Episode 124: Candidate and Academy Physical Fitness with Annette Zapp, CSCS*D

I needed to record a solo episode for this week unexpectedly, and when I went to bed last night, I wasn't sure what I wanted to speak about. But I woke up today and chose violence.

From my news feed: "Twelve Tufts University lacrosse athletes were hospitalized after a recent graduate from Navy Seal training took them through a workout."

Excuse me, please?

As I acknowledge in the recording, we don't know all the facts, so there may be more to this story, but at first glance, this is lunacy. What was a collegiate sports team doing in the care of a Navy Seal? And a better question: What were his qualifications for training (and I use that term loosely) these athletes?

But we in the fire service aren't doing much better. I've heard countless stories of candidates and academy attendees being harmed by those who are supposed to be taking care of them.

Physical fitness shouldn't be punishment, and randomly adding high-intensity exercise work as a penalty for poor performance on job tasks is just lazy instructing and has the possibility of causing real harm.

Making a candidate run a set of wind sprints every day because they aren't "in good enough shape" isn't going to significantly impact their physical fitness. But it sure could injure them, especially if they're already fatigued from PT and fireground task training.

So what, now what?!?

We, as a fire service, need to do better. It's time to stop tasking firefighters with the physical fitness training of other firefighters.

Call to action: We need to start conversations in the hallways of fire departments, research institutions, the IAFF, and even high schools. Academy students and FD candidates shouldn't walk in the door in dire physical condition. We must also figure out physical fitness standards that accurately correlate to job task performance to protect our level of service and the lives of the very employees who staff the stations.

Do you have thoughts to add to the conversation? Please send me an IG DM or email me at info@firerescuewellness.org

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