Functional Fitness and Wellness in the Fire Service

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The time it takes for us to gearup, turn out, respond, stretch
line, start searching is not ours.
It belongs to the folks waiting for us to perform.
Welcome everybody, Copper State Fireman Podcast.
It's podcasters for firemen burning the ships of

(00:22):
complacency, laziness and excuses.
We're promoting love and passionfor the job, encouraging
eagerness, and mastering the craft of the fire service.
Remember, the information, opinion, values, recommendation
and ideas are the host and the individuals of this podcast and
are not affiliated or endorsed by the fire department's

(00:45):
organization or companies the individuals work for.
This podcast is for general information use only.
Brought to you by the Copper State Fools and sponsored by
Solid Foundation Team, LLC Let'sgo.
All right, guys, welcome back sitting down here with Garrett

(01:05):
Lee. Garrett's got eight years in the
American Fire Service. He's currently a captain,
paramedic, ISO, that's incident safety officer, and he works for
the Injured Workers Advocate program in the department he
works for. Right now.
He's a founding member of that Injured workers advocacy
program, which is huge. We'll touch on that a lot today.
I hope he's lead of the Recruit Wellness Cadre program for the

(01:28):
Academy. So that's the the bare bones
when it comes down to this functional fitness that we're
going to talk about today, especially related to those
brand new guys. Education wise, Garrett's got
ABS from ASU in exercise and Wellness.
He is CSCS certified natural strength and conditioning
advocate and Fit to thrive Wellness ambassador.

(01:50):
That's it's a lot of stuff, brother.
Did I miss anything? No, it's that's pretty much it.
OK, Yeah. Oh, good deal.
All right, so first of all, listen, thanks for taking time
out of your day. Welcome me into your house to do
this, this podcast. I really appreciate it.
But this is something that I grabbed you from day one.
As soon as we decide to do this,saying this is a it's a very
important issue in the American fire service.

(02:13):
I honestly believe that it's notas bad out here from for
example, to other parts of the country, especially where I came
from. But before we kind of do a deep
dive into all that, just start telling me about functional
fitness. Like where where do you even
want to start with this? Does this start at the recruit
level? Does this start at AI?

(02:34):
Just fill this in brother. Yeah.
I mean really like where do you start?
Like kind of the question. Well, before I start, thanks for
having me. And you know, I feel honored
that you took the time. I know you reached out glad to
speak on this stuff. But like, where do you start
with functional fitness or like I'll tell you right now, I'm not

(02:56):
the expert, not the guy, you know, very much like the fire
service, it's a ever evolving thing, right?
So like we talk about the fire service in general, it's ever
changing. So it's so in my opinion, so is
fitness, so is Wellness like Wellness is.
And people tend to like just putfitness into just like there is

(03:21):
a difference between fitness andWellness, right?
So like you start breaking it down, you know, like where do I
want to start? I actually want to kind of go
backwards and start with Wellness like.
Well, let's go. Let's go backwards.
Tell us about Wellness, right? Yeah, so like Wellness actually
had, you know, yours, You're 8 pillars of Wellness, right?
Physical, social, emotional, occupational, financial, right,

(03:43):
intellectual, environmental, that's what makes up your
Wellness, your well-being, thosekind of things physical like
fitness kind of just falls underthe physical side of Wellness,
right. And then fitness is a inside of
that, right? You know, so or functional
fitness. I think what makes the fire

(04:05):
service, you know, like we we kind of get into that is unique
is it's also a part of occupational Wellness, right?
So yeah, absolutely. So we kind of have a two pillar
thing being being in the fire service.
But I I say this all the time itso your your question of talking
about Wellness or whatever, it'slike, hey man, I there's a lot

(04:27):
of know it alls in the fire service, right.
So how I say it's like this, whatever, like I already know
everything, you know, and I always say that like not to know
it all, but it's like firemen think they know everything
about. And it's the yeah, it's politics
fighting fire. Yeah.
Finances, OK. You know how many financial
experts we got, right? And then fitness, you know, it's

(04:51):
I I already know there's nothingyou can't tell me, right?
And, and I think like that's a stigma that you have to, you
know, I think we understand, right?
Like we've been doing this a while and obviously we know how
important it is, but there's always something to learn.
It's always changing. There's more data, research,

(05:12):
things like that coming out. So you know, like you want to
break down the fundamentals of fitness, you know, like what is
what is physical Wellness, right?
You have your strength, your aerobic capacity, flexibility,
body comp, diet and recovery. You know, I like to add that,

(05:34):
you know, I think those are the the bullet points of physical
Wellness. You know, you start getting into
what is functional fitness, OK, Now we're talking about
specificity, right? That word that's kind of a big
word for firemen, right? Like, but what does it mean?
It just means like, hey, are we doing stuff that's specific to
the job, OK. Right.
Like are, are we training firefighting in in mind, right?

(05:58):
Like what are our work cycles? And, and I can kind of get maybe
into that down the road or whatever.
But yeah, like specificity, likeare we doing training like that
is applicable to actual firefighting?
Like football players do it right, You know, they're doing
power exercises, they're power cleans, you know, deadlifts that

(06:18):
you know, and then they're doingthe drills, right?
Every drill. Like they're in mini camps right
now, right? We're in pre season football.
They're at mini camp doing specificity like workouts right
now. Per their position, right,
right. Like obviously a quarterback is
doing a completely different workout, functional fitness,
stretching everything compared to that running back or wide
receiver, right? 100%, yeah.

(06:39):
So, so how do you take that approach and then implement that
to the fire service? Because you've heard, I know
you've heard this, right? I've, I've heard this also.
And I, I hate when guys say this.
It's like, bro, the best shape of my life I was in was the day
I graduated the Academy, right? Like, like, shame on you, bro,

(07:01):
but like it, it should be embarrassing.
But unfortunately that's one of those things that's almost a A
pillar. Like they're proud of something
like that. Yeah.
Like that's just the beginning. You learn the foundation, you
know, like you're learning the foundation of what it's like to
be a firefighter, but you shouldalso be learning the foundation
of what it's like to have that kind of fitness level, right?

(07:25):
So, so if you, if you think about it like this and like this
is kind of what we do in our cadre and things like that is
when you're talking about specificity or programming,
right? Like, how do you do that with
firefighters? Right.
Yeah, like exactly. So kind of going back like I
have my certified strength and conditioning specialist through

(07:45):
the NSCA. OK, so the NSCA probably the
gold like gold standard around the world when it comes to
strength and conditioning, right?
They're, they're the hub, They're the, they're, you know,
you go to any G1 college, you know, professional team, they're
going to have some sort of CSCS on staff and, or they get their
certifications through the, the NSCA, right?

(08:07):
They, they're the ones that do the data, the research, you
know, and there's other programsout there, NS, you know, ACSM,
American College of Sports Medicine, you got all these
other NASM right? They're all good and they, and
they all are on the same team, but the Nsas up there, right?
So what you talk about or when you when you start breaking it
down and into programming and what you do is a CSCS, you sit

(08:32):
down and you go, OK, we're goingto put this athlete into what we
call a movement analysis triangle.
So, you know, think about this with me here, since we can't,
you don't have a whiteboard, right?
OK. OK, everyone listening to have a
whiteboard start following Garrett's directions to the T.
Right now, here we go. Here we go.
Does it matter what color they use?

(08:53):
Yeah. And it's funny because in my
PowerPoint, when I give this to the recruits and to the RTOS,
right, I actually go, I like drawing with crayons and I and I
and I put it in colors and in like shapes like ladder guys,
like crayons. And so that.
Exactly. They they taste delicious,
right? OK, I apologize.
No. No, you're good.
No, it's good. Go ahead.
So, so you draw a triangle, right?

(09:15):
Triangle. OK, Movement analysis triangle.
We've talked about this. At the top of the triangle, you
have strength. OK, so and then we'll go bottom
left is speed, bottom right is endurance.
OK, right. So in that inside of this
triangle, right, you you classify every athlete.
So OK, let's thinking in betweenspeed and strength, it's power

(09:41):
those. So you're going to have power in
there, right? OK, so if you were to give like
another shape to an athlete, we'll say a football player,
right? Where do they fit out in this
triangle and what shape are they?
So if you admit, envision this, right, we know that football
players are more power athletes,basketball players, right?

(10:01):
So they're going to be kind of atriangle triangular shape within
the big triangle right in the strength, speed and just.
Triangle heavier on that strength side.
Yeah. So they're kind of they're this
triangle that's over to the leftside of that triangle, right,
right inside, right next to the power, because in between speed
and strength is power, right. And so and obviously like I have

(10:25):
this for you, but it's like it'san actual diagram, but.
He he just showed me a a pot. What would you even call that?
It's not a pie chart. That's a triangle.
Yeah, so we got the triangle, right?
So and then it breaks down like as you work towards speed, as
you work towards endurance, as you you go from speed to
endurance, like what those termsactually are.

(10:46):
It's a lot of science. So I'm not even going to get
into it. We'll just keep it firefighter
friendly, right? So, hey, we know that in between
speed and strength is power. But my point is, is like, what
shape are you? So the marathon runner, right?
Marathon runners got to be fast,but they're endurance athletes.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So when you think about that,
it's like, OK, well, what shape are they in this big triangle?

(11:08):
Right. So they're heavy on the bottom
of that triangle. They're on the bottom.
Right, between that and the endurance and that speed.
Yeah, so I kind of gave, and maybe I give them like a, you
know, like a rectangle or a parallelogram down at the bottom
right. And I got you there.
There's speed, right? So where's firefighting, right?
Firefighting is. I would say more what strengthen
endurance, right? Actually, the data, right, the

(11:30):
data was suggested, please fire military, right.
We're actually the circle in themiddle and and when you think
about it like this is OK, so you're basketball players,
right? What are their work cycles when
you think about that? Or what are football players
their their longest snap it whatis it 30 seconds?
And then they get a minute, minute and a half rest, right,

(11:51):
play clock, this that. Yeah, hockey's a good example of
that, too. Like a minute of solid work and
then they're gone. Right, right.
So and then, you know, you have line changes in this and that
and whatever. So and then they're only playing
for how long? 60 minutes and 90 minutes, you
know, whatever, whatever their game is, right.
And then they get to go home anddo whatever.
Yeah, true. So.
But taking into account, so thenwhat are they doing in their

(12:12):
work cycles like? And so with that said, you know,
firefighting, right, like they have found out through the
research, right? And the NSCA did a really good
job with this years ago. And they, they started noticing
as they were doing research on our population, right?
Like they created what they callTSAC, which is tactical strength

(12:34):
and conditioning. So they kind of started like
they go, hey, these guys are kind of special.
We're going to actually pull them out of the normal athlete,
you know, because we like to be called athletes.
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Industrial athletes. Right.
Yeah, right, industrial. So I have a problem with that,
but we'll get to that later. Oh yeah, we will.
So I can't wait to hear it. You pull that out, they pulled
them out and they go. We're going to do research just

(12:55):
on these guys, right? And so, yeah, what they found
out is like, hey, you're the circle in the middle, right?
You think about how long does ittake to turn out?
OK, right. 60 to a minute and a half, you know, depending on
your turn out, your pack, all the other stuff, your
proficiency, right? Yep.
So turn out times less than a minute you say right?

(13:16):
Taking a plug. A minute and a half, right?
If you're good, yeah. Yeah.
OK. Then you're then you're
stretching hose, right, Right. You're forcing a door.
That's power exercise, right? Yeah, absolutely right.
OK, then you're searching. OK, You're on all fours.
You're you're you're being fast.You're working on speed, right?
Seconds matter. OK, then you're what?

(13:38):
Maybe after the fire's out, you get put, put out the fire.
Maybe rescue a victim. I'm not even talking about
rescuing a victim yet, you know.OK, so we're just saying you got
an all clear now you're pulling ceiling.
Yeah, you're doing it for 20 minutes, right?
Bottles last for 20 minutes if you're in good shape.
Yeah, you're right. Yeah, 10 to 20.
Times 3 on a good worker. Yeah, absolutely. 24 hours, how

(14:02):
many times you get a couple workers?
And you know, I've had a couple,you know, 3 fire shifts, you
know, I mean, that happens wherewe work, you know, and so and,
and more so back east, right, those guys are running more than
that, right? You know, you hear the stories,
right? And so you think about that.
It's like, how do you train for that?

(14:23):
You know, like those are a lot of different work cycles all
over this triangle. And so I think that the, the
thought process and, and maybe like where I try to get across
to when we talk, when we start talking about fitness is if we
understand that we're the circlein the middle, right, That the

(14:44):
research suggests this, then why?
Like what makes the fire servicegreat?
And I have another side tangent.What makes the fire service
great is we have people all overthis triangle, right?
We have the strongest of the strong.
We have Iron Man guys and we gotthe UFC fighters that can go,
you know, are fast and that's what makes us great.
We're big, tall, all the all theway around, right?

(15:06):
But if we can accept the idea orunderstand the idea rather that
we are the circle in the middle and that we need to maybe move
towards that, right? When we're talking about for the
job, right? Like, you know, then I think
we're going to become better in the fire service, if you will,

(15:29):
because because really like, youknow, and this will get me on a
tangent is your fitness isn't about you anymore.
Like when you, if you want to bestronger, you want to be faster,
this and that. Like, you know, when you, when
you weren't on the job, like in your back playing sports, it's
all about, you know, it's whatever you want to do, bro.
But the moment you took the oath, your fitness ain't about

(15:52):
you anymore. It's about Mr. and Missus Smith.
Yeah, you know. And who else?
That crew, right, Right. Your boys.
Yeah, you know, so like, and, and I love this quote and
there's I think it's John Salka,right?
Don't know the guy but I I I borrowed a quote from him.
It's a fireman or outside. So this is off of like a fit.

(16:15):
It's called firefighter fitness.OK, I think it's a Instagram,
but the time it takes for us to gear up, turn out, respond,
stretch line, start searching isnot ours.
It belongs to the folks waiting for us to perform.
You know what I mean? And it's like, of course, like

(16:37):
in that and totally aligned withthe, with the little snippet you
played right, seconds matter. But like, OK, yeah, we can trim
seconds with, you know, you know, hose loads and training
and things like that. But dude, if you if you're not
in shape, if you're not in shape, then none of that

(16:57):
matters. Dude, if you're going down, if
you can only go 30 seconds and you're smoked, then it doesn't
matter. You you can have.
All the head knowledge in the world, dude.
And if you're not there, like, and that's the thing, it's like
the chicken or the egg, you know, what came first type of
thing. It's like, so I and I sound very

(17:18):
passionate about it, but I thinklike, I think we fool ourselves
a little bit. What gets in the way pride a
little bit. I think, you know, but I think
the again, to take it outside ofpersonal opinion and things like
that, the research is just, hey,man, we're the circle in that
middle. And if you want to be better at
this job or you want perform at a higher level when it comes to

(17:41):
the occupation, you should strive towards the circle in the
middle, right? And So what does that look like
for you? For me, I knew I coming into the
fire service, I was more of a power athlete.
So I had to kind of work my way to more towards the endurance
side of things then, you know, my first time putting on
turnouts. Whoop my ass.
Yeah, it whoops your ass. Yeah, I think everyone can.

(18:01):
Everyone can go back to the day they put turnouts on and did try
to do a skills course or even just a training evolution with
the guys, right? Realizing that shit, I can't
cool down, man. This is.
Yeah, it's not heavy, right? But I'm not used to the
different weight or the movementor the lack of movement, right?
You know, So now we're using muscles that we're not used to

(18:22):
when we're doing something overhead because we can't fully
extend our arms now. Yeah, that kind of stuff, right.
No, and and and that's it like, and so it's a humbling thing,
you know, when you start breaking down what it looks like
for firefighters to perform their job, like there are

(18:42):
multiple aspects. You know, there is power
involved, there is endurance involved, there is speed
involved. We understand that.
And that's why I think it encompasses that right and
there, And so I'm not, you know,like there's a lot of myths that
you know, when you start talkingabout functional fitness and
things like that, right? So the data suggests, and I'll

(19:03):
just say this up front, functional fitness is required
like is good for the fire service.
A lot of times the, you know, the stigma is functional fitment
fitness. Functional fitness equals
CrossFit. That's not true.
Correct. Yeah, CrossFit is a brand,
right, of circuit training. You know, they've created a

(19:24):
great environment and don't get me wrong, I've done CrossFit
workouts. I love guys that CrossFit, you
know, it's all those things. Strength training is just as
important, right? The old school power lift guys,
right? Putting on the belt, lifting the
weight, moving the 10, you know,hey dude, it's important to both
are important, both are functional.
And I think that's the thing. Both are functional, but it's

(19:46):
like, OK, well, where are you onthis triangle and what maybe do
you need to adjust to, right? And so that's kind of that
specificity that I'm talking about is like, and then like
also doing the job tasks, right,as part of fitness, right?
Like that's why we do skills courses.
And a lot of people think it's just a workout, but it's also

(20:09):
training. So you're almost doing two
things at once, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
And like that's one of those things that the guys that say,
hey man, I can't get the guys out to train or whatever the
scenario it is. Like that's literally Step 1.
You put your gear on, throw a pack on, set up a little mini
skills course on the back or thefront apron, whatever your house
a lots, right. And then just do it.

(20:29):
And and I know you can you'll back me up on this.
You might not have anybody join you the first day or the second
day or the third day, right? I guarantee you after probably
about 3 or 4 weeks at the latest, there's going to be guys
joining you, right? Because you're going to come in,
you're going to be smiles because you just kicked your own
ass. You feel good.
There's endorphins are rushing, right?

(20:49):
And then that's, that's contagious.
Everything is contagious. Negativity, laziness is
contagious, just like being proactive and and hence why this
podcast even exists. You know, it's to to inform guys
and to keep the ones that are hungry and they want to be
proactive and learn something. You know, that's that's who
we're catering to. Dude, your knowledge base is

(21:11):
freaking insane, right? There's a couple things I really
want to kind of spin back to before we move even any further
on this. So when it when it comes down to
that pill or that, excuse me, pillar, that triangle right of
fitness, I just wrote a little note just because it's something
that I personally struggle with and it's my own fault because I

(21:32):
hate it. I don't like it fucking hurts
like hell. Where does that flexibility fit
into that triangle? So like we had talked about, and
I'm literally I'm drawing triangles right now, right?
You know, so I got my strength on the top.
I got my what speed far left, endurance far right.
I got power in between strength and speed.
So where where do you put that flexibility?
Yeah. So maybe to be a little bit more

(21:55):
non scientific, right, Like we're when we're talking about
program design and like we're talking about the triangle I'm
talking about is a movement analysis triangle.
That's just that. How do we diagnose how these
this individual or this athlete,you know, what work cycles are
they working in got, you know, and how do we cuz when you, you
know, like when you do your lifting program, you know, like

(22:18):
you're kind of working in those percentage ranges either to get
stronger, right, build more endurance, this and that.
So that I guess that idea, that's what that triangles for,
right? When we start talking about how
do we come up with a program forthe resistance training and or
the circuit training or functional fitness for them,

(22:38):
mobility kind of being part of that, It's a bullet point of, of
physical Wellness, right? Going back to the pillars, it's
like that is in itself part of the pillar, but it's not
necessarily part of the triangle, but it's important,
right? And, and you start looking at

(22:58):
injury, career longevity, thingslike that, right?
Like we know that the fire service is a physically
demanding job. And so, you know, they're, they
have things like the functional movement screen, maybe are, are
neglected in our training, right?
And then, and don't get me wrong, like I'm, I'm sitting
here and, you know, I don't score a 21 out of 21 on the

(23:20):
functional movement test, right?But it, it, it points and
reminds me that, hey, I need to work on some core, some hip
flexors, you know, some shoulders, shoulders, knees,
backs, right. We talk about that all the time.
We know that. We know the data, you know, and
it's kind of The funny thing toois we know the data because
it's, there's a ton of it out there.

(23:41):
It's just where we kind of turn the blind eye to it because we
get comfortable, right? But you know, what I say is, is
when it comes to mobility, it should be something that's been
ongoing. You know, especially for us,
it's important. And if you want to have a long
career, if you're not stretching, if you're not
working on your mobility, then you're bound to get hurt.

(24:02):
And so we utilize the tool, obviously the functional
movement screen for our recruitsto kind of show them what
they're walking in with, right? We classify them, you know, and,
and there's an old study that Tucson fire did years ago and
they used it for firefighter recruits and they, and they and

(24:23):
their fire department to just analyze risk of injury.
Their intention or what you know, was to improve
flexibility, strength, stabilizer muscles, things like
that. But they noticed that they had a
42% reduced injury rate over the12 month period.
That's freaking huge, right? You know, and just by utilizing
the functional movement screen, right, So and, and, and to kind

(24:46):
of get into the data and I and Ipresent this to our recruits
too. It's like, hey, this isn't just
some random tests, like there's a lot of research on this stuff,
right? I think it's the July 2022 TSAC
report. So TSAC tactical strength and
conditioning. They they started kind of doing
their own little, you know, things that they would send out
like journals, you know, so the TSAC.

(25:08):
Now is that fire service relatedor, or specific or no, That's
across the fitness industry. It's.
So it's a. It's a section of the NSCA that
is fire, police, military specific.
Copy just to clarify for the listeners.
Yeah, for Mike and I would challenge anybody, like if
you're looking for just some data, look up the TSAC reports,

(25:31):
Perfect. Look up and see what they're,
what are they studying, man? They're studying everything.
They're studying 4896 sleep cycles, all this stuff.
And it's just, it's good information, right?
You know, fire engineering's, you know, we look at that
magazine all the time, right? And, and they even, they're even
talking about this stuff and they're doing their own stuff.
And it's like it's all coming together.
But it's like, at what point arewe going to start doing the

(25:52):
stuff they're saying, right? So, yeah, yeah.
It's always merely interesting to read and then be like, OK.
Yeah, so they were just talking about firefighter recruits in
this report and utilizing it andhow it, you know, it informs
these guys of like where they'reat and their injury risk, right.
So what we do is we they come inday one, hey, you get it, You

(26:15):
get assessed. And I'm going to categorize you
as green, yellow or red. Green being like, hey, you're
good, right. Like as far as functional
functionality goes and mobility,yellow is like, hey, we could
use some improvement and red is like you are higher risk.
If you're scoring lower than a 16 on a functional movement
screen, you are at higher risk of injury.

(26:37):
It's not saying you're going to get hurt, right?
And that's the thing, you know, it's not saying you're going to
get hurt. You're just at higher risk,
right? And then the big ones, because
we're, again, we, it's a super demanding job and especially in
the Academy, you're, you're, you're going 14 weeks every day
on the grinder doing it, you know, and so, and I think it
behooves, you know, us as captains and RT OS and like,

(27:02):
hey, what are, you know, maybe Ihave to keep an eye on this kid.
Maybe I have to teach them the fundamentals.
So, and it's kind of funny. I've, you know, had a recent
conversation, you know, I walkedin a couple academies ago and I
go, how many of you have played an organized sports or have done

(27:30):
some sort of like organized sport and or like official
lifting program, right. And about how many people?
Yeah, 50 recruits, right? Yeah, 7:00.
What? Wow 7 dude, I was thinking you
were going to say about 70% of the guys raise their hands.
Yeah, no. And like, I think, you know, I'm

(27:52):
a young guy on the job, right? I'm blessed to be a captain
where I'm at, right? And and what was the knock when
I got hired? Hey, they didn't know building
construction. They weren't, you know, didn't
used to do construction back when they were younger.
Like the generational differences.
Well, here's ours. Yep.
These guys don't know how to move.
They don't know. They've never played a sport.

(28:14):
They don't know how to lift. They don't, you know, So what
are what are their body mechanics look like?
Oh yeah, right. And so now we're talking injury
time off the truck, the list goes on.
And so I think that's a reality that we need to look at is like
these guys have never moved. We have a different generation

(28:34):
coming in where they've never done anything athletic before.
And guess what? They're in a weird job for that.
It's they got a, they got a uphill battle and how are we
teaching that? So that's kind of the part of
that's why we do this screen right to, to identify these
individuals. Then we also do a relative
strength assessment test, right body weight stuff, you know,

(28:59):
pull ups, sit ups, air squats, push ups.
How many can you do? Where do you rate right?
This is a militaristic very likewe're talking relative strength,
not absolute strength, right? So how, how much can they do?
You know, what does their endurance look like?
And so we measure that and then it also falls into the category.

(29:19):
And then we also, if they have self reported absolute maxes, we
take those into consideration too.
And then we group them together to get them in groups that are
like are similar functionality wise so that we can start
building because, you know, in the Academy, and I'll get into
that maybe later is, you know, you have to, there's not a lot

(29:40):
of time and there's not a lot ofresources and all the other
things that go on, right? We have to, you know, group them
up and then we have to, we're doing a lot of grouping,
training, things like that. And we only have an hour and a
half with little to no equipment, right?
So we got to make the best with what we have and that's probably

(30:00):
one way to do that, right, so that we can be, when we start
talk about aspects of training, we talk about like
individualization. How do we, you know, for Joe
Blow, you know, professional athlete, they're getting the
customized, you know, in workoutprogram.
We can't do that right, But we we can do our best to get them

(30:23):
in groups. We can give them their
functional movement screens. We are going to modify what we
can based on that, right. So there's guys that we come in
I go, you are not squatting witha barbell on your back.
You are, you were starting with air squat.
And we're going to talk there and we're going to start there.
And some guys, they've been lifting weights their whole
life. And I go, yeah, like, I get it.
You're, you're strong, right. But you're not functionally

(30:46):
strong. Got you.
Right. And and let's tweak this so you
don't blow a disc in five years.Yeah, because you, you got off
of 48 or you got off of 24. And you go to the gym and you're
like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lift heavy.
And you blow a disc because yourform's messed up, right.
So let's create that good foundation.
And that's kind of the idea of the cadre and what we do, but

(31:09):
kind of reasons why if that kindof answers you're going, I kind
of went off on a tangent. There.
No, it's, it's good. I'm glad you went off on tangent
because as you're talking, I'm just bro, I'm just writing down
question after question after question after question.
But before I kind of move on to that, you know, when you're
talking about just their basic movements and the lack of
knowledge with this generation coming up, right?

(31:31):
I mean, I, I challenge anyone that's listening to this right
now, that's over the age of I'd say 28 or 29, right?
And you go to any sort of private or not privatized, but
any sort of corporate style gym,your mountainside, the OS is
gold. So you you name it, right at a
peak time and watch the young kids working out.
And it's, it's I personally, yeah, I've been working out

(31:56):
since high school, right? And obviously I've done wrong
things. I've done right things.
I've learned progress as I've gotten older in life like we
should. But it's it's weird because I
have this overwhelming desire sometimes and I'm not a personal
trainer, right, to just stand upand say, like, what the fuck are
you doing? Can I, can I please help?
Because it's almost like painfulto watch sometimes.
So you know, I never even thought of that those that

(32:18):
generation is a generation that they're in the gym because
they're into fitness, right? And they're being influenced by
whatever guy they follow on YouTube or something like that,
good or bad information, but it's all information.
And then I even think about it. Then you're getting that
individual as a brand new fire recruit, right?
And basically as nice as possible saying, what the fuck
are you doing? Right?

(32:39):
I got to, I got to reteach you everything.
I mean, it's huge because the whole point of that fitness
level and that functional fitness is, like you said, to
prevent injury, right? And I'm sure it's a challenge
for you to take that young alphamindset because I've been doing
this. Hey, Skip, I've been doing this
already for four years. Like I went from squatting 135

(33:01):
lbs to 3:15 or 375 or whatever. It works.
It's like, and like you said, bro, yeah, you've gotten
stronger, right? But you're going to get to the
point where you are going to hurt yourself severely, where it
might even be career ending, which is bad for all of us.
It's bad for the department theygot hired for.
It's bad for the individual. You know, it's, it's, it's bad
for everybody. Yeah, no.
And, and and I'm. I'm living proof of that, right.

(33:24):
Like, so to share a personal story, Yeah, please do.
Like I'm getting ready to graduate college.
I'm done with my playing career.OK, so 2223 years old is?
Right, yeah, so I've I'm finishing up my degree at ASUI,
get an internship with a companyand I end up you know, I'm still

(33:47):
lifting heavy I'm still in my football days if.
You will right Dead. Lifting, you know, I'm I'm
throwing on weight feel a pop inmy back, you know, and I'm like
inhibits me from working a little bit like I'm getting
shooting pain down to my foot like it feels like I'm getting
electrocuted thought for sure I pop the disc or you know what I

(34:08):
mean, blown disc type of thing have super just that nerve pain
and you know it when you get it right and so I go everything
kind of checks out on the MRI, right.
I do have a little bit of a protrusion down there, L5 S one.
And so I'm doing rehab at the place that I work and one of the

(34:33):
PTS just looks at me like, and so he's having me do some
exercises and this and that and he goes, what are you doing?
And I'm doing like a lap pull down at this time, OK.
And I'm like. Yeah, super basic movement.
Right. He's like, stop doing.
He's like you're, he's like you're weak.
And he just tells me that he goes, you're weak.

(34:55):
And I go, what do you mean? Yeah, fuck you, buddy.
Yeah, right. I'm like, dude, I'm and I'm
looking at him, right, the eyeball test, like, and dude, we
do this in the fire service all the time, right?
We just go whoa. We eye everybody.
It's the eyeball test. Like what can you tell me that I
already don't know? Yeah, So he tells me this.
He's like, you're weak and like,my form's bad.
I'm leaning back. I'm overcompensating with other

(35:17):
muscles this night. He goes, all right.
And he takes my hips and he flattens them out and he's like,
puts me in this posture, right. He's got, you know, And it was
kind of funny because he's like,all right.
He's using tools like PVC piping.
He goes, all right, now go. Yeah, I can't lift the weight.
And I'm like, he goes, you're weak.
It's just like that. Like, and I just started

(35:38):
laughing because I'm like shit. And I he goes Garrett, he goes
Garrett. You're strong, but you're not
like he's like when it comes to like your body, you're
overcompensating. And, and these are things that
we've learned over time. So like, right when we talk
about squat mechanics, right? And like going back to my old
football days in high school, right?

(35:58):
Hey, put the bar on your back, big chest, eyes up, you know,
get that curve, big old chest. Well, it's like, well, no, you
actually don't want to do that, right?
You're creating a disadvantage just before you even start,
right? And we can break that down and
we do that with our recruits. But, and so man, it took a year.

(36:20):
So then also I was accompanied with a guy and I owe him a ton
of credit when it comes to even just how I've developed as a, a
strength and conditioning specialist, right?
And even getting the fire service, Dave Henderson, Terry
Massey, those guys, they were huge helps of just helping me

(36:42):
develop as a trainer, right? And, and getting me where I was.
And Dave one time. So I'm going through rehab and
he goes, all right, hey, he's like, I'm like, dude, Dave, I
don't know what to do. I go, Bert's telling me I'm I'm
weak. I'm like, I'm pissed, you know,
like nothing's getting better. He's like, meet me here on
Saturday, 6:00 AM. I'm like, got it.

(37:05):
So I walk in on Saturday and he's like, all right.
And he's, I just see him. He's got his shoes and socks
off. He's on a yoga mat.
He's got a bandana on. He's like, let's go.
Hour long stretch session, right.
Hour long, like yoga style. Never.
And you know, like, we had to dothis in the degree program, but

(37:26):
like, Gary Lee didn't do yoga, you know what I'm saying?
That's for the girls. Oh.
Yeah, Yeah, you're right. You.
Know and so but dude, I'm telling you when I got done with
that Steve full shirt of sweat smoked leg shaken and Dave goes
Garrett that was embarrassing. Wow.
Yeah, no, he's, I love the. Dude, I love these guys.

(37:46):
Talk like I talk, man. I love straight talk.
Yeah, he's just straight up toldme and it and it as a 2223 year
old kid, you're like. Collegiate athlete at that too,
you know. Like you're like hey, like,
fuck. And and at that point I'm like,
because I was smoked. I'm like, fuck, you're right.
He's like, you will meet me hereevery Saturday and we will do
this and I did and I did it. What a good dude and no, and for

(38:10):
sure and he and I'm telling you,Mobil, it's still coming back to
mobility, right. I was so tight that my body
wasn't able, you know, like it wasn't necessarily like that I
had this like the injury was caused because of my lack of
mobility. I had to realize that the hard
way and now like, and I try to tell this to people is like, you

(38:34):
don't want to be in, you don't want to have to take a year.
He and Dave told me he's like, you will not deadlift for a
year. Wow.
But he's like, I will, you will eventually do it.
So we did a bunch of other things to help create stabilizer
muscles, right? Work on core strength, all this
stuff. And then it's funny because a
year later when I come back to deadlift, I didn't really lose

(38:54):
that much. Wow.
Right. Because I've strengthened
everything around it. I worked on my mobility, my
technique was better, my form was better, and then it's like
my absolute strength. And it's gonna diminish a little
bit, right? If you're not lifting the
weight, you gotta lift the weight, right?
But it came back fast. It came back fast because the

(39:16):
other things that improved, right?
And, and so that's a whole otherthing with rehab and other
things that you can get into. But mobility being The thing is
like, man, I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
And I think a lot of firefighters learned that the
hard way. And then sometimes, you know, it
can be career ending, right? And you don't want those kind of
things. How many guys have cages in

(39:38):
their backs? You know how many and and
getting knee replacements, hip and replacements and they're
young. Yeah, it's very common now.
It's like 40 and under sometimes.
It's crazy. And it's like if you don't, if
you don't start early and you don't create that a habit, then
you're never going to do it, dude.
You're never going to do it. Right, So when you when you talk

(39:58):
about habits before I move on tomy other question, and this is
something I and this is honestlyI'm just I'm being curious for
myself. So I've always been told.
O tell me if this is bad information or or kind of close.
I was always told if you do anything for 21 days in a row it
becomes a habit right? O that would be something

(40:20):
negative like smoking cigarettesright or drinking alcohol, but
they they related to exercising too.
So like for the especially for the the firemen that say has let
his fitness level go and he's been on the job for 10 plus
years and he is that guy that the best shape of his life was a
day he graduated the academy's. Is that a true statement or is

(40:41):
that just kind of just things that people have said?
Like what do you feel about that?
When it comes down to, Hey, embracing that suck that a lot
of guys will say until the pointwhere you're like, because I
know for me, I and I don't remember the timeline, but when
it came down to training legs like in high school, like it
wasn't cool to train legs like growing up in this generation.
Now you go to the gym, everyone's got tree trunks,

(41:02):
which is amazing, right? I think, but I didn't start
training late, so I became an adult, right.
And then of course, it's the same thing that everyone says.
It's like that first couple times it hurts so bad that it
feels like your legs are broken,right?
So you you don't want to do it again.
But it's one of those deals now where if I miss a session of a
heavy squat day or something along those lines, I I'm upset

(41:26):
like because now I thoroughly enjoy it.
Which was do you? Feel like your body craves it?
It does, isn't. That yeah.
Fascinating. To to where for me, if I miss
just let's just not even go about muscle group, let's just
say missing or neglecting my physical fitness for a period of
time. Like and, and prime example, a

(41:46):
couple months ago I moved and there was probably a good solid
3, almost 4 weeks where I was lucky to get a workout in at the
at the house, right at the station.
But man, that wasn't my priority.
Life was crazy. I mean, it happens to everybody,
right? But the entire time my anxiety
level was higher. Like, and obviously I understand
I'm moving too, but I didn't feel as good.
I'm I'm, I'm more tired easily. And it's like, and I'm just, you

(42:10):
know, just, hey, it's a move. I'm stressed everything else.
But sure, shit, the day I get back and say, OK, you know what,
no more excuses. The house can wait.
I'm going to hit the gym, make that priority again and start
back on my regiment. And all of a sudden all those
that anxiety went away, those extra stresses went away.
Like I started feeling good. My body hurt less, you know,
which is crazy. But like, do you think there's

(42:31):
for that for those guys that aretrying to get back into it?
Is there a time frame? They're like, bro, just stick it
out, you know? Yeah, I think the 21 days, it
would be great. I mean, there's like you see
that a lot and there's there's data to back that up.
OK. I think it's the hard part of

(42:52):
what are you creating discipline, things like that.
It's like anything else too. And the reason I asked you is
your body created cuz eventuallyit's like your feed.
What are you feeding? You have to, you know, and not
to make it a spiritual thing, dude, but it's like, man, it's,

(43:12):
it's a discipline, man. And then and the more you do it,
the, and then you create that habit.
Then when you after that, you know, period of time and you've
created that discipline. When you go without it, you
crave it, right. And I think that you see that so
much in the fitness side of things, like when you push past
the the hurt your body, the the human body is so amazing when

(43:38):
you start breaking it down on how its ability to adapt, you
know, and to its environment andlike what you're creating.
So man, like I think, you know, in short is, yeah, that's a good
place. But here's here's I think the
obstacle that people run into. They go too hard, too fast, and

(43:59):
you're and you're not honest with yourself where you're at.
Like, hey, it doesn't. You can't eat the whole
chocolate bar in one sitting. You're going to get sick.
Yeah, you got to take a bite size.
Hey bro, I benched 315 when I was a senior in high school.
Now I'm 43 so I'm going to warm up with probably 275 right?
That makes sense, right? And you're going to blow your

(44:20):
pack exactly. So it's like, hey, if you
haven't done anything in a while, just start with the
basics. You're still going to get the
endorphin release. You're still going to get those
things. It's not going to be and, and
it's OK, you know, you're, and, and you know, whether it's
setting things up at the stationsetting thing, you don't have to
be a fitness expert to, to do these things either, right?

(44:43):
Like, but just being any, any sort of, any sort of activity
level, any things like that, you're, you're getting better.
I try to tell guys that like, you know, when I'm setting up
stuff at the station, like, hey,just get out there and do what
you can because guess what, you're getting better.

(45:03):
No matter what you do, if you goaround and you do one Rep on
everything, it's more reps than you did, you did yesterday,
right? And, and it's that simple, like
you can break it down, that simple for guys, you know, and,
and, and really it's like, OK, then the next day try to do 2,
try to do 3 the next day, you know, and then eventually it
becomes habitual, right? And then I think truthfully,

(45:25):
like your hunger, your body craves it and it's going to
crave more and more and more over time.
And then you're going to be ableto eat that whole candy bar, if
you will, for the, you know, analogy speaking.
So I think. No, I mean, dude, that's really
good too. And especially when it comes
down to on the job fitness wise.And I'm curious on what you

(45:46):
think about this because that's why I've used in crews I've
worked with before. I'm like, hey, let's, let's do a
skilly benefit of being in the department I'm in right now is
that a lot of guys do prioritizetheir physical fitness for the
most part. So it's not as much of A
kickback or argument that maybe some of you guys are going to
come across. But if you can't get your crew

(46:08):
out there and to kind of minimize that anxiety, I love to
pack out and do it on air because then that is the quit
point. You know, it's like, hey, we're
going to work and do this event,right?
Whatever we choose to set up until we're out of air, right?
And that might be 5 or 10 minutes for one guy, right?
It might be 25 or 30 minutes to the other guy.

(46:30):
But to me, I like that because it's not more than they can
handle because when they're out of air, they're out of air
because that's what they suck down.
They're going to be exhausted, right?
But then at the same time, they have a regiment of saying, Hey,
it took me 10 minutes to breathedown my bottle doing this skills
course. So next week when I do it again
or next shift or whatever that you know how, how motivated they

(46:51):
might be, It's like, Hey, I'm going to try to go for one more
minute, right? Or even like your air management
is good and you went through 6 rounds, right?
Hey, next time I'm going to try to do 6 1/2 rounds or, or maybe
I can really step it up and do that seventh round or whatever.
So like, what do you think when it, especially when it relates
to the fire service, like, like you agree with that?

(47:12):
Do you have a better idea when it comes down to like especially
that crew makeup where you, you might not say walking in that
morning besides doing your normal walk around like, Hey,
who's on the knob, right? Or hey, who's cutting today?
Who's sounding, you know, your, your morning talks like you not
knowing their fitness level, Howwould you attack that?
But everyone's willing to work out that day.

(47:33):
Yeah, so I think, you know, thattouches on a couple things, like
what's your plan as a company officer, Right, Right.
I think I have goals that I comein like, hey, we're gonna do
some sort of physical activity. We're gonna eat together as a
crew, right? We're gonna eat something
healthy. We're gonna make a healthy
choice is what I say, you know, and then we're gonna do some
sort of training, right. Those those are my goals a lot

(47:57):
of times. And it's funny, you talk about
skills courses and that's a sensitive subject, you know,
depending on where you're at. And I've gotten a lot of Flack
for that in the past because I think part of it's the lack of
understanding, you know, I thinkpart of it too is, you know,

(48:19):
guys that are passionate about stuff like that and maybe guys
some guys aren't. And so not to necessarily get
into that, but I think. I mean, so without throwing
shade, right? Because that's not what we're
about, right? So, you know, generalize, very
generalized, please. Just like what?
What is the biggest pushback yougot from that?
Because he says it's a sensitivesubject.

(48:40):
So. And I think it's a very valid
pushback is you don't want guys to go down, OK, yeah, right,
right. And and.
And in the environment you work in, right?
So you're you're fighting fire in 120 plus degrees some days,
correct? Correct.
OK. And so it's it's, you know, it's
hot, it's summers like they start in, you know, April, if
you will. But May, June, July, August,

(49:02):
September, it doesn't start cooling down here until late
October, right? And it's probably still 90 in
October. Yeah, sometimes.
And that's, that's comfortable, right?
Right. And I'm like, oh, it's only 100.
That's you know, but is, you know, the biggest push back is,
hey, we don't want guys to go down.
And I and I get that. And as a company officer, you
have to be aware of those thingsand it's very valid concern,

(49:23):
right? Like I do not know this guy's
fitness level. And if we get 3 fires in a shift
and you go down like, then that's you know.
And it's valid because you, you are response as a company
officer, you are responsible forthat back step guy. 100%.
And, and, and that includes his fitness level and what you, you
know, do or quote UN quote, not mandatory, right, But what your
expectations are that morning toknock out.

(49:45):
Yeah, outside of the, you know, 15 medicals and then freaking
hopefully a job to end the shiftout, right?
That's a busy freaking day. Yeah, yeah.
And, and what did they, what didthey come in the door with?
Yeah, yeah. Did.
They go out last night. Yeah.
Were they out drinking? Boozing, you know.
Or even worse, did they work last night, which is a a
possibility with staffing concerns and everything else and

(50:06):
lack of hiring, right? Or are they on a 48?
Yeah, and they came from a housethat they just did a stand of
24. Yeah, yeah.
Did they have fire before? You know, like, and now we start
getting into the mental health thing, right?
Like, did they What? What are they dealing with at
home? What kind of other stressors are
affecting their Physiology? You know, walking into work, you

(50:28):
know, things like that. Are they coming to work ready to
work? That's kind of one of my pet
peeves. Like, hey, are you coming to
work fueled and ready to go hydrated?
You know, like if you're not, then you're already behind the 8
ball. Because if we just get a fire
and you go down, well, then that's unacceptable.
Yeah, right. Like, because that's part of the

(50:50):
job. So there so there is that line
to to walk, right? Like, hey, I don't want you to
go down, but you, you need to beable to perform.
And you and my expectation is itdoesn't matter how many calls we
get, you're going to you're not going to go down on on that.
And if you are, then we have to evaluate some things what's
going on. However, I still believe in the,
in the fact of like, so you as acompany officer, you have to

(51:12):
evaluate like, hey, yeah, I don't know their physical
abilities, but I need to figure it out.
You know, I think you need to know your guys, right?
You need to know and that and you can get into a leadership
side of that. But doing skills courses is
important, right? It's functional.
It's, it's specific to the job. That's specificity of what we're

(51:33):
talking about. But I also think it is training,
you know, and here's here's kindof my reasoning is, OK, what's
the number? You know, what's the first thing
that happens in Mayday scenarios?
What do guys do? They take off their gloves.
They take off their mask, right.You know, they panic, you know,
and they're, because they're uncomfortable.
They're hot. They they, you know, and so just

(51:56):
having firefighter gloves on, you don't even have to be in the
rest of the gear. I tell guys this too, like, hey,
you're, you don't want to do a scaly.
Cool. Will you work out with us?
Will you do some? Will you do the exercises
outside of your gear? Put your gloves on.
Oh, I love that. Put your gloves on.
Yeah, because the first thing you're going to do in the in
that scenario when you're panicking and you're trying to
transfill or you're trying to buddy breathe or you're trying

(52:17):
to rescue something, you're going to take off your gloves.
But how comfortable are you in that?
So there's training in just justthe bare minimum of dexterity
that comes with doing that. Then you talk about, you know,
hey, in those skills courses, are we doing things that are
like job tasks, throwing ladders?
I love throwing ladders in my. That is like a lost art of like,

(52:41):
you see some of these guys, you know, some guys on the scene and
you're like, what are you doing?Yeah, you know, you, you know.
Yeah, throwing a 24 like it's a 16 or 14 or vice versa or just
like, or just struggling, struggling so bad where you're
like, Oh my goodness. Right, yeah.
And that's a technique thing, right?
It's, I mean, and, and there arestandards like you need to be
able to do this. And so but let's, let's train on

(53:04):
it. Yeah, hey, let's pull the hose.
Let's let's, let's do the attackoversupply.
Let's do, let's, let's practice the shoulder load in our skills
course. Let's, let's focus on our
forcible entry and swing in our sledge.
And do you know, you know, doingsome rope ties, right?
Practicing wrapping up a dummy. close your eyes.

(53:25):
You know, it's humbling. Like guys laugh at me when we do
some things towards the end, because I always end the skills
course a little early and I'll go.
All right, how much air do you got?
All right, trans fill me. Yep, close your eyes and I go
you just did a skills course, you know cuz like one of my

(53:46):
little tips and maybe you could take this.
I get them down to 1000. OK PSI, I go all.
Right, so bells ringing. Bells are ringing, right?
I go. All right.
Give me 20 sledges on each side,OK?
How much it cost you? And then we go.
And then I go. All right, take this equipment,
you know, do an equipment run farmers carry.
How much it cost you, how much this got?

(54:07):
Get to get them down to 500. And then I go, all right,
transfer me. Get on your knees.
Just close your eyes. I'm right here.
You found them. He just says, hey, give them
air. Your captain says give them air.
Takes them. They're stuck in their face.
Yeah, they have to unclick. I go.
Which one was harder, the five exercises you did before in 500
or just sitting down and and transferring you go, this is

(54:28):
what we're talking about creating that uncomfortable
environment. What is and then you start
talking about your management, right?
And I think that's a good point when it comes to skills courses
and, and having that idea of taking those mental snapshots,
this, I mean, this is all training, but we're doing
physical activity. Yeah, isn't that crazy?
You know, and so, and, and I tell guys this too, don't be

(54:51):
suffocating yourself when you'redoing these skills courses.
Like just because you're last onbells doesn't mean you're in the
worst shape or the 1st on bells.Sorry, first on bells doesn't
mean you're in the worst shape. Because I'll tell you right now,
I'm going balls to the wall the whole fucking time.
Why? Because I'm trying to make my
body better at utilizing oxygen.So in the moment I need to

(55:13):
conserve. I can slow down, right?
And then teaching that, right. And so and that's, you know, to
kind of come back full circle on, you know, the hot topics of
skills courses. Like I think you're getting
those things. I think the push back is, hey,
we don't want guys to go down and that's totally valid.

(55:33):
But you know what's the remedialtraining for someone that goes
down on a fire, right? There is not.
Well, well, put them in their turnouts.
Yeah, make them comfortable in that scenario so that they're
not over, you know, get in comfortable, especially here,
right? It's about being hot.
They get hot, they get overheated, you know, body temp
starts to rise. You're over, you're cooking one

(55:55):
O 4. You're like, oh, you know,
you're pouring waters under me, but it's like I got to get
comfortable in that, you know, when I'm at one O31O2, like.
And so you need to get in your stuff because, I mean, we've
seen it and I'm sure you've seenit, right, Guys look like
they're in great shape. Yeah.
And it's different when you put it.
And they're the most to go down,right?

(56:15):
And, and that's the, you know, the part of the specificity, if
you will, of just being in your gear, knowing, you know, feeling
comfortable in your gear, being able to perform and do the
tasks. You're gonna get caught, right?
Like there's days that the bear get to you.
I say that to guys like, hey, man, you're gonna come in,
you're gonna do a skill and it'sjust gonna get you OK.

(56:36):
We need to focus on recovering and stuff like that.
And, and sometimes maybe as a company officer, like we might
go out of service, we're training, we go out of service
to train and pull a hose line behind Walmart all the time,
right? But we're not willing to do that
for this. So if we need to do that for the
crew or whatever, then maybe that's a priority, right?
Maybe this is a priority, you know, and that's up to the

(56:59):
company officer and know and know your guys, right.
And so, yeah, the push backs there, but I there's no other
validity is like, I just don't want them to go down.
Like there's there's nothing else really behind that.
And it's and really if we if we're looking in the mirror,
what's it's you know, what do westruggle with?
We struggle as firefighters like, and this is probably

(57:20):
another deep conversation is we struggle with comparing, we
struggle with pride. Yep, right.
And it's just like, it's like anything else, man, like just
let it go like it's and this is kind of like when we talk about
the fools and things like that, it's like we got guys that
there's no egos here, right? There's no egos and and fitness
is one of those ego driven things like, Hey, man, I can

(57:40):
lift more than you, I can bench more than you.
And it's like, no, it's not about that.
I'm, I'm here to be the circle in the middle, if you will.
I'm here. I'm moving in that direction.
And I think, guys, and how do I create that as a company officer
is like, hey, I praise that. Hey, man, you're out here.
Cool. We got better today.
Fuck yeah, yeah, fuck yeah. It doesn't matter.

(58:01):
You can't do this or that or compare, whatever.
It's like, hey, man, you're out here getting better.
And I think that's what it's allabout, right?
Hell yeah. All right, Well, listen, we've
been talking for a long time, but there's three more things
that and then on top of whateveryou want to add in here that I
got to touch on, right? So how do you feel?
Well, I already know your answerto this, right?
But I just really want to just say it at this point because

(58:23):
hopefully it resonates with somebody.
Every single person listening tothis right now, right, that is
on the job knows how important, but it really understands the
consequences of when we get on that rake and we don't wear a
fucking seat belt, right? There is no departments left in
the country that I guarantee in their SO PS SO GS memos,

(58:46):
whatever you guys call it, right?
There is a seat belt policy in there somewhere saying that when
you are responding, you will have a seat belt on, right?
So every department across the country, that's a big deal.
To me. It's crazy because the
likelihood of getting into an accident, not wearing my seat
belt, and then I'm ejected and Iperish because of that, right?

(59:07):
Which is a real thing. And I'm saying seatbelts are
thoroughly important. You should wear them every
single time. But what I'm trying to harp on
is I wish the departments took fitness as important as
seatbelts, right? That's something that they have
mandated you will do every time you hit on the rake.
So why do these department nots do not say when you go to work,

(59:28):
you will go out of service at a certain time depending on
staffing your battalion, whatever it is not not if you
get a chance to, you will go outof service, work on functional
fitness for X amount of time andthen you're back in service.
Like that's so weird to me because again, we kill more
firemen because of the lack of fitness, right?

(59:49):
And that can come between diet, cardiac, right, on the job
stuff, just just going down, like you said, going down inside
a working fire, right? And then how many of your
brothers and sisters are you nowputting at risk because they're
coming to fucking get you, you know?
So like, that's one thing I remember.
I got into it. With the Lieutenant, I was

(01:00:11):
Lieutenant at the time also, buthe was one of those guys where
he was just the, the, the exact polar opposite of what the guy
would want to show up to my house.
He was overweight. He had a bad attitude.
You can never convince him of anything else.
And I would tell him straight out, especially as we were
equals, because then there was, I wasn't worried about him
coming after me. But it was one of those things

(01:00:32):
where I told him, I said, you know what, I don't care and this
is just my opinion. I don't care what the fuck you
do to your body, how many Big Macs you eat and everything
else. I said what I care about is if
we get a job and you go down andI have to come get you if I
can't make it out. I said, I like your family,
right? But more importantly, if you
keep me from mine, I'm going to be pissed the fuck off at you,

(01:00:53):
right? Because that is your choice and
your responsibility and you put us as your brothers, quote UN
quote, brothers and sisters at that risk because you chose to
live that lifestyle. That's what, again, personal
opinion soapbox, right? That's what frustrates me.
And and for the guys out there that are doing the right thing
and trying to change their like that's you should be angry at

(01:01:16):
these guys if they're because again, it's putting you at risk,
your individual, your family, right, your well-being, I mean,
you name it, right? So that's, and I think if you
start putting it and, and putting a responsibility on some
of the members, it might hit home.
They might tell you to fuck off,right?
Whatever, you know, nothing changed, right?
But at least she gets a point where it it might resonate a

(01:01:37):
little bit and say shit, you know, like, because we could be
friends and I can go to a reallygood friend of mine and shame on
me if I don't and say, bro, you got to drop some pallets, man.
But I'm not going to tell you that as a shameful thing and be
like, I'm going to present it differently.
Hey, dude, we get off shift tomorrow morning.
I'm going to go wherever, you know, name big name Jim, come
with me real quick. I want to show you this new

(01:01:58):
exercise. You know, wink, right.
I just learned to get them in there with me.
That's how that's how you approach those situations.
But look out for your boys and girls on the job, you know,
because it doesn't just affect them, right?
It affects you too. You could be the biggest stud in
the world and you might have a really bad day because they went
down and you might not be able to get them out.
And I hope you get out, but you might not too.

(01:02:19):
You know, that's scary. Yeah, if you think of it.
Yeah, I know. And I mean you, you talk about a
lot of things and I think that'sinteresting.
You could probably have your ownpodcast episode of how to have
those kind of conversations, right?
You know, but I think going backto what you said is the

(01:02:40):
standards standards like, you know, we the IFF right, if you
will, right. So Wellness fitness initiative
literally says management and labor shall work together to
provide a comprehensive fitness and injury prevention program.
Not every department has that right, right.
And how robust is that? How do you create that?

(01:03:03):
You know, and for the guys that are out there doing it like, you
know, the, the adage water boilsfrom the bottom up type of
thing, you know? Yeah.
But if it's not getting funded, you know, like it's, it's hard.
Oh, you can boil. You boil that water all day
long, right? Put a put a pot of water on your
freaking stove, turn it on high,right, and walk away from it and
never fill that water back up. Yeah, right.

(01:03:25):
And that's what happens. Evaporates, yeah.
It evaporates, it's gone, right?So you're right, if the, if
upper management is not supporting your, your
department, right, you're going to run out of that water and you
can continue to boil, but you'reburned at that point.
Yeah, and and it's just a bunch of steam, right, So, but you
know, like we talk about 15831582, right?
Like the standards, like we are held to the stand.

(01:03:46):
You have to meet your 12 meds. Yeah, on the treadmill test,
right, You know, or bike tests now.
Yeah, but like that. And.
And somehow we find ways around that too, right.
But those things should be concreted.
Yeah, You know, and, and we can sit here and break that down,

(01:04:07):
but it's like, those are standards.
Yes. And it's funny because the more
you get into the science, right,there's research out there
that's saying there's minimum strength standards.
Yeah. You know, and we've kind of like

(01:04:27):
bypassed that stuff with the C pap.
Yeah, and hey, can you live £50?You know, that's the bare, bare
minimum. Kind of thing I I mean I'm
looking at a research from the UK, right, Euro helmets, but
still they're saying like, hey, shoulder press over 35 kilos,
like that is a standard for to be able to like there there's

(01:04:51):
research to say that that's the minimum standard.
Like you have to be able to do that to work on the job.
Like we don't have those here inan American fire service, like
and I don't think I don't know if they've adapted that.
I honestly don't know. OK, but there there is research
done in that sense through them.So maybe they volunteered for
that to like figure it out. But there's other things like

(01:05:13):
that where it's like, you know, should there be?
I don't know, you know, I'm not again, I'm not all about drawing
hard lines in the sand because Ijust want, you know, I think the
the better focus is just like, hey, man, how do we improve you?
Like, how do we accomplish both?Like, Hey, you are here to for

(01:05:34):
Mr. and misses Smith, but you'realso going to benefit too by
giving yourself up in this scenario.
Like your fitness, you're going to benefit too.
Like that's like a golden rule thing depending on how where you
want to go, right, Like you kindof it's better to give than
receive type of thing and you'regoing to get something out of
it, man. And and so I mean, you know,

(01:06:00):
what is the fitness or Wellness fitness initiative, say or 1582.
All uniformed personnel shall participate in a mandatory
annual non punitive and confident or confidential
fitness assessment. Compromising of both components,
body comp, aerobic capacity, power, muscular strength,
endurance, mobility and flexibility.

(01:06:23):
They have to maximal exercise tolerance of at least 12
minutes. Like no exceptions dude.
Yeah, and if not, you're not on a fire truck.
Like that's my opinion. Yeah, and I mean, you're gonna
have the naysayers and, and, andI would be one of those when it
comes down to NFPA as a whole, right?
Because it, you're gonna have those guys, Garrett.
That's a guideline, brother, right?
You know, right. Yeah, yeah.

(01:06:44):
And it's in the fire services. They, we love NFPA so much
because we pick and choose for our department exactly what we
want. And everything else is
blasphemy, right? But really what, what Garrett's
trying to say, and please correct me if I'm wrong, right?
It is already spelled out for usby really smart dudes, right,
that are looking out for us on the safety side.

(01:07:05):
And with the physical fitness, Idon't believe there's such a
thing as being too safe when it comes down to the physical
fitness side of it, right? Because the better you get at
those body movements, the more precise you are or whatever, you
know, you become more flexible, you come stronger you, you
become better at the job as a whole.
And then more important, healthier just in life.
You know, you're a better dad ormom or or whatever husband and

(01:07:29):
freaking, I mean, you, you, you name it across the board, but.
Is it worth your life like that's?
I mean, you can boil it down to that though.
Yeah, because because goggles ontop of my helmet doesn't change,
right? The outlook on my life, you
know, but I mean, but that's an NFPA stick.
I, I, I might be knocking goggles, right?
But, but I mean, just to go witha point, you know.

(01:07:50):
So yes, we understand that NFPA is a guideline, right?
But man, what a good resource tosay, hey, this is a good
stepping stone, right? Hey, we might need to alter it a
little bit, Maybe I hate lowering, right, but we could
alter it a little bit until we can get the guys up to speed to
meet that. That could be our five year goal
as a department. I don't know.

(01:08:10):
Sure, no. And, and like, even from my
standpoint, like there's could be a lot more research.
You're talking about specificitytoo, like and hey, job roles as
a back step and as a company officer, my roles are different.
Yeah, you know, and. Physically, mentally,
emotionally, everything across the board.
To a point, right? So maybe like, what does that

(01:08:32):
look like as far as a minimum fitness standard?
But at the end of the day, we still have, like, how many Mets
does it cost to do a search and rescue?
It's more than 12. Yeah.
Oh yeah. It's more than 12, so the the
the. I want to say correct me if I'm
wrong, is it because I I want tosay I'd nerd it out one day and
I think I read it. Was it 16?

(01:08:52):
Yeah, it's OK. Yeah, yeah.
And which is really I? Thought I was 14.
Or maybe you're probably. Right, 14 to 16, I would, I'll,
we'll, we'll put it there. It's more than 12, you know, and
so that being said, it's like, OK, well, then that's, that goes
across the board, doesn't matterrank, but I, I definitely see
that argument. And then as you get older and we
age, right, like, hey, are they unable to run on the treadmill

(01:09:18):
because of their knee replacement back cage, whatever,
can we test that cardiovascular strength, You know, like, yeah,
they can turn it on when they need to, which I hope to God.
But like cardiovascular, they'renot going to code, right?
That's the number one thing is like that kills firemen.
Cardiac is cardiac, right? And so and then like you think
about this like, and I'm going to throw some more stats at you,
right? Over exertion strain leading

(01:09:41):
cause of fire related injuries at 25%.
An estimated 81,000 firefightersinjured occurred annually in the
United States. 49% of firefighters injuries occurred
on the fire ground. That's flip a coin dude.
You're getting you're getting hurt.
Yeah, on the fire. Ground you get to the job and
it's a 5050 shot if you're gonnawalk away uninjured, yeah,

(01:10:03):
that's insane. Like, I hope that soaks in the
guys. Yeah.
And then 52% of those are strainsprains and, and or muscular
injuries. So it's like, what is that
saying? You know, and, and we, and we
all know, like we've heard it. I don't know how many times it
ingrained to us cardiovascular disease, take care of your

(01:10:23):
bodies, whatever it's going to kill us.
You're like the cardiovascular through the cancer and all those
things like, well, what are you doing to to, to slow that
process? Like if we all want to admit
like a eventually we're all going to get cancer one day.
You know, the exposures you, we can't control that, but I can do
stuff to to help myself, right? I can slow that process or I can

(01:10:47):
combat that with physical fitness and Wellness, you know,
or addressing those. Yeah, like you were saying too,
it's like if I am the best shapeof my life and God forbid, knock
on wood, right, I come down withsome sort of occupational
cancer, my chances, I'm assumingright, because I am in good
physical shape. A battle in that cancer is most
likely higher than the average Joe, right?

(01:11:10):
Right. No.
And I think, you know, there's plenty of data to support that
like, hey, people that are are come into or a diagnosis of have
higher outcomes, you know, not always, right?
But you know, we saw that with COVID, you know, and then that
wasn't even, you know, you couldsay whatever you want about

(01:11:30):
COVID, but like guys that were in better shape typically dealt
better with COVID, you know, at least in our department.
I will say that, right? You know, you know, I think like
it, it affects everybody different.
But I think overall, like, you know, the majority dealt, we're

(01:11:52):
able to handle it, bounce back alittle bit better, faster,
whatever. Right, Yeah, didn't get as sick,
was able to get back on the truck quicker, but everything
else. So two more things before we we
close this out here if I could, you know.
Yeah, go ahead. Do it, bro.
And going back to the stats, because like we could talk about
illness and that's, you know, but you know, thinking about the

(01:12:13):
injuries, OK, on the fireground,right?
So half of them or close to half, right, 49 on the
fireground, then half of those are strains and stuff over
exertion, the cost, right? So poor muscular strength, lack
of mobility and muscular controlis essential for approving
overall health and Wellness while decreasing potential risk
injury. So like it is related to poor

(01:12:34):
movement patterns, you know, like, and I and I have this
slide here for the recruits and just just show I'm like, hey, if
you're not moving, well, it doesn't matter.
Like you're, you know, you're going to get hurt and it's going
to be related to how you move. So if we're not fixing how you
move and you're not able to moveand you're over exerted at that

(01:12:56):
time, you're I mean, flip a coin, you might get hurt.
Like, I mean, just think of it like that simple, like, OK,
then. And then what's it, What's that
look like to get back just to back to where you were?
That's a long process, right? Oh, yeah.
Depending on the injury, you know, and then to get better
from that point, you know, so why don't we start now?
You know, and the moment they walk in the door and that's kind

(01:13:16):
of what we do with the cadre, you know, too, is is kind of
hammer that like, hey, this is agood foundation for you to start
going back like these kids. And I say, kids, these recruits.
Yeah, 18 to 35 years old. You have kids?
Yeah. They're not, you know, they
could be coming in having zero experience and not knowing how

(01:13:40):
to move, not knowing anything. And it's like, well, maybe they
don't know what to do and they're just unwilling to admit
it. So we're going to try to teach
them and give them something to at least again, increase
mobility. We're going to focus there
career longevity, right, and then how to how to maintain the
strength that they have, you know, and those are kind of our
goals where we help them out in the at the Academy level, the

(01:14:04):
recruit level, so that they could take that out to their
departments, you know, and, and utilize that some of the stuff
that they learned and hopefully spread the news, you know, and,
and and get guys active. And that's good too, because
the, the training, the okay, so it's a fitness cadre.
So I call it the. Yeah, you could call it that.

(01:14:25):
Okay, so so you know, the your fitness cadre, the the thing
that I want to make sure everyone there stands is
Garretts got the opportunity because of the Academy that he
teaches this this at is multi agency.
So different cities, right, counties, whatever you want to
call it or whatever. So that's what he's talking
about, being able to spread thatthroughout the state, which is a

(01:14:47):
great opportunity. So they could take you back to
some larger departments, some smaller departments or whatever
the case might be and, and startteaching because I mean, it's,
you're absolutely correct. Sometimes those recruits come
out in certain areas as the subject matter expert because it
is typically the latest and greatest and they just learn how
to do it compared to the guy that has either never been

(01:15:10):
taught that or was shown that once who knows how how many
years ago, right? Right.
No. And, and, you know, this hasn't
always been a thing. You know, it's been something
that's kind of fairly new. It's taken years to get to where
this has been a thing, right? And, and we are blessed as a
cadre to be able to do this for multiple organizations.

(01:15:34):
It couldn't be done without the cadre itself.
Like we have so many good members that are super
knowledgeable and and contributeto that that.
Team. It I mean, yeah, I mean and so
luckily we've been blessed too and supported in that in the in
the last few years here so that we can do that.
I think the benefits are going to pay off and like they already

(01:15:56):
are like both the feedback coming back like hey, thank you
so much. We really enjoyed that.
We do this now you run into themon the streets cuz where we work
too, we run with these guys. We don't have borders, right?
The mutual aid system that we doand you see them on calls.
It's the automatic aid system. Yep, Yep.

(01:16:17):
And so and so we, you know, you see him down the road and
they're like, hey, yeah, I'm still doing that and this and
that. And so it's cool.
It's it's it's rewarding in thatsense.
And it's like, hey, man, keep itup, you know?
So it's cool. Yeah.
I think that's the reward. No dude, 100% here.
Then it's to save time. I'll I'll go down before we

(01:16:39):
answer the questions for season 1.
Just the last thing I really want to talk on, and it's only
because we've talked a lot of this initiative and being able
to influence a cruise and everything else and and we've
talked a lot about that, right, front seat, right?
So majority, right, majority guys listen to this because the
majority guys in the fire service are back step guys

(01:17:01):
because there's more of them, right?
So how do you tell that back step guy from a year on the job
to that career back step guy, right, that it's just been
reinvigorated and wants to make sure his fitness level is good
or it's always been up there. How does that guy right back
step influence the captain, the Lieutenant, the engineer, right?

(01:17:21):
Maybe the battalion that runs out of it, Like that's a lot of
guys will get nervous like, Hey,how do I approach, you know, my
supervisor or, or maybe a guy that's just in, in my eyes,
right, is a, a God in this department, right.
But I noticed that he he never works out with us or or things
along those lines. Yeah, like how do you do that as
a fireman? Yeah, how you do from the

(01:17:42):
backseat, we always talk about, and we've talked about in
previous episodes being able to leave from the front seat and it
is leading, for example. But man, that's a that's a
completely different dinosaur. So what would you, in your
opinion, how would you start to tackle that?
Yeah, I mean, I think part of that is just willing to be

(01:18:04):
vulnerable, right? And they're going into and being
and having the courage to just be like, hey, Cap, are you OK
with, you know, sometimes they're going to tell you no,
you know, like talk about like resistance.
Maybe you meet that resistance, right.
And I always suggest that to guys like, Hey, go ask your
captain if it's OK if you can't work out, you know, because in

(01:18:24):
our department, sometimes that's, you might get a no, you
know, and so, and if they are good with that, then ask them,
what can we do? You know, what, what, what are
we allowed to do or what can youshow us?
Have them created, OK, maybe putthem in that power to teach and
coach or whatever. And sometimes they might or they

(01:18:46):
might, or they, they might come up with their own idea.
So like as A, and I say this toois, is if you want guys involved
to do it with you, you're almostgoing to have to gear it towards
the lowest guy, right? So like for example like we
have. And the lowest guy?
You mean the lowest fitness level?
Yeah, fitness level. Not yours on the job.

(01:19:08):
And that's just the reality of it.
It's like, we used to have a guylike Iron Man guys, right?
We used to have a guy, his name is George, and no one can
compete with his fitness level, right?
The guy ran Walter marathons Goggin style. 100 plus.
Marathon 100 plus marathon knocks, Right.
And so, but, you know, a conversation we had one time was

(01:19:31):
like, you know, he's setting up workouts for guys, and he's
setting up these Megatron workouts.
Yeah. You know, I call him Megatron.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it's like, hey, set it up for the lowest guy.
To be successful. Yeah, OK.
Set it up 10 reps each exercise.George, you do 20, you know you
do 30. Yeah, just on the board put 10

(01:19:54):
because the guy walks in and they see 50 reps of whatever.
They're already out. They're out.
Dude, they're out. Nah.
Hey, you know. Oh, I forgot to come, got to
call my old lady real quick. Sure.
You know, And I think that's maybe something, too, is like,
you know, hey, are you more worried about getting your
workout in or are you more worried about getting better?

(01:20:17):
And sometimes getting better is like getting everyone together,
having that crew camaraderie andthose things.
Because I think guys want to do stuff together.
Yeah. Like, I mean, they do.
And even if they're not a part of fitness, they want to be in
the room hanging out and talking.
Yeah. So like, have them hang out and
talk and be like, hey, jump in with us.
Yeah. Like 20 minutes, you know, you
talked about the skills course. Like there is a time, the time

(01:20:39):
that it creates that time, like,hey, we're done after this.
Yeah, you know, and that and that's important too.
Like when you start talking about the longevity of the shift
and making sure guys don't go down and all those things.
Like there you need to set a time, especially on duty.
I will say that too. Like hey guys, I know you want
to go and you want to do, you know, 1000 tire drags not smart.

(01:20:59):
Yeah, not today. Not today.
We can do that going off shift tomorrow.
And and again, there's on duty training and then there's off
duty training, you know, so the on duty, you got to be smart
with it. You got to time it, you got, you
got to, you know, be effective with your training and your and
your fitness, especially on duty, right?
We're not doing one Rep maxes onduty.

(01:21:20):
You know, my guys aren't doing that.
You know, why, what's the what are you getting out of it?
You know, is it personal or is it for the job, right?
And again, we come back to that,right?
And so. The boss, I'm going to put it on
Instagram and it's going to lookso cool.
It's. Going to look sick bro.
Yeah, make sure you have your cut off.

(01:21:42):
Your cut off department T-shirt,Yeah.
Yeah, cut off though. Yeah, that's duh, that's that's
if not, it's not cool, dude. But no, I mean, all all joking
aside, like, I I love that because that's and just kind of
wrap it up and I'll let you interject at the end here that
that's exactly it. So it's like, hey, we're we're

(01:22:04):
not going to do our one Rep Maxes, right?
We're going to try to get some blood pumping, feel good, get
better, right, do some functional movements, something
that we're going to do on the fire ground or, or whatever the
case might be. But at the same time too, and
like when we went back to the naysayers like, hey, no, like if
you work out, you're going to godown on a job, you're then
you're a liability, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(01:22:25):
Like insert, insert, insert, right, negativity, negativity,
negativity. But with all that said, like a
good response back to that and I'll let you try me and Garrett,
this is just what I say to guys that when they they push back on
me is I am training my body right for multiple fires every
single time I step foot into theFirehouse.

(01:22:45):
Because if not, if we get a job at eight O 5, right, at shift
change, right? And it's a good job at the end
of that fire, none of us go home, right?
We all stay at work and then at like you said, fire #2 fire #3
you know, who knows that day? We have no idea what we're going
into, hence why our job is so much fun.

(01:23:07):
But with all that said, right, if your argument is well, you're
going to spend yourself right and you might go down well, then
every single one of those guys after they get a job, they all
should go home because that's all their condition for right.
And then see how that flies on aheadline test or with your upper
management or with your BC or the overtime staff in the
budget. I mean, you name it, everyone's

(01:23:28):
going to be like, wait, I'm I'm sorry, why are you going?
Are you sick? No, no, I'm not sick.
I just had AI had a job and I'm a little tired now.
So now it's time to go home. I mean, that's it sounds.
It sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous.
Yeah, well, and you ask the guysand, and just hypothetically,
right, Like you, you say, you know a lot of the guys that you
ask that and they say, well, I don't want them to go down.

(01:23:50):
Yeah. What are you doing on your off
days? Are you the they're not the guys
working off on their off days either.
No, you're not typically right. And it's like, and and maybe
there are and there are those guys, right?
Like, hey, I do my training off duty.
Respect that dude. I respect that.
However, you know, don't knock the guys that wanted to train on
duty too, you know, and it you can't, it's a double edged

(01:24:12):
sword. You can't.
You can't do that. So he's like we should never in
the fire service and this is something that's been coming
around more and more over the last several years and I hope it
starts to revert back and again.This is another reason why we do
these podcasts and why we openedup the fools chapter out in
Arizona and all the benefits that come with that.
It's but like that the we need to stop eating our own.

(01:24:36):
It's and that comes across everything.
But since we're talking about fitness, like exactly what
Garrett just said, like if that guy wants to work out, and you
might be if you're the dude thatday, for whatever reason, either
because of the lack of your fitness or you're just beat up
or whatever, never freaking disses guys for wanting to make
themselves better, right? If anything, try to support

(01:24:56):
them. If you don't want to work out
with them, you know, that's OK. But maybe, like Garrett was
saying, watch them right or do something else or maybe help
them set up or clean up or switch out a bottle or whatever,
just to maintain that crew continuity.
You know, that's that goes miles.
But the the days of us eating our own should should be should

(01:25:16):
be stopped, right? Even on the other side of that
too, like if you're the guy pushing the workouts and you're
doing the things, hey, they're you're probably going to get met
with a no, yes or not. So don't don't be calling them a
lazy piece of shit or anything else either.
You know, like. No, thank you for saying that.
Keep. Keep encouraging be the example.

(01:25:37):
It's contagious. We talked about that before you,
you know, like you started it's contagious when it, you know,
you might be the only guy out there and then it turns into
two, then it turns into three. It happens everywhere, right?
Cuz, and this is kind of a side tangent.
I had a conversation before I tested for captain.

(01:25:57):
OK, with a old, an older season captain has over 20 years on the
job and he said, why do you think guys get burned out?
And you know, I'm like, OK. Well, I can go anywhere.
With you, yeah, you can go 1000 different places, right.
And and I had this answer for him and I don't know.

(01:26:18):
And, and I think it revolves around this idea, right?
Like, and he alluded to the sense of the amount of call
volume we run in our department and things like that, which is
true. But sometimes, you know, like
how many times you, you've been on a job, you get it, you get
the call, It's middle of the night, 2:00 AM, you've gotten

(01:26:39):
your Dick kicked in all, all days.
And what do we say beats a chestpain?
Yeah, beats a Lyft assist. Beats beats, yeah, beats this,
beats this medical call. And everybody's jacked.
How are you? You know, everybody's giving
high fives. Everybody's glad to see each
other. Why?
Like, what is it in that moment?It's because we felt like

(01:27:00):
firefighters. Yeah, right.
So this so and I go and we talked about it as it's the
purple strap syndrome, you know?But you get in, we sell this
idea, right? We sell this idea.
As you get into the fire department, you're going to be
busting down doors, you're putting out fire, you're this
and that and this and that. And guess what?
We run 80 if 85% if you're lucky, right, you know, medical

(01:27:25):
and. They and that's across the
nation. And across the nation, yeah.
And you know, it, it maybe burnsguys out.
But then the moment you touch that, like they get the, they
get the job, it rejuvenates them.
But they're doing physical activity, they're smoked,
they're tired or whatever. And they're like, beats that.

(01:27:48):
I'm glad I'm here. Hell yeah.
You know, and and I go, so why not?
We're not going to get a job every day.
No. Why not create that in the
Firehouse every day? Every day, Yeah, every day I'm
going to make, I'm going to giveyou that taste of what it's like
to be a firefighter. I'm putting on the gear, I'm
doing the training. We're doing stuff together.

(01:28:09):
We're we're tackling this task, whatever it is.
Obviously fitness is a good Ave.for that.
Skills courses are a good Ave. for that.
And we're getting and we're doing training.
And it's like, I'm sure you're going to have guys on here
talking about training. You get done with it and it
sounds stupid going to it. The guys are complaining about
it and then they get done and they're like, man, that was good

(01:28:30):
training. Guess what?
It happens with fitness too. Every time and.
They're like, man, I'm glad I did that or, hey, that kicked my
butt, but I'm glad I did it. Yeah.
Good. And, you know, good.
Yeah. And so, you know, I think like
that is like the app or what you're trying to create is like
recapture that childlike thing. Like I want to be a fireman.

(01:28:51):
Yeah. You know, and I think that is
the essence of it. And, and it takes a while for
guys to get there, right. You have to get through the, the
soreness and the, and the, and the discipline that it.
But then eventually you become hungry for that.
You're like, man, like, you know, the purple strap is the
purple strap we're going to run at 85% of the time we're going

(01:29:13):
to pick him up. But then like every shift, I can
make the conscious choice to be a fireman today and do something
and a fitness and Wellness and all those things.
Those are good avenues for that so.
No, dude, you're right. And I, I, I challenge anyone
after a good job, but there is nobody on the scene racking
supply line, attack lines, you name it.

(01:29:35):
Could be the longest slaves in the world if it was a good job.
Everyone's fucking smiling. Just like Gary was saying,
always 100% time and making jokes and everything is
typically to the point where with my experience, usually
battalions have to say, OK, guys, keep it down or a little
bit remember someone's house just caught on fire, right?
You know, and then the, the perspective of it.
But it's because you're right. That's what we all signed up to

(01:29:56):
do, right? And then those endorphins are
going and we've physically worked hard and we accomplished
something as a team. Like it's just a great feeling
all the way around. So dude, yeah, you hit the nail
on the head. We're going to we're going to
kind of close this chapter on the functional fitness side and
everything else that has to do with the fire service just
because we're already hour and ahalf into this and we could go

(01:30:20):
for hours upon hours upon hours.I mean, Garrett's just.
As I'm taking too much time. Yeah, no, this is just a wealth
of knowledge, which is great, you know, and hopefully you
learned at least took one thing that Garrett said today and
maybe that will help you apply where you want to go for the
fitness side in the department you work for.
All right, so anything before wemove on to the Season 1
questions that you absolutely you got to get across to the

(01:30:42):
listening audience here. You know, I don't know if I
could touch more on like, you know, if you want me to touch
more on the cadre side of thingsof like how like what parts of
things to be cognizant of, Yeah,go ahead.
When you talk about fitness and doing things on the job.
OK, yeah, let's let's let's end it there.

(01:31:03):
So let's let's do about the mindset when it comes down to
fitness like you're saying with the.
I mean, you know, again, I thinksome of the things that I care
about or I'm passionate about islike, you know, the reminding,
remembering the oath that you took and all that stuff.
But when we start talking about how do I do this?

(01:31:25):
How do I implement this? You know, and you start getting
into the program specific stuff.And this is more geared to the
guy that maybe has the certifications that's trying to
pick this up in their own department, right?
Like I'm trying to create a program, a Wellness initiative,
things like that in our program.How do I how do I create these

(01:31:46):
workouts? Yeah, speak to those guys right
now, yeah. So you start talking about load,
like acute load, chronic load, that load relationship and we
talk about, we utilize this a lot when we're talking about
injury prevention, right, especially with the recruit
level. So as you go throughout the 14
weeks, your risk of injury does go up based on like what's acute

(01:32:10):
load, acute loads every couple days, Like what are they doing
for that day? You know, what hose laser are
they doing? What are they doing ladder OPS
that day? Are they doing extend lays that
day? Or you know, are they just
taking plugs? What then what then I take into
that account, right? How can I program to help assist

(01:32:30):
in that but not overload them totally so that the risk of
injury goes up. So there is this sweet spot,
right? And so when you're program
designing some of the suggestionespecially for a recruit level,
you want to avoid spikes in loador increases of 10%.

(01:32:53):
So you want to be less than 10% per week, that is if you wanted
a number. So when we talk about linear
periodization, so we grew up on this, right?
Every every week, every two weeks, I'm going to add 5% to
the bar. I'm going to add in like linear
periodization. You're going to get guys
stronger. Yeah, you know, and if you're on

(01:33:13):
the job like so, so that's goingto work.
You put more weight on, you liftit, you're going to get
stronger. It is tried and true.
Yes. There are other ways, right,
Undulating periodization research, which suggests is, you
know, if you're doing undulated periodization.
So what does that mean? Like, hey, I'm going to have,
and the way I break this down for my athletes, back when I

(01:33:36):
used to do football, when I coached football, it's like we
would have a endurance day, a power day and then a strength
day, OK? So and that would be spread out
through three weeks. So they would go, each lift
would go through those 3 phases in a period of three weeks.
OK, so, so you're not just adding weight every time.
So like, I'm going to come in, I'm going to do strength, I'm

(01:33:56):
going to do heavy squats. Then the next time I do squats,
I'm going to drop it down to less than 50% of my Max and do
endurance days. And over time over over this,
you know, 8-12, fourteen weeks, undulating periodization
actually outperforms linear periodization.
Wow, you know, and so they've done multiple studies on that.

(01:34:18):
And that's just one way of periodization.
We're not even getting into likethe real science stuff.
I'm just telling guys like, thisis an easy one, right?
And this is also, so you have tokeep in mind, how am I loading
these guys over time? And it goes back to guys on the
job too. Like, what are they walking in
with? Know your guys like, hey, did
they just get off of 48 and we're not doing a skills course

(01:34:39):
today or 24 or whatever the shift is.
Did they have a couple jobs? Yeah, we're not going to get in
our turnouts today. We're going to do something else
because I don't want to go over that overload principle, right.
And, and so I, I want to mentionthat because that's so important
and you have to have the conversations with guys.

(01:35:00):
What are they walking in with? You know both do I know, you
know, as an RTO or you know, I'msetting up these workouts.
Well, OK, if they're going to bedoing extended lays today, I'm
not going to make them run a couple miles before they even
start. Right the.
Performance is going to go down,performance goes down, risk goes
up, risk of injury goes up as the load increases, right,

(01:35:23):
right. So we want that top performance,
we want them hitting their times.
So if they're doing those long extended lays, we're not going
to be doing those things that day or that week.
Maybe we're going to maybe do short burst of, you know,
plyometrics, things like that, you know, mobility, working on
hamstring mobility, those kind of things.

(01:35:48):
Right, all things to support what they're getting ready to
do. No, that makes sense.
Yeah. So because again, fatigue like
is the crucial role of injury over exertion.
I love it so All right, dude, wealth of knowledge again.
I, if you listen today, you learn something, I guarantee

(01:36:10):
that much because I learned I have a whole notebook of stuff
that and I've known Gare for, for quite a while and I'm just
in awe. So dude, thank you for spending
all this knowledge out. We're going to end this up here.
So Are you ready for the four questions for Season 1?
Let's let's do it. I don't even know what they are.
What am I supposed to know? All right, well, we'll go find
out right now they're so there'sthey're softballs, bro.

(01:36:33):
All right, so the why, right, sowe've been asking the why
forever. We ask the why when guys get
hired. We ask the why when they try to
promote. We even ask the why when they're
trying to politic for a different position or a
different job within the organization, right.
But this why is why. Why did Garrett Lee get into the
fire service right? When when did that bug bite you?

(01:36:54):
What was a pivotal moment, if there was one?
What's your story? Man, we we could probably have
another hour long conversation on this one if I had to, if I
had to put it down into like a sentence, why I'm why I decided
to get in the fire service is tobe a part of something bigger
than myself. OK, go go off of that a little

(01:37:16):
bit. So when it comes down to the
fire service, right? Like what did you think at that
point in your life, what you were craving or what you were
getting into with the fire service?
Yeah, you know, that's a really good question too, but because.
It's not why did you stay in thefire services?
Why? You know, why'd you join?

(01:37:37):
You know? Yeah, and I think, you know, if
I'm being honest with my my story, it wasn't something I
ever thought about, you know, and and I have to kind of give
it a, a testament to faith too. Like, I do believe, I do believe
this. Your call did the job by
something or someone. I agree, right.
Someone someone either sees something in you and and calls

(01:37:59):
you to it. You know, your family does you
know how many leg the fire, the fire service in general is
typically a a legacy thing. Yeah.
And and, you know, I think my faith had a lot to do with that.
And I and I had a mentor. So I had a mentor that I was
actually coaching football with at the time.
I was in kind of a time of my life where I was kind of

(01:38:22):
struggling trying to figure out what it was I wanted to do.
And we were coaching football and he actually coached freshman
football. I was up with the varsity guys
and I was walking out to practice one day.
And from afar, right and I, we had actually changed schools,
coaching together, same staff. So we took some of the staff

(01:38:44):
over there and to really try to make this kind of summarize
this, it would be we were walking out one day and and I
coached his son when he was a senior at the other school.
And I was like, man, I want to be like that dude one day.
Just super nice guy, good Christian dude, you know, just a

(01:39:08):
leader, you know, provided for his family, right.
And I was at that point where I was looking at things like that,
like the strength and conditioning field is a very
hard field. It is he doesn't provide like I
was lucky with my dad to have like he had good benefits.
He was, you know, union guy worked for the post office,

(01:39:29):
right? He, he was able to provide, you
know, single income household, you know, and we didn't, we
weren't well off by any means, but we.
Probably got by middle class. Yeah, we.
Had health care. We have the old school middle
class. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so, but from like from afar,it's like, man, this guy raised
good kids. He was like a father figure from

(01:39:51):
afar. You know, he loved coaching, he
loved being a part of the team, all this stuff.
And and his son was so good. Good kid ended up going to play
college. And his name's Nick, the the
mentor I'm talking about. And he comes up to me one day
and goes, hey, man, it's really been on like, can I talk to you
for a second? And at the time, you know, like,

(01:40:13):
and I was talking about Terry and Dave and those guys, like
how they were shaping me into be.
They even were like, hey man, like.
If I could go back and these guys, these guys, these guys,
they're like I would have been afireman.
Really. They said this in this time, in
this time in my life, and I go what really why?
You know, and they're like, dude, they're like, I love my

(01:40:35):
job, I love what I'm doing, but if I could go back, I would have
been there. And I'm like that didn't even
think twice of it. Then this was all in the season,
But then, you know, six months later and I'm still kind of
wrestling with it and, and Nick comes up to me and he's like,
Hey, I just feel like God put this on my heart, man.
Have you ever thought about this?
Really. And we're, I'm walking out to
practice one day and I go, Nick,you have no idea what I've been

(01:40:57):
praying about, man. Like, I've been kind of
wrestling with like, where do I want to go?
Do I want to go? Do I?
I thought initially it was goingto go down the PT route.
Yeah. A physical therapist.
I got to train a lot of firefighters where I worked.
So that was cool. I got a lot of exposure talking
to them. Good dudes, right?
We talked sports. We just chopped the shit.
He was like. Yeah, it's locker room
atmosphere, you know, like, that's what's great about the

(01:41:20):
job, too. And I didn't know that, right?
So he goes, I just think you would be, he's like, I see how
you're out here with the kids. I see your coaching and he's
like, I just think you would be really good at it.
And I was like, man, he's like, and I was like, I don't know.
I've never thought about it. I'd have to go back to school.
I'd have to do this, get me, youknow, whatever, whatever.
He goes, just come ride, OK? And I did.

(01:41:41):
And you rode at his. Firehouse rode at his Firehouse.
He was on a ladder truck. Perfect.
It's weird. I'm on the ladder now.
Yeah, right. Full circle.
But you know, from, I mean, justthe atmosphere, like it's
everything you wanted, right? Like it's the team atmosphere.
You're, you're, you're a part ofsomething bigger than yourself,

(01:42:01):
you know, And I think the momentI took that leap of faith, if
you will, right, just like, I don't know why I'm feeling
pulled in this direction, but I'm going to do it.
The floodgates open, man. And and I'm one of those snobs
that got hired really early and young, right?
I didn't test very long. So I'm blessed in that sense.

(01:42:22):
You know, I got hired on my first Test, my first interview.
Yeah. In a time where?
That was what the average was, six to seven years of actively
interviewing until you got picked up so.
Yeah, and I didn't get picked upwith his department, so I got
picked up with another city and I'm so grateful for where I'm
at. I think the city took a shot on

(01:42:43):
me and I've been living my interview ever since, you know,
But I think with that being said, is like I joined it not
knowing, but then was so fulfilled based on someone
calling me to it, you know, and he goes, I think you would be
good at it, you know, and God, he just he, it's such a faith

(01:43:06):
thing, but it's also something I'm forever grateful for, for
Nick and, and I think it's been so fulfilling, but then, you
know, like it's also, it's been tough, you know, like, and, and,
and you know the why, right? It's always, it's always the,

(01:43:26):
you know, the things it providesAnd, and if I was given an
interview answer, it'd be, you know, those kind of things.
Those are all great things. And, and part of the why, but
the, the essence, you know, was that, you know, and, and how I
got there, you know, and I thinkjust the camaraderie and the

(01:43:48):
brotherhood that it has the capability of creating.
And it's something I've always longed for.
And man, there's nothing I tell guys all the time.
And when I'm on the truck and you're having that day and it's
tough or whatever, and I just go, I call it fire truck
moments. OK, 2 in the morning, you're

(01:44:09):
getting your fucking ass whoopedand I go God damn, I'm on a
fucking fire truck. Yeah.
It's fucking badass. There's nothing.
It's the best job in the fuckingworld.
I'll never, there's no one can tell me otherwise, you know, And
it's like you just have that moment and I and I've had them
and it's funny. I got guys and now they come
back. They're like, hey, Garrett, I
had AI, had a fireman, a fire truck moment.

(01:44:32):
Yeah, you do. Those are the fucking cool
fucking moments. You just like you're getting
your Dick kicked in and you're like, I would rather I wouldn't
be caught doing dad doing anything else, dude.
This is the best job in the world and we're getting our, you
know, getting your shit kicked in.
But it's like I'm on a fucking fire truck, dude.
Yeah, it's badass. Yeah, even like I I I've said it
a million times and I'll say it hopefully till the day I retire,

(01:44:53):
I will take any bad day at the Firehouse right over digging a
freaking ditch. Hands down, right?
Or sitting in a cubicle. Yeah, Oh my even more I'd rather
be digging a hole in the ground than sitting in a cubicle for
100% sure. But dude, I love it.
So great answer, man. Like I, I love that question
because it really just shows thevast personalities and life

(01:45:16):
experiences and, and just different ways that guys, I
mean, good guys, because everyone you listen to on this
podcast, they're, they're a freaking fireman, right?
They have a passion and a love and a desire for the job.
And then more importantly, everysingle one that you listen to
gives back in some aspect to thefire service in one way or
another. And that's just, that's what

(01:45:37):
it's all about right there. So I love hearing the why, like
how, how did it happen? You know, And then more
importantly, like after it happened, man, it's like that,
that light bulb moment like thisis this is what I was meant to
do and it's you. You never know that till you do
it. And then you're like, oh, I do.
I couldn't do anything else. Like this is there's nothing.

(01:45:57):
So dude, awesome, So kind of long.
That's that side. So now you're on the job, right?
You have eight years on down as a career fireman.
Who in your fire service career so far has been the most
influential person? Doesn't have to be a fireman,
right? But who has shaped your career
in the most positive, right? And I know it's it's hard.
Some guys are like, you know, I got a couple or whatever.

(01:46:20):
Try to try to knock it down to one if you can.
Man, you know, I'd have to say Nick, if I had to make if I had
to pick one. Yeah.
You know, and and I and I say that because it's actually been
a couple years since I've talkedto him.
Wow. OK.
But I talked to him intermittently, right via phone,

(01:46:43):
but we haven't met in person. But we would meet in person a
lot. He was a mentor to me.
You know, I actually asked him to mentor me after getting on
too. I go, hey, I would, I want you
to be my mentor. Like that's hard to do.
That's something we struggle with in the fire service, right?
But I think he's helped, shaped me, shaped me more as a man of

(01:47:07):
character. Yeah.
Which then pours into the fire service, right.
And so there are so many. And when I think about the
career development as like firemanship, and I mean, there's
just so many names. Yeah, and it doesn't like I
said, the greatest thing about that question is it has that has
nothing to do with your performance.

(01:47:28):
You know, it strictly has to do with who is who has changed your
outlook or been so beneficial toyou in that career.
And you know, and it doesn't even that's why I said it
doesn't even have to be a fireman because it could have
been for example, it could have been like, say my daughter,
right. So my daughter from day one, you
know, has always said like, you know, you would be a great
fireman. This is a the made-up story, you

(01:47:49):
know, but like, it's one of those things where it's like,
yeah, my daughter's not a fireman, right?
She's never going to be, she's younger than I am.
Behold, none or whatever. But because of the amount that
she was looking up to me, for example, right?
And the pride that she had in that profession, it was almost
like a no brainer, you know? So it's like those things like
everyone's, everyone's story's different.
It could have literally been their first officer that took

(01:48:10):
them under their wing and been literally a father figure, if
not a father, because say someone was lacking that, right?
Or it's the guy that introduced you.
I'd love that. Like because, because honestly,
from just listening to your story, I've never heard that
about you before. If it wasn't for Nick, you
wouldn't be a fireman, right? We would not be sitting down
talking, right? Now.
Yeah, I almost guaranteed because he said wasn't even a

(01:48:30):
fucking blip on your radar. No, you know, yeah, you were
going to go down who knows what career path if you got, if you
got burned out, say on the. Yeah, And, you know, and like, I
think it was something that was kind of constantly being
knocked, but it wasn't until himthat kind of was like, all
right, because I I had looked upto him, you know, and and yeah,

(01:48:52):
like I said, he after, you know,being on the job and I had dealt
with some struggles early on on the job, right.
Yeah, we all do. And and, you know, like, I think
I was able to overcome those things, stay true to my
character. But then also, you know, like as
I go through the development, hewas a captain and like, and he
helped shape and mold that. And as I went into that and I

(01:49:13):
think again, was successful veryyoung in my career, tons to
learn. You know, one of the best things
ever said to me, every helmet comes empty.
It's up to you to fill it. Dude I love.
It every. Every empty comes.
Every helmet comes empty. It's up to you to fill.
It yeah, black helmets, red helmets, you know what I mean?
And those are things that I've been trying to do.

(01:49:36):
And then it's hard to say, well,who shaped you, man?
I try to take something good or bad.
Yeah, from. Everybody, there's some guys out
there that you're like, I will not do that.
But guess what? That went in the helmet.
It went in the helmet. So guys, the guys I don't wanna
be like are the most influentialpeople in my career because it's
it's those hard fast of I will not do that talk like that,

(01:50:00):
whatever the scenario is, right,because of whatever feeling it
gives you, you know, compared tothose guys that are that
positive influence because you're trying to take what
they're doing and not necessarily copy it of mimic it,
make it your own, right, where it's almost like those negative
guys. It's a hard fast.
I will not do that right? I will not degrade guys or I
will not let my physical fitnesslevel go to this point or

(01:50:22):
whatever, or the attitude, you know, I mean, we could, we could
to name everything, right? Yeah, and I think if I had to
give some kudos to some other folks that I just I feel of Ron
Hart, a guy very fireman, helpedme fall in love with the
firemanship copy of the job. Yeah, and that's huge.

(01:50:45):
And that's something you don't learn in the Academy.
Yeah, You know, that's where youget from a good mentor.
And the history, the history, I mean, you talk to that guy for I
would just sit there and listen to him for hours about the
history of the fire service and,and the culture, you know, and
like he helped develop that. Adam Ellis, another another guy
that I, I owe a ton to in regards to allowing his, you

(01:51:11):
know, he was very good at allowing guys to create them
like develop their own stuff andwith a confidence and, and
really like. Empower those.
Individuals empower them to to to become the fireman that they
want to become. And then, you know, and so he,

(01:51:32):
he does a good job with that, you know, you know, and then I
can just sit here about got, youknow, there's guys in the fools
chapter, you know, you know, thelist goes on.
Yeah. Well, you know.
And like I said, and you know, Imean, we could say here and I,
and that's why I say 1 because every single person that sits
down, we, I know we could live 1020, you know, even more.

(01:51:54):
But like you said, you know, it's, but it gets down to the
point where like, you know, everyone's got their one or two
that I've really Nick, Nick seals the deal, dude.
And dude, I love it. So we'll, we'll move on right
halfway through. So third question, favorite fire
department tradition. So we all have different
traditions obviously from east to West Coast, right to left,
right. But the greatest thing about the

(01:52:16):
fire service and that's why I think this is a very good
question, right, is the fact that.
Eating dinner. Yeah, we all have traditions.
Is that is that a tradition? Eating dinner together?
Yeah. You mean we?
Should call that kitchen table. Kitchen table, man.
Right. And that's a popular answer, So,
but so set yourself. So I want to know Garrett's
Garrett Lee's reason why the kitchen table is his favorite
tradition because everyone has adifferent version of what it

(01:52:39):
brings. Yeah, the, the kitchen table is
what? It's the iron that sharpens
iron, right? That's where we're sharpening
each other, the tactics or whatever, or just it's the
relationship building, it's the character building.
That's where it happens, right? You know?
Yeah, that multifaceted fireman like you said, you, you have to

(01:53:01):
sharpen all those things. Our, our friendship with each
other, right? Our mental, mental fortitude,
right? Our education.
Just talk about this, yeah. Every everything gets talked
there. Yeah, you're right.
Good goods and bads, right? Everything gets talked there and
and that you know that's what creates the brotherhood.
That's what like when you know, I tell my wife you don't get it.

(01:53:25):
You're because they don't. They don't.
We try to let them understand, but it's impossible.
We talk about everything there. Yeah, we share.
And that's where we can be vulnerable.
And it's weird because we share,you know, you can get into the
psychology behind that, but it'slike the fire table is the
probably one of the most vulnerable places there is for

(01:53:47):
us, right? And so, but I think that's where
the most growth happens. And you can talk that from a, a
trainings point, but also all aspects of the Wellness, you
know, like we talk about that, like all those pillars, social
and the intellectual and the, you know, spiritual and all this
stuff, like it all happens there.
And so that's why I think the, the tradition of eating

(01:54:09):
together, sharing that meal, youknow, because that's when that's
when those conversations have, and that's where the growth
happens and the relationships are built.
And I know it's an easy step, you know, cliche, you know, but
it's just it, I hope it never goes away and it is going away.
Like it's it. And I don't want to say it is

(01:54:29):
going away, but it, it's becoming more difficult to, to
do that because I mean, even in our department, we have guys in
their rooms and they'll come down for that still.
So that's like the last saving grace to be able to interact
because they're gone. You know, some guys just hide
their rooms all day, you know, And but it's dinner.
It's the meal. It's the fire table that brings

(01:54:50):
them down for at least that section.
And you can, you're able to connect.
You're able to have that. And so I hope that never goes
away. And I I, you know, I don't care.
And again, I'm the fit, you know, like we're talking about
fitness like that, isn't it? You know, it, it's, it's sitting
down and sitting at the table. Yeah, and and and talking and

(01:55:11):
and growing together so. I mean, it's everyone can argue,
I mean, it is a form of fitness,right?
You know that emotional fitness.I mean, it's yeah, it's
absolutely the Wellness. Yeah, I mean, so dude, good
answer. Like I said, every single person
in in my opinion could say the kitchen table for that question,
right. But the biggest thing is the why
because even the guys that said kitchen table, every single Y

(01:55:33):
has been different. Your Y is not the same as the
other guy. That's you know, which is, which
is great. So that's why I that's why I
love it. Shows how multi faceted and.
And, and, and really how important it is, you know, it's,
it's mentioned multiple times for a reason, because it is that
sacred and that important. And outside of us and the
military, I'd say, and the military is even still washy

(01:55:54):
because depending on or they're stationed, if they're on a boat
or if they're deployed underway or if they're like in the woods,
I mean, you, you name it, right?But they, they still have those
meals together as a team, right?You know, but like, we're the
only profession left out there that we make it a point to sit
down and eat together, right? And it's not just we're all

(01:56:15):
going to order food together. Like we cook together and we sit
down and we clean up together. And it's, it's that family
dynamic. And it's something to the point
where I feel so strongly about it, like my kids growing up and
then now my step kids and everything else, it gets to the
point where the rule is when I'mhome, right?
Whatever house I'm under, when we eat, we will sit at the

(01:56:35):
kitchen table and eat. That's that's the rule, Sir.
No one brings their food to the room.
No one does this. We don't sit on the couch,
right? Those are snacks and things like
that because it's important because we're doing the same
thing as as really good familiesdo.
Hey, how was your day? What you do at school today?
Like, hey, how is especially multi company houses, you know,
it's like, bro, what was up withthat freaking code you guys ran

(01:56:56):
or what was up with that job that we didn't get or that
extrication or that lift is it? Or you know, like we're asking
each other how their day's gone so far, you know?
Yeah, so it's dude, it's good. And that builds that tradition,
that builds that family aspect. And again, that's something that
sets us apart from the public. We are not your typical
profession, and we should never be.

(01:57:17):
All right? So the exact opposite, right?
This doesn't have to do with traditions, but he can, right?
But more importantly, in the fire service, right?
If you could snap your fingers and through FM and everyone that
doesn't know what FM, fucking magic, right?
So through fucking magic, you snap your fingers and something
is gone out of the fire service that you don't like, right?

(01:57:38):
Yeah. What would it be?
But more importantly, why would you eliminate that?
The eating of our own. No, you're the first.
OK, so explain. Explain.
So the evening they throw in theshade, right?
Yeah. They throw in the shade and and
here's why is like something it inhibits growth, right?

(01:58:02):
Like so, and I use this as like a hypothetical example of
something that I see go on very often, you know, is you come
into the Firehouse, right as a new guy, you don't know shit.
You're fucking wet behind the ears.
You think you're going to fucking be doing all the shit
and you're trying to just do a good job.
You're like, I'm fucking doing this, blah, blah, blah.

(01:58:24):
And they're like, all right, go do this right now, this task and
you fuck it up or whatever. You don't know what you're
doing. Maybe you got shown how to do it
one way, right? And the number one question that
they're like, what the fuck are you doing?
Yep. Like they fuck it up or and then
they go. Who the hell showed you that?
That is the number one question.Number one question they ask,

(01:58:45):
well, why did well, why'd you doit that way?
But then who showed you that? Yep.
And they're like, well, I got showed that up, you know?
In the Academy or by FirefighterSmith.
And then they go, what's it followed question #2 fuck that
guy. Yeah, he doesn't know shit.
He doesn't know shit. And then you need to do it this
way, Right? And it automatically creates

(01:59:08):
this, well, shit, as a new guy, right, Psychology would say,
well, he's discrediting this guy.
So now I have to, you know, like, now I have to do this.
And then, like. Which was probably a good way to
do this, right? Yeah.
There's a thousand ways to throwa ladder.
Yeah. Why does it have to be this way?
It doesn't, you know, OK. Or this way.
That way. Yeah.

(01:59:29):
And so something I try to be very cognizant of is like, maybe
there's a I've been a mentor, I've been a cadet mentor in
those things, right? Is maybe I don't like how this
other mentor teaches this, OK. And I go, hey, that's one thing
I try to be very cognizant of isor even a captain now that as a

(01:59:51):
company officer, I go, OK, I understand that he, this person
taught you this. I'm gonna show you another way.
I love it. And then let you choose, you
create. And this goes back to the way I
was mentored too, right? I'm gonna let you create your
style. Yeah.
Because. And then that's just gonna give
guys more tools in the toolbox rather than trying to cut a tool

(02:00:12):
out of their toolbox. Yes, you know, And it could be
fucked, completely fucked up. Yeah.
But I'm also gonna just respect that person enough and their
care, you know, their dignity asa human being, right?
To be like, hey, you know what? You're not going to bash them
because what is that? What am I trying to do there?
Right, truthfully, and you can get into that, but it's like it

(02:00:33):
inhibits that person's growth atthe end of the day, like you're,
you're creating this divide within our within our
brotherhood, within our the fireservice of like, well, I have
to, I can't fuck that. I got to go over here.
Fuck that person. And it's like, dude,
collectively, like it's not inhibiting growth, right.
So I think the eating of our ownis something I wish would just

(02:00:57):
go away and we would just be like, you know what?
Like, yeah, so and so whatever, like I'm just gonna show you
this other way or I'm gonna refuse to do that.
Gossip is the number one killer,like in anything.
And again, you can't have a family without the gossip.
I understand it's a double edgedsword, right?

(02:01:18):
Like it is like, and that's why we get called to high school and
all those other things. Yeah, the frat boys, frat girls,
whatever. Yeah, sorority house.
And there's banter, dude, don't get me wrong, I can shoot the
shit and talk shit with the bestof them.
That's different. That's it's also part of the
fire service. Busting chops is a term of
endearment. That's, you know, we know that,
right? Fuck, yeah.
But with that, it's like, you know, in my there is a fine line

(02:01:42):
too, is like, am I degrading that person?
Am I inhibiting this person's growth in front of me?
Am I gossiping? Am I what am I trying to paint
at this other person? Maybe I'm talking shit at the
table. This other person who this
person's probably never met overhere, let them make their own,

(02:02:03):
you know, So I wish that like I hope that kind of answers your
question, No. Dude, it does 100% because
that's you're right, the eating our own, you know, and we, we
talked about that a little bit earlier today too.
And, and, and I agree with you and I'm you're the first one to
say that. And I dude, I love that answer
because I feel the same way And like just on the like technical

(02:02:24):
rescue world, right, like when you start talking about ropes
and things along those lines. And just to validate your point,
there is I can literally look upon Google fog manuals,
everything else just technical. Yeah.
And I could tie one knot. I could tie whatever a bowl in
10 different freaking ways and it doesn't matter.

(02:02:45):
So, and I tell guys the whole thing, like if they're
struggling, especially with a certain technique, I just tell
them this way. I said, listen, let me show you
the way I do it because for somereason, and I purposely almost
degrade myself. And I always say like this, I'm
like, listen, I'm not the smartest fucking tool in the
shed, right? But guess what?
I'm your tool today. I'm just going to show you what

(02:03:05):
works for me, right? And it might click for with you.
And half the time it does, right?
Or they're doing something and they're proactive in the ass and
be like, Hey, you know, like you're, you're really good at
this way. This is how I do it, right?
And they try it and they're like, OK, I feel comfortable the
other way. I'm like, you should definitely
do it the other way. You know, it's like there is no,
there is no wrong way. And we've talked about during

(02:03:27):
training evolutions and things like that.
Like I make it a point like we were doing and just a basic
search talk after training evolution that had nothing to do
with searching, right? But it involved members getting
into a search pattern. And it's funny, just talk about
two different types of searches.And I purposely preference it.
It's like, hey, let me show you 2 searches that I observed while

(02:03:49):
watching you guys perform, right?
I'm going to show you both and I'm going to tell you the
benefits of both and the time that I believe each of those are
the most efficient because that's just it.
There is no wrong freaking reason outside of an egregious
safety or political. I mean, obviously there's always
strong lines, right? But for the most part it is what

(02:04:09):
works for you and how you think you know and how you function
and every. Obviously, as you know,
everyone's different. Right.
And and I think like to even go even a little deeper is if if we
were being honest with ourselves, I think our biggest
fear is judgement of others, right?

(02:04:29):
So then like we're not creating that learning environment in
those scenarios when we're eating our own, which then you
know, like we're we're combatingthat, you know, we're judging
everybody. And then so this person that is
green, if you will, doesn't knowwhat to do.
But then they feed into that toobecause they feel like they have

(02:04:51):
to do that. But then, yeah, like, you know,
when you're talking about this searching and techniques in 1000
different ways. And it's like, I think if we,
especially as company officers should accept the fact that,
hey, we're just sowing seeds, that that that seed that I sowed
might not bloom right away. Like I taught him a way to tie
this knot. Yeah.

(02:05:12):
But then if another guy comes out and and then one day it
clicks for him and it's a totally different way I
shouldn't be feel like my way was wrong.
No. Or and then hopefully that
captain or company officer isn'tgoing well.
Yeah, his way was stupid. Yeah.
It was just another way. I'm glad it clicked for you in
this way because that, and that's what makes us great.

(02:05:33):
Like we have multiple different coaching styles all on all these
trucks and all these things thatthat's what it that's the
environment it should look like,right?
And so. Yeah, and like you were saying
too, I mean, to harp on, that's like it's all about exposure.
The more we expose our members right to every option of doing
things right, the more capable they become because then they

(02:05:55):
have more information to pull from for whatever scenario that
they find themselves in. Cool.
Oh, dude. Well, so we're going to wrap it
up, brother. So listen, this is this was
amazing, right? A wealth of knowledge, dude.
So little shameless plug at the end, this podcast is brought to
you by the Copper State fools. Garrett, I, I can proudly say is

(02:06:17):
a copper state fools member. And again, if you can't tell,
it's because of his passion, right?
That's what the fools organization across the country
is about. It's about passionate guys
teaching other guys to become passionate or increase their
passion, knowledge base, whatever it might be.
So please take everything you, you heard today with a grain of
salt. This is the opinions of both of
us, right? But hopefully you did take take

(02:06:38):
away something, learn something,or even more importantly, have
an angle to maybe hit the department on something that you
guys might be lacking or something that you feel like
you're lacking personally or or with your department at all.
So with that said, Garrett, again, dude, thank you so much
for coming out. I appreciate your time.
And then we will catch you guys on the next episode.

(02:07:01):
Thanks for joining us. Always remember, the most
important grab you'll make in your fire service career is
saving a complacent firefighter from themselves.
Catch you next episode.

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