Episode 68: To Gear or Not to Gear with Annette Zapp, CSCS*D
Risk vs Reward
I've had cancer.
Don't let that be your story too.
The *good* kind...{please, for the love of god, never ever say that to another human.}
Therefore, watching other firefighters and coaches do physical fitness training such as burpees, assault bike, pull-ups, and jumping jacks in gear grinds MY GEARS.
It's reckless and, worse yet, just plain ignorant. And saying you know the risks and are assuming them because it's worth it doesn't shelter you from them or make your training effective when it's not.
I promise you will never be called on to ride an assault bike into the fire ground battle. You'll never jumping jack your way from the truck to the ladder and onto the roof. You're sure as hell not going to single-leg ball crunch your way to saving a toddler.
There are better ways to train and condition yourself than doing those activities in your fire gear. I promise you.
Risk vs Reward
I've had cancer.
Don't let that be your story too.
*****
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Episode 68
[00:00:00] Thank you for joining me on the Fire Rescue Wellness Podcast. I'm your host AZ. I find the research and resources and then provide the fire service with the so what now, what? to ensure the health and wellbeing of every member of our profession. Together, let's thrive.
Hey there, it's AZ. Thank you so much for listening today.
If you are a new listener, welcome and I hope you decide to stick around, and if you've been around for a while or since the beginning, a sincere, sincere expression of gratitude for you. I really appreciate it. I appreciate the fact that you share the podcast and you rate the podcast and interact with me about the podcast.
I sincerely appreciate that, so thank you. What I'm gonna talk about today is not easy for me, and I've known since before I even had a podcast that I needed to share this story, but it's [00:01:00] very personal and it's very raw and it's very difficult for me to talk about it. But I got the kick in the pants that I needed last night from the NSCA Women's Committee.
So, the women's committee is currently running a mentorship where they have matched mentees with experienced IE older women like me in the strength and conditioning field, and we've been working through basically business and life and strength and conditioning and all of the things for a few months now, and I was really honored recently to be asked by the women's committee to address the NSCA national convention, or I should say speak at the NSCA national Convention. And last night it was really cool. On our call, they actually quoted [00:02:00] something that I said in my talk, and then when we went into our breakout groups, several of the women that were in the breakout group had actually been in attendance at my talk and what they both said was my talk impacted them because I was able to tell a story and make it pertinent. And so I realized that my friend Chris Fields has always said, “if you've got a story to tell, you need to tell it.” And I've been keeping my story to myself just because it, it doesn't feel good to me to share it.
But here we are today. And it's gonna be a little bit complicated because the real reason I am on here today talking to you is that I've just reached my complete limit with firefighters and coaches filming themselves and putting it out on social [00:03:00] media, filming themselves doing physical fitness activities in their fire gear.
And so we're gonna get to that, but we need to get to something else first.
In 2011, I had been a firefighter for seven years and I was getting ready to go home for the day and I was in our headquarters station, which has a women's locker room. I was just about to walk out the door and I had something in my eye, and so I stopped at the mirror and I, I was sort of digging in my eye and then I tilted my chin up to get a better angle.
Folks, really digging in your eye is not a great idea, but that particular day when I tilted my head back, I caught a glimpse of, I thought it was a shadow on my neck, and when I looked closer, it was a ginormous lump on my neck. And [00:04:00] I felt it. Of course. What? What do you do? You know, I felt it. I poked it and it was really hard.
And the first thing that came to my mind is like, what in the actual hell is going on? This is like when you wake up one morning and you look fine and you wake up the next morning and you have like a black four-inch hair growing out of your chin, and you're like, where the fuck did that come from? That wasn't there yesterday.
Well, that's the exact feeling I had about this lump in my throat. I had never noticed it. No one had ever said anything about it, and it was huge. And it's the fire service, so I'm pretty sure if someone had seen it, they would've had something to say about it. And so obviously I was a little bit concerned, and so I do what every person does.
I don't make an appointment with the doctor. I call a trusted friend and I say, “Hey, what do you think this is?” My trusted friend happened [00:05:00] to be an RN. I'm like, “Hey, what do you think this is?” And he's like,” ah. I don't know, Annette,” (he knew), “I don't know Annette, but you really should go get that checked out.”
And so what does the logical person do next? They make an appointment with a specialist. Nope, not me. I make an appointment with another friend who is a physician's assistant in a cardiology practice. So I proudly show up a couple days later, point out my new trophy, and she does some blood work and some palpation and says that you really need to go to a specialist.
And so I made an appointment with, I think it was an ear, nose, and throat doctor, but it might've been an endocrinologist because deep in my soul, I knew what it was. I knew.
I didn't wanna say it out loud, but I knew, so I made this [00:06:00] appointment with this woman who, by the way, was not very nice, had terrible bedside manner, and I just didn't like her.
But that's another story for another day. I made an appointment with her and she did more blood work, more poking and prodding, and said, “I need you to, as soon as you possibly can, I need you to go have a fine needle aspiration.”
My friends, a fine needle aspiration is code for taking a very thin needle, (their words), tiny needle, which is about 24 inches long, and jabbing it straight into your neck.
It wasn't that long, but it was very uncomfortable, and so I had the fine needle aspiration and then I went home. And a couple days later, I received the diagnosis that I had papillary thyroid cancer. Now, [00:07:00] there are a couple other types of thyroid cancer, which are more ominous than papillary thyroid cancer, and a good podcast host would've probably looked those up and written them down. One of them is medullary, and I can't remember what the other one is, but. When you look in the data, in the research, papillary thyroid cancer has very high survival rate, even untreated very high survival rate, five-year survival rate. And so I now have cancer and I'm also living in a part in a time of my life when I hold everything inside.
I don't share anything with anyone, and so I shouldn't say not with anyone. I had to share it with a couple people. And the couple people that [00:08:00] I did share it with, please, please, my friends, there's a couple things that you shouldn't do in life. One of them that I feel strongly about is never ask a firefighter what the worst thing they've ever seen is, or a cop. A military member. I feel strongly about that.
I also feel very strongly that you should not tell people that they have the good kind of cancer. That was the reaction that I got from the few people that I had to tell. It was this. Not these exact words, but this feeling. Oh, thank goodness. That's no big deal. That's the good kind of cancer. Or if you have to get cancer, that's the good one to get.
Fuck all the way off with that noise. Do not ever, ever say that to someone. Please, please, please don't [00:09:00] say that to people.
So at the time, the treatment for papillary thyroid cancer, because remember, we don't live in a healthcare society, we live in a sick care society, and when you're sick or diseased, then we have a matrix of exactly the treatment that you are allowed to have per your insurance. And so the commonly accepted only treatment at that time is a radical thyroidectomy. So they cut that little fucker all the way out. Then a few weeks later, you come back after going on a no iodine diet.
You come back a few weeks later and they treat you, they feed you radioactive iodine, and then that goes throughout your body. 'cause the thyroid tissue, I'll call it hungry, that's not a very good technical term, but the [00:10:00] thyroid tissue is very hungry for iodine. The thyroid tissue. In my understanding, it's kind of weird…
The thyroid tissue is a little bit like endometrial tissue in that it can set up shop in other places of your body, other locations of your body. And so the prevailing wisdom at the time was we treat you with this radioactive iodine, and even if you have thyroid tissue attached to your lung, your brain, your big toe, your femur.
Femur, excuse me. Great pronunciation on that. Thank you. This radioactive iodine will find it and kill it. So the only allowed treatment is radical thyroidectomy, radioactive iodine treatment.
Also, during the few days following your radioactive iodine treatment, you are not allowed to leave your [00:11:00] house. You are not allowed to be around other people, including animals. People and animals.
You need to flush your toilet twice. Every time you use it. You, need to make sure and run your silverware through the dishwasher several times. Basically, all of that is to say you are a threat to other people. You as a person that's being treated with radioactive iodine can actually harm other people's thyroids just by being around them.
Or sharing a fork, or you know, giving them a hug or whatever. So we're gonna rip out your thyroid, we're gonna treat you with radioactive iodine, and then we're gonna isolate you for, I think it was five days. I don't remember. I've blocked out a lot of it.
So my brain goes to this. I am a healthy. [00:12:00] At that time, I am on zero zero medications. I've never been on a medication except for an occasional antibiotic or cough medicine or whatever. I'm on zero medications and now you wanna take away the organ in my body that is the gas pump for life and put me on meds for the rest of my life.
Thyroid replacement hormones. I have never had an issue with my thyroid. I have never been low energy or. Overweight or my hair's falling out, or my skin's super dry. All of these, some of these are signs and symptoms of thyroid issues also, some of those are signs and symptoms of not getting enough sleep, but that's another podcast.
So now you're gonna make me be on a medication for the rest of my life? Immediately, Immediately. NO. There has to be [00:13:00] another way. Because this thing, it's big, but it's totally encapsulated. Why can't you just remove it? Well, we can't. That's not standard of care. So I went to a different doctor and I got the same answer.
I went to Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and you know what? They have very, very flashy advertising and marketing, and they make it sound like they have treatment options and they have novel things that they can do. It's complete bullshit. They work under standard of care as well. Got the same answer from them.
I went to a Chinese healer, a Chinese healer, hoping to get a different answer and. They gave me the same answer and he wasn't even working under an insurance model. I was a cash pay with [00:14:00] him. So after seeking answers, an alternative choice for an entire, nearly an entire year. Now this thing is growing and it's still encapsulated, but it's becoming difficult for me to swallow. It is big.
Also remember, I am suffering in silence. My closest circle of friends do not know that I'm going through this. The people that know I'm going through this are my union steward, my battalion chief, and whatever administration that that battalion chief passed it on to, I am suffering in silence.
By choice, but I am suffering. So finally a year later, I decide, well, they told me [00:15:00] this is what needed to happen. I. I guess I'm just gonna have to comply with the treatment, and I had all of the treatments previously described and I had a lot of side effects to include difficulty swallowing, even up until present day, to include the fact that I am one of the people that doesn't convert Synthroid, which is the drug, which is T4, to the active form in my body, which is T3. I don't convert it very well, so I feel like shit when I'm on T four only, so I have to be on T4 and T3, and just this general feeling of unwellness and a skyrocketing fasting blood glucose. Which [00:16:00] can be explained by the interaction in, in basically your endocrin endocrine system. So when your thyroid or lack of thyroid isn't functioning well, sometimes your fasting glucose raises. This was explained to me by a physician.
Yes, I'm a biochemist. No, I'm not an endocrinologist. No, I don't understand it that well. What I do know is that my fasting glucose, which used to be in the seventies, is now in the nineties, and every once in a while it pokes its head up above the threshold and everyone freaks out.
The other thing that you need to consider is that in my state, cancer and heart and lung disease are presumptive illnesses, meaning if you get one of those diseases, it should be a workers' comp [00:17:00] situation, and it is the burden to prove that it didn't occur because of your job, your employment, the burden is on the employer.
And I was like, this, this is great. I'm not going to have to, at least, I'm not gonna have to burn all my sick time, have this come out of my insurance, my copays, all of that stuff. Well, what I was to find out is that in a presumptive case, all the employer has to do is say, ‘nope!”, and then it becomes just like a regular case and it's a knock down, drag out, fight of proving where it came from and so on and so forth.
So I'm gonna leave that topic alone for right now. But I do wanna tell you two things I heard during my case. The first one I heard is: I only got thyroid cancer because I'm female. [00:18:00] Females have a much higher chance of getting thyroid cancer, so therefore, it doesn't matter that I was in the fire service, I would've gotten thyroid cancer anyway because I'm female.
Also, just as a side note, there are no family members, male or female in my family as far back as I can trace it, that have ever had thyroid cancer. Let that sit with you.
The other thing I heard was thyroid cancer isn't included because it's not one of the cancers that can be caused by firefighting. Now remember, this is 2011 now, 2012, but think about this for a second.
Prostate and testicular cancer are included and the reason this is quote unquote, the, the justification that they're included is that you wear your hood and then where do most people put their hood? They put it in the [00:19:00] crotch of their bunker gear, so therefore they're getting exposure to their man parts.
That same hood that's giving you exposure to your man parts is the hood that was on my neck. Let that sit with you for a second.
So, suffice it to say, this section of my life isn't a happy story. I received a diagnosis of cancer. I've only recently even been talking about it. I did it all by myself by choice because of the place I was in my life.
The presumptive nature of my disease was denied. And then I was told the only reason this happened is because I'm female. And oh, by the way, thyroid cancer isn't a cancer that you can get from the fire service.[00:20:00]
I'm just gonna take a pause for just a second. 'cause sometimes the anger bubbles up so much. I can't even speak coherently.
Okay.
We know the World Health Organization has declared shift work to be a cancer causing career. It has also declared firefighting to be a group one carcinogen, meaning the job of firefighting definitely causes cancer in humans.
How? Well, let's just go through the laundry list of how, but exposure to particulate matter from diesel engines if you don't have recovery systems in place. Exposure to who knows what on hazardous, hazardous materials calls exposure to products of incomplete combustion in [00:21:00] fires. If you, let's say, in a car fire, if you're not wearing your air pack, that's, that is pure idiocy, in my opinion.
You need to be wearing your air pack on garbage can fires, dumpster, fires, car fires, all fires. You should be wearing your air pack up through and including overhaul, salvage, and overhaul. But also we have to take into consideration. That the acute act of fighting a fire, actually you bring it back to the station because it's on your skin, it's on your clothing, it's on your turnout gear.
It's on the inside of your cab. Unless you're doing a completely clean cab concept, it's on your radio strap, it's on your SCBA. It's on your tools. It's on fucking everything. If you are a very conscientious firefighter, that gear isn't being worn on your [00:22:00] body back to the station. You're taking it off, you're putting it in a bag.
You're keeping it on the outside of the rig, you're letting it off gas, and then you're completely cleaning it in and approved washing machine. Even if you do all of those things, even if you take off that gear at the scene, you use a wipe on your neck and your armpit in your groin, you put that gear in the outside of the cab, you let it off gas, you wash it.
Even when you wash it, that gear still maintains, to some degree those carcinogens. And so when you put that gear on the next time, let's go worst case scenario, you didn't wash that gear. When you put that gear on, the next time, you're re exposing yourself to all of that stuff. But even if you use the best case scenario of everything I just said, [00:23:00] that gear is never completely clean.
And so every time you put that gear on, you are re-exposing yourselves to carcinogens to some extent.
So now I'm gonna ask you why. Why would you ever put that gear on and go do something so stupid as riding an assault bike, doing pull-ups, doing crunches with a ball, burpees, snatches. You name it. Bicep curls.
I've seen it all. Why would you expose yourself to those carcinogens to do physical fitness training?
Now before you even let it come out your mouth? Do not [00:24:00] let it come out of your mouth. Yes, but I have a special set of gear that I only use for working out. I just told you. It's never clean. You can never adequately clean it.
The next argument is yes, but I have a brand new. It's never been to a fire. It's never been exposed to anything. I am golden. No, you're not. Have you been paying attention?
The IAFF, just it's been a year ago now, released a statement about the PFAS chemicals in gear. There's also, you know, years ago, The Firefighter Cancer Support Network had a white paper out, and there was this statement in the paper that your skin, I think it was, becomes 400% more absorbent.
When your body temperature goes [00:25:00] up or something like that, your pores open up, whatever. Well, there was no citation on that statistic. And so they've subsequently taken it out, and I tried to find out where and why they had that citation or that lack of citation, for that fact in there in the first place, and no one could tell me. And they took it out.
So it's not true. It's not true that your skin becomes 400% more permeable to carcinogens or whatever they said. That's not true. But it is true that it becomes, more permeable to carcinogens as your body temperature increases and your pores open up and so on and so forth.
Is it 2%? Is it a 1000%
I don't know, but it's more so exercising in your fire gear puts you at more risk. of absorbing carcinogens than simply [00:26:00] say, putting on your fire gear and doing a, a pub ed.
That’s an entire other topic. Why are we letting little kids put on our filthy fire gear? Why, why are we taking photographs of our brand new babies in our filthy fire helmets?
I don't understand it. It's a tangent. Let's bring it back.
So, I have heard the argument that I have to work out in my gear because I work out how I play, and by play they mean perform on the fire ground. That's super interesting. I have never, not once, not ever seen a single jumping jack, crunch, burpee. Haven't seen it on the fire ground. If you really, really wanna stretch it, maybe if you had [00:27:00] a saw on the ground and you bring it from the ground up to a high cabinet, you could maybe call that a snatch. That would be a real, real big stretch, but you could maybe call it a snatch.
I haven't seen an assault bike on the fire ground. I haven't seen a rower on the fire ground. I haven't seen it. And so if you're saying you're practicing how you're playing, you're full of horse shit.
But I'm gonna settle down for a second because I truly believe that some people don't understand what's called the SAID principle. So SAID is specific adaptations to implied demands more or less.
So, for example, let's just get away from the fire service for for a second. If I want to run a marathon, [00:28:00] which I have done, don't recommend it. If I wanna run a marathon, my best way of training primarily is gonna be running. Can I augment my training with other cardiovascular things such as biking and rowing and god forbid, the elliptical and things like that?
I sure can, and it's maybe a good idea because if you're doing that much volume on running, which is a primarily cardiovascular event, your chance of getting injured, it gets higher, especially if you're built like me. I'm built like a fricking whatever those beer horses are. Clydesdale, I'm built like a Clydesdale, not a rabbit.
So even though your best and most specific mode of training for a marathon is running, there are other cardiovascular forms of training that can positively impact your performance in the marathon. [00:29:00] Also don't forget, strength training, mobility training, so on and so forth, can also benefit you, benefit your performance in the marathon.
So I'm not saying if you're going to run a marathon, the only thing that you need to do is run. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying your most specific mode of training is going to be running.
A few years ago. It's been probably 23, 24 years ago now, these shoes started appearing at my health club. They were a crazy town.
They were these discs that had these shoes attached to them, but the shoes, imagine Barbie heels, because the shoes were at an angle. So you put your foot in these shoes, you're kind of at this angle with these discs. And they were, those fuckers were heavy…they were heavy, [00:30:00] and people were using them for jump training.
So if I want to jump, this was the thought process. If I want to jump higher than the way to make me jump higher is to make me try to jump with weights on my feet. I can tell you from personal observation experience with the knuckleheads that were doing this, the only thing that those helped them do were achilles, foot and calf injuries.
So we have to remember. Specificity of training is a thing, but physiology and science, get a vote and putting weights on your feet in order to help you jump higher…the science doesn't science.
So now [00:31:00] let's look at doing crunches in our firefighting gear. The first thing I might ask you is when is the last time you laid on the floor at a fire and did crunches?
I've done approximately one crunch on every fire I've ever been on, and here's the reason why: my gear doesn't fit, so I fall down and I have to get up somehow. So it's either a crunch, into a quadruped, into a standup, or if someone's helping me, it's a crunch into a hand pulling me up to my feet. Crunching is not something you need to train for for the fire ground, especially in your fire gear.
Same thing with…if you wanna call burpees conditioning, I'll allow it. I won't agree with you, but I'll allow it for the case of argument. [00:32:00] If you wanna call burpees conditioning, I need you to explain to me why you need to put your fire gear on for your burpees in order to make them effective, because
you're not doing burpees on the fire ground. And I could just, I could belabor this point forever. And let me bring in one thing that people say, Annette, you have to get acclimatized to that gear. Like we have to be able to tolerate the heat to get the work done. Agreed. Agreed. But you don't need to tolerate the heat in your fire gear.
There's other ways to do it. If you want to heat acclimatize, why don't you just put on some sweatpants, a set of wool socks, a sweatshirt and a hat. It's a whole hell of a lot safer than running [00:33:00] around the block in your fire gear because you're also restricting your movement. Your body is meant to move in a specific way.
Not to say everybody's body moves in the same way, but, ankles are meant to be mobile. Knees are meant to be stable, hips are mobile. Low back is stable. I could move all the way up the chain. You put on this fire gear and you lock down the ability for joints that should freely move to move.
So then you say, aha. I am training my joints on purpose not to move because that's how they're gonna move on the fire ground. I. I can't. I can't With that argument, yes, your movement will be restricted by your gear, and you do need to be able to do job specific tasks in your gear. You do. But there's a way to train for that [00:34:00] without exposing yourself to carcinogens and opening yourself up to injury for simply being a knucklehead by doing rowing with your gear on and an air pack.
So I'm getting passionate and animated again. So let's calm down for a second.
Now we're not looking at a physiology book, we're looking at the notes that I put on my desk today. I made four columns, and the first column is movement. The second one is exercise. The third one is training to bolster performance, and the fourth one is performance…actual performance.
Now, the reason I separate out movement and exercise is because when you look at it, when you truly look at it from a, an energy systems lens [00:35:00] and from a how much energy do I expend where during the day movement actually takes up a bigger slice of the pie than intentional exercise. So by movement, I mean instead of sitting in front of the television for three hours at night, you are wrestling with the kids, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, going to get the mail, taking laundry up and down the stairs.
You are choosing to move your carcass as opposed to park your carcass. So although some people may consider taking the dog for a walk as exercise, I truly consider that just movement because Rover's gonna be stopping, starting peeing, sniffing things, takes off for a second, chasing a butterfly. Then you're back to sort of this [00:36:00] casual slow pace.
So, Movement is choosing to be active as opposed to, we'll use the word passive. So instead of sitting at the kitchen table watching the news for two hours after dinner, you have gotten up, you have put the dishes away, put the leftovers away, washed the dishes, and gone out to the garage and you're rearranging your tools du jour.
The next category is exercise. An exercise in my book is intentional Movement meant to improve general health and wellness. So in my opinion, exercise is: I'm going to go for a one-hour walk. I am, I'm meeting my [00:37:00] friend. We are going to kayak down the river. I am going to the gym. I'm lifting weights. I'm taking a class.
Some of this might be splitting hairs in your opinion, but in my opinion, exercise is it's more intentional and there's an intent behind it. IE whether that's maintaining muscle, whether that's improving health, whether that's gaining or losing weight, there's a more, there's more intent behind exercise.
The next thing I have is training for performance, and so let's revisit that marathon. In my opinion, training for performance would be, for example, following the Hal Higdon marathon training program where it's, it's laid out for you. Today we're doing three miles [00:38:00] tomorrow, we're doing five miles the day after our rest day.
So on and so forth. You are training to with, with the intention of completing a marathon and hopefully completing it in five hours, six hours, four hours, whatever, training for performance.
And then the last category or pillar would be actual performance. So I trained for the Olympic weightlifting competition. Now I'm at that competition and here are my numbers that, in my opinion, is actual performance.
So I wanna backtrack for a second to exercise and training for performance. And I am not a football person, so give me some latitude, but it's one of the best examples that I can come up with. So if you are,[00:39:00] a, let's say you're a Chicago bear and you are getting ready for the season, you are not exercising.
Athletes really, for the most part, don't exercise. They are training for performance. However, within that training for performance bracket, if you will, there's sort of that I'm getting strong and conditioned to perform. And then there's the actual, I am going through my plays. I am on the field. I am wearing helmet and pads.
I am simulating games, scrimmages, whatever you wanna call it. So there's two pieces to it. There's the, I am getting my physiological system ready to perform. So that would be in the gym with the strength coach doing the [00:40:00] squats, doing the bench press, doing the beep test, whatever that is. I am getting my physical body ready to perform.And then there's, I am training with the team wearing whatever ensemble.
So it's my understanding they start with like pads and helmets and then they start adding whatever. There's two aspects to that training for performance pillar.
And here's where the fire service really messes it up. If you use our example, we should be exercising. Okay?
We…let's go all the way back. We should be moving because cardiovascular disease is one of the things that kills us. So instead of vegging, we should be moving. We should also be exercising, so going for [00:41:00] walks, lifting weights, et cetera, and so on. We should also be getting our body physiologically ready to perform.
So that might be that more high intensity type training. The assault bike, the weight, the high intensity weight training, if that's your jam, the CrossFit style training, the regular weightlifting, all of that should be pointing you towards performance and should not be done in structural firefighting gear.
Much like the Chicago Bear, he is not going to bench press or ride the bike in a pad and helmets. It's not gonna happen because it's dumb. It doesn't make sense. But at least that player isn't exposing themselves to carcinogens while they do it. [00:42:00] So yes, you should be doing things that improve your performance on the fire ground, whatever you deem those things to be. And in, in my opinion, I look at for, let's say forcible entry. I look at it, we need power and we need, for the most part, rotational ability. So how could I train power and rotational ability? Yeah. I could take a sledgehammer and bang it on a wall and simulate the same movement.
I could do that. Or I could hand you a medicine ball and have you do, medicine ball rotation, slams against the wall training power, training rotation.
So we need to think about what we're training in order to actually train what we're training. So look at the movements and the energy systems that you need to [00:43:00] accommodate and then figure out how you're going to do your training without your damn gear to improve your performance on the fire ground.
Now, some of you are pissed off right now. I know you're pissed off. Wait. You do need to be able to move in your gear. You do need to be able to force doors, throw ladders, pull hose, do steps. You need to be able to do all of that in your gear.
So train that in your gear instead of doing burpees and snatches and I don't know what else. Inchworms in your gear. Go throw ladders in your gear. Pull hose because at least the risk is worth the reward. Ain't nobody getting a reward for doing crunches in their gear on the [00:44:00] fire ground. It's not gonna happen.
So make the risk worth the reward, and if you need that, that acclimatization piece of it. Then you're gonna get it wearing your gear when you're, you're at the tower, you're wearing your gear when you're doing these jobs specific tasks, if you feel like it's not enough, like I said before, go put on your sweatpants and your sweatshirt put a weighted vest on yourself. Put a stocking cap on if you feel like you need to, and go do your stairs that way. Because as someone who has had cancer and now has the financial obligation for the rest of her life and whatever comes with it, in terms of long-term impact, I'm telling you, working out in your gear [00:45:00] isn't worth it.
Measure risk versus reward. Truly look at the tasks that you're trying to train for and figure out how to improve your performance, train for performance in the gym, and then put on your gear to do actual job tasks.
I'm gonna ask you actually to listen to this and then listen to it again, especially if you're pissed off. Because there are so many firefighters out there and so many, you know, some, to some extent, I don't fault to the firefighters. They're not professional strength and conditioning coaches for the most part.
Who I really get pissed off is at is the professional strength and conditioning coaches who know better. Or should know better and aren't doing better. Thanks for listening.[00:46:00]
