An Effective Firefighter Health and Wellness Program
What’s the difference between the terms firefighter health and firefighter wellness? Here's a pyramid with bonus info on health and wellness for firefighters. I'm glad you asked (and we're going to dive into all things firefighter health and wellness in this blog post, so keep reading).
Wellness forms the pyramid's base, and everything else builds on it.
Wellness can be challenging to define, but it encompasses the following realms:
mental
physical
financial
spiritual
social
emotional
It includes a feeling of personal safety, freedom, and contribution to a community.
It’s an active pursuit of happiness and quality of life.
Let’s define all the terms before moving on.
Health: The absence of disease. The clean bill from an annual checkup, where the doctor states that blood markers are in range, blood pressure is acceptable, and nothing much has changed since last year. Health can be supported by daily movement (such as gardening, snow shoveling, and walking the dog) and intentional general exercise, such as attending a circuit or cycling class at the gym. Dietary intake of nutritious food, limiting alcohol and less-nutritious food, and getting recommended sleep are some means of bolstering health.
Fitness: This term is more difficult to define, but one lens would be the ability of individuals to do what they want. Want to run one mile? Check. ‘Fit’ enough to do that. Looking to bench press 225 for reps? Yes, done. Want to swim a mile but have to stop at 0.5 mile? Not ‘fit’ enough to swim that far…yet. Throw the 24-foot ladder solo successfully? Boom. ‘Fitness’ supports that task. Fitness requires general physical preparedness training, including aerobic and anaerobic conditioning, muscular strength, power and endurance, mobility, and stability among other attributes.
Performance: This is a measurable output. An individual’s fitness supports their ability to run a mile. But now they want to run faster. The firefighter threw the 24-foot ladder solo but struggled a bit, and now they want to execute that action quickly and efficiently. Performance training involves well-designed programs and consistent effort.
Fire Rescue Wellness focuses on Wellness before Health, Fitness, or Performance for one singular reason: the top four killers and risk factors of our firefighters include Cancer, Suicide, Cardiovascular Disease, and Accidents.
By focusing on Wellness all of those mortality risks are addressed. Insert: a firefighter wellness program.
So.. developing an effective firefighter health and wellness program. How do we first focus on wellness and why?
For a firefighter to be well, they must pay attention to sleep, fueling, mental health activities, and physical fitness (including just moving well and often, as well as intentional exercise.)
These interventions are upstream of the things that take firefighters’ lives. In addition, a truly well firefighter will also be paying attention to their financial, spiritual, social, and emotional stability. We need to have an effective program that addresses these risks (one that encompasses physical, mental, and emotional factors instead of just physical)
In the wise words of my friend Chris Macklin, “a firefighter who is worried about their financial situation, a nagging injury, or their health insurance benefits isn’t going to be paying their closest attention at a structure fire or on an EMS call.” Hear more from Chris on Episode 85 of the FRW Podcast here.
Fire departments don’t need a fitness program. They need a comprehensive health and wellness program (of which fitness is only one part).
Need help designing a fire department health and wellness program? Download this free PDF.
Want more support while working through the challenges of health and wellness programs for firefighters?
Schedule a 15-minute call to find out if having Fire Rescue Wellness come to your location and perform an on-site needs assessment might work for you.
PS: In order to manage expectations, I have to let you know that this call is not a consultation but merely to find out more details about your department and discuss rates.
Looking for training and education around firefighter health and wellness programs? I also provide speaking engagements. Fill out the form here to learn more.
