This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran
-owned and operated performance optimization
company that I introduced recently as a sponsor
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Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of
this company is an altruistic arm called the
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808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. or go to
transcendcompany .com. Welcome to the Behind
the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James
Gearing, and this week it is my absolute honor
to welcome on the show veteran fitness trainer
and firefighter Ryan Provencher. Now, in this
conversation, we discuss a host of topics, from
the volunteer fire service, personal training,
his journey into career firefighting, fitness
standards, training the tactical athlete, longevity,
programming, tack fit, and so much more. Now,
before we get to this incredible conversation,
as I say every week, please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe
to the show, leave feedback, and leave a rating.
Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find. And this is a free library of
well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So all I ask in
return is that you help share these incredible
men and women's stories so I can get them to
every single person on planet Earth who needs
to hear them. Provencher. Enjoy Well, Ryan, I
want to start by saying two things. Firstly,
thank you to our mutual friend, John Wolfe, for
making this introduction. And secondly, I want
to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast
today. Well, thanks, James. I'm a longtime listener,
first -time caller, as they say. I really appreciate
the work that you're doing, and I definitely
enjoy your show. Yeah, I know we've been connected
online for a long time, and I say this to people
all the time. The universe or God has a funny
way of... bringing people together like when
it's supposed to. There's people I've done an
interview and if we did it originally when we
first met, it wouldn't have been the same conversation.
So clearly we were meant to do this today. Yeah,
I know. It feels like good timing for sure. Absolutely.
So where on planet Earth are we finding you today?
So I'm in Bellingham, Washington, and that is
probably just right between Seattle, Washington
and Vancouver, BC. Okay. Brilliant. So I would
love to start at the very beginning of your timeline.
You mentioned what your father did before we
hit record. So tell me where you were born and
tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,
what your parents did, how many siblings. So
I was born in Pullman, Washington. That's the
home of Washington State University. we were
talking before the show my dad he got his master's
degree in criminal justice from washington state
he worked in pullman as a police officer before
i was born that's why he and my mother were living
in pullman and then I have two brothers and all
three of us also went to Washington State University.
One of my brothers is also a police officer.
So that's where my story starts. It starts in
Pullman, Washington. I really lived a charmed
life growing up. My mom was stay at home primarily.
My dad worked, but both of them were super involved
in our lives. I have two younger brothers. And
looking back on my own life, I'm... 53 years
old now. I'm looking at retirement from my career
as a firefighter. My dad passed away at the end
of this last year, and I've had a chance to really
reflect on the influence that he has had on me.
Certainly my mother as well, my brothers, but
my dad in particular, going all the way back
to his work in law enforcement. He later was
hired as a special agent with alcohol, tobacco,
and firearms. And so we moved, our family moved
to Kirkland, Washington, which is a suburb of
Seattle. Throughout his whole law enforcement
career, he was very much into fitness. So if
you can picture those old school weights that
were cement, plastic cement weights with the
dust that would come out of that. He had that
whole setup in the garage. He would work out
in the garage. He would invite my brothers and
I to join him, but never pushed it on us. He'd
take us to the track with him. But really, he
led by example in ways that I recognize now more
than ever in terms of on one side of it. here's
here's this man that's dedicated to his career
in law enforcement while also being an amazing
father figure husband family man and then demonstrating
through his own commitment physical fitness and
the benefits of that and then it just so happened
timing wise i grew up in the 80s so just as i'm
you know looking to my father as an influence
and a mentor he he had a magazine subscription
to field and stream and charles atlas ads were
in the back you know the the muscular guy that
that's gonna look after the kid getting Sam kicked
in his face and Arnold Schwarzenegger and and
uh Sylvester Stallone like even in our society
you know fitness and and strength was was becoming
more popular and and all of that had a massive
influence on me in terms of uh really the whole
path that I've chosen throughout my life both
in the realm of physical fitness and then also
now looking back on a career in firefighting
going back a generation what was your father's
upbringing like that it gave him this kind of
discipline to stay in shape when some of our
firefighters and cops don't have that same kind
of um element ingrained in them when they enter
the profession yeah and it's interesting looking
back so he was raised on the east coast upstate
new york uh he also my grandparents they had
a whole amazing family his siblings so i think
first of all just growing up in a in a very supportive
environment just this whole idea of family and
and support within the family and then i know
that he was active his whole life so maybe not
through formal fitness as we see it now but he
was into hunting and he was into fishing and
he was into the outdoors and so he was always
very active doing different things and then the
other thing i i know about him as i look at his
achievements in his life he joined the army he
was in the military police and I've even read
letters that he wrote to his parents about his
goals to be in law enforcement, what it was going
to take for him to be successful. And so I think
that's a big part of it is he had specific goals
that he wanted to achieve. And he just knew intuitively
that being physically fit and kind of being squirt
away was going to be a prerequisite to achieving
the goals that he had set for himself. Did he
see combat when he was in the military? I don't
know. He was stationed in Korea for a period
of time. It wasn't during the specific combat
time, as I recall. And that's the other thing
about my dad is in his service time, so whether
it was his military career, even his career in
law enforcement, he never talked all that much
with us about it. He certainly didn't go into
details of it. it was only later in life where
I really discovered some of the things that he
was involved with or he would share anecdotes
about his experience in law enforcement but it
is it is interesting because when he was working
as a special agent for alcohol tobacco and firearms
he was assigned to my city Bellingham there were
big arson investigations going on at the time
and there was also a lot of undercover firearms
work that he did in the city of Bellingham and
fast forward just so happened. I tested for,
I don't know how many departments to finally
get hired in the city of Bellingham. And the
fire chief, I'm sorry, the police chief worked
with my dad over in Pullman. Several of the police
officers worked with my dad in Pullman. A lot
of the firefighters and certainly the folks in
life safety knew my dad and his career. They
knew him as a professional and spoke highly of
him in terms of their experience of him and certainly
didn't hurt. I don't know that it helped me get
hired, but it certainly, once I was in the door.
that familiarity and that those connections uh
especially as a brand new firefighter were amazing
for me to experience what's so great to hear
about what you've told us your your father's
family then your father as a parent himself and
a partner and then here you are now is there's
so many examples of generational trauma and i
think this is a really kind of under discussed
element of first responder mental health is what
happened to us when we were younger and then
what happened to our parents and our grandparents
but you're this is a good example of what happens
the other way you know if you we have generational
trauma that we have generational healing i would
assume that somewhere in the lineage there were
some elements of trauma but if you were able
to actually figure out how to deal with your
own things your own struggles and turn them into
strengths now all of a sudden you you know you
raise a young man who becomes an incredible public
servant and then he is present in his children's
lives and here we are having this discussion
today so it's beautiful to hear because i hear
so many times kind of almost the opposite and
then here we are showing that i mean that the
dominoes are falling but the kind of domino positive
or negative is up to us Yeah, no, and it's funny
you say that. Again, I find myself at this stage
of life, not only life, but also my career, really
reflecting. Like I reflect a lot on my life and
on my career and on my journey. And a big part
of that is just the gratitude that I feel and
the ability to look back and see. What I had
access to as a young person and the mentorship
and the influences that I had access to as a
young person. So, you know, everything we're
talking about in terms of my dad and his family
and just over the years of, although not maybe
intentional or packaged and delivered, like we
talk about in terms of kind of, you know, how
we have support or what we do to find balance
or the idea that we discuss around resilience
and things like that. I've certainly had. multiple
times of certainly times of crisis, I would say,
most definitely seasons of challenge. And as
I reflect back on how I was able to navigate
those and I'm not, you know, I tinkered with
all the stuff, right? I leaned on alcohol real
heavy in some of those times. I didn't always
make great choices, but in the end, I always
did come back to. these healthy strategies that
I just happen to be exposed to from a very young
age and incorporate that into my healing or mitigating
times of stress or getting back on track relative
to goals that I have in my life. And then now
my son, he just turned 19. He's a baseball athlete.
And again, it's not necessarily front of mind,
but I hope that he would tell you, hey, I'm intentionally
or unintentionally. creating that same environment
for him. And then he expressed interest in coming
into the fire service just recently. He did a
ride along with us for the first time this last
couple of weeks. And his eyes are wide as saucers.
He has this big smile on his face. He has that
same energy in his body that you and I had when
we were first exposed to the idea of becoming
a firefighter and the dream of joining the fire
service. And he has all that. And of course,
in the back of my mind, I'm just like, oh man,
you know, I know what lies ahead, but... i also
know how you can manage that how you can hopefully
access all of the wonderful things that the fire
service has to offer and then man i just hope
i can in some way support you and having these
resources that you can lean into when you have
any time of crisis or you're going through a
season of challenge or you're having a tough
time you know related to the work i i hope i
can i hope i can share with my son what what
my dad shared with me absolutely You mentioned
about, you know, the kind of fitness environment
that your dad exposed you to. This is something
that's so apparent in the CrossFit gym now. We
don't do what we have CrossFit still, but there's
other things that we do in our programming now.
But this gym, watching these people that when
I first joined the gym over 10 years ago, had
these little kids that are now these fit, athletic,
you know, high schoolers and beyond. And it just
goes to show that if you normalize wellness in
your household, how you eat, how you move, it's
hard for your children not to go down that path.
And then obviously the other side is true as
well. If you normalize fast food and inactivity,
we see it. These poor little kids that are only
five or six and already obese because that's
the environment. That's how we've normalized
it. So I wish that that was more understood,
whether it was in the homes, in the schools,
that the more... Not like athletic high performance,
but just movement, just healthy choices that
are surrounding a child, the higher chance they're
going to be a healthy adult. But I don't see
that happening in the States, especially with
these calls of make America healthy again. I'm
like, well, where's the changes? You've removed
red dye, that's it, in seven months. So I think
it's an important perspective because I see that
firsthand. My son is an athlete too. And it's
not like I've been some high level performance.
I just exercise and I play sports and walk and
just normal movement things. But again, I was
spoiled. I grew up on a farm in England. So I
think that there's so many, I'm rambling now,
but so much power to creating an environment
to normalize healthy habits rather than shaming
someone who's out of condition saying, well,
why don't you just do what I do? Well, you've
got to change the environment too. Yeah. Yeah,
and it has to start somewhere. And so whether
that's in the home or there's mentorship in a
school environment or a workplace environment
or even, you know, the way it's portrayed in
movies or television, there's all sorts of ways
to pique the interest for folks. And then if
they have that interest, you know, how do those
of us that are kind of operating in the space,
how do we meet them where they are to give them
something that's accessible and to kind of take
advantage of that spark, whether, again, it's
in the school system or... the workplace or especially
in the fire service you know how can we how can
we just take that little spark and and fuel it
and help it grow into something that's going
to be actionable for them you've got an interesting
perspective it's something i ask a lot of the
coaches that come on and the the high level athletes
as well when i first moved over here and again
i apologize for people have heard this story
many many times but um i was struck within a
year or so how many uncle rico stories i heard
like i could have would have should have if it
wasn't for my acl my mcl my you know whatever
labrum yeah and i started wondering because these
now were deconditioned you know late 20s early
30s and beyond and so i started wondering what
what is going on you know that's breaking all
these people when they're 16 17 18 years old
And then you start hearing about travel ball
and summer camps and all these elite training
facilities that these young kids are going to.
And you start to realize that in schools and
colleges, in some schools and colleges, there's
an element of performance being more important
than the health and longevity of the students.
Oh, absolutely. So you have a unique perspective.
You're a veteran coach as well. What is your
perspective of that? And how have you steered
your son in baseball, which is obviously a high
repetition sport, away from the overuse injuries
and the burnout? Well, two sides of that coin.
One is looking for my son's circumstance and
even his friends. So unfortunately for him, he
did sustain a shoulder injury. It was more specific
to just being in a bad position on a pickoff
play. It wasn't an overuse injury. He's working
his way back from that. Almost every single one
of his friends that had a really high ceiling
as pitchers, every single one of them at the
age of 18, all three, well, four now, they've
had the Tommy John surgery based on a UCL rupture.
And taking a step back and just as parents observing,
really agreeing with what you're saying, where
there's so much pressure on these kids, especially
when they demonstrate this talent at a young
age. Coaches are really trying to optimize that.
Now these colleges are having these kids sign
contracts and agreements to go to a specific
school for a specific sport, and let's just say
to pitch at a high level. And then they're already,
without any attention to their longevity, throw
faster, throw harder, throw faster, throw harder.
And these kids are under enormous pressure to
do that. And even my son, like, I want to go
D1. I want to go D1. I want to. you know he has
these big dreams of going big it's like okay
well why don't we start at junior college like
let's start at junior college let's let's ease
into things you don't you don't have to go big
right out of the gate and even for him he's 19
years old now but he's still a little bit of
a kind of a big puppy still you know he's not
fully grown into his man strength yet although
he's you know a big big kid but he's got a lot
of growing to do and um i have friends that work
over at washington state and i was talking to
them about their baseball program and he was
saying They rarely bring kids in from high school
anymore for a couple of reasons. One is they
haven't achieved that ceiling or they haven't
grown into their man strength yet. And it benefits
the university when they bring in athletes that
have done that. And, you know, the kids get to
really develop and grow in an environment that
is a little bit less stressful, hopefully, than
what you're seeing at these elite programs. One
of the themes that comes through over and over
again, as far as forging resilience and therefore,
you know, reduction of injuries and much more,
much longer lifespan when it comes to exercise
and fitness is the multi -sport athlete. And
I hear this over and over again, if kids play
seasonal sports and they can play at a high level
and be competitive, but they're doing different
motions and even psychologically just exposed
to different dynamics. That seems to forge, you
know, a much higher overall physical resilience
and avoid burnout of being driven into the ground
on one sport. Yeah, I think there's a lot of
conversation around that. We certainly heard
that, you know, for my son growing up and he
played basketball. He ran cross country and it
did get to a point where he really wanted to
focus on baseball. And OK, if that's the case,
let's at least. have an annual physical training
plan that acknowledges that you are doing this
one sport that that identifies these specific
movement movement patterns that may uh lead to
overuse injuries if we're not balancing that
out even in just the physical training side of
it so it's something that i think has to be paid
attention to as kids are growing up and then
figuring out some way to either through encouraging
multi -sport participation and or really uh intentional
and intelligent physical training that that accounts
for all that what about longevity as far as exercise
what i found is again i mean the level of athleticism
that is squeezed out of these children is impressive
you know but if you look at europe When we played,
we didn't play at that high level. There were
obviously, especially football players, that
was where the money was. If they were really
gifted, they'd be often training teams for all
the big clubs and that'd be a different group.
But everyone else, we were playing other schools,
but there was no intense strength and conditioning
program or hours and hours and hours of skill
training. And what I saw, and again, I'm talking
about when I was young, it may have changed now,
is that then you would get people. continuing
to play sports they would play in pub leagues
and local leagues and you know pickup games and
all these kind of things so you had the e40 50
year old men and women still very active what
i've seen here is you have this high level of
performance and then a steep drop off where you
know if anything you're going to a gym rather
than just continuing to play these games that
you used to love when you were a kid so what's
what's your observation of the kind of contrast
between how we're doing here and you know is
there a better way of doing it Well, even observation
and personal experience, I remember going all
through high school. I was so committed to my
high school sports, and I was a wrestler in high
school, and I played football, and literally
my whole life revolved around those two things
all year. I was either training for wrestling
or training for football, and those were the
most important things. I couldn't imagine anything
ever being more important than wrestling and
football in my entire life. Well, pretty soon,
you know, high school's over. And for someone
like me that just has no real talent to take
it any further, that's the end of it. And then
you look around. So I went to college and ended
up even studying exercise science. And yeah,
there were some intramural sports. I did a little
bit of flag football. But there's not a lot of
structure in our American society to participate
in team sports. If you look at what is available
and you look at the popularity of CrossFit, that's
probably a big reason. CrossFit became so popular
is because it did create an avenue for adults
to go into, although not a team sport, certainly
a community around fitness. You know, there's
softball leagues, I guess. But even even flag
football, like I said, in college, readily accessible,
but not that as an adult elsewhere and the only
thing i can kind of relate to now uh you see
pickleball really becoming uh very popular very
popular certainly in our community and you can
find these up all these uh courts that are available
they're public there's team uh there's tournaments
so so i think that's half the issue is that for
one reason or another we just haven't provided
the structure for folks to participate in those
activities as an adult in the United States.
And then kind of coming back to the fire service
side, we just had this conversation at the kitchen
table with one of our new firefighters. So, you
know, I was in college studying exercise science.
I, as a young person, dreamed of being a professional
athlete, and those dreams were very quickly squashed
by reality. But the more I was studying exercise
science and learning about opportunities I might
have as a firefighter, that... gap was bridged
real quickly and I immediately experienced it
as soon as I joined the volunteer fire department
in a Recruit Academy setting that oh wait a second
this is a physical activity and I'm part of a
team and I'm training to to learn a skill and
so immediately as a 22 year old I immediately
found something that provided this whole you
know source of challenges and and things that
I appreciated so much about organized sports
growing up and now i built a whole career around
it and i was talking with uh you know a young
man at work he's i think now he's 22 all these
years later he was a cross -country athlete in
college he had just a six -month break from his
call the structure of his college sports and
he went right into recruit academy as a professional
firefighter and he was talking with me about
how he appreciated that like he loved his participation
in sports. He loved the structure of it. And
now he's got this wonderful career where literally
only six months between being a high -level college
athlete and now being a professional firefighter.
You just made me think about something I was
trying to articulate earlier, not in this conversation,
but just in general. But you have the term tactical
athlete, and I was going to talk about... one
of the barriers to continuing sport is this whole,
if you're not first, you're last mentality. You
have to win. And that's the difference, I think,
between that mentality and pickleball and everything
else now. It's like, oh, it's just fun to play
it. I don't have to win because no one knows
who the pickleball world champion is anyway.
So you didn't have that bar to be held up to.
But if you compare it to the tactical athlete,
the firefighter, we're not winning. We're taught
participate. No one's winning the ladder throwing
contest or the cross lay pulling contest. We're
just doing it. But the win is that you potentially
could save a life. But it is about participation.
It is about the training journey, because even
if you make a grab and a fire, that's great.
Clean your gear because we've got to go and do
another call. You know what I mean? So it's an
interesting parallel. We kind of adore these
world champions. But actually, if we look at
what we do. you're not chasing a win you're chasing
you know being ready for someone's worst day
well i think that's where we get into trouble
a little bit i don't think we do a great job
as a fire service in attaching a framework to
all of that and so you know this one of the things
that i've as i reflect on how i approach things
again just based on influence that i've had by
really great mentors or the knowledge i had from
my college education whatever the case may be
but i've kind of gravitated toward this idea
of these three pillars of firefighter peak performance
one is mindset one is lifestyle the other is
the physical training side of it and it's no
different than what athletes actually have given
to them so when i was in college i worked in
the equipment room for the football team and
i was around the football players pretty much
every day. And everything, the framework for
that, the structure was given to them. So they
had counselors, they had tutors, they had nutritionists,
they had athletic trainers, they had physical
therapists, they had strength and conditioning
coaches, like literally everything around those
three pillars that all these years later, I'm
trying to package that and frame it in a way
that I might be able to communicate to folks
that would maybe be interested in that. But athletes
get that. Athletes have that from a very young
age all the way throughout their sporting careers.
And although, in my opinion, the parallels to
firefighting in terms of tactical athlete versus
any other sport athlete are very clear, the structure
and the framework and the support is completely
different. Absolutely. so backwards when you
look at the people that are actually saving lives
and the amount of rest and recovery they get.
And even as we'll get into, the type of strength
and conditioning advice and information that
they're given as far as the disconnect versus
the specialty training that a sports person might
get, the psychology, the nutrition, all the things.
When I speak to the SEALs and the SAS and the
Marine Recon guys and all these other elite military
performers they have those too and then you have
police and fire and ems and it's like well just
go out there and run the course you'll be fine
just don't be fat and don't die it's just such
a chasm between where we are and where we need
to be as far as actual forging performance through
strength and conditioning yeah yeah and you know
we're making some progress and you look at the
iff ifc wellness fitness unit wellness fitness
initiative The framework for that looks great,
like it addresses all of those issues from the
mental health side to the physical training side
to the even the rehab side of it. It captures
all that. But we're really struggling, struggling
as a fire service to implement it. And of course,
it comes back to budgets and costs and and how
agencies perceive the value of something like
that. And it's interesting when you imagine that.
We never hesitate to spend a million dollars
on a fire apparatus. We'll spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars to maintain that apparatus
over a period of years. But for some reason,
we just can't provide that same level of support
to the people that actually operate that apparatus.
So, yeah, it's it's a challenge. I am encouraged
by some of the progress that we're seeing, but
we've still got a long ways to go as a fire service
for sure. What kind of strength and conditioning
were you doing up to the point of entering the
fire service? And then what has been the metamorphosis
of your own training since then? Well, it's funny
you ask that. So the way I kind of package or
communicate about different approaches to...
strength conditioning and firefighter fitness
is really a mirror of my own experience on a
timeline so again i grew up in the 80s early
90s my dad introduced me to kind of that what
i would call conventional strength training sets
and reps you're training your chest and your
back and your buys and and even all my coaches
as a young person it was all presented that way
you know hey today we're doing back and bias
tomorrow we're doing legs and that's that was
kind of the conventional approach the the conditioning
side of it was really steady state cardio it
wasn't there wasn't any specific reference to
any kind of energy system development or certainly
not framed that way and really any discussion
about mobility flexibility you know the warm
-up was well do 10 reps just go lighter that
was the only warm -up and the cool down was well
go get a drink of water so my my whole my early
20s even into my young 30s was that conventional
approach that that weight room fitness and uh
i just so happened when i was at washington state
university i mentioned i worked with a football
team well mark verstegen just happened to be
a strength coach there and mark verstegen went
on to uh he was the founder i believe of athletes
performance which is now exos and he wrote a
book in the year 2000 called core performance
and Looking back on that, I believe that Mark
Verstegen was really one of the front runners
in what we call functional fitness. There's sometimes
a negative connotation around that, but I mean
really intentional functional fitness. His programming
was now more about movement patterns and multi
-plane movement versus muscle groups. His energy
system development was very much targeted to
specific energy systems, whether it was... aerobic
versus anaerobic. And so I picked up his book
and of course I knew Mark. So I adopted that
and holy smoke, my body felt different. I had
less pain in my body. I share a story where I
had a couple of kids I was carrying to a door
and I slipped on some ice and my body reacted
just so suddenly to catch myself. I felt like
Spider -Man, but I had this pillar strength,
as he calls it, and this core strength that I
experienced from training differently than I
had. as a younger person. And then fast forward
to this whole idea of tactical fitness. My mentor
in that realm is a guy by the name of Scott Sonnen.
He happened to live in Bellingham, Washington.
I look to him again as the godfather of tactical
fitness. He'd been talking about this for by
now 30 years plus. He came into the fire station
and he said, hey, the police have challenged
you all to a tactical fitness competition. Are
you up to the challenge? And well, I didn't know
who he was. I didn't know what. a tactical fitness
competition was but if the cops challenge us
we're all in and come to find out he went over
to the police department he said hey the the
firefighters challenged you to this tactical
fitness and so so this whole thing got dusted
up and it was such a popular event that the firefighters
had to have a competition and the police had
to have a competition just to see internally
who was actually going to go to the the main
competition because there's only I think five
positions or five spots. And that just led to
a wonderful mentorship. He took us under his
wing, a couple of us that were coaches in the
department and taught us all about the difference
between traditional fitness and tactical fitness
relating to our central nervous system and the
stress of firefighting, the stress of sleep deprivation
and how you might massage or create a more holistic
approach to your training while also training
at a high intensity. So that's my trajectory
on a timeline is. conventional fitness, functional
fitness, and tactical fitness. And now I've really
come to believe as a coach that each of those
has a place when they're programmed with intention.
And it's, you know, you can look at any demographic
and kind of have some general training advice
for them, but really it becomes, comes down to
what is the individual need in the context of
that. And so, anywho, just trying to... articulate
to any individual or group that there's a lot
of different ways to approach this stuff as long
as we're being intentional and we know why we're
doing it and what we're seeking to achieve. I
mentioned that the gym I train at, it's not specifically
CrossFit now, even though our coach is a freaking
CrossFit phenom. I think he won a lot of the
younger titles when he was doing it then. And
he just, I forget the name of the event. It was
somewhere in Daytona, but he won at the elite
level all six events. Which is insane because
we all know there's more strength ones and more
cardio ones. And yeah, he smashed them all. So
he is a freaking phenom. But the main programming
has gone to Wolf Brigade. So more heavy, heavy
kettlebell work, maces, sandbags, those kind
of things. And so I've seen the evolution of
even the use of implements now versus the old
machines of the 80s. So same kind of question.
What have you seen as far as the evolution of
tools that you use within this programming? Yeah,
and I think, you know, you look at, I call them
simple tools, and kettlebells, steel clubs, med
balls, sandbags, TRX, parallette bars, they really
are simple tools. And what's great about them,
especially if we look at an application of firefighting,
for example, so, you know, as firefighters, we
know what tasks will be asked of us, hose deployment.
raising ground ladders, forcing doors, vehicle
extrication. If you take a step back and look
at the movement patterns that are required to
execute any particular task, when you look at
how those movement patterns are loaded on the
fire ground or on the drill ground, we can use
these implements to better mimic those. to better
prepare the body for express expressible strength
through a full range of motion in ways that you
cannot achieve with conventional fitness equipment
and that's what i think is just so so great about
the influence that crossfit has had in other
other training modalities where we're introducing
a whole other way to move really uh and loading
these movements in a way that we've just never
been able to do before or we weren't aware of
that before a couple of uh Carry -overs I've
seen, I coach a class every Monday, just a free
class for tactical athletes. And one of them
is, or a few of the movements are from a strong
fit, Julian Pannot. And one is a loaded sled
with a long rope and you stand there anchored
and you pull the rope, the sled towards you.
The kind of grip endurance that you get from
that has carried over to my jujitsu. And then
the, oh my goodness, Turkish getup. loading a
heavy Turkish get up now palming someone off
side control while they just look helpless and
then fall over backwards it's amazing so when
you actually use these movements and you see
that real world application it is it's it's incredible
because you know I did barbell workouts forever
and didn't see those kind of results and then
you find these exercises that have this true
carryover and it's a complete game changer then
yeah yeah same you know imagine you're standing
at the front door and you've got uh inches three
-quarter hose that you're having to pull hand
over hand as your crew is going up to the second
floor that requires that a similar grip strength
as you're mentioning or if you've got a hotel
pack or a hose bundle that you've got to hike
with or walk up a flight of stairs you know you
can load your shoulder with a sandbag and do
walking lunges you can and especially and what
i really like to coach uh with tactical athletes
is when you're doing your workout in the gym
really imagine the application uh on the job
so if you're hitting that you know moderate intensity
or high intensity training in the gym your your
body feels challenged your mind feels challenged
and and you're actually imagining what it's going
to feel like to be in that same situation uh
as a firefighter and i've done this personally
and i've observed it in others you really you
it's kind of to tap into the to that growth and
that adaptation and to feel that level of fitness
in your job or or being applied to your job it's
just like oh man okay i i'm i'm in it i'm i'm
all in on this so it's pretty cool to see to
see the buy -in on the front end but to see the
application of it on the back end What is your
philosophy of redline workouts? When I did CrossFit,
obviously there was more higher intensity, and
that's what I like about the programming now.
The intensity has dropped down a little bit,
and then there will be some higher ones. And
then even with my class, if we push all the sleds
and things closer together as far as rest periods,
it can be an absolute lung burner as well. But
when I reflect back, I like the fact that If
I had a worst case scenario fire, the last time
I was in the pain cave was three, five, seven
days prior, not the academy. But at the same
time, as we touched on, sleep deprivation, shift
work, that can also be a bad time to do a red
line workout when you're coming off a bad shift.
So what is your kind of philosophy on high exertion
workouts? And then when would you advise people
to plan those in a traditional firefighter work
week? Yeah, just a lot to discuss around that.
And it starts with Dave Dodson, who wrote a book
called Fire Department Incident Safety Officer.
Great book for any firefighter officer or chief
officer, just in the way that he presents actionable
tools to stay safe as a firefighter. But one
of the points he makes is. arbitrary aggressiveness
versus intellectual aggressiveness and his whole
point is let's just not go kick in the front
door and pound on our chests and slay the dragon
let's do a good size up let's let's have the
level of skill that we can execute execute on
that quickly and in a way that is informed and
intelligent it doesn't cost us any time but it
helps to keep us safe and ultimately has a better
impact on the end result so if we apply that
same idea to our physical training arbitrary
physical and train physical training versus intentional
physical training and that that starts with how
we program so as you mentioned i'm i'm on a our
department one works one on two off one on four
off and so all of my physical training whether
it's low intensity moderate or high intensity
waves intentionally around my shift schedule
and we can go deeper into that if you want in
a bit here and then in terms of the high intensity
I feel like it's really important that we do
that periodically. But again, it's very intentional
within a progressive training program. And then
I love to use it to coach intentional training
metrics, right? So we teach our athletes to really
pay attention to their movement quality, to pay
attention to their intensity, to pay attention
to any discomfort they may feel, to pay attention
to their ability to focus, and to pay attention
to their dexterity. those those workouts that
you just mentioned where they're lung burners
or your muscles are burning or you're challenging
yourself at high intensity you're also cognitively
paying very close attention because you're going
to score it in the end you're not sacrificing
movement quality for the workout you're being
very mindful of your intensity and you're not
exceeding the intensity you plan for for that
particular day any discomfort almost like a check
engine light if that discomfort gets to be a
two or a three that light comes on and you either
make a change or you stop and so you're not you're
not going to power through pain and then when
you think of uh kind of high intensity high stress
uh fight or flight two of the things we lose
pretty quickly are cognitive function and fine
motor skills so your body doesn't know if you're
in a high intensity workout or if you're in a
crazy situation on the fire ground if you're
paying very close attention to how your body's
responding to that intensity or that stress in
the gym and you're thinking about your cognitive
function hey what rep am i on or what round am
i in or your fine motor skills you're you're
writing down your reps in between your you know
you could even do some knot tying exercises in
between bouts of high intensity if you really
want to go deeper into that but but you know
it's all very intentional the the programming
around high intensity is intentional and you're
recognizing that high intensity training is a
tool to to prepare you for the stress of firefighting
in a very intentional way without in a in a mindless
way just trying to kick your own ass for no objective
gain that's what i found with observing the world
of crossfit not crossfit the programming not
the elite people that were ultimately teaching
us how to do it at the beginning but the the
lack of understanding of how long the preparation
took for the high level CrossFit athletes versus
the weekend warrior that wanted to start butterfly
pull -ups right off the get -go. And you did
see that. You saw, myself included, just terrible
form when it came to snatches and complex movements
that we just hadn't put the time in or the mobility
work in or the accessory work in to really be
able to move in that way. And so I agree with
you a hundred percent. Like that's how people
were getting hurt. It wasn't CrossFit. It was
us, you know, either poorly coaching and or not
having the humility as an athlete to take some
weight off, but getting that intensity. And this
is what I love about the strong man stuff. You
can push high intensity without really worrying
about form with just say, push that sled from
here to here. Now pick up, pick up the sandbag
and bring it back. Now pick up the rope and drag
the sled back. You know what I mean? by reducing
the complexity of the exercise, you were safely
able to increase intensity. And like you said,
then you have the capacity then to think about
the things that you need to think about because
you're not thinking about your shitty form in
your, you know, three foot wide stance trying
to get that snatch over your head. Yeah, yeah.
No, that's what I love about the intentional
approach also is if you're, you know, I've had
a lot of... athletes ask like well where's the
follow -along video right i kind of like peloton
where i can turn my brain off and just you know
work hard like well you know that's okay for
general population but for us as firefighters
we're really missing the boat if we're not taking
every opportunity in the gym to to do the opposite,
to be mindful of how we're moving, to look at
the biomechanics of the exercise, to consider
how we're loading it and how our body manages
that load, to be aware of our heart rate and
our rating of perceived exertion during any activity.
Because the fact of the matter is, when you are
on the drill ground or you are on the fire ground,
you don't have the same control of any of that
that you do in the gym. But if you have that
awareness that you've developed in the gym, you
100 % can manage that. on the fire ground and
you you and i just mentioned a couple things
whether it's jiu jitsu or in firefighting where
you're moving a certain way you're you're you're
at a specific intensity of of challenge if if
you're not experiencing that for the first time
in that challenge you've been practicing that
in the safer environment of a gym or a physical
training environment you're so much better equipped
not only to perform at a higher level first of
all but to avoid injury because you're just very
aware of how your body's moving and you can make
adjustments on the fly quite easily. That's a
really good point. When I think about, you know,
just fire ground operations in general, you know,
you... want to be cognizant of radio traffic,
you want to be cognizant of overhead wires, fire
conditions, all these things. So if you just
shut off air quotes every time you work out,
then you're conditioning your brain to not be
aware when in the real world, we need to be the
opposite. We need to minimize our exertion and
maximize our awareness. 100%. And that's what
I was in the training division for a long time
and was coaching recruits in academy for a long
time. And that's a really... really fun place
to be because recruits uh whether they like it
or not they they get to listen to to you and
they and they execute what they're told but but
we present it in a way that they buy into and
we check in with them on that but to come into
academy and say hey number one rule of academy
is don't get hurt like don't get hurt and so
we never use physical training in recruit academy
as a test we never force someone in recruit academy
to do something that exceeds their abilities
uh that whole that whole idea of you know give
someone a fish versus teach them to fish from
from day one we teach recruits all of these principles
around physical training with intention be mindful
really embrace these objective and subjective
scoring metrics in the gym and then when you're
on the job you can translate that so it takes
like any lessons or anything you're teaching
it takes a little bit of time to there's a little
bit of a learning curve but it's really really
awesome as a as an instructor to see recruits
for one to kind of pick it up and apply it in
the gym but now when you're on the drill ground
you see hey they're in a position for a ground
ladder lift you say hey spine straight or you
just give one little coaching cue in terms of
body position that they've heard a hundred times
in the gym then on the drill ground bang they
just immediately they know exactly what it means
if they didn't tune into it themselves it only
takes one word and then You see them demonstrate
it physically immediately. And then they have
that for the rest of their career. You're teaching
them from the very beginning how to move safely
and effectively and how to optimize their performance
with all these tools. And they have that forever.
What about breathing? This is something that
I love to talk to either the breathwork people
or the coaches. You take a step back, there are
only a few occupations on the planet where the
only air they have available to them is strapped
to their back, whether it's underwater, in space,
or in an IDLH environment. And yet, the only
breathing conversations I ever heard, which I
used all the way through my career, was things
like skip breathing, when you were doing the,
you know, how long can your air tank last? But
when you actually think about using breath and
exercise, I love the CrossFit EMOM. You know,
because usually you'll be at 30 seconds work
and 30 seconds recovery. So that would be a very
deliberate, you know, breath practice to try
and get your heart rate down for the next round.
But, you know, when I'm thinking about the more
menial task, whether it's ascending, you know,
before you get to the fire floor, whether it's,
you know, make an entry, whatever the thing is,
these moments where you get to downregulate,
you're taking a knee for a moment, you know,
maybe you're not the one forcing the door. and
teaching people how to not just conserve their
air air quotes but actually be mindful with you
know their their breathing itself so what's your
observations on that whole conversation yeah
and again uh this is where I have gratitude around
this I go back to my mentorship with Scott Sonnen
and he taught all of us in again this physical
training environment but it it applied directly
to our firefighting he teaches about movement
breathing and structure so that comes back to
uh structure being your body's in a good position
always movement meaning the biomechanics uh protect
your movement quality and then the breathing
and so in my experience you know there's kind
of two types of breathing during exercise and
then we can talk about what he called the reset
breathing but there's force breathing where on
any exertion you're breathing out right like
and we learn that we teach that he he always
taught a more effective way to breathe he called
it flow breathing So anytime your body compresses,
you're exhaling. And anytime your body expands,
you're inhaling. So in some ways, it's even the
opposite. So if I'm doing a ground ladder press
alternating, I'm actually inhaling. Anytime my
body's opening up, I'm inhaling. Anytime my body's
compressing, I'm exhaling. And if you start practicing
that in the gym, there's none of that bracing.
There's none of that. uh inner thoracic pressure
that comes from like breath holding or bracing
now it's just flowing so if you even apply that
to a push -up you just your body naturally breathe
it breathes itself almost like a bellows and
it takes some getting used to but as your conditioning
improves as your awareness of your intensity
in exercise and in movement improves you can
much more readily apply this idea of flow breathing
and it's synergistic the movement of your body
and how your breath breathes is is natural there's
no no stoppage whatsoever so i'd encourage people
to kind of look into that or practice that because
it that was a game changer for me 100 and then
kind of those that idea of taking a break or
recovering in these intervals uh coach sonnen
he never liked to call it rest intervals he always
liked to use the word recovery and because again
we want to be mindful and intentional and he
would teach a reset breathing technique where
on the exhale you know you're shaking your body
and you're really fully exhaling all the air
out of your lungs and then allowing your body
to breathe in what it needs and then that forceful
exhale and And again, you see your heart rate
come down much more quickly with a more intentional
approach to your reset and recovery breathing
than it would otherwise. So a long -winded way,
no pun intended, to answer your question that
it comes back to being intentional. And it comes
back to not saying one way is the only way to
do it, but having these different tools and skills
available to you that you can apply. in the right
environment if you're a power lifter yeah you've
got to be really good at the force breathing
but if you're on the fire ground or you're doing
interval training you're doing something for
a more extended period of time that flow breathing
is is an amazing tool an amazing skill to develop
what about nasal breathing i had um several people
now on the show talking about that and I think
for me personally, up to a certain intensity,
it works really well after that. You know, Chris
Hinshaw was talking about, there's a certain
point where you're almost training the body to
seem like it's starving of oxygen and that can
be detrimental. But then the lower intensity
stuff, I found it really, really effective of
stopping the heart rate from spiking unnecessarily.
Yeah. And what I've, I haven't done a deep dive
into it, but what I've heard and learned is similar
to what you're saying that up to a point. uh
really makes sense to do that i will add that
i'm a mouth tape advocate now in terms of sleeping
so if i'm not wearing mouth tape when i sleep
it objectively disrupts my sleep and i don't
feel great although it took me a little bit of
time to get used to it so all to say i don't
have deep knowledge necessarily on that topic
specifically but what i have heard is in alignment
with what you've heard and certainly as it applies
to sleep and and uh being more intentional about
nasal breathing i'm i'm definitely on board with
that let's take a journey as far as the fitness
of a firefighter um obviously the front door
is uh you know hiring standards as far as fitness
tests so talk to me about your philosophy on
that in general yeah and so well uh when i first
got hired at my department we had a very strenuous
uh physical ability test um maybe even too much
so because it did disqualify a lot of candidates
that i'm sure would have been great firefighters
on the flip side the current CPAT I think is
great, but it doesn't guarantee success in Recruit
Academy. So I've observed individuals that have
successfully passed the CPAT but did not successfully
pass Recruit Academy because they just didn't
have the physical ability to do all that was
asked of them in Academy. So while I see the
CPAT as really a good screening tool, I think
it's important and I think some of the really
proactive departments are actually doing like
pre -academy physical training they're trying
to introduce recruits or candidates to a more
realistic view of what they might encounter in
recruit academy so coming back to this whole
idea of conventional fitness versus functional
fitness versus tactical fitness i think that
the the wellness fitness initiative has a good
annual physical fitness assessment. Again, that's
a more general fitness assessment. They measure
aerobic capacity, muscular strength and endurance,
pull strength versus pushing strength, functional
movement screen. So I think that's a really important
general fitness assessment. You look at the CPAT,
I think it's a pretty decent baseline measurement
of what you'll need in the fire service. For
me, I've developed a more, what I think, I call
it the the firefighter tactical fitness assessment
it's a it's a four -time uh evolution where i
reverse engineered different movement patterns
loaded them a certain way and it's not necessarily
pass fail but it does give an individual a sense
of what their physical capabilities are what
their limitations are and it provides a baseline
that you can always come back and measure and
are you getting better or are you getting worse
so i guess that's a long -winded way of saying
I don't think that fire departments should ever
lower standards relative to what the needs of
the job are. I don't think necessarily that we
need to change the entry level physical from
the CPAT to something else. I do think that there
should be better structure and better opportunities
to prepare candidates through physical training,
through structured physical training for the
demands of Recruit Academy. And we're just not
doing that. What were the movements that you
had, the four movements for your test? So shoulder
-loaded walking lunge. There's a parallette four
-point press, which simulates ground engagement.
There's a sandbag standing halo rotation, which
kind of gets into forcible entry or motor vehicle
extrication, rotation, anti -rotation. There's
a... front -loaded sandbag squat to simulate
lifting from the ground. And I think there may
be a kettlebell swing in there to simulate the
hinging movement of, you know, dragging or lifting
someone. So in that, I'm trying to capture most
of the primary movement patterns that we might
experience, and they're all loaded in a way similar
to represent the the things we're called upon
to do as firefighters and it's it is scalable
so again there's no it's not a pass fail it's
meant to be accessible where someone could you
know they can modify loading they can modify
volume uh all to get that baseline and major
progress uh over the long term one of my friends
uh founded fire sled and if you've heard of that
but it's um they've got three main um pieces
of equipment there's a ladder mill you know,
eternal ladder that would simulate an aerial.
There's a thing called the Punisher, which is
like a Kaiser, but it's horizontal. So now you're
standing and it's kind of waist level as a forceful
entry would be because we're not using axes on
roofs anymore. And then the main sled is got
a ceiling prop. It's got a hose that you drag
and then obviously dragging the entire sled.
There's a... a ladder that would kind of simulate
like a roof ladder um and then on the back of
the sled there's also handles that would simulate
a dummy drag so what i love about that is they've
come up with a version of the cpat but you don't
need an entire building to run it and if you
as you said you have a mentorship program you've
got person x or person y for whatever reason
they're not at that point yet you can incrementally
load this sled to get them to the point where
they can move it So I think that that's another
great test a lot of people don't know about.
What's interesting, though, with the CPAT, like
the Orange County when I worked there, that was
viewed as too hard for the incumbent test. So
the iPad, they called it, they made an even easier
version of that. In my opinion, like you just
said, I don't think the CPAT is hard at all if
you're asking someone to be at the level that
a firefighter should be. So then we'll go to
the next phase now. fitness standards once you
have completed the academy and you get into the
profession you know what is your perspective
of that because it was pretty damn clear in the
academy what was expected of us but it blows
most people's mind that nearly you know no departments
have a punitive fitness standard when we get
into the job yeah and so my my viewpoint on this
might be a little bit biased because of just
what i've observed in my own department so when
i i was hired uh in my career department in 1996
and already i'm there day one they've already
got fitness testing twice a year they're already
doing this very um demanding and challenging
candidate physical ability test and there were
three people uh connie tucson danny anderson
and mike larson who in the late 80s early 90s
against all this you know the folks that were
smoking and and kind of the old school mentality
those three specifically kind of planted the
seed for a culture of fitness and when i got
there in 96 i would say it was probably 40 had
that fitness mindset and maybe even 60 didn't
and so uh lucky for me i was invited to participate
on that pure fitness team and many many others
and over the years through again coming back
to this idea of being very intentional not only
did we provide these opportunities to firefighters
in a way that wasn't punitive, we offered monetary
incentives. So if you participate in the fitness
testing twice a year, you are awarded a dollar
amount to kind of incentivize your participation
in it. And then what happened over a period of
almost 30 years now is one, that early participation
and that non -punitive yet monetary incentive.
kept people engaged in it and then the department
and and i'm really grateful to the organization
for committing to this in interviews they would
we would interview candidates and say hey describe
to us why physical fitness is important to firefighters
and tell us your own personal feelings about
fitness and how you stay fit and you're interviewing
50 people and you can tell immediately who really
feels that and who doesn't and so year after
year after year class after class after class
our department is hiring, that's not the only
thing we look at, but it certainly is a big characteristic
that we look for in hiring our firefighters.
Fast forward to the year 2025, we have this massive
sporting event. It's called Ski to Sea, and it's
literally you ski down the mountain as part of
a team and you end in a kayak. in Bellingham
Bay 80 miles later we had four firefighter teams
in these different divisions and of the four
teams each of them placed in the top five and
so you know we talk about tactical athlete well
yes they're tactical athletes but they're athletes
like they in their personal lives participate
in all of this just because that's what they
love to do and it just so happens that we hired
them so you know it's a tricky question and one
of the things i have come to believe you know
through my whole life experience as a trainer
and a coach is there's nothing more difficult
than trying to force someone against their will
to become fit and i get it like well if we establish
a standard and they don't meet it they're out
of here like i i get the mentality of that but
i just don't see that especially when we look
at the data where 70 of our fire services obese
or overweight you know if we we can't get rid
of you know can't kick everyone out the door
right and nor should we um but but all to say
we should have absolutely have these standards
but i believe there's so many ways to build a
culture of fitness it starts with leading by
example as an organization and supporting these
initiatives in the department leading by example
for those that are incumbent in you know demonstrating
fitness and being fit and then all the way down
to the hiring, just make it, you know, make sure
you're communicating clearly to your candidates
what the expectations are and and really striving
to hire people that come in with that fitness.
And then it just builds, builds on itself. And
so, yeah, you know, I think in some ways we have
to meet people where they are, but that's where
that's kind of where we drop the ball. We don't
you know, we just don't really implement these
programs in our fire departments in a way that
objectively. could be successful and and i don't
think it has to be extreme one way or the other
i think there's a really really great way that
we could structure this to be comprehensive in
a way to to certainly set the standard but also
to help people to get there yeah i think that's
that's you know where we need to go now and the
sad thing is we are playing catch up you know
this is the problem so people like oh you're
trying to take our jobs like no we're trying
to save your lives yeah and in the process make
you able to save someone else's that's the harsh
reality And so no, no one's saying tomorrow,
if you're not this weight, then you're out. They're
saying there would be an on -ramp of whatever
year, 18 months where you have to get to that
point. And we will give you the, the, you know,
the trainers and all the tools. But by that point,
it would be very evident if you actually give
a shit or you don't. And if you don't, maybe
fire prevention or, you know, maybe not the fire
department at all is an option because the other
side of this conversation, and I've, I've said
this many times on here. your own family now,
how would you feel if your family died because
the rescuer tapped out halfway up the building?
Unacceptable. Unacceptable. If you're a lifeguard,
and I was a lifeguard, I had a lot of ocean lifeguards
on here. Every six months they recertify. You're
going to give them a little sad story about it's
really hard to swim. Can I just be a lifeguard
anyway? Of course not. You signed up for this.
You're not a fucking plumber. You're a firefighter.
So there has to be that line in the sand too.
But like we're talking about, then we've got
to give these people the resources to maintain
their fitness, to maintain their mobility, to
maintain their mental health so they can operate.
But it is a high level. Like the SEALs, the PJs,
all these war fighters everyone admires, they
hold us to the same bar. They really do. I've
been told over and over and over again. Because
when they're overseas, who's protecting their
family? We are. And so but you're telling me
that it's not fair that you have to lose 60 pounds
and get back into the shape that you were in
the academy when you said this is my minimum
standard. So I think, you know, it is it is a
conversation, but it's a conversation that needs
some courage by leadership because the line does
have to be put in the sand. And then you create
a culture of fitness that sustains that. But
right now, all this whining and opposition from
unions, you know. It's a disservice to the people
that we serve and it's shortening the lifespan
of the first responder because a fit firefighter
is most likely going to have a much longer lifespan
than an unfit one. Well, and that's where I personally
really like the idea of embracing the term tactical
athlete. And if you just the most simple definition
of athlete is participating in an endeavor that
requires skill and physical fitness, skill and
physical fitness. in its most simple definition
and if you talk to anyone and you say athlete
this person's an athlete that person's an athlete
immediately with one word you're getting that
connotation you you understand that now i don't
sit here and think that firefighters need to
be athletic in terms of how they move i certainly
have no one that's ever met me in my entire life
would ever describe me as athletic never i've
been physically fit though i'm physically fit
and i have some degree of skill related to being
a firefighter so meeting that definition and
then you think about well who who do we need
to get buy -in from well it starts with the individual
and then it's the agency and then it's the union
and then it's the community or those that represent
the community right and so if we can use one
phrase tactical athlete and we can use that phrase
to get buy -in for participating in supporting
and fully funding everything we're talking about
around firefighter health and performance let's
start there like let's start using the language
that puts us in the best position to support
our firefighters and this brings me all the way
back to my experience at washington state university
looking at the way the athletes were supported
well here they are the the university wants them
to perform at a certain level on the field Saturday
that's what they want them to do so in order
to get there they give them nutrition plan and
access to healthy food coaching and access to
a gym athletic trainers and access to rehab and
recovery access to mental health like they have
access to all of that that was more than 30 years
ago just for one college football team so imagine
if firefighters had access in a structured way
to all of that and again even the wellness fish
initiative that we're talking about that's a
great start like it really does package and deliver
all of these things in that way if we could just
get all of those stakeholders and coming back
to the individual the agency the the union and
the community to all really buy into this idea
of being a tactical athlete maybe we can garner
that support and that funding and that buy -in
to really start putting those pieces in place
to support the performance and health of our
firefighters i'm always very fair when i talk
about this whole you know firefighter fitness
conversation because you know some people you
know i could get on my ivory tower and say well
if you just did what i did and you know then
you'd be still in shape but i grew up on a farm
in england you know we grew food in the orchard
you know what i mean it's a completely different
environment and so you know how dare i then say
oh you just be like me like you see a lot of
these influencers doing environment plus ownership
equals you know fitness or whatever it is that
you're pursuing and we have not created an environment
for rest and recovery in the fire service so
before we kind of take into a dive into your
shift schedule talk to me about the importance
of sleep through now your trainers you know performance
lens oh my goodness well again kind of coming
back to my own personal experience so i was on
a paramedic unit for six years and we were busy
like we and again i know a lot i'm speaking to
the audience out there guys and gals i i'm just
saying i i know how you feel because i felt the
same way you're busy there's no sleep maybe you
work overtime shifts in there james there were
times where i would be having lunch with a friend
and and i would literally fall asleep like even
and what kind of wake up and not hear a word
they said like not fully fall asleep but my brain
would just kind of kind of shut down and then
every every so many weeks i would get physically
sick my body would force me to sleep. And back
then, I'm in my 20s, so I'm not paying any attention,
nor do I have really any information around,
hey guys, let's go do red beer breakfast, or
hey guys, let's go to Vegas this weekend, or
hey, let's go have some drinks and blow off steam.
And so all the things that now we know are also
destroying your sleep while you're also getting
crushed at night on shift. wow, it's terrible.
And so then I went into the training division
for a period of time. And it was the first time
in maybe 20 years, 15 years that I actually had
slept every night for a period of weeks. And
it was like, you know, your glasses get dirty
and you clean them off and you put your glasses
back. Oh my God, look how clear the world looks.
Like I had no idea what my baseline of fatigue
and sleep deprivation had become. And then fast
forward. now i'm late in my career and i went
back into the training division again for i was
in there for 10 years and i was working out on
a regular schedule i was eating on a regular
schedule i was sleeping every night um man i
felt i felt great even as an older person you
know i felt pretty good and now i'm back on shift
as a battalion chief and i don't i don't get
up like the crews do but i don't sleep very well
uh for lots of reasons but now i feel now i feel
the effects of that sleep deprivation what's
different now that i'm older and wiser on one
side i feel like maybe i'm more susceptible because
i am older i i can't believe what i got away
with as a younger person you know just i don't
know how i did that but uh i don't get away with
anything now as an older person so if i can you
know i've got my aura ring and i monitor my sleep
quality i go to bed early at home and on shift
to just try to at least get one good sleep cycle
on shift maybe if i'm lucky um you know taking
naps uh being mindful of when I eat my dinner
at night, being mindful of when I drink my coffee
during the day. Like there's so many tools available
to us, even as shift workers to not have perfect
sleep, but to maybe improve, avoid alcohol or
be mindful of how and when you drink alcohol.
Like we know so much more than we did back in
my day to at least help us manage and mitigate
that versus just completely crushing our sleep
at every opportunity. So what is the schedule?
You mentioned one on two off, one on four off.
Are there debit days you've got to work as well?
Yes. Yes. So our debit days fall on our four
day. And it's interesting, you know, I've been
really watching from a distance the one on three
off that you've been really advocating for. And
gosh, that sounds pretty good. You know, the
two off never feels like enough. And the four
off, I always feel great. And so maybe that three
off is just the real sweet spot to... to find
that balance between recovering fully between
each shift is there a conversation to eliminate
a debit these because this was interesting with
the northwest is you you have a four platoon
system don't you it's just again someone who
worked 40 hours convinced you that you needed
to make up hours to to go to 48 or whatever it
was that you work so um you know this is what's
beautiful about you know your area of the country
is just all you have to do now is just get the
stuff in the cover those debit days and now you're
technically fully staffed 24 72 um and again
you know whether i mean what you're doing is
not terrible but people have said to me which
is the best one um because i think it was i think
there was one guy from miami when i was at a
conference recently and they want to do 24 on
24 off 24 on and then it was like five off or
something like that and i'm and you know people
said to me what do you think and i'm like well
this the science is irrefutable that you need
at least 72 hours to recover from a 24 so if
you're happy being a much worse firefighter on
that second day you're not really caring about
how the citizen you know the delivery of service
and yeah if it's all about you maybe that's good
but if you actually care about being a professional
and you get to change the schedule then the 24
72 on paper is the best one until we do a 2496
or, you know, get even more rest and recovery.
But I think that's the sweet spot because as
you said, that 48, which most of us work 2448,
you know, around the country, it's, it's not
enough. It is just not enough because it's not
two days off because everyone forgets what time
did you go home? 8am. So did you work from midnight
to eight? Yeah. So that's eight hours work. Yeah.
Would you call that a work day? Well, yeah. So
really you've had one day off. so all the 24
72 is actually doing is giving you two full days
off between shifts yeah and how many of us would
agree that that first day off shift you're never
at your best so watch whether you're looking
at your workout or looking at any productive
work you might do or even how you might interact
with your family at home at least for me that
day after work is is always always always for
the entire history of my career uh less than
optimal yeah so this is where i think you know
Again, putting empathy and compassion into the
firefighters that have found themselves deconditioned
with opposition of fitness standards that could
have maintained them. But also now you've got
an environment that is absolutely hands down,
scientifically proven, setting you up for failure
with weight gain, with cardiac issues, with testosterone
depletion, etc. So this is what irks me is now.
Our current IFF leadership are based in Boston
who work 24 -72. And there's still no conversation
about, well, let's make that a national standard.
Because I think, again, going back to our conversation
of fitness specifically. if we gave these men
and women the rest and recovery and therefore
fully staffed fire departments, because young
people actually want to do this job again, because
we're showing that we're going to take care of
them. Now you can, as you said, either put an
actual bar, create a culture of fitness, whatever
it is, but you can choose that top 10 % of a
list and then maintain that culture. And therefore
everything from, you know, depression and anxiety
through to cardiac events is going to go down
and the level of performance and our ability
to do our job. is going to go through the roof
again yeah that's what's interesting about all
these conversations where you know wouldn't take
much and i think the corporate world is actually
doing a really good job of really recognizing
and demonstrating these aren't expenses they're
actually cost savings initiatives so if you could
get past just the idea of it and actually be
willing to to put this into place even on a trial
basis and monitor the data uh it would pretty
quickly i think whether it's sick leave or injury
or however you want to kind of look at where
the money is spent on the flip side of it it
becomes evident real quick uh even from a money
side the benefits of it that doesn't even take
into account our ability to have a better quality
of life to better serve our communities and all
of that and it's it's interesting uh gordon graham
i love listening to him talk and he he puts things
in a way that's so simple he says hey if it's
measurable it's manageable well all of this is
measurable and all of it is manageable and what's
predictable is preventable well james what is
more predictable than the trends that we see
in the fire service whether it's the the cardiac
numbers the cancer numbers the suicide rates
the obesity rates like year after year after
year it's not just predictable it's it's it's
already happening so how could we possibly prevent
that well everything we're talking about let's
look at you know let's look at physical activity
let's look at nutrition let's look at sleep let's
look at stress management let's look at all these
things that we now know more than ever about
how we can manage and mitigate and optimize people
around all of this and um you know for whatever
reason it's just very difficult and i think part
of it too is you know we're very siloed i feel
like we're very siloed in the fire service whether
whether it's what we're talking about so mental
health is over here and physical fitness is over
here and sleep study is over here each of those
are in their own kind of silos and then you know
what part of the country do you live in or what
you know type of department do you work for like
it doesn't seem like or feel like we just have
this one hub or central central place to find
all of this stuff um you know I don't know if
that's part of the problem, but it's definitely
an observation I feel related to all of this.
No, I mean, completely to the point where if
we really just take a step back and hopefully
this isn't the case where you work, but I've
worked in places like Orange County, for example,
where I've literally been on a call. I'm on a
rescue EMS vehicle that time, you know, with
fire gear, but no water. And there's a transformer
fire that's about to light up an entire trailer
park that's heavily, heavily wooded. and i'm
just calling for an engine and i'm working for
orange county orlando five which is the one that
was right next to the pulse shooting i can see
them and the dispatch is basically arguing with
me about jurisdiction here herein lies the problem
because my my you know engine would be the one
in the jurisdiction but it's the far south south
end of the first jew and orlando is like one
block over And so this is the thing. You have
FDs that won't even play nice together. You have
FD and PD that won't interact. And then we have
tragedies like Uvalde and Parkland and all these
things. And it wasn't just that. But I mean,
this breakdown in communication, these egos at
the top can be devastating. They can cause lives,
cause loss of life. So but this is, I think,
what is missing in the fire service is humility.
And then this happened. There are some great,
great people doing this. But going to. South
Metro, going to Boynton Beach, going to whoever
is doing something, Pasco County. Oh, how did
you go to 2472? I've been blown away how these
departments, for example, in this workweek conversation
that have gone to it, have bent over backwards
over and over and over and over again to help
other departments learn how they did it so they
can apply it. That is actually brotherhood and
sisterhood. But it's the egos that get in the
way. Oh, well, ours is the best way. We don't
listen to county or city or whatever. And so
I think we've created the silos out of arrogance.
And we do need to drop those walls because we
are the American fire service collectively. And
every, you know, almost every department in this
country is going to figure something out that's
going to be really the best way of doing it,
whether it's regionally or nationally. So you
don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just find who's
doing it really well. and knowledge share and
then as they say the rising tide lifts all ships
yeah no for sure and we kind of joke with ourselves
you know 200 years of tradition unimpeded by
progress right and it is tough i get it it's
tough to to move the needle beyond some of the
tradition or the way we've always done it but
now more than ever especially with the new young
people coming into the fire service we just have
more opportunity than we ever have to shape the
future of the fire service. And if we can just
tap into this new energy that's coming in and
people in the space that are really thought leaders
around a lot of these issues, yourself being
an example, I do believe that we have this opportunity
to really make progress maybe more in the next
10 years than we have in the last 50. I've said
this a few times. Stop me if I said it to you
already, but I don't think I did in this conversation.
I was talking to someone the other day and then
law enforcement and I was saying, you know, we
have stood on the shoulders of giants. You know,
you're a cop and your body armor and your weapons
and your tactics are from the forefathers. I
wore SCBAs and bunker gear and, you know, used
MAD devices and, you know, EpiPens. And this
was all other people's innovation. I just got
to use it. Where our, yours and my generation
can really be innovators is the health of the
human being. You know, the Halligan is good.
Stop trying to add bits onto it. It's fine. But
let's get together and say, you know, let's create
a healthy workforce. Because as you mentioned,
your son is thinking about going to the fire
service. A lot of people have said this a lot
recently. It used to be back in the day that
fathers would be like best job in the world and
their kids would go into the fire service. Now
we're hearing the opposite. I don't want my child
to go in the fire service. And it's not the calling.
It's not the job. It's the environment. It's,
you know, whether it's the toxic environment,
a lack of support, whether it's the insane work
weeks in the understaffed departments that's
requiring mandatory overtime all the time. You
know, a lot of these kids are saying, well, I
don't want to do that because dad was never home.
You know, so we can fix that. Like you said,
there are things you can't fix. You know, if
a plane drops out the sky and lands in a neighborhood,
that's out of our control. But we can control
when people go to work. We can control how many
people want to work for our department tests.
We can control fitness standards. We can control
whether they have, you know, zero barrier to
entry to mental health practitioners. Those are
actionable things that would save lives. So this
is where I feel that there needs to be a revolution.
It's a revolution of wellness and performance
because this is, you know, I'll get your take
on this now. I have seen that the national conversation
when it comes to. firefighter fitness isn't how
can we squeeze out a high level of performance
in a high rise pyre? It's just, well, how can
we get them to eat a bowl of oatmeal and not
die of a heart attack? Maybe we'll walk around
the building twice. So we on the performance
point have such a huge opportunity to go from,
you know, surviving the job air quotes to actually
thriving and performing where that group of four
that gets off the rig, you know, that those 2025
stories with a high rise strip. is going to be
completely manageable. And they're still then
going to have the energy to go in, do a search
and drag someone out. Yeah, no, 100%. And again,
that comes back to this whole idea about being
intentional about how we support our firefighters.
You know, we talked about making sure we're not
lowering standards, but also being willing to
meet people where they are and providing them
resources in making those improvements and getting
to where they can meet those standards. I'm really
proud to be part of Crackle Magazine. I'm the
executive fitness advisor for the magazine. I
think I know someone that looked just like you
that was maybe on a cover once upon a time. They
must have been really struggling for people that
month. He was very handsome, very, very, very
good resemblance, as I recall. uh corey pern
and that whole team over there like they have
all the same vision and and thought that we do
in terms of uh you know how do we take care of
the whole firefighter like how do we take care
of the whole firefighter so that when the bell
hits, they're at their best. And we could talk
all day about fitness and nutrition and sleep
and stress. And then, well, where does relationships
come into that? Where does finances come into
that? It's all connected, James. And again, coming
back to Gordon Graham, if it's measurable, it's
manageable. If it's predictable, it's preventable.
How do we pool our resources? How do we bring
these thought leaders together in a way that
presents or provides something that is actionable?
to firefighters everywhere. And again, keep coming
back to the Wellness Fitness Initiative. That
is an IFF, IFC collaboration. I think that's
a great opportunity. Again, I'm really proud
of the work that Krakow Magazine is doing to
provide a regular publication that, oh, what
do you want to read about? What do you want to
learn about? Here's 20 articles that... written
by firefighters or someone very close to the
fire service that can give you something actionable
in a really quick read you know and i was at
fdic uh this last year that the big fire service
trade show and again just talking to all these
folks that are that are thought leaders in the
space or in the fire service and and you know
you have the formal classes during the day, but
the really interesting conversations happen at
dinner when you're just sitting down talking
to someone informally and the ideas that they
have and the commitment and the dedication they
have to moving the needle on all this stuff.
So, you know, it's, man, I just, I feel like
we're so close. I feel like we're on this precipice
of really breaking through on a lot of it. But
man, it sure feels like it's moving slow. It
sure feels like it takes longer than it should.
But when I look at my son and I imagine... the
future fire service for him, I am optimistic.
See, I'm 100%. People, you know, I don't know
if it comes across, but I call myself an angry
optimist. Like, I believe 100 % it's going to
get better, but we might have to punch some people
in the face to get there. But it's true that
there is a wellness revolution just on the work
week alone. You know, in Florida, it's happened.
We're up to like 10 departments now in less than
two years that have made this change. There's
also opposition. And I'll give you a perfect
example. And I'm more than happy to repeat this
a thousand times because it needs to be pulled
out into the daylight. The Florida Firefighter
Chiefs, Florida, yeah, Florida Firefighter Chiefs
Association. I think I've got that right. They
sent out an email amongst themselves when Danny
Alvarez put this bill together recommending a
42 hour work week for all Florida firefighters
saying that they oppose the bill. Now, these
are chiefs that work 40 hours and go home at
five o 'clock every day. And we're in a crisis
in this state where a lot of our firefighters
truly are working eight -hour weeks with mandatory
overtime over and over and over again. So that
shows you that there is resistance. And I will
call it what it is. It's cowardice. It's not
being willing to actually advocate for your people
and having that conversation, just like you alluded
to, that ultimately will make you the hero because
you will save your city and county money downstream.
But of course, you've got to go to them and say,
well, yes, extra bodies will take X amount of
money over the next two, three years. And that's
where leadership comes in. So putting this to
you now, we're not just talking about the work
week, the fitness training and resources and
all the other things. Not only are they, which
is important to me, going to actually save lives
and improve performance within the men and women
that we love, but also it is going to save the
taxpayer a lot of money and give a much higher
delivery of service when they're having their
worst day. How do we navigate that cowardice,
the person who's only concerned about the budget
year so they can look good or their promotional
opportunity and actually move this forward so
that we do what's best for the entire profession?
So I have two thoughts on that. One is the way
I look at some of this is, you know, any department
that's really in a that's underfunded, under
resourced, overworked. You know, how is that
different than in any kind of an MCI? You know,
if we declare an organizational MCI, which simply
means the needs of the organization far exceed
the resources available. And now I'm going to
tap into this idea of courage that you're. talking
to what if and again there's different leadership
entities in an organization in my experience
there's kind of three pathways to to seek change
in an organization one is the fire department
administration the other is the the labor group
and the labor leadership and i also feel like
there's a really powerful entity right in the
middle in our department it's our safety committee
so anything that's identified or or comes forward
as a safety issue it's a it's a mandatory collaboration
between the labor group and the management group.
And over 30 years in my career, you can only
avoid the right thing for so long. And any issue
that's ever, it goes to admin, it gets denied,
it goes to labor, it gets denied for whatever
reason. But as soon as it comes to the safety
committee and it's on the docket, two sets of
bunker gear, extractor washers, all these things
that kind of coming back, like you said, we didn't
have it. back in my day, but we have all of it
now. We have PFAS free gear now. We just got,
every one of our members just got issued a set
of PFAS free gear. So, you know, does it take
30 years sometimes to cross some of this? Yes.
But what I'm trying to express is why wouldn't
we go through a triage exercise? in our organizations
take take your leadership teams in your department
have labor and management representation go up
to the white board and what are our red patients
well obviously safety and health is number one
well where where are the threats to our safety
and health and what would it cost to address
those and spend the money and then go back to
the the politicians and say hey we're fully funding
all of this Unfortunately, with our current budget,
we're going to have to shut down a station or
we're going to have to reduce the calls we go
on or do something different. And again, you
talk about courage. We had a, I think it was
the King County Sheriff stood in front of the
news about a month ago. They underwent all these
budget cuts and she said in front of everyone,
we have done more with less for decades. Now
we're doing less with less and you will see it.
and you will feel it and you will not like it
but that is what we're forced to do so on one
hand of this conversation i'm talking about triage
and i'm talking about an organizational mci and
i'm talking about absolutely funding the the
most important initiatives which relate specifically
to the health and wellness of our people because
at the end of the day if there's no firefighters
who's gonna who's gonna do the work right like
that's i mean it's not i don't think it's a huge
leap to really recognize although it is a mindset
change and then on the on the flip side of that
i feel like we can really build these things
out right so we have recruit academy we have
probation we have apprenticeship programs we
have officer development programs we have chief
officer development programs so now not only
are we instituting health and safety initiatives
for healthy firefighters we're actually training
them objectively and adequately to do the jobs
that we're asking them to do and so now and kind
of tying this all the way back to how we support
athletes and how we support sports teams like
this is what they do they they look at what the
athlete needs to perform at a high level they
put playbooks in place they assign positions
on the field that everyone knows exactly what's
expected of them and they're fully supported
in executing on that at a high level Beautiful.
Love it. I haven't heard it put that way before,
but I think that's great. And going back to the
Kings County or King County, you said it was
the fire chief that made that speech? I think
it was the police chief, the deputy sheriff or
the sheriff for King County Sheriff's Office.
I think I remember seeing that and I was blown
away because, I mean, this is it, you know, the
public. And I've said this, I do a presentation
very, very. infrequently because i don't like
public speaking but on occasion when it's worth
it i'll go out there and talk um and when we're
talking about the whole recruitment crisis i've
got a slide and i said who's responsible it's
a picture of a ladder and the whole point is
all of us every rung of the ladder and we have
done a terrible job as a profession of educating
the people on what we do and so they think the
general public that everything's fine It's only
when they call 911 because their kid's choking
and the rig that should have been available has
been browned out or they're on some, you know,
inter -facility transport because they got sold
out to a hospital instead of actually being available
for a 911 call. And then the kid dies. And now
all of a sudden everyone's paying attention,
but it's too late then. So I think that's, that's
amazing that they, I remember that speech and
it's absolutely spot on. Like you got to let
people know. And I think that the masses, you
know, if there's a groundswell of understanding
of the public, and I said this many times, if
we have this huge recruitment crisis and you
are, for example, where I live, this woefully
understaffed and they are taking anyone, 18 and
a heartbeat at the moment, and the taxpayer is
paying the same tax, where's the rebates? You've
given me a much lesser service. I've given you
the same amount of tax money every year. And
you put that into a corporate space. If you work
for Best Buy and no one wants to work for Best
Buy and the products that are coming out are
breaking within two weeks, would you still be
in charge of Best Buy? Absolutely, you wouldn't.
No way in hell. But in this profession, you can
just do what you want. And really, there's no
checks and balances. So when people understand
that the detrimental element of everything that
we've discussed the last 90 minutes. It will
then empower the voters to be like, well, yeah,
if they need extra money up front so that we
can get everything back to where it needs to
be, and then you're going to save us money, which
can then put in fitness equipment and new engines
and new staffing and new stations. And absolutely,
we're all in. Now we finally understand why you
need the money. But the TV just says that you're
a greedy firefighter as you sit around all day
and then you demand higher wages. So every single
rung of that ladder has to be a part of this
conversation. 100%. 100 all right well shifting
to what you are doing on the side then so talk
to me about why you create attack fit and then
let's kind of unpack all the different things
that people can find within that um that incredible
business that you've created yeah so my company
is called firefighter peak performance and it
goes back to 2010 it was when i first started
getting into tactical fitness and i and i mentioned
mentioned the mentorship i had my whole youth
so my dad I mentioned Mark Verstegen. I mentioned
Scott Sonnen. So I've just been enamored with
fitness and wellness and all of that my entire
life. Well, unfortunately for me, and ironically,
I guess, I loved all of that. on one side so
much but my body unfortunately uh i just saw
a doctor recently and i've had orthopedic issues
my whole life i was born with hip dysplasia i
have i've had 10 surgeries my my joint health
my whole life has not been great and the doctor
uh said to me well some people are born with
really beautiful michelin high performance tires
and some people are born as retreads and he said
i'm just sorry to inform you that the genetic
uh cards you were dealt uh are more along that
line of the retread so so in my early 30s i i
mean i went through a season where i was in agonizing
pain uh back pain hip pain uh to the point where
i was really worried about being able to continue
doing my job as a firefighter so i just did this
deep dive and it james all it was was researching
everything we're already talking about like where
does you know conventional fitness and functional
fitness and tactical fitness fit into the big
picture where does this whole idea of mobility
and flexibility and active recovery fit into
this where does this whole idea of managing intensity
not only in a single workout but over a period
of time so so i did this deep dive And over a
period of probably 10 years, I was really immersed
in my own self -study for selfish reasons to
fix my own body and to feel better and to perform
better. And so then as this all kind of came
together, with the influence of others and as
questions came up and just the good fortune I
had to be in positions of leadership or education
that I was in to share this sort of information,
I was sharing it. I've been sharing it locally
for... very long time and and now i'm highly
motivated really in a pay it forward mindset
to share it more globally so that's where firefighter
peak performance comes in it's it's my goal really
to to support firefighters in all the ways that
we're talking about i want to kind of collate
and present and package information to firefighters
in ways that are easy to understand and accessible
and actionable so that's kind of that's kind
of where i'm at right now on my journey and And
Firefighter Peak Performance, more specifically
over the last two years, has been something I've
really spent a lot of time on, knowing that I
plan to retire from the fire service next year.
And my dream is to really do this Firefighter
Peak Performance gig full time or full time -ish
as a way to stay connected to the fire service
in a way that I hope is meaningful and helpful.
Well, you mentioned the kind of baseline tests
with the sandbags. What about, you know, what
are all the other programs and elements that
people can find there? So right now, and again,
i'm still learning the whole uh kind of business
and marketing and just all the all the ways it
takes to effectively provide resources for folks
but the four things that i'm trying to do right
now in the short term are i've got what's called
the firefighters guide to tactical fitness so
it's just a real quick easy download uh it kind
of goes into what we've talked about in terms
of kind of defining and differentiating between
different approaches to fitness and i've got
a really simple four -day training cycle that
on one side introduces this tactical fitness
assessment that we've talked about in the context
of a more holistic training cycle where there's
a a priming day a moderate intensity day the
test day and then a recovery to to come back
to not just kick your ass but hey let's let's
ramp up to this peak performance day and let's
fully recover from it so that's presented in
the in the firefighters guide to tactical fitness
pdf download i've got uh what i'm calling the
firefighter workouts playlist and as i mentioned
i work closely with crackle magazine and i've
done a workout of for each issue and and i've
provided firefighter specific workouts through
the magazine so i've got this playlist of these
different firefighter tactical fitness workouts
they can be performed at moderate intensity they
can be performed at high intensity there's two
dedicated recovery active recovery days so for
any firefighter whether you prefer a workout
of the day whether you want to incorporate that
into a program you're already doing or if you
want to build your own progressive training programs
that's a free resource that i'm making available
on my website and then you also have free membership
to the firefighter peak performance community
as part of that as well and then the firefighter
tactical fitness primer is a very inexpensive
four -week training program that again, kind
of expands on these ideas we're talking about
in terms of progressive tactical fitness for
firefighters. There's a kind of a pre -test in
that first week. And then there's the opportunity
to reevaluate your fitness at the end and kind
of challenging you to evaluate your things that
are strengths for you. And then maybe even look
at some limitations you might have along the
way. And then last but not least. i'm also offering
uh performance coaching on a more one -on -one
custom level so i'm just i'm trying to meet people
where they are i'm trying to provide resources
in ways that i hope are accessible and interesting
to the whole wide variety of people and uh if
if there's something you need that i'm not providing
shoot me an email and i'm happy to to work with
you on it A couple of questions before we go
to the closing questions, because you've made
me think about that now. Firstly, what is your
philosophy on the aging tactical athlete? As
you mentioned, I know that my ability to deal
with the sleep deprivation in my 20s, I was basically
30 when I started the fire service, was so different
when I was in my mid 40s. And then again, you
know, I've... beaten the shit out of my body
and between the fire service martial arts stunts
you know it's it's uh what they say ridden hard
and put away put away wet um but you know but
i found that again my ability to thrash myself
and crossfit versus what i'm doing now there's
definitely a metamorphosis that still maintained
fitness and strength and mobility but it's a
different way than when i was younger yeah and
so that coming back to this whole idea of arbitrary
versus intentional if you're taking an intentional
approach to your physical fitness and your physical
training and you take the time to just learn
like what is the difference between high intensity
and moderate intensity and where where is it
beneficial to to focus on active recovery or
aerobic training versus high intensity training
and what kind of movements work for you personally
and maybe what movements aren't as uh good for
you based on your joint health or just whatever
the case may be so to me that's the first part
is either personally committing to recognizing
and learning and building your own toolbox your
own toolbox that you know some of these things
you access daily some of these things you access
from time to time but you're very well equipped
to manage your your training over a long period
of time i'm i'll be 53 years old this week and
you know i'm not as strong as i was as a younger
person but i tell you what i i feel fit. I do
the training I want to do. I snowboard. I mountain
bike. I do all these things. I'm not talented
or skilled per se, but I do what I want to do.
I feel good generally. If something pops up,
I manage it and then I get back into it. That's
my thought on don't let age define you. Don't
let age as a number limit you. This whole idea
of uh health span versus lifespan i love it because
it's really encouraging people to take ownership
of their health you know all the way deep into
their older age so i just if you're listening
and you're you know i get it man i have the same
aches and pains and creaks and crackles but if
you can really commit to being intentional around
your training there's no limit really to what
you can continue to do through your life Absolutely.
What about nutritional principles? You know,
people are so hell bent on this is the way. What
is your kind of perspective on the nutritional
side? Yeah. So there is a lot of dogma around
nutrition. And I think the first red flag around
any piece of nutrition advice is if someone says
this is the only way to do it for everyone. People
are different. They respond differently to different
things. With that said, I think there are some
basic tenants that I think benefit everyone.
For example, I think whole foods are almost always
preferable to processed foods. I think people
often underestimate their protein intake and
maybe don't understand the difference between
quality protein and maybe lower quality protein.
So I think protein is really the foundation of
our meal planning. having a sense of macros,
whether it's carbohydrates versus fats that,
you know, don't have to do a deep dive of it,
but just have an awareness of what you're eating
and how that affects you. Trying to include fruits
and vegetables because that is where we get a
lot of our vitamins and minerals. So again, coming
back, you're going to hear me say intentional
over and over again, but just being mindful of
how you eat. And so here's the challenge, James,
for listeners. i have this kind of simple approach
to measuring your your approach to your goals
so it's called the the net system and that stands
for nutrition exercise tracking and you wake
up every morning with six nutrition points and
every time you have a high sugar meal or beverage
every alcoholic beverage anytime you deviate
from your plan whatever that is it's minus one
and then you have to earn four exercise points
so if you do your whole workout as directed four
points half a workout two points skip a workout
zero points so each day in a very simple way
that's specific to you 10 points max if you average
eight points a week over a period of weeks i'm
highly confident that you will make steady progress
towards your goals we did a study in whatcom
county with firefighters over over three months
and we had a very specific fitness program and
some nutrition guidance around that and we measured
uh physical fitness and body comp and all that
stuff on the front end and then we repeated 12
weeks later and literally without exception everyone
that had was even above that 70 showed measurable
improvements in all of that and so it's just
a simple way to it just makes you think and now
at the fire station is gamified a little bit
where all minus one minus one like you know the
brownie is this close to the mouth oh minus one
like it just it just helps us think about the
decisions we make every day and if we have a
goal in mind we're trying to get there this is
just a simple way to to really pay attention
to what you're doing pay attention to the choices
you're making each day stay stay dedicated to
the to the things that you know you need to do
each day to move you closer to your goals Brilliant.
I'm glad I asked that question. Thank you. All
right. Well, the first of the closing questions,
is there a book or are there books that you love
to recommend? It can be related to our discussion
today or completely unrelated. So it's interesting.
I've got a few books that really come to mind
when you ask that question. And the first one
is a book called The Slight Edge, and that's
by Jeff Olson. What he talks about in the book
is this idea of compounding interest. So James,
as I approach my retirement, you can imagine
how I'm paying very close attention to compounding
interest on my finances, but he puts it into
the context of everything. Compounding interest
around fitness, compounding interest around nutrition,
around relationships. And the whole point of
what he's saying in the book, and it kind of
comes back to what we just talked about in terms
of paying attention. to these small decisions
that you make every day just knowing that weeks
or months or years down the road those decisions
will absolutely have this compounding either
positive impact or negative so if your daily
choice involves having an ipa every night after
dinner well one day no big deal but the calories
and the impacts of doing that every day for a
month that's going to be a negative compounding
effect. But if you're going to the gym and you're
paying attention to what you're eating on this
day and then this day and then week and month
and down the road, how much progress can you
make and how does that compound? So The Slight
Edge, I think it's a great book and it really
helps put that whole idea of taking advantage
of the choices we make into perspective. Another
one I love is called How to Live a Good Life.
by Jonathan Fields. And he talks about four buckets,
but for myself, it resonates with me to think
of three buckets, those being vitality, which
is basically health and joy and things that bring
vitality to your life and what can you do every
day to access that. Connection, which is your
relationships, whether that's at work or at home,
friendships, and then career. And what are you
investing each day into work or any other endeavor?
And it just... It helps me anyways to really
pay attention to all of those buckets. Where
am I in one bucket related to another? So I love
that book. I mentioned Dave Dotson's Fire Department
Incident Safety Officer. Can't recommend that
highly enough for firefighters. And then. burnt
around the edges by arjuna george he is a retired
fire chief he's a fire service leader he's well
tuned into the stress and stress management that
we experience as firefighters i read that book
at a time that i was really in a season of crisis
and it helped me better understand what i was
going through he makes reference to moral injury
he talks even that maybe directly but indirectly
about organizational betrayal trauma and some
of the some of the things we're becoming aware
of like Dina Ali wrote an article recently it's
not about the calls you know there's there's
some leadership gaps and some support gaps that
really affect those of us that care about the
fire service and then last but not least and
this is kind of a fun one As I mentioned, Arnold
Schwarzenegger has been a big influence throughout
my entire life. He wrote a book recently called
Be Useful and it's seven tools for life. I love
his audio book because it's Arnold and he's talking
and he's just entertaining and he's describing
these things that are actionable. And obviously
he's achieved so much in his life and he talks
all about how he did that and how you might consider
establishing a vision for yourself and a plan
and dedication. And I just found that book to
be very inspiring. Brilliant. I think all of
them are actually new titles I haven't heard
before on here, if I'm not mistaken. What about
films and documentaries that you love? So anyone
that knows me is going to laugh at this one.
James, I love the Rocky series. You know, I was
a kid when Rocky 1 came out. I've been obsessed
with every Rocky movie that's ever come out,
with the exception of Rocky 5. I might scratch
that one off the list, but I will include all
the Creed movies because I love those. I love
stories of achievement. I love underdog stories.
I watch those movies over and over again. I get
my sons to watch those movies with me. By far
my favorite collection of movies. Brilliant.
All right. Well, next question. Is there a person
that you recommend to come on this podcast as
a guest to speak to the first responders, military,
and associated professions of the world? Well,
again, a few come to mind. Of course, I mentioned
Mark Verstegen and I mentioned Scott Sonnen.
Another one I really think would be an amazing
guest. His name is Darcy Norman. He came up through
the whole Exos community. He has been an elite
level performance coach. at the highest level
of sport right now he's the director of performance
for chicago uh fire fc in the major league uh
major league soccer he was head of performance
for years u .s men's national team he uh was
director of performance uh italy roma and he
was on the staff for the german team that won
the world cup and so you know here's a guy that
has literally experienced uh the most elite athleticism
in the world he's been at the highest level of
sport on the field uh not only do i think he
would just have amazing stories but uh so much
knowledge to share okay brilliant well i appreciate
that they sound like great people thank you so
much all right well then the last question before
we make sure everyone knows where to find you
what you do to decompress uh it really varies
um So of course we talk about, you know, the
exercise and downtime and things like that. But
if I were just to paint a picture of what would
be just the most relaxing thing in the world
is a sunny day, which in Western Washington,
we don't always have sunshine. And then we have
a five -year -old chocolate lab named Griffey.
I'll throw the ball for that dog and no matter
how stressed out I am to see this smile on this
dog's face, to see his ears flapping as he's
bringing this ball back. i tell you james that
i'm a sucker uh for our pets and but this this
dog i cannot be stressed out when when i spend
time with the dog and i'll all intentionally
either go play with him or having an 80 pound
lap dog is also very relaxing and i lean on him
a lot to help me with my stress i couldn't agree
more that's what i do twice a day so yeah i totally
relate all right well then for people listening
where can they find the website and where else
is can they where else is god my brain's scrambled
today where else on social media can they also
find you yep so on the business side firefighter
peak performance so my website's firefighter
peakperformance .com on linkedin facebook instagram
firefighter peak performance and then also i've
got my personal side ryan provencher also facebook
linkedin instagram those are the social media
outlets that you'll find me on Brilliant. Well,
Ryan, I want to say thank you so much. Thank
you to John for the connection again, but also
such a unique perspective. I mean, to have this
parallel career of strength and conditioning
and a full three decade in the fire service as
well, it really has been fascinating to get your
perspective on all these areas. So I want to
thank you so much for being so generous with
your time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast today. James, it's my honor. I'm so grateful
for the career and I'm a dedicated man to paint
it forward. So thank you.