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Planning firefighter training can be really tough.

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Keeping the crew and yourself engaged is sometimes a struggle and at times it's easier

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just to wing it.

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However, winging it usually leads to unfocused actions and just doing the same thing over

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and over, especially things that we're really good at and we always win at.

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That's not really the point of training.

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So is there a concept or template out there that we can use to develop and plan relevant,

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useful and fun training that's not just related to the fire service?

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Welcome to the Firefighter Craftsmanship Podcast where we coach you to deal with the stressors

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of the job as a first responder as well as how to thrive off duty.

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My name is Kevin Housley, the human performance coach and a firefighter since 2005.

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I've been able to coach over a thousand emergency responders on ways to be more resilient, better

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prepared for the job, and how to be happier and healthier at home.

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So let's get to it.

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Today's topic on the Firefighter Craftsmanship Podcast, using periodization for basic skills

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training.

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So creating quality training and quality culture evolution is really hard.

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You've heard me talk quite a bit about both quality training, quality evolution, quality

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mindsets.

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All of those things are really, really tough at times.

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And especially training, most departments do what they do because that's just what they

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do.

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And so if you've ever asked the question of, well, how come we do that?

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And you either got a response of like, well, because I said so or shut up because you're

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the new guy or, I don't know, it's just what we do or my favorite.

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That's just the way we've always done it, which is not a response.

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It's definitely not an answer.

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But there's got to be a better way.

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So how can we be a little bit more focused so that way we get more bang for our buck

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when we're doing quality basic skills training?

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So on this episode of the Firefighter Craftsmanship, we're going to take a concept right out of

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good old fashioned strength and conditioning programming.

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So all you strength and conditioning and aficionados get all excited.

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We're talking about periodization and applying it to your basic skills training and emergency

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services.

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So from the get, what is periodization other than a word that I have a really hard time?

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It's a tongue twister for me.

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But really, you know, Lorenz and Morrison define periodization as the planned manipulation

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of training variables, load sets and reps in order to maximize training adaptations

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and to prevent the onset of overtraining syndrome.

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It appears from the strength training literature that is available that periodization is usually

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needed for maximal strength gains to occur.

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So from strength and conditioning, we know that if we just rep out buys and tries every

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single time that we work out, there's probably going to be some negative connotation to it.

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And I can hear some of you gasping already that you can't just do bro sets every day

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and get the most gains around that regardless of how many C4 pre workout drinks or protein

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shakes that you consume.

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So we know if we over train our muscles at some point, it's going to come back and bite

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us and all you young bucks out there, young guys and girls who can go out and do pull-ups

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every single day.

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Unfortunately, I'm here to tell you at some point that's going to catch up to you and

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it's not going to work out great.

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It's going to be an injury that's going to be a little bit harder to overcome.

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And so when we look at that, when we look at this from a basic skills training perspective,

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have we ever thought about overtraining on basic firefighting skills?

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And I can hear the naysayers already, oh, you're trying to get out of doing training.

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And if you know anything about me, you know, for a fact that that is not true.

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I love training.

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I love it.

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But I also don't want to just train on the same exact thing every single time.

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And a lot of companies that we see that get out there and they train on the exact same

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thing every time is because they are so dialed on it that there's no chance for failure.

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So what's the cultural round failure for you and your company?

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Specifically, you, that's where everything starts.

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But where is that cultural failure?

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What does that look like?

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And if you win every single time in basic skills training, you're simply doing it wrong.

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You don't have to like it when you struggle and you fail and you don't come out on top

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in basic skills training.

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But if you're winning every single time you go out on the drill ground, then you're not

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challenging yourself enough.

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You're not trying to learn.

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You're not trying to push.

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You're not trying to evolve and challenge.

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And that's where that whole, well, that's just the way we've always done it concept

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comes from.

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So back to periodization.

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How does it work?

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So when we look at this from, from basic skills, we're going to try to correlate this to strength

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conditioning.

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And we know if we're training for a specific event, you know, as we got the Olympics that

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are about to start.

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All of those athletes there have been working in very, very specific training regimens.

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The Olympic trials are happening either now or very, very soon within the next week or

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so.

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And so all of those athletes are trying to peak at the right time for their specific

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sport.

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For us in emergency services, we don't know really when that competition is going to occur

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and we don't have an off season.

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So how can we apply some of these concepts from the strength conditioning world into

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what we do as tactical athletes that we have to be ready all the time?

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And yes, there are some basic skills out there that we're probably not here in Colorado,

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going to have an ice rescue in July or August.

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But that relevancy for, for some of those still correlates to still water rescue.

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So periodization works by combining macro, mezzo and micro cycles.

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And macro cycles are typically defined as a year at a time.

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And so if we look at this from like the Olympic athlete perspective, you know, they have four

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years worth of work before they have an opportunity to show what they've done or show their training

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effects.

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And so they might be planning, you know, six months, 12 months at a time overall.

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So what does that look like for us in emergency services?

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So we can really look at training on a yearly big picture view initially.

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So it's not a little bit of a detached, a higher altitude view.

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And you know, some skills are only covered once a year and we're only going to train

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on them once a year.

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And an example of that would be ice rescue.

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Another example of that might be active shooter and whatever is relevant for you in your specific

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role and department and all the other factors that go into that.

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I'm sure you can identify some things that are annually, we're only doing that once.

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And another option of that would be like leadership training specific to 360 degree reviews.

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So macro cycle is just going to be that overall long snapshot.

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How does everything play nice in the sandbox together over a 12 month period of time?

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So when we break it down a little bit further, we get into the mezzo cycle.

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And in our context as emergency responders, it's a little bit easier to plan using mezzo

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cycles versus the macro cycle.

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And really this is because we don't have that off season for basic skills.

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And much of what we do in emergency services can be called the action 12 months out of

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the year.

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And for sure we don't get a chance to warm up and we don't really have a chance to prep

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other than just our general basic skills and training mentality overall.

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That is our prep time.

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So mezzo cycles are typically defined as several weeks or months at a time.

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And this is really, really relevant to us in emergency services.

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So really we can think of this as quarterly or monthly training topics.

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What's the focus for the quarter?

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What's the focus for the month?

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We could also think of mezzo cycles as the seasons we're in or the season that is on

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the horizon.

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So here in Colorado, it went from spring to summer and one day, we had a 30 degree increase

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in one day.

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And so now different things like wildland have a different perspective.

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And so could we have been training on wildland during January, February, March to get ready

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for the wild end season that starts at the end of May.

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And here it runs all the way into November typically.

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So what season are we in?

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Well, what season is on the horizon?

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And so using the mezzo cycle concept, we can then start to skill stack different seasons

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for things like RIT, technical rescue, wildland, or even gasp EMS specific emergencies like

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heat or cold exposure based on your first due response called types.

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So if you're in an apartment that maybe has some urban interface things, well, you probably

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also have recreation that happens in that urban interface.

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You might have mountain rescue, high angle rescue, trail rescue, search and rescue.

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So that would be a season of the year.

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If you have mountain rescue in the summer, that's different than mountain rescue in the

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winter.

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And so can we skill stack and use the mezzo cycle to get ready by doing basic skills training

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in preparation for a season or while we're currently in the season for our maintenance.

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We also could look at departments, if you have beaches or oceans, those called types

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when's the season for those things or river rescue, swathwater rescue.

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The micro cycle is the final stage in this periodization concept.

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And micro cycles are typically defined as day or days.

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And this is typically where the fire service lives.

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We just work day by day.

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Hey, today we're going to go out and we're going to stretch hose.

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Hey, today we're going to go out and we're going to throw ladders.

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Hey, today we're going to go out and search.

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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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So a lot of times it's like, hey, what do you guys want to do today?

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And then we just go out and we train on that.

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And we kind of stay in that nice little comfy box of what we're used to training on and

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we're used to getting out there and getting after it with.

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And when we do this, it's not necessarily bad.

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We can go out there and we can have really, really good quality basic skills training,

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but there's no overall focus plan or intention.

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And a lot of times when we don't have a focus plan or intention, we don't grow year over

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year.

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So this might not be the best approach based on lots of things, including burnout, overload

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principle and weather implications.

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So be smart about training in environments that could cause undue harm to you and your

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personnel.

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Meaning, if it's 115 degrees for an entire month or two months where you live, it might

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not be the best time to go out there and be training on rapid intervention techniques

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and down firefighter removal techniques.

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Okay.

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So let's call it out here.

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I'm not talking about, hey, let's not train in the environments that we're subjected to.

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That's not what I'm talking about at all.

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But getting hurt in training is stupid.

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And intentionally putting yourself and people in positions where you know that they're going

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to get hurt is a bad play.

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So do we need to be able to operate rapid intervention team, RIT skills in high heat,

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high stress environments?

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Absolutely.

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But could we get the same effect in training if we're training on those things and maybe

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a little bit cooler time of the year?

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Or can we even pick time of day?

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Right?

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If it's 105 outside, do we need to be fully PPE to go on to the roof for vertical ventilation

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training?

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Or can we wait maybe till it's 85 in the evening, nighttime?

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And the cool thing with most of our training centers is nobody's around there at night.

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It's always open.

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So you can get out there, get some night ops, get a little bit cooler reps in, make sure

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that you're ready to go and you're ready to respond and operate on your shift.

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So there are definitely departments and leaders out there with an eye towards this concept

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of periodization.

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And they're probably going to use other terms, but that's essentially what they're doing.

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You know, they're definitely using seasons of the year.

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You know, there's like a spring training, a season, and then the Super Bowl concept

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out there and some future firefighter craftsmanship podcast guests are going to dive into how this

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looks and works within their specific context.

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So stay tuned for some pretty awesome interviews coming up.

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So for now, kind of start to think about how does periodization work for you?

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What could it look for you?

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Are you using it already in your tactical fitness regimes?

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If you're not, maybe you should.

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Maybe that's part of the reason why you keep getting hurt is because you keep doing the

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exact same five movements every time.

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And so can we work on maybe having a muscle endurance phase, a power phase, a strength

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phase, a conditioning phase, those concepts really, really, really apply and correlate

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with basic skills, emergency services training.

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So we have firefighter craftsmanship have taken the guesswork out of using this periodization

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concept for you as it relates to basic skills training.

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So if you head over to firefightercraftsmanship.com backslash template and download a full editable

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12 month training template for yourself.

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All the instructions are on the spreadsheet on how to make this template editable in your

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own.

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So it'll be included in the email on how to do that as well as at the top right corner

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on how to create your own copy where you can make it your very own little buddy.

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So included on this template is a yearly macro training map, a whole cache of basic skills

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training ideas.

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So if you run against a mind block, a writer's block, you can't figure out what you want

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to do.

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There's a whole cache of training ideas in there.

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There's also 4896 and modified Kelly schedule templates.

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But as you'll see, once it's editable, you can make it for whatever.

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If you work a 2448 or you work a 2472 lucky or you work some other Denver schedule, something

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like that, all of that is completely editable within that training template.

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So check it out, get yours at firefightercraftsmanship.com slash template.

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So thanks for spending your valuable time with us and please rate and review and follow

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the show.

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In just five seconds, if you've gotten any value out of this and give us a quick rating,

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it really does help us grow the organic nature of this show and it helps it get into the

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ears of those that might not know who the firefighter craftsmanship podcast is.

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So we really, really appreciate all the support.

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Smash on that follow button so you never miss one of these weekly Wednesday episodes

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and head over to firefightercraftsmanship.com slash template to get your 12 month editable

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Stay smart.