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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…
Read MoreFirefighter Interval Overhaul Workout Option…
Now, as you probably know from reading my previous blog posts that I think that interval training is very applicable to what we do on the fire ground. A unique component that I’ve added to my workouts is a 10-minute Interval Overhaul. 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: To really see how to effectively incorporate these Overhauls with a solid strength and core workout check out the FRF Ultimate Fire Rescue Athlete Workout. Give this a try! Stay safe and Get FRF! Aaron Zamzow
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One of the Ten Best Firefighter Exercises- Farmers Carry
We as fire rescue athletes are generally moving in unbalanced positions. Whether its climbing a ladder, pulling hose, or ventilating, we are usually in an unbalanced, split stance. Therefore one area of focus should be the deep balancing muscles of the core. These muscles play an important role in holding and stiffening the pelvis to prevent it from bending and can be challenging to train in normal bi-lateral lifting and pulling exercises. In addition, we as fire rescue athletes are routinely required to carry heavy loads and equipment. The farmers carry (and other carry variations) addresses these issues, it engages the core, improves balance and at the same time improves grip strength. It’s a simple movement, grab some fairly heavy objects, engage the core by bracing your abs and slowly walk (chest up, good posture). The longer and heavier you go the more you challenge the core and your grip.…
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Fire Rescue Fitness Birthday Challenge Workout
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. The last 4 years (including this one) I have completed this special “Birthday” workout 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 this workout, like every workout, perform an active warm-up. Active warm-up (perform for 30 seconds or 10 reps of…
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"Pull" for Better Firefighter Fitness
The muscles of the back are used for almost every motion on the fire and rescue ground– pulling hose, moving patients, climbing ladders and stairs (grabbing the hand rails) to name a few. Here is an exercise you need to add to your Fire Rescue Workout to insure you are strengthening theses valuable muscles. I honestly believe the inverted (body) row is extremely underrated. Besides being a great pure muscle-builder, the inverted (body) row is valuable because it strengthens your rear shoulders and upper back. These often neglected muscles directly complement the muscles used in most pushing exercises which can help prevent shoulder injury, chronic back pain and slumped posture. The reason most people blow these off initially is that they just seem too easy… However, I urge you to try them first before jumping to that conclusions. You can elevate your feet on a bench or a stability ball to increase…
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