I have been working with my client Jonny for over 2 years now. His initial consultation was nothing out the ordinary. He wanted to lose some body fat, build a bit of muscle and be generally fitter and healthier. He had mentioned he had a ‘dodgy’ back, again fairly common these days.
I was happy to work with him and very confident I could get good results from him – he then mentioned he was a fire fighter, which started to change how I would approach his training.
If your job is to save lives then your physical fitness is important, in fact it literally could be the difference between life and death for you, your colleagues or members of the public.
I have had my own experience of this whilst working in the prison service. If you are not fit enough to run to a first response and then have to deal with a situation that involves possibly grappling with someone then you are putting your work mates life at risk.
It was very difficult to find much information on this, or useful information, coming out of the UK. The US seem to be much further ahead of the game than us when it comes to tactical training for the emergency services.
Although Jonny had indicated his main goal was to lose some weight, I knew that the priority should be to keep him injury proof and address his back issues. With his job he needs to be ready to go at any time. As soon as his pager goes he needs to be ready. If you are injured, stiff and don’t move well – this is a problem.
We started with alot of mobility work and bodyweight exercises to loosen off his stiff joints and strengthen weak muscles, in particular the posterior chain. There was a few set backs at the start but after a few months he was pain free and ‘touch wood’ he has had no issues since then.
His goal was fat loss, however focusing on improving movement and strengthening certain areas also helped with fat loss. We obviously looked at the diet and other lifestyle factors that we won’t discuss in this article.
Once I was happy that he was moving better, getting stronger and there was less risk of injury we started advancing his training.
A big focus was strengthening the posterior chain in a safe and effective manner. As a fire fighter you have to lift things, pull things, drag things, climb, run, carry. You need a blend of endurance, strength and strength endurance. Also, remember you need to perform all these movements in full kit and usually in a very demanding environment. The unpredictable nature of the job means you need to have a broad base of fitness. There’s no point being super strong if you can’t climb a flight of stairs without struggling for breath or it’s pointless being able to run a marathon but you can’t pick up an 80kg human off the ground.
As my good friend Marck Goran says – “Specialised for nothing, ready for anything” is a good training philosophy for Fire Fighters and other members of the emergency services.
We started getting him stronger without risking injury or rushing anything. The focus was on increasing the weight being shifted, however, the key was to do this slowly. Jonny is no use to anyone in an emergency if he can’t walk due to a crushing leg day. We never go to absolute failure.
As mentioned previousky, the priority is being injury free and ready to go at anytime.
We do alot of work on his posture, lots and lots of rowing and pulling movements with lots of variation on these – changing the stimulus every few weeks but we always do alot of pulling movements. From someone who struggled with chronic back pain a fee years a go he can do Deadlift double bodyweight and complete 12 strict pull ups.
It’s not just weights we focus on, we do alot of conditioning work. Usually in the form of circuit training. Within this we incorporate core and grip work. Exercises such as Prowler Pushing and Pulling, Bear Crawls, Med Ball Slams, Battle Ropes usually feature here.
He also goes a longer run once a week in his own time to build a good base of endurance.
Jonny has been making excellent progress and is a prime example of someone realising the benefits of being in shape for his job and life and is fully immersed in the process.
Not being able to save someone’s life, including your own, because of a lack of physical fitness is unacceptable.
Coach Milligan 