their results. There were many, many, great and inspiring results and stories showing how the Fire Rescue Fitness Workouts have helped change lives and careers. Most importantly, our hope is that these results will help motivate more fire rescue athletes to join the FRF nation and change the fitness culture of the fire service. Please read and share these awesome transformation stories. And, please comment with your thoughts on the winner, 2 through 5 places who was the most inspiring. You can also vote by “liking” the athlete on our FRF Facebook Page (click here). Voting ends on April 23rd. Winners (final spots) will be announced April 24th. Here are the Top 5 entries (listed in random order) in the 2016 FRF Fit for Duty Challenge. I am…
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One of the Best Firefighter Exercises- Crawling
You read that heading correctly, crawling is one of the best exercises for firefighters. I actually think it is in the top 10 (you can find out my other 9 “best” exercises by clicking the link to the “10 Best” image on the right). Crawling is a great exercise to work core stability, strengthen the shoulder girdle plus it can help improve your coordination. It also mimics movements that we do on the fire ground- -search and rescue and hose-line advancement. And, crawling can actually be a pretty intense workout! I recommend using a variety of directions and positions (forward, lateral, pulling objects) Focus on keeping hands under your shoulders to avoid shoulder impingement and be sure to tighten core muscles during the exercise. How to Crawl One of the most basic crawls is the bear-crawl, which involves keeping your hips high in the air with your arms and…
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5 Healthy Food Hacks for Fire Rescue Athletes
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…
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Firefighter Exercise Upgrade- The Long Bar Row
One of the muscle groups that is easily fatigued on the fire ground is your grip and your glutes. This exercise modifies the traditional one arm row to help improve grip and glute strength. Why is this important? Advancing hose line is taxing on your grip and challenges your core and glutes. The long bar row is a great way to improve your grip strength and glutes and improve your performance on the fire ground. Please note that this exercise requires a lot of core strength and shoulder stability, lower your weights until you feel comfortable with the exercise. Remember to focus on your form and posture. Give it a try! For more exercise upgrade ideas, please continue to check back to www.firerescuefitness.com. For a great workout program that incorporates exercise upgrades for Fire Rescue Athletes, get great results, just like Will Bitting, with the FRF Ultimate Fire Athlete…
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Firefighter Fitness- How to Burn More Calories…
How to Make Your Body Burn More Calories. Here is the low down on weight gain/loss. Metabolic Rate is the rate at which the body burns up calories. A body that consumes 2500 calories a day, and burns 2500 calories a day will stay at the same weight. A body consuming 2500 calories daily but burning only 2000 will gain weight at the rate of about 1lb a week. This may explain why that ‘lucky’ person across the table from you does not get fat from all that junk food; they consume less calories than they burn. You can do quite a lot to speed up your metabolism – the secret of burning calories lies in knowing what determines your metabolic rate and what you can do to influence it. 1) Basal Metabolic Rate (Metabolism or BMR) — This is the amount of calories you burn just by being alive…
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Is counting calories important for Firefighter weight loss?
I get this question asked a lot: “Is counting calories important for firefighter weight loss?” Answer: While it sounds like a logical answer, counting calories is often too complex, time consuming, and full of errors. So, in today’s post I wanted to give you a better way to to figure portion and calorie control. Weight management is a simple equation: Eat more than you burn, and you gain weight. Eat less and you lose weight. But, the physiology behind “calories in, calories out” is actually much more complex and dynamic than most people realize. Plus, it’s highly imprecise; we estimate that there’s typically an error of up to 25 percent on the ‘calories in’ side, and on the ‘calories out’ side. Beyond that, counting calories is an external system (outside of your body). In essence, clients who count calories are less likely to see lasting results because they’re “outsourcing” their appetite awareness…
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The Ultimate Firefighter Workout Program…
I created the Ultimate Fire Rescue Athlete Workout because I was discouraged by all of the programs on the market claiming to be geared toward firefighters. In most of these cases programs were written by trainers and not by firefighters. Its taken over 12 years, thousands of hours of research and hundreds of training sessions to develop this workout. I truly believe it is the best total workout program for firefighters, EMTs and paramedics. I personally use this program. It has helped me get through numerous academies and keep up (beat) the younger firefighters on my department (I’m well over 40). But, don’t take my word for it… take a look at what others are saying about the program. Lastly, if you don’t believe what your reading, try it for yourself. I will give you your money-back if you don’t agree. the mission of fire Rescue Fitness is to provide…
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Firehouse Nutrition- Why Diet Soda is Bad…
Drink Diet Soda? There’s been a lot of discussion around the firehouse lately about the “dangers” of drinking soda and diet soda. The topic was started after I revealed my personal “diet soda” experiment. Three years ago I wanted to know if diet soda was bad for you or just getting a bad rap. My experiment was to drink one 16 ounce diet soda everyday for one month and report my weight, energy level and overall health throughout the month. The results….by the middle of the month I had gained 5 pounds and was drinking over 32 ounces of diet soda a day. My energy was awfully low, I craved and ate sugar all the time and had some bad mood swings. Needless to say after that little experiment I decided to avoid diet sodas as much as possible. It’s not surprising that drinking all the sugar in sodas…
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Firefighter Workout Tip- Warm-Up to Reduce Injuries…
Flexibility is often the most overlooked component of a an effective firefighter workout program. Incorporating flexibility exercises in your workout program has shown to help firefighter performance and reduce injuries by: Increasing physical efficiency and performance Increasing neuromuscular coordination Decreasing risk of severity of injury Decreasing risk of lower back pain Decreasing delayed onset muscle soreness Decreasing stress and tension What is the best way to increase flexibility? If you are like most of us, you were taught how to stretch in your high school weight lifting class and you’ve likely continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the old school workout warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually pose potential risk. This “old school” warm-up routine of starting your workout with a brisk walk or jog, then some simple body-part static stretches (holding…
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