OK, so this isn't a blog about vertical or horizontal ventilation, it's a blog venting about an article that was recently published on Firehouse.com. Seemed to be a bean counters view of physical fitness training. It stated that physical training is first in the rate of firefighter injuries, just ahead of carrying patients in the rate of occurrences. Sprains and strains are the largest number of the injuries cited in the report.
How much analysis do we really need? Should this even been studied?
To borrow a phrase from "NFL Count Down," "Come on man..."
Really, wow I have heard it all now. Someone had too much time on their hands to publish this study. Now, I will agree that when we workout we should have a supervised program administered by qualified people. Let's face it, we are out of high school now and our glory days of sports are over. But this shouldn't give us a reason to not prepare our bodies for our next run.
So what, we get strains or sprains and have to deal with an occasional injury. Big deal! I would rather have to deal with these issues while conditioning my cardiovascular system to endure the next three hour fire. Let's face it, heart disease kills firefighters dead! And the amount of obesity in our business is unacceptable, period. I struggle with food and fitness on a daily basis too. But let's face the facts can we really afford to not do physical fitness training.
Let's use our heads while we do our physical training. A gradual increase in workload and staying within our limits can decrease the risk associated with PT. There's a reason that our proud military folks have to get information and crank out there physical training; because when they go into battle they need their mind, body, and soul. The same is true for the fire service.
I would encourage the bean counters to, and I quote a marine corps cadence, "One mile, no good; two miles, a warming up; three miles, getting better!" Come walk a mile in our boots!
