On this episode of Wilderness Medicine Updates, host Patrick Fink shifts focus from the science and literature of wilderness medicine to practical fitness tips for search and rescue personnel, ski patrollers, and outdoor rescuers. Patrick interviews Rob Shaw, founder and head coach of the Mountain Tactical Institute, about his specialized training programs for various types of mountain athletes, including those in industrial and tactical roles. They discuss the nuances of preparing for seasonal work, the distinct fitness demands of ski patrollers versus search and rescue members, and the importance of chassis integrity and mental fitness. Rob highlights minimal equipment training plans that can be effective for mountain professionals and recreational athletes alike, and offers a special discount for the show's listeners. Additional topics covered include Rob's nutritional recommendations and the concept of the 'quiet professional,' someone deeply committed to the craft of their work.
Offer
Are you involved in mountain or wilderness rescue? Rob is offering the first 50 listeners who reach out to him a 20% discount on a training plan. Send your rescue or professional credentials to rob@mtntactical.com to secure your discount.
Links
Training Plans Patrick Likes:
Mountain Base Fitness Greek Heroine Series
Backcountry Ski Preseason Training Plan
Exercises Discussed:
Rob's Resources:
Ideal bodyweights for mountain athletes
Mountain/Wilderness SAR Fitness Assessment Training Plan
Resilience vs. Discipline vs. Perseverance: Why the Distinctions Matter in Mental Fitness
The 8 Core Attributes of Mental Fitness
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Wilderness Medicine
00:46 Guest Introduction: Rob Shaw from Mountain Tactical Institute
04:38 The Evolution of Mountain Tactical Institute
06:58 Training for Mountain and Tactical Athletes
11:43 Fitness Demands for Ski Patrol
19:13 In-Season Training and Professionalism
24:47 Fitness for Search and Rescue Volunteers
25:10 Integrating Training with Da
As always, thanks for listening to Wilderness Medicine Updates, hosted by Patrick Fink MD FAWM.
Connect with us by email at wildernessmedicineupdates@gmail.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sawyer (00:15):
Welcome back to Wilderness Medicine.
Updates the show for providersat the edges.
Here's your host, Patrick Fink.
Patrick Fink MD (00:26):
Thank you for that.
Welcome back everyone.
I have an exciting show for youtoday.
We're gonna do a littlesomething different and move
away from the science andliterature of wilderness
medicine and focus on somepractical information.
For those of you who might beparticipants in search and
rescue, might be ski patrollersmay have a role as a rescuer in
the outdoors.
I am excited to bring for you.
(00:47):
I'm excited to bring you a showwith Rob Shaw.
Rob is the founder and headcoach at Mountain Tactical
Institute, MTI used to be calledMountain Athlete, and it's a gym
based in Jackson, Wyoming.
They address the fitness needsof mountain athletes,
particularly the guides who areworking in Jackson, who are
going up and down the TetonMountains every day of the
summer and winter.
(01:08):
Rob took that business and grewit to meet other mission
specific demands.
What do we mean by that?
I mean the needs of specificgroups like military personnel
preparing for special forcesselection or police officers who
need to maintain job specificfitness, different from
firefighters, different fromrecreational mountain athletes.
So Rob has done a great job ofsegmenting these training
(01:30):
populations out there anddelivering training content that
is specific to them.
I have no affiliation withMountain Tactical Institute.
I don't get money from Rob fordoing this show.
I found MTI myself, when I wastrying to address my own fitness
needs.
I was looking for mountainspecific fitness programming and
that's what led me to Rob andI've enjoyed doing his training
programs, many of which areequipment, minimal and
(01:52):
achievable at home.
When I do this training, I feelstronger in the mountains.
I feel like I have greaterreserve and I enjoy what I'm
doing more, and I hope thatthat's something that you could
enjoy as well.
I also really appreciate thatRob has two different ways to
pay him for his training.
You can subscribe and get adaily fitness programming
delivered to you for differentfitness domains, but what I
(02:12):
like, what I prefer is that youcan make a one-time purchase,
buy an affordable training planfrom Rob and have that plan for
life.
Use it annually to prepareyourself for specific needs or
specific goals, and they have agreat app to walk you through
that training plan day by day.
It.
We dive into a lot of topicshere.
How to prepare yourselfphysically for seasonal work, be
that ski patrol or wildlandfire, how to address the fitness
(02:35):
needs of a search and rescuemember, or ski patroller, who's
in season, who has part-timerole in search and rescue, or
works in a non-physical job forthe rest of their life.
I hope that you'll listen tothis with an open mind.
Rob gives nutritionalrecommendations for industrial
athletes.
We discuss professionalism andtraining craftsmanship in your
career and more.
(02:55):
I think you can get somethingout of it.
I know that fitness andnutrition are things that people
have a lot of opinions aboutthat are closely held, like
religious beliefs, but I thinkif you come to this conversation
with an open mind, you'll findif nothing else, some useful
concepts to take back to whatyou're already doing.
Maybe Rob's chassis integrityconcept connects with you or you
find his nutritional informationbeneficial or.
(03:19):
You become interested in theusefulness of the sandbags for
training for industrialathletes, and you take that back
to your own training.
So be sure to listen through tothe end of the podcast because
Rob has been kind enough to makean offer to the listeners of
this show who are in search andrescue, ski patrol, or other
such professional orsemi-professional roles.
Now without further delay, hereis my conversation with Rob
(03:43):
Shaw.
I hope you enjoy.
Rob, thanks for joining me onthe podcast.
I'm excited to have you on herebecause I've used your training
plans previously.
I've gotten a lot of benefit outof them and I now find myself in
a position where I'm moving intomedical direction roles and can
encourage folks that I work withto start branching out thinking
(04:04):
about preseason training.
I want to, give my listeners whoI think are predominantly search
and rescue and ski patrol folks.
A framework for thinking aboutthe fitness demands of their job
and how they should beaddressing those.
bet that there's a pretty widevariety of folks out there in
terms of some are doing nothing,others are probably, deep in the
world of CrossFit.
(04:25):
I think your background isperfect here, and we'll dive a
little bit more into the missionspecific thoughts.
let's just start with anintroduction from you.
Where are you coming from withMountain Athlete and how did
that become the MountainTactical Institute?
Rob (04:39):
So I was in, my, mid late thirties, uh, sold a company
and, uh, before I had sold, I'dalways been a gym rat.
Grew up, uh, small town ofWyoming, and, did some time in
the military.
I was in the Coast Guard, wentback to my small town, started a
business,.
I'd always been a gym rat, notmuch of an athlete.
The mountains were my gym, youknow, a 20 mile loop, no
problem.
(04:59):
Those types of things.
There was real no commercial gymthere.
And, this, uh, physical therapyplace had like a universal
machine of one rack and a bunchof treadmills.
And I, I'd go in there trainthat the owner started noticing
that, you know, people were kindof watching what I was doing.
And so I took like a weekendcourse got a cheesy, uh,
personal training,certification.
And so started teaching, coursesI had all, pretty much all
(05:21):
soccer moms, but these are likesome badass soccer moms.
I'd have'em go out and, uh, youknow, we'd get out in the
summer.
There was an irrigation ditchabove the place.
I, I'd make'em swim against thecurrent irrigation ditch, run
downhill, do burpees, pick uplock.
They just loved it, you know,they just ate it up.
And so Jackson's a little bitnorth decided to go up.
Jackson and I, I wanted to workwith mountain guides and on the
mountain side.
So I started Mountain Athlete.
(05:42):
I thought it'd be interesting.
Had no idea really what I wasgetting into, because I was
bringing to it everything I'dlearned studying for,
strengthening conditioning.
the existing strength andconditional literature for,
mountain athletes, was prettymuch non-existent.
I remember reading the rockclimbing books and they were
talking mostly about mentalstuff and hand movements all
that stuff didn't work, startedexperimenting in the gym.
That's where we kind of got, youknow, my first season, training
(06:04):
for, dry land ski stuff.
I had my athletes doing lots ofdead lifts, lots of back squats.
Oh my God, their legs were sostrong.
Then they came back from thefirst day at the lift and they
were all pissed at me becausethey got smoke skiing.
I'm like, how is this possible?
Well, it turns out when you ski,you, don't use concentric
strength, moving your legs up orcoming up from the squat.
(06:25):
You're, you actually, your bodyis.
Bouncing down the hill,gravity's bouncing down the
hill.
And it's your job, your legs, tostop your ass from hitting the
ground every time you bounce.
So you gotta decelerate, andthat's called eccentric strength
training.
Totally messed that up.
Made the same mistake with, uh,rock climbers.
Um, gotta learn a lot.
That season started, uh, youknow, designing specifically for
(06:45):
mountain athletes.
Pretty much had to venteverything.
All my rock climbing theory camefrom me'cause all the books are
terrible.
You know, no one developed orfound leg blasters to start
training eccentric strength forskiers.
I got really good identifyingthe fitness demands of an
activity and designingprogramming specifically for
those fitness demands.
And, uh, 2009, Obama did theAfghanistan surge.
(07:06):
We were getting our asses kickedin Afghani.
Served in, I think there weresix 8,000 troops there, surgeon
30 more thousand.
And guys, uh, going down rangeAfghanistan, were getting
smoked, doing mountain patrolsbecause a, you know, we're
running and rucking on flatstuff.
So I developed a plant calledLee Afghanistan, pre-deployment
plan.
Give it away to thousands ofguys.
I remember, I, I lost count at13 battalion commanders.
(07:28):
He did their entire battalions.
And, uh, that kind of kicked usover into the tactical side.
And pretty soon those guys wereasking for plans for ranger
school and special forcesselections.
And then, on the mountainprofessional side, rangers, some
SAR professionals, wildlandFire, started getting requests
for programming.
Generally, I start designingprogramming when I get a request
for it.
And so, uh, it kind of buildsorganically but the overall
(07:51):
theory that we developed,identifying the fitness demands
of the activity, the exercisethat trained those fitness
demands, we can't train forevery fitness demands, just the
ones we can train efficiently inthe gym.
Um, identify end of cycle goals,pretty much program backward to
get to those goals.
Start the progression and hammerdown.
For example, our mountain, basefitness programming has a
significant bias towards uphillendurance.
(08:12):
Just about every mountain sportstarts with a hike uphill.
And so we do a lot of runningor, step ups or uphill hiking
under load in our mountain basefitness.
They still train relativestrength and work capacity, all
their stuff, but there's a biastowards, uphill endurance.
The military athlete, instead ofhiking uphill, they rock.
They run the, for their workcapacity, they'll do sprints
repeats, which is similar tomovement under fire, sprint, get
(08:35):
down, up sprint again, someone'sshooting at you.
So there's just all these typesof different things that we do.
We're always constantly testingand evaluating and improving.
And, that's the story of MTI.
Patrick Fink MD (08:46):
It is, an impressive progression from
beginning in Pinedale.
You touched on this briefly, butI think it's a useful concept to
think about.
How do you think about thedifferent types of athletes and
the relative demands for those?
I'm thinking about an industrialversus a recreational athlete or
a tactical athlete.
How do you parse those out
Rob (09:06):
Um, it's, it's real easy to do this to, to see a difference
on the mountain side.
Like I have ideal body weightsfor, different athletes based on
height and, the mountain athletebody weights are lower than the
tactical athlete body weights.
Tactical athletes, generallyhave, uh, higher strength
demands.
Their packs are heavier.
Let me just give you an example.
A, you know, like a, aprofessional rock climber or a
(09:27):
recreational athlete, he's analpine climber or, uh, wants to
compete in ski mountaineering.
Races really don't need muchupper body strength, right?
And so there's no use putting alot of upper body mass on him, I
don't know if you've ever seena, tour de France, competitor
for of those cycling races withtheir shirt off?
I mean, I mean it's total spoonchest.
Yeah, right.
So, any extra upper body mass isjust, extra weight they gotta
(09:48):
carry around.
So there are some significantdifferences, but if you are a,
what I would call an industrialathlete, someone who, is getting
paid, to do a specific job,they're not competing in a
sport.
The, the fitness demands you'regonna face are not as
identifiable as they are for aschema racer.
Schema racer can get down.
I mean, for a specific race, Iknow exactly how much vertical,
(10:12):
exactly how much downhill, youknow, idea of how long the race
is gonna be, all that otherstuff.
If you go out on a,, SAR missionand it's supposed to be a
simple, you know, say a couplesnowmobiles got lost, it could
turn into a multi-day event.
You know, um, your pack's gonnabe heavier'cause you gotta carry
extra gear in.
Like your med bag, right?
That shit's heavy.
(10:32):
So the, the strength loads forindustrial athletes, the, I
mean, the packs are heavier,period.
So that means they have morestrength.
Plus you might get there andthen you gotta lift, you know,
the sled off the guy or pick himup you know, all that other
stuff happens.
So industrial athletes need tobe stronger, which means they
need to be heavier because thestrength is muscle and the
session to weight, they need todo more strengthening.
(10:54):
We need to give more emphasis totheir midsection strength.
The main difference from myperspective is the events are
not as predictable.
Every rescue's a little bitdifferent or could be different,
it could turn into somethingcrazy and you have to be
prepared for it.
So the, what you're preparingfor is less known, which means
that the, the fitness trainingneeds to be a little more
comprehensive and a little moregeneral than it would be for a
(11:15):
specific event.
Patrick Fink MD (11:16):
So if you were a SAR member or.
Professional ski patrollercoming into an upcoming season
and you're thinking to yourself,well, I'm, I'm a very active
person.
I go out, I ride my mountainbike all the time.
I trail run, I carry my kidsaround.
Where are the deficits gonna befor the professional role in
comparison to just what someoneaccomplishes recreationally.
Rob (11:40):
I, I can't tell you that on, on the mountain side,
there's, there's not really atradition, uh, strength
conditioning preparation forskiing.
There are some exceptions tothat.
The hardest athletes, hardestworking athletes, and most
dedicated professional athletesI've ever worked with are world
Cup ski racers.
Those guys get after it.
I mean, they are, you know,they're fit and they train in
the gym hard, and it's part ofthat culture.
(12:01):
But if you're a ski patrollergoing in, and let's say, I mean,
ski patroller is a, you know,seasonal job.
Let's say your summer job is,you know, as a ranger or working
construction, whatever it is.
You're not gonna have theeccentric leg strength or
strength endurance to handleski.
You're just like anybody else.
But here's the difference.
A recreational athlete whodoesn't prepare for ski season
gets up there and on the thirdday of the first week, decides
(12:25):
to take one more run even thoughhis legs are smoked, you know,
pops his ACL'cause he gets lazyor falls down or whatever.
And then the ski patrol has togo up and execute, the rescue
and bring him down.
Um, the difference is that theski patroller, if, if that
person goes into the season andhe's not, or she's not ready,
fitness wise for that event,well now they have this other
person depending on'em to getdown the hill.
(12:46):
And if they're also tired andsmoked, it's just a cascade of
issues that could result in,something that should be simple.
Um.
Turn into, something that couldbe bad, not just because a ski
patroller wasn't professionalabout their fitness before they
started their professional job.
If you're a professional, amountain professional, you need
to be professional by yourfitness and prepared for what
(13:06):
could happen on day one.
And, if you're not, then beenunprofessional by your fitness
Patrick Fink MD (13:11):
well, and you, you stand potentially not just
to lose your ski vacation, butyour livelihood for the winter.
If you go out with an injury inthe, in the early weeks.
Rob (13:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's, that's another componentthough.
I don't think a lot of peopleunderstand that I worked lots of
mountain guides.
They're not salaried, right?
They're contract workers, and, aknee can take out an entire year
of earnings for a mountainguide.
So yeah, it's certainlysomething to be, considerate
about.
We do know that the best way tobe durable for a specific sport
or event is to be supported,specifically fit for that event,
(13:42):
right?
So we have our athletes on thetactical side, we'll have'em run
with ruck.
Because if you go to rangerschool they have a 12 mile ruck
with the, like 60 pounds andbefore that they're getting
smoked.
So a lot of those guys, youknow, they gotta run the last
six miles to make the, to makethe time or they are part of it.
They've never done that before.
Um, you know, they, they'reasking for injury.
(14:02):
So yeah, you need to be ideally,um, prior to training, know what
it feels like and be fit for it.
Patrick Fink MD (14:09):
So you saying that you can just do the sport I
can get fit for skiing by justskiing a lot.
Rob (14:13):
Absolutely.
What I mean by that is, uh, theproblem is that you can't ski
year round, right?
So, it's different from day oneversus middle of the season.
Ideally, you come into it andyou're fit.
Now certainly if it's in themiddle of the season, you're
skiing every day.
Your legs are pretty fit forskiing, but that's the middle of
a season.
Right.
So, unless you're, going downsouth to or New Zealand every
(14:35):
year, and I did have a coupleguides who do that.
They're crazy, eternal winters.
I wouldn't want that.
Uh, but uh, yeah, they, youknow, they would just ski year
round and uh, they have to worrya little bit about overuse
injuries and stuff like that.
But, you know, getting injuredfrom a, you know, ski injury is
not that big of a concern.
So that's something that comesup.
I take, I can tell you it's alot more fun to just ski, to get
fit for skiing than it is to doleg blasters.
(14:57):
And our touch up to intervals,they suck.
But you're not gonna be fit today one of the season.
It's gonna take time to do that.
And, you cannot escape the work.
You're gonna have to do the workone way or the other.
And so from my perspective, ifyou're a mountain professional,
who gonna ski hill?
If you're not fit for skiingwhen you arrive day one, uh,
that's very unprofessional.
And if you're a professionalcompeting athlete and you're not
(15:20):
fit from day one.
You're gonna get smoked.
You're not professional aboutyour sport, and someone else who
comes in fit is gonna, you'renot gonna get the podium.
Patrick Fink MD (15:26):
So let's take this and make it specific to ski
patrol and just dive in therefirst.
And then I'd like to dig intosearch and rescue as well.
So, the demands on ski patrol,as we've already highlighted, is
that it's, it's a full-time jobwith various demands.
It's strongly seasonal.
There's kind of two sets ofdemands that I can imagine
(15:47):
there.
There's the preparation forseason and then there's the
in-season maintenance.
Let's consider preparation forthe season.
How far in advance of startingin that setting would you
recommend that someone startspreparing and training for that
role?
Rob (16:00):
Uh, depending on the training time, at least four
weeks.
And, six weeks would be best tobe really fit for the, when the
season starts, our, our drylandprogramming is primarily focused
on, eccentric lake strength and,what I call leg lactate
tolerance, or the ability justto take long days on the hill.
If you think about, a full dayof skiing, there are individual
parts that are strength, youknow, short, explosive, demands,
(16:24):
but it's it's really a strengthendurance effort, right?
At the end of the day.
Um, there's a lot of impact onyour leg.
So it's an endurance effort andit takes time to develop
strength endurance.
You just can't, do it quickly.
So those are the two things tobe focused on.
Um
Patrick Fink MD (16:37):
But
Rob (16:38):
also,, because of the heavier pack, and the upper
body, strength that might be, Imean, ski patrolers, you know,
they're doing their, opening,closing lots of, like, they're
carrying shovels everywhere,right?
They might need to dig peopleout of, uh, you know, digging
somebody out of a avalanche isa, core upper body work
capacity, full on effort, right?
Their multimodal work capacityneeds to be high.
(16:59):
They need to have some upperbody strength.
All of these things aren'tnecessarily needed for a ski
racer or a free skier, but theyare for a ski patrol or if their
packs gonna be heavier, so theirmidsection needs to be stronger.
So all those things ideally comeinto the season.
Some of those things might carryover from their.
Summer fall work job, you know,if they're a ranger, hiking or
rucking, or they're workingconstruction or something, some
(17:20):
of those things might transferover, but what won't trance over
is the eccentric leg strength.
There's nothing, nothing thatreally changes for that.
Patrick Fink MD (17:25):
So if someone has not completed a dry land
training program before, what,what would they expect that
program to look like?
What kind of movements?
What kind of equipment is thissomething they can complete at
home?
Rob (17:37):
Yeah.
Our dry land ski programming isa limited equipment plan.
It doesn't require a weightroom.
One of the things we always tryto focus on is always to
simplify So there's two majorcomponents.
The focus of our dry skitraining is, eccentric leg
strength, which train you forbouncing down the hill and a leg
lactate tolerance, which is justa way to train, be able to put
off, having to stop.
(17:57):
And then if you do, stop, beable to recover really fast.
Two days a week you're doing legblasters and two days a week
you're doing, what we call justtouch, jump, touch intervals.
And, uh, we're just trainingthose two things.
And the plan is focused on thosetwo areas.
It includes some core work, itincludes some, upper body stuff,
but the focus is there.
That's, that's where the focusof skiing is.
And so we really focus on thoseareas.
(18:18):
So it's pretty much the samething every week.
Only harder as you go throughthe programming, you're doing
more and more leg blasters.
You're touchdown choppedintervals.
You're doing more work, lessrest, more work, less rest.
And, uh, it's no joke.
It, it, it hammers you.
Um, but ideally, you know, whenyou get to the season, you're
ready to go.
Patrick Fink MD (18:35):
For our listeners who aren't familiar
with some of these exercises, Ican put a link to, I know you
have videos for a lot of yourexercises.
We'll include the leg blastersin there so you can get a sense
of what we're talking about.
Do you know offhand whatequipment is needed for that
program, if any?
Rob (18:50):
The equipment for, our Dry Land Ski Pro is a, 12 to 15 inch
box, a 60 pound sandbag for men,40 pound for women, pair of,
dumbbells and a pull up bar anda foam foam roller.
So it's a really a limitedequipment program.
Patrick Fink MD (19:02):
When you get into the season.
Obviously you cannot train fiveto seven days a week in the same
manner that you can during thepreseason.
For someone who's working as aprofessional ski patroller and
is working on Hill five to sixdays a week, do you see any role
for training during the seasonor any preventative maintenance
to be done during that time?
Rob (19:22):
Yeah, we actually have an,, in season, training plan for
skiing.
And we have it set up for bothrecreational skiers and mountain
professionals and so the, youknow, during the in season, the,
the mount professionals, the skipatrols, they don't need to be
doing leg blasters anymore.
I just looked at our, in-seasondry line ski training for
mountain professionals.
It's two days a week and it'sheavy strength and chassis
integrity work in the gym.
(19:42):
It's not doing leg blasters ormini blasters.
We're just trying to keep the,the overall strength and,
midsection strength for,durability.
I do find that stronger athletesoverall are harder to injure if,
if they do get injured, torecover faster.
Um, so just having total bodystrength is a way to make
yourself more durable?
Patrick Fink MD (20:01):
That leads me to one more question before we
turn our attention to search andrescue, which is say the
patrollers summer job was RAFguide.
They've been sitting on theirbutt and doing pulling motions
all summer.
Very not sports specific to skipatrol.
Do they need to develop any kindof base fitness, aerobic fitness
(20:22):
before jumping into a dry landprogram, or is it scalable
enough that they could start onweek one of your program and
survive it without injury?
Rob (20:31):
It depends on how much time they have to get ready for the
season.
I program for the fitnessdemands of the event or the
sport, not the incoming fitnessof the athlete.
The fitness demands for skipatroller are the same for every
ski patroller.
It doesn't matter what yoursummer job is, how old you are,
how small you are, if you're awoman, if you're a man, how fat
you are, right?
(20:52):
The fitness demands are thesame, and it's up to the athlete
to meet the fitness demands.
So if they get done with theirdrafting, you know, let's say
they.
You know, a typical mountaintown person, Ben's a mountain
town, right?
You know, they'll, they'll,they'll take and they'll do the
rafting, and then they'll gotake, you know, a few weeks off
and go to Mexico surfing orsomething, and then they'll come
in and they gotta go to skipatrolling.
(21:13):
And if they only got six weeks,you gotta jump into the, the dry
land program and just suffer.
Um, you're gonna be sore, it'sgonna suck, but, uh, that's on
you.
This is what you need to do.
Get ready for the season.
If you're professional, you'regonna be ready for the season.
So there's no shortcuts.
You're not special, you know,you make your own decisions and
that's just the way it is.
That's just part of beingprofessional about your fitness.
(21:33):
I get these questions all thetime, you know, like, you know,
I had a, a question from a, um,50-year-old firefighter, um,
recently So I don't like highimpact stuff.
I'm like, well, you know, your,your bunker gear weighs 70
pounds.
I mean, you know, I, I generallydo use steer stepper instead of
running, what do you have tosprint in your gear?
You know what I mean?
This happens a lot on the firstresponder side, but we call
(21:54):
legacy athletes.
You know, they've kind of gottenaway with not having to do
anything their whole career.
Now they're older, they thinkthey can still do it.
Yeah.
There's no, there's no slow firefor a 50-year-old, you know,
firefighters, you know what, ifyou have to drag somebody out
who's 200 pounds, which couldbe, I mean, I weigh 150 pounds,
put, uh, seven five pounds ofbunker gear on me.
I'm at 2 25, right?
And she drag me out, you know,not, not not doing, uh, body
(22:18):
weight squats.
He's gotta be doing high impact,you know, heavy stuff.
So, yeah, that's something that,that comes up.
Some people get away with it,their youth, um, and they, you
know, they get away with it'cause they're young.
But, I think you'll find themost, the most professional
people.
Are doing some type of fitnesstraining.
There's a link between peopleare professional about their
fitness and the way they treatthe rest of their job.
So I wouldn't never trust a, anunfit mountain guide.
(22:41):
I would never trust hisequipment, right?
Is he replacing his carabiners,right?
Is he replacing his ropes?
How are his rope skills?
How are all those other, youknow, technical elements?
Is he training those and up tospeed those?
cause clearly, you know, fitnessis a primary component of, ski
patrolling and mountain guiding.
And if he's let his fitness go,what else has he let go on the
(23:03):
technical side, right?
So if he sees a ski patroller,he is unfit, how's his, first
aid skills, right?
I would question it.
There's a link between them.
I mean, the, there's a reasonthat the most high speed,
military guys, you know,generally navigate towards the
Special forces units, wherethere's the biggest fitness
demand.
They attract just certain peoplewho are, are professional about
all elements of the work.
Patrick Fink MD (23:24):
They're in my relatively limited experience,
two groups of people inprofessional ski patrol.
There are people who are careerpatrollers, and there are those
who are there as a bridge tosome other world, usually in
medicine, whether that'sparamedic and fire or going
into, medical professions likenursing or, or doctors.
I think both stand to benefitfrom training, right?
(23:48):
Because both need to meet thedemands of their job.
But really, I think probably thecareer patroller is the one who
has the most on the line.
In terms of being able topreserve their function over the
long term and be able to performtheir job year after year.
As you put it, a 24-year-old mecan get away with a lot more the
37-year-old me in terms of lackof preparation, just showing up
(24:10):
and winging it.
I have to put in a little bitmore maintenance these days to
maintain strength, what you callchassis integrity.
Those, those features, so youcan actually show up ready and
not get hurt.
Rob (24:22):
It's interesting, you'll see again, especially at first
responder, but even in militaryunits, you know, I've, I've met
Senior Green Brasi are fat andoutta shape, right.
Because they, they think theyget older and they, you know,
I'm never gonna get in thatsituation or whatever.
Patrick Fink MD (24:36):
Let's turn our attention now to search and
rescue, which I'll, I'll outlinea little bit how I think that
that's probably different andthen we can work through it.
I think your average search andrescue participant is more, it's
volunteer.
It's part-time for them.
They have a day job.
They're not professionals andmost of their call outs are
gonna involve, as you said,hiking with heavy packs,
(24:58):
carryouts, litter transports,unknown demands.
So I would think the trainingobjective there would
potentially be more muscularendurance, injury resistance.
But the biggest challenge isprobably integrating it with
their life, with their day job.
So from your perspective, whatwould be the key physical and
mental demands of the search andrescue role that you would be
(25:20):
wanting to target with yourtraining?
Rob (25:22):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I've never actually been askedto, to design a plan for a
volunteer, mountain sar, memberI just did one for a, a
part-time SWAT team.
Um.
We'll, we'll get on that.
Yeah.
But, uh, right off the gap or atthe top?
Uphill endurance under load sowe're just doing step ups
probably with the heavy pack,heavy pack rucking.
I assume that those packs are 45to 55 pounds heavy.
(25:43):
Um, 35 at, you know, at least.
But yeah, probably that heavy,the worst thing to do is, you
know, be a, a SAR team memberand go out there and have to be
rescued because you're out,you're unfit.
Chassis integrity, would bedominant.
A lot of injuries can occur ifyou're just smoke from hiking
uphill.
Right?
Probably, as a preseason thing,um, working some leg blasters
just to train eccentric strengthif you don't have, a spot to
(26:06):
hike up and downhill.
As I got older, I started,packing, water uphill, to train.
And then I would jump to the topand, and come down and load it.
Just'cause the impact on myknees and in Jackson at Snow.
I know you can ride the liftdown, but that, you know, that
that downhill can impact you,but you still need that
strength.
Have you ever done our step up?
Were step ups before?
Yeah, they're total, totaldrudgery.
Patrick Fink MD (26:26):
Yes,
Rob (26:27):
I'm training for a, a hunting season here.
I did over a thousand thismorning, you know, and I got,
you know, the news on podcast.
But it, they fucking work.
Step ups are the most efficientway to train uphill.
And, and you don't need anyequipment.
He needs a pack in a box and,uh, podcast and, uh, you just
gotta grind.
You need to probably do somestep up or some, leg blasters
and, chassis integrity,midsection work.
(26:49):
And, like in the dry line skiprogram, the dumbbells are used
just for, exercise we callScotty Bobs, which is, uh,
pretty much a pushup in a rowwith dumbbells.
It's a great, very efficient twofor one, pretty damn hard t for
one upper body exercise, it'sjust really efficient, really
quick.
And you can do in between legblasters and I can get a T for
one in there.
So.
Yeah, it's not, not complicated.
(27:10):
It's just, it's just hard, youknow?
So ideally, the ideal standardis like a thousand step ups at
45 pounds.
In an hour or, or 50 minutes, Ithink the best guy is under 40
minutes.
I think my best time's like 50minutes.
Twight, he used to say, if youcan do 2000 vertical in 45
minutes, I think it was unloadedwould be his standard for, which
isn't, that isn't a push.
(27:31):
And I've actually done thatmyself.
Patrick Fink MD (27:32):
achievable.
Rob (27:33):
yeah, that's pretty achievable.
So I'll develop an assessmentfor a part-time sar.
The, the tricky part forpart-time sars, it is part-time,
they don't know when the call iscoming.
They have the other job oractivities going on.
Maybe the other training, maybethey're a Ironman triathlete or
something, and they're not doingstep ups.
So, I guess it depends on howmuch importance they put on
their part-time work.
And I think maybe they rely onthe, the full-time people, if
(27:56):
there are any, to be able to,fill in the gaps fitness wise,
that's a tricky one.
Patrick Fink MD (28:00):
If you're showing up to a star, call out,
you have an obligation to, toperform, but also your goal is
to avoid injury.
You don't want to impact the dayjob or you're gonna have to have
to leave the SAR on the side.
So, in addition to, just workcapacity as a, as an insurance
against injury.
Can you speak a little bit tothe chassis integrity concept
(28:23):
and how that ties into both thedemands of the role and keeping
people healthy on the job?
Rob (28:29):
Yeah, chassis integrity is a, kind of the midsection
training, methodology that Ideveloped.
It came about after I had, uh,stepped away from my own,
programming and just did somestuff myself.
Did a lot of body weight, chestintegrity, mostly ground based
stuff like we always done, youknow, crunches and all that
crap.
Went back to the gym.
Load up some heavy front squatsand my midsection collapsed.
It wasn't very strong.
Even though I was crushingsitups.
(28:50):
Uh, so the idea is the, themidsection is like a barrel of
muscle.
Um, it's this barrel of musclethat connects the legs to the
upper body, and a lot of thetorque comes from the upper
body.
You know, if you imagine pullingsomebody or, you know, moving
something heavy from one side tothe other And the midsection,
has some roles.
Um, part of it is movement, youknow, extension, picking up
(29:11):
something heavy, but sometimes alot of rotation, strength, but
also just an isometric, bracingcore strength, a lot of times
anti-rotation.
Prior to development, chassintegrity, we'd always had our
core.
I trained different movements.
We had'em like fire movements,so flexion, isometric,
rotational, extension, but theywere, a lot of'em were
ground-based movements, likesit-ups and stuff.
(29:32):
And, uh, what Chass Integritydid was I started doing the bulk
of our midsection exercises,from standing or kneeling so
that the midsection had to work,in conjunction with the lower
body and upper body.
That's, that's the integrity,right?
It had to maintain the integrityof the system between the two.
And I thought it would be, ifwe're gonna train for that, why
don't we just fucking train forit?
(29:53):
So, we also started using a lotof sandbag stuff., There's
something about a 60 poundsandbag that is so much heavier
than a 60 pound dumbbell or a 60pound barbell.
I don't know what it is, but a60 pound sandbag is a fucking
lot heavier than a 60 poundbarbell.
It's bulky and it's in theweight and it's awkward and all
that, all that stuff helps workthat midsection in a much more
(30:13):
functional way to what you'regonna pick up in the field,
whatever it is.
Our chassis integrity not onlytrains strength, but these are
endurance terms that trainstrength endurance.
And so, for a SAR athlete, ifthey have a long approach or
something and they're reallytired from the endurance effort,
everything else is, you know,that's why mountain endurance
comes first.
For mountain sports, you know,uphill movement under load has
(30:35):
to come first.
That's the most important thing.
But after that, the chassisintegrity, is probably the next
important because, it helps yoube strong in, in these ways that
are just so awkward that foralmost any rescue mission,
there's gonna be some type oflifting that is gonna be
awkward.
And if you don't have thatstrength there, you're just
asking for a low back injury,pretty much.
Right?
But even.
More important than injuryprevention is just function.
(30:57):
You wanna be able to get thatperson from one side of the body
to the other, from the ground tothe gurney or whatever it is.
And, the chassis integrity workhelps you do that.
It's amazing how much, uh, howmuch work you can get in with
the sandbag and, uh, somesimple, you know, it intricated
exercises.
To train that midsection forfunctional strength.
Patrick Fink MD (31:14):
The difference between the barbell and the
sandbag is obvious to anyparents out there who know how
much heavier a 45 pound childis, than a 45 pound dumbbell.
People are, are awkward, heavy,hard to move, and the sandbag is
much more analogous to thatwork.
Rob (31:30):
Yeah, you know, a, a chainsaw is a lot different and
awkward, more awkward than abarbell two, right?
So there's almost no,, piece of,equipment out there that's heavy
or whatever.
You're lifting on a star missionthat is gonna be as easy to grip
and move around.
As a barbell, it's all gonna beawkward.
Patrick Fink MD (31:44):
So star work can often be sort of exhausting,
thankless, sometimes dangerous.
You have emphasized mentaltoughness for industrial
athletes.
What strategies do you have tocultivate that kind of
resilience and build a trainingculture that can carry over into
the field during long rescues?
Rob (32:04):
Yeah, I like to call it mental fitness.
I've been doing a lot ofthinking about, mental fitness,
recently, I had someexperiences, where I had, some
world class optimists come intothe gym years ago, and we just
put'em through a short workcapacity, effort, maybe swings
or sprints or something.
And it seemed like they werementally weak.
And, uh, and they're like, oh, Imean, I, I've never been on a
(32:25):
Himalaya alpine climb, butthey're out there climbing a 40
below.
I mean, these guys are, they'retough.
You know what I mean?
So I, I take a step back andthen it turns out the next time
they came in a couple dayslater, similar effort, they did
a lot better.
So, I learned from that, andI've seen it in my own life,
that mental fitness is, modespecific.
So if you're familiar with themode, if you're familiar, what
(32:47):
it feels like, you're gonna bemore mentally fit.
So, you haven't been putting inyour step ups or your uphill
grind and you're, hiking up3000, vertical feet to direct
you some guy, then your mentalfitness is not gonna be strong.
Being more physically fit makesyou more mentally fit, right?
For that mode.
You know, it can be mentally fitin a, in uh, physical stressor,
(33:07):
you know, but it comes with ahard conversation with your
wife, not be very mentally fit,right?
So, it's more specific.
The other thing is that it canbe built like you're talking
about, I'm, I'm thinking abouthow we could actually train
mental fitness in a moreconscious way.
I just wrote, something, alittle bit ago I developed
eight, uh, core attributes andmental fitness, you know, like
perseverance, resilience,discipline, mental endurance,
(33:30):
which is, you know, beingmentally sharp, you know, after
24 hour, you know, like you in amercy room, right?
You know, you're coming off a 12hour shift.
I hope you're mentally sharp at,you know, 1145 and my kid comes
in, I just recently wrote aboutthe difference between
resilience, perseverance, anddiscipline.
Um, and they're linked together,but there's, you know,
significantly different.
Perseverance is what you didgetting through medical school
(33:51):
it's grinding slower, noprogress, or it's a long way
off.
It's still sticking with it.
Discipline is doing everydaystuff regardless of comfort.
You we think about discipline asthe big stuff, but it's the, the
small stuff.
It's training when you don'twant to train or, doing leg
blasts when you're sore?
and resilience is recovery frombig setbacks.
You go to work tomorrow and getfired'cause you fuck up, and
(34:13):
then you gotta go out and findanother job resilience is more
difficult to get exposure to,but perseverance and discipline
are, are things that we can, Ithink that, what we have learned
is that it takes exposure.
It's just like physical fitness,where if you don't train it or
get exposure to it, it'lldegrade.
I've heard this from guys who'vebeen through special forces
selections, right?
After the selection.
They're in for 15 years andthey're not as mentally fit for
physical stressor as they werewhen they were going through
(34:36):
you.
You just haven't been exposed tothat type of stress.
So exposing yourself to thattype of stress and pushing
yourself.
Physical fitness is a great wayto do that, but it's not
everything.
I've seen too many athletes,professional athletes, who like
me, love to train.
You can hide behind fitnesstraining.
In other words, you can, uh, youknow,, be a SAR guy and, uh,,
(34:57):
what you really need to work onis your navigation and, your
communication skills and yourfrigging first aid stuff.
But instead you get in the gymevery day and you just hammer
step up.
We need to be working on otherstuff.
Patrick Fink MD (35:08):
you're good
Rob (35:08):
Right, that's the problem.
By following someone else'sprogramming it makes you do
stuff that you're notnecessarily good at.
So being pushed in thosedifferent ways, and it takes a
true professional.
To have the discipline to goback over basic first aid stuff,
to make sure they're solved inthe fundamentals.
And then also identify, theholes in their game, their whole
game, and target those and workon'em.
(35:30):
It takes a real professional tosee that.
Not only see that, but, but, uh,a craftsman to when they find
that, get excited about it.
'cause they get to learn andimprove in that certain way.
That's sort of true.
Craftsman is.
Patrick Fink MD (35:40):
That's fantastic.
I want to open up a small canand just have you tell us what
your nutritional recommendationsare.
I'm sure 90% of the listenerswill disagree with some part of
it,'cause that's how nutritionalways goes.
But what's, what's your line onnutrition for athletes?
Rob (35:57):
Yeah, first thing, we, we actually have on a, on a
website, ideal body weight spaceon height.
And, uh, it's pretty lean.
What we do know about allphysical, uh, performance is
that the, the most lean athletesare generally the best athletes.
I think part of that is they canmove faster because they're
carrying around, less body fat.
But it could also be because youget to a low body fat, you have
(36:18):
to be disciplined and thattransfers over to the other
areas of their, professional ortheir sport.
But our nutritional guidelinesare pretty simple, cut all
refined sugar, everything.
The more you can cut, thebetter, especially in
condiments.
Don't drink calories, no fruitjuice, really cut back on all
fruit.
Primarily eat protein, and,leafy vegetables.
If you're under 40, you cancheat one day a week.
(36:40):
Cheat like a mother grossyourself, you know, ice cream
doesn't matter.
You'll find that if you stick tothis diet for a while, you don't
cheat as much'cause you justfeel like crap after, after you
cheat.
But if you're over 40, you gottacut your cheat days,
significantly if you have one atall.
Of alcohol, don't drink beer orwine.
If you're gonna drink, I'm not atea toler.
Drink hard liquor'cause there'sless calories.
And, uh, no caloricrestrictions.
(37:01):
I found that if you're hungry,you can't stay on a diet.
Get all that crap outta yourhouse, if you can.
'cause we're all succumbeded to,uh, temptation.
But if you're younger under 40and you're able to cut all
sugar, we actually did a ministudy one time where we had, one
group of athletes, follow thoserecommendations and another
group athletes just cut sugar.
And the group athletes who justcut sugar, lost as much body
(37:24):
fat.
as group athletes.
But overall, If you're able tocut all refined sugar and, also
cut bad carbs, which are bread,pasta, all the good stuff,
right?
I could eat that all day.
Um, but that's the worst foryou.
Focus your diet around proteinand a few leafy vegetables.
Don't drink calories.
You will shed body fat.
Patrick Fink MD (37:42):
Great.
Well, I, I wanna be respectfulof your time.
We're coming up on an hour.
I want to hear your explanationof what you mean when you talk
about a quiet professional.
Rob (37:50):
Yeah.
This is an idea that, I'vethought about for, for many
years.
The idea of a quiet professionalis a person who, we know'em, um,
a few organizations, identifyand celebrate by
professionalism.
The military doesn't.
The, these are the people whoare key to the organizational
function.
(38:10):
Oftentimes, they're not inleadership, uh, because they put
the mission first over their ownambition or promotion, and
they'll see something that needsto be done on the mission of the
fall in those roles.
They're the craftsmen, they'rethe people who, um, I, I've done
a lot of thinking and work aboutthe craftsmanship ethic, which
is really interesting andliberating.
If you, if you love your work,um, and that's where you're, you
(38:33):
know, continually improved.
Always chasing excellence.
No, you'll never get it and areexcited when you, when you find
out that you've made a mistake.
'cause you're, you get to learnsomething, uh, right.
And, uh, what, what reallydrives you is just learning more
about, about the work.
So they, they put mission first.
They're, they're humble.
They're wise in the sense that,wisdom takes work.
(38:53):
Everybody has experience.
Just'cause you're experienced,you know, it doesn't mean
you're, you're wise.
We've all met bitter,75-year-old, old people, right?
And if you're bitter and you're75 years old, I mean, you're not
wise.
You clearly didn't learnsomething.
No one likes to be around thosepeople.
And no one wants to be thatperson.
You didn't figure something out,right?
Wisdom takes work.
It takes reflection.
(39:14):
It takes forgiving yourself.
It takes commitment not to makea better decision in the future,
but it's really unpacking themistake you made or what you did
well, humor and humility.
Those two are brothers.
Right, seeing humor and stuffand, uh, being humble, embracing
the suck.
Not in a, you know, wear it onyour t-shirt way, you know, like
a CrossFit athlete or a Spartancompetitor.
(39:36):
Everything's hard and, a quietprofessional knows that,
adversity is coming.
Like if things are going easy, Iget a little suspicious.
I'm like, uh oh, I know it'scoming.
Uh, but when it arrive, it's notlike you resent it.
It's like, ah, there you are.
I knew you're coming.
You know, this is gonna make mebetter.
I'm gonna learn from it.
Or another thing to, you know,to move, to move through.
So it's kind of all thosedifferent things together.
(39:57):
The quiet professional in yourworld, you know, is probably
that, one solid nurse that youknow, who has turned down
promotions because they'rereally good at what they do and
they like what they do right?
They just like learning there.
Or they're, they're that oneperson in the organization who
is really key and you don't knowuntil they're gone, all the
different stuff that they didbecause they're not looking for
recognition.
(40:17):
They're doing this stuff that,isn't glamorous often.
Dirty.
If you see something wrong, fixit no matter if it's your job or
not, right?
Usually it's not your job.
Patrick Fink MD (40:26):
What I like to do in the, the er, I don't think
I meet the full standards of thequiet professional, just to be
clear.
But, As an example, is gettingblankets for patients like that
is totally below the level atwhich my license lets me
operate.
And it's a hundred percent thepatients and the nursing staff
want to see from a doctor.
(40:46):
And it's the kind of thing whereyou could think you're above
that and.
message does that, does thatsend to people?
Rob (40:51):
Yeah.
I think, I think it is.
I mean, like the only, uh, quietprofessional was like Jesus,
right?
The rest of us are, you know,kind of, it's, it's an
aspirational goal and you alwaysfall short.
But it's a, it's a worthyaspirational goal.
It's not a career advancer.
In my mind the greatest elementto it is the idea of pursuing
craftsmanship.
In whatever, occupation you'reworking in, because it is so
enriching if you can transferover from resenting the work
(41:15):
because you have to do it orwhatever.
Just the idea of craftsmanshipand embracing that ethic, it's a
very liberating, you end up,being, a happy grinder, you
know, before you're like, agrinder can be a happy grinder
because you're, you're learningstuff more, you're, you're not
as bitter, you know, you likegrinding with a, you know,
smile.
It's pretty cool.
Patrick Fink MD (41:32):
It's'cause you're there for a different
reason at that point, right?
You're not trying to advanceyourself.
You enjoy the process more thanthe outcome.
Rob (41:39):
The process, the journey.
You like it when you, you fuckup.
'cause you, you know, you needto learn something or you, you
see, uh, you know, someonepoints out a mistake in your
work.
It's just a very liberating wayto be, to think about your work.
And it can be applied to anyjob.
You don't have to be a wordworker to be a craftsman.
It can be, you know, somebodylike me who's, you know, pretty
much designs strength, conditionprogramming or someone like you
(42:00):
so is up.
So does up hurt people.
Right.
You know, every, every stitchcould be better.
Right.
Like you've seen, I, I'm sureI'm, I'm sure you've seen, uh,
you know, another doctor, uh, doa job you do all the time and
go, wow.
You know, that that's a piece ofart right there and you can
aspire to that.
Right.
That's kind of cool, isn't it?
Or a nurse who has incrediblebedside manners or, or, or a
doctor who talks down.
(42:21):
A scared parent,
Patrick Fink MD (42:23):
Right.
Rob (42:23):
right?
They have incredible skills.
Those are, that's all part ofcraftsmanship.
Patrick Fink MD (42:26):
Mm-hmm.
Well, thank you Rob.
I appreciate you taking the timeto talk with us and get into the
nitty gritty about some thatmaybe you haven't thought about
before, like the, the VolunteerSAR member.
People wanna learn more aboutMountain Tactical Institute,
where should they find it?
Rob (42:41):
Mtn tactical.com, I answered dozens of questions
every day.
Just rob@mtntactical.com and,uh, happy to answer questions.
I always like learning and Ilearned something today.
We gotta develop a, volunteerSAR fitness assessment and
training plan.
It's great.
I love, I love assessments.
It makes the coach identifywhat's important, right?
And you have to make choices.
You know, we can't, we can'ttrain for everything.
(43:02):
So it, it'll be a really goodexercise for me.
Patrick Fink MD (43:06):
That's it for this episode of Wilderness
Medicine Updates.
I hope you enjoyed thatconversation with Rob.
I know we got into the weeds ona couple different topics, but I
think it's useful informationand if it piques your interest,
I would really encourage you totry one of his training plans.
We're talking, uh, 35,$40investment.
(43:27):
It's not a lot of money and likewe touched on in the show, he
uses equipment.
Minimal plans for a lot of this,so you can get by with having an
18 inch step of some kind ofsandbag, a pair of dumbbells and
a pull up bar.
And with that, you can get somefull body fitness that is going
to make you feel better out inthe mountains, make you safer,
(43:48):
make you more resistant toinjury.
As I mentioned during the intro,Rob has been really kind in
offering a discount to listenersof this show.
So the first 50 listeners whoare search and rescue or patrol
professionals or what have you,who reach out to Rob.
Can get a discount 20% off thepurchase of an MTI training
(44:11):
plan.
So reach out torob@mtntactical.com.
Again, the email isrob@mtntactical.com.
Send him a copy of yourcredentials, be that your search
and rescue membership, yourprofessional membership, your
NSP, your icar, your countycredentials, whatever that may
(44:31):
be.
Rob wants to offer this topeople who are getting out there
and doing the job.
The plans are still affordable.
If you're just a recreationistwho can't, take advantage of
Rob's generous offer.
But I will put his email down inthe show notes along with
everything else that we talkedabout.
If you're not familiar with theleg blasters, the Scotty Bobs
(44:51):
the the touch jump.
Touch intervals.
You can find links to thosethings down in the show notes.
Rob has also developed aassessment, fitness assessment
and training plan for search andrescue professionals.
After our conversation, the linkis in there.
The assessment is pretty cool.
You perform a number of tasksback to back, to back to back.
Keep track of how well you didon each of those.
(45:13):
And then there's a scoringsystem to tell you how you're
doing.
There's targets for both,professional and part-time
members, so take a look at that.
If you're involved in search andrescue, I don't think you'll
find anything quite like itanywhere else.
You'll also find links in theshow notes to the eight core
attributes of mental fitness,the difference between
(45:33):
resilience, perseverance, anddiscipline.
Links to other things mentionedin the show like Rob's ideal
body weights for different typesof mountain athletes and his
nutritional recommendations.
So again, I hope that this was avaluable conversation to you.
I'm interested in your feedbackon the show.
If you liked it and you wantmore of this.
Content that is directed towardsthe profession of being outside
(45:57):
and delivering high quality carein the outdoors, please do let
me know.
As with everything, everyepisode, I love hearing from
you, my email is wildernessmedicine updates@gmail.com.
Whether you just want to passalong feedback, you have ideas
for guests, or show topics thatyou want me to address, reach
out to me there and I'll getback to you as listeners of the
(46:19):
show.
I really value your time.
I want to make sure that I'mbringing you content that is
useful to you in the next coupleof months.
You can look forward to aconversation that I had with
Laura Mclare from ResponderAlliance about psychological
trauma sustained by the rescuerand by professionals and how to
mitigate that and have a longand happy career in the
(46:40):
outdoors.
But I'm also gonna be gettinginto the core content like I did
last year for.
Avalanche Resuscitation gonnadig into the core content of
cold illness, hypothermia, andresuscitation of that as the
beginner of our winter season.
So I hope that you're gonna lookforward to that and that that'll
be valuable to you as well.
(47:01):
If you want to kick back andgive some support to the show,
this is a passion project.
I don't make any money on it.
I just spend a lot of my time onit.
So if you like it, please shareit with someone who you think
would benefit from hearing thisepisode.
Another member of your searchand rescue.
A friend that you go out intothe mountains with who's always
one step ahead of you or alittle bit stronger.
(47:22):
Or your partner who's a littleslower and could use a little
bit of help, a little bit oftraining share with someone
who's gonna like to hear fromRob and will benefit from
learning more about chassisintegrity.
That's it for this episode ofWilderness Medicine Updates.
Until next time stay fit, stayfocused, and have fun.
Welcome back to Wilderness Medicine.
Updates the show for providersat the edges.
Here's your host, Patrick Fink.
Patrick Fink MD (00:26):
Thank you for that.
Welcome back everyone.
I have an exciting show for youtoday.
We're gonna do a littlesomething different and move
away from the science andliterature of wilderness
medicine and focus on somepractical information.
For those of you who might beparticipants in search and
rescue, might be ski patrollersmay have a role as a rescuer in
the outdoors.
I am excited to bring for you.
(00:47):
I'm excited to bring you a showwith Rob Shaw.
Rob is the founder and headcoach at Mountain Tactical
Institute, MTI used to be calledMountain Athlete, and it's a gym
based in Jackson, Wyoming.
They address the fitness needsof mountain athletes,
particularly the guides who areworking in Jackson, who are
going up and down the TetonMountains every day of the
summer and winter.
(01:08):
Rob took that business and grewit to meet other mission
specific demands.
What do we mean by that?
I mean the needs of specificgroups like military personnel
preparing for special forcesselection or police officers who
need to maintain job specificfitness, different from
firefighters, different fromrecreational mountain athletes.
So Rob has done a great job ofsegmenting these training
(01:30):
populations out there anddelivering training content that
is specific to them.
I have no affiliation withMountain Tactical Institute.
I don't get money from Rob fordoing this show.
I found MTI myself, when I wastrying to address my own fitness
needs.
I was looking for mountainspecific fitness programming and
that's what led me to Rob andI've enjoyed doing his training
programs, many of which areequipment, minimal and
(01:52):
achievable at home.
When I do this training, I feelstronger in the mountains.
I feel like I have greaterreserve and I enjoy what I'm
doing more, and I hope thatthat's something that you could
enjoy as well.
I also really appreciate thatRob has two different ways to
pay him for his training.
You can subscribe and get adaily fitness programming
delivered to you for differentfitness domains, but what I
(02:12):
like, what I prefer is that youcan make a one-time purchase,
buy an affordable training planfrom Rob and have that plan for
life.
Use it annually to prepareyourself for specific needs or
specific goals, and they have agreat app to walk you through
that training plan day by day.
It.
We dive into a lot of topicshere.
How to prepare yourselfphysically for seasonal work, be
that ski patrol or wildlandfire, how to address the fitness
(02:35):
needs of a search and rescuemember, or ski patroller, who's
in season, who has part-timerole in search and rescue, or
works in a non-physical job forthe rest of their life.
I hope that you'll listen tothis with an open mind.
Rob gives nutritionalrecommendations for industrial
athletes.
We discuss professionalism andtraining craftsmanship in your
career and more.
(02:55):
I think you can get somethingout of it.
I know that fitness andnutrition are things that people
have a lot of opinions aboutthat are closely held, like
religious beliefs, but I thinkif you come to this conversation
with an open mind, you'll findif nothing else, some useful
concepts to take back to whatyou're already doing.
Maybe Rob's chassis integrityconcept connects with you or you
find his nutritional informationbeneficial or.
(03:19):
You become interested in theusefulness of the sandbags for
training for industrialathletes, and you take that back
to your own training.
So be sure to listen through tothe end of the podcast because
Rob has been kind enough to makean offer to the listeners of
this show who are in search andrescue, ski patrol, or other
such professional orsemi-professional roles.
Now without further delay, hereis my conversation with Rob
(03:43):
Shaw.
I hope you enjoy.
Rob, thanks for joining me onthe podcast.
I'm excited to have you on herebecause I've used your training
plans previously.
I've gotten a lot of benefit outof them and I now find myself in
a position where I'm moving intomedical direction roles and can
encourage folks that I work withto start branching out thinking
(04:04):
about preseason training.
I want to, give my listeners whoI think are predominantly search
and rescue and ski patrol folks.
A framework for thinking aboutthe fitness demands of their job
and how they should beaddressing those.
bet that there's a pretty widevariety of folks out there in
terms of some are doing nothing,others are probably, deep in the
world of CrossFit.
(04:25):
I think your background isperfect here, and we'll dive a
little bit more into the missionspecific thoughts.
let's just start with anintroduction from you.
Where are you coming from withMountain Athlete and how did
that become the MountainTactical Institute?
Rob (04:39):
So I was in, my, mid late thirties, uh, sold a company
and, uh, before I had sold, I'dalways been a gym rat.
Grew up, uh, small town ofWyoming, and, did some time in
the military.
I was in the Coast Guard, wentback to my small town, started a
business,.
I'd always been a gym rat, notmuch of an athlete.
The mountains were my gym, youknow, a 20 mile loop, no
problem.
(04:59):
Those types of things.
There was real no commercial gymthere.
And, this, uh, physical therapyplace had like a universal
machine of one rack and a bunchof treadmills.
And I, I'd go in there trainthat the owner started noticing
that, you know, people were kindof watching what I was doing.
And so I took like a weekendcourse got a cheesy, uh,
personal training,certification.
And so started teaching, coursesI had all, pretty much all
(05:21):
soccer moms, but these are likesome badass soccer moms.
I'd have'em go out and, uh, youknow, we'd get out in the
summer.
There was an irrigation ditchabove the place.
I, I'd make'em swim against thecurrent irrigation ditch, run
downhill, do burpees, pick uplock.
They just loved it, you know,they just ate it up.
And so Jackson's a little bitnorth decided to go up.
Jackson and I, I wanted to workwith mountain guides and on the
mountain side.
So I started Mountain Athlete.
(05:42):
I thought it'd be interesting.
Had no idea really what I wasgetting into, because I was
bringing to it everything I'dlearned studying for,
strengthening conditioning.
the existing strength andconditional literature for,
mountain athletes, was prettymuch non-existent.
I remember reading the rockclimbing books and they were
talking mostly about mentalstuff and hand movements all
that stuff didn't work, startedexperimenting in the gym.
That's where we kind of got, youknow, my first season, training
(06:04):
for, dry land ski stuff.
I had my athletes doing lots ofdead lifts, lots of back squats.
Oh my God, their legs were sostrong.
Then they came back from thefirst day at the lift and they
were all pissed at me becausethey got smoke skiing.
I'm like, how is this possible?
Well, it turns out when you ski,you, don't use concentric
strength, moving your legs up orcoming up from the squat.
(06:25):
You're, you actually, your bodyis.
Bouncing down the hill,gravity's bouncing down the
hill.
And it's your job, your legs, tostop your ass from hitting the
ground every time you bounce.
So you gotta decelerate, andthat's called eccentric strength
training.
Totally messed that up.
Made the same mistake with, uh,rock climbers.
Um, gotta learn a lot.
That season started, uh, youknow, designing specifically for
(06:45):
mountain athletes.
Pretty much had to venteverything.
All my rock climbing theory camefrom me'cause all the books are
terrible.
You know, no one developed orfound leg blasters to start
training eccentric strength forskiers.
I got really good identifyingthe fitness demands of an
activity and designingprogramming specifically for
those fitness demands.
And, uh, 2009, Obama did theAfghanistan surge.
(07:06):
We were getting our asses kickedin Afghani.
Served in, I think there weresix 8,000 troops there, surgeon
30 more thousand.
And guys, uh, going down rangeAfghanistan, were getting
smoked, doing mountain patrolsbecause a, you know, we're
running and rucking on flatstuff.
So I developed a plant calledLee Afghanistan, pre-deployment
plan.
Give it away to thousands ofguys.
I remember, I, I lost count at13 battalion commanders.
(07:28):
He did their entire battalions.
And, uh, that kind of kicked usover into the tactical side.
And pretty soon those guys wereasking for plans for ranger
school and special forcesselections.
And then, on the mountainprofessional side, rangers, some
SAR professionals, wildlandFire, started getting requests
for programming.
Generally, I start designingprogramming when I get a request
for it.
And so, uh, it kind of buildsorganically but the overall
(07:51):
theory that we developed,identifying the fitness demands
of the activity, the exercisethat trained those fitness
demands, we can't train forevery fitness demands, just the
ones we can train efficiently inthe gym.
Um, identify end of cycle goals,pretty much program backward to
get to those goals.
Start the progression and hammerdown.
For example, our mountain, basefitness programming has a
significant bias towards uphillendurance.
(08:12):
Just about every mountain sportstarts with a hike uphill.
And so we do a lot of runningor, step ups or uphill hiking
under load in our mountain basefitness.
They still train relativestrength and work capacity, all
their stuff, but there's a biastowards, uphill endurance.
The military athlete, instead ofhiking uphill, they rock.
They run the, for their workcapacity, they'll do sprints
repeats, which is similar tomovement under fire, sprint, get
(08:35):
down, up sprint again, someone'sshooting at you.
So there's just all these typesof different things that we do.
We're always constantly testingand evaluating and improving.
And, that's the story of MTI.
Patrick Fink MD (08:46):
It is, an impressive progression from
beginning in Pinedale.
You touched on this briefly, butI think it's a useful concept to
think about.
How do you think about thedifferent types of athletes and
the relative demands for those?
I'm thinking about an industrialversus a recreational athlete or
a tactical athlete.
How do you parse those out
Rob (09:06):
Um, it's, it's real easy to do this to, to see a difference
on the mountain side.
Like I have ideal body weightsfor, different athletes based on
height and, the mountain athletebody weights are lower than the
tactical athlete body weights.
Tactical athletes, generallyhave, uh, higher strength
demands.
Their packs are heavier.
Let me just give you an example.
A, you know, like a, aprofessional rock climber or a
(09:27):
recreational athlete, he's analpine climber or, uh, wants to
compete in ski mountaineering.
Races really don't need muchupper body strength, right?
And so there's no use putting alot of upper body mass on him, I
don't know if you've ever seena, tour de France, competitor
for of those cycling races withtheir shirt off?
I mean, I mean it's total spoonchest.
Yeah, right.
So, any extra upper body mass isjust, extra weight they gotta
(09:48):
carry around.
So there are some significantdifferences, but if you are a,
what I would call an industrialathlete, someone who, is getting
paid, to do a specific job,they're not competing in a
sport.
The, the fitness demands you'regonna face are not as
identifiable as they are for aschema racer.
Schema racer can get down.
I mean, for a specific race, Iknow exactly how much vertical,
(10:12):
exactly how much downhill, youknow, idea of how long the race
is gonna be, all that otherstuff.
If you go out on a,, SAR missionand it's supposed to be a
simple, you know, say a couplesnowmobiles got lost, it could
turn into a multi-day event.
You know, um, your pack's gonnabe heavier'cause you gotta carry
extra gear in.
Like your med bag, right?
That shit's heavy.
(10:32):
So the, the strength loads forindustrial athletes, the, I
mean, the packs are heavier,period.
So that means they have morestrength.
Plus you might get there andthen you gotta lift, you know,
the sled off the guy or pick himup you know, all that other
stuff happens.
So industrial athletes need tobe stronger, which means they
need to be heavier because thestrength is muscle and the
session to weight, they need todo more strengthening.
(10:54):
We need to give more emphasis totheir midsection strength.
The main difference from myperspective is the events are
not as predictable.
Every rescue's a little bitdifferent or could be different,
it could turn into somethingcrazy and you have to be
prepared for it.
So the, what you're preparingfor is less known, which means
that the, the fitness trainingneeds to be a little more
comprehensive and a little moregeneral than it would be for a
(11:15):
specific event.
Patrick Fink MD (11:16):
So if you were a SAR member or.
Professional ski patrollercoming into an upcoming season
and you're thinking to yourself,well, I'm, I'm a very active
person.
I go out, I ride my mountainbike all the time.
I trail run, I carry my kidsaround.
Where are the deficits gonna befor the professional role in
comparison to just what someoneaccomplishes recreationally.
Rob (11:40):
I, I can't tell you that on, on the mountain side,
there's, there's not really atradition, uh, strength
conditioning preparation forskiing.
There are some exceptions tothat.
The hardest athletes, hardestworking athletes, and most
dedicated professional athletesI've ever worked with are world
Cup ski racers.
Those guys get after it.
I mean, they are, you know,they're fit and they train in
the gym hard, and it's part ofthat culture.
(12:01):
But if you're a ski patrollergoing in, and let's say, I mean,
ski patroller is a, you know,seasonal job.
Let's say your summer job is,you know, as a ranger or working
construction, whatever it is.
You're not gonna have theeccentric leg strength or
strength endurance to handleski.
You're just like anybody else.
But here's the difference.
A recreational athlete whodoesn't prepare for ski season
gets up there and on the thirdday of the first week, decides
(12:25):
to take one more run even thoughhis legs are smoked, you know,
pops his ACL'cause he gets lazyor falls down or whatever.
And then the ski patrol has togo up and execute, the rescue
and bring him down.
Um, the difference is that theski patroller, if, if that
person goes into the season andhe's not, or she's not ready,
fitness wise for that event,well now they have this other
person depending on'em to getdown the hill.
(12:46):
And if they're also tired andsmoked, it's just a cascade of
issues that could result in,something that should be simple.
Um.
Turn into, something that couldbe bad, not just because a ski
patroller wasn't professionalabout their fitness before they
started their professional job.
If you're a professional, amountain professional, you need
to be professional by yourfitness and prepared for what
(13:06):
could happen on day one.
And, if you're not, then beenunprofessional by your fitness
Patrick Fink MD (13:11):
well, and you, you stand potentially not just
to lose your ski vacation, butyour livelihood for the winter.
If you go out with an injury inthe, in the early weeks.
Rob (13:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's, that's another componentthough.
I don't think a lot of peopleunderstand that I worked lots of
mountain guides.
They're not salaried, right?
They're contract workers, and, aknee can take out an entire year
of earnings for a mountainguide.
So yeah, it's certainlysomething to be, considerate
about.
We do know that the best way tobe durable for a specific sport
or event is to be supported,specifically fit for that event,
(13:42):
right?
So we have our athletes on thetactical side, we'll have'em run
with ruck.
Because if you go to rangerschool they have a 12 mile ruck
with the, like 60 pounds andbefore that they're getting
smoked.
So a lot of those guys, youknow, they gotta run the last
six miles to make the, to makethe time or they are part of it.
They've never done that before.
Um, you know, they, they'reasking for injury.
(14:02):
So yeah, you need to be ideally,um, prior to training, know what
it feels like and be fit for it.
Patrick Fink MD (14:09):
So you saying that you can just do the sport I
can get fit for skiing by justskiing a lot.
Rob (14:13):
Absolutely.
What I mean by that is, uh, theproblem is that you can't ski
year round, right?
So, it's different from day oneversus middle of the season.
Ideally, you come into it andyou're fit.
Now certainly if it's in themiddle of the season, you're
skiing every day.
Your legs are pretty fit forskiing, but that's the middle of
a season.
Right.
So, unless you're, going downsouth to or New Zealand every
(14:35):
year, and I did have a coupleguides who do that.
They're crazy, eternal winters.
I wouldn't want that.
Uh, but uh, yeah, they, youknow, they would just ski year
round and uh, they have to worrya little bit about overuse
injuries and stuff like that.
But, you know, getting injuredfrom a, you know, ski injury is
not that big of a concern.
So that's something that comesup.
I take, I can tell you it's alot more fun to just ski, to get
fit for skiing than it is to doleg blasters.
(14:57):
And our touch up to intervals,they suck.
But you're not gonna be fit today one of the season.
It's gonna take time to do that.
And, you cannot escape the work.
You're gonna have to do the workone way or the other.
And so from my perspective, ifyou're a mountain professional,
who gonna ski hill?
If you're not fit for skiingwhen you arrive day one, uh,
that's very unprofessional.
And if you're a professionalcompeting athlete and you're not
(15:20):
fit from day one.
You're gonna get smoked.
You're not professional aboutyour sport, and someone else who
comes in fit is gonna, you'renot gonna get the podium.
Patrick Fink MD (15:26):
So let's take this and make it specific to ski
patrol and just dive in therefirst.
And then I'd like to dig intosearch and rescue as well.
So, the demands on ski patrol,as we've already highlighted, is
that it's, it's a full-time jobwith various demands.
It's strongly seasonal.
There's kind of two sets ofdemands that I can imagine
(15:47):
there.
There's the preparation forseason and then there's the
in-season maintenance.
Let's consider preparation forthe season.
How far in advance of startingin that setting would you
recommend that someone startspreparing and training for that
role?
Rob (16:00):
Uh, depending on the training time, at least four
weeks.
And, six weeks would be best tobe really fit for the, when the
season starts, our, our drylandprogramming is primarily focused
on, eccentric lake strength and,what I call leg lactate
tolerance, or the ability justto take long days on the hill.
If you think about, a full dayof skiing, there are individual
parts that are strength, youknow, short, explosive, demands,
(16:24):
but it's it's really a strengthendurance effort, right?
At the end of the day.
Um, there's a lot of impact onyour leg.
So it's an endurance effort andit takes time to develop
strength endurance.
You just can't, do it quickly.
So those are the two things tobe focused on.
Um
Patrick Fink MD (16:37):
But
Rob (16:38):
also,, because of the heavier pack, and the upper
body, strength that might be, Imean, ski patrolers, you know,
they're doing their, opening,closing lots of, like, they're
carrying shovels everywhere,right?
They might need to dig peopleout of, uh, you know, digging
somebody out of a avalanche isa, core upper body work
capacity, full on effort, right?
Their multimodal work capacityneeds to be high.
(16:59):
They need to have some upperbody strength.
All of these things aren'tnecessarily needed for a ski
racer or a free skier, but theyare for a ski patrol or if their
packs gonna be heavier, so theirmidsection needs to be stronger.
So all those things ideally comeinto the season.
Some of those things might carryover from their.
Summer fall work job, you know,if they're a ranger, hiking or
rucking, or they're workingconstruction or something, some
(17:20):
of those things might transferover, but what won't trance over
is the eccentric leg strength.
There's nothing, nothing thatreally changes for that.
Patrick Fink MD (17:25):
So if someone has not completed a dry land
training program before, what,what would they expect that
program to look like?
What kind of movements?
What kind of equipment is thissomething they can complete at
home?
Rob (17:37):
Yeah.
Our dry land ski programming isa limited equipment plan.
It doesn't require a weightroom.
One of the things we always tryto focus on is always to
simplify So there's two majorcomponents.
The focus of our dry skitraining is, eccentric leg
strength, which train you forbouncing down the hill and a leg
lactate tolerance, which is justa way to train, be able to put
off, having to stop.
(17:57):
And then if you do, stop, beable to recover really fast.
Two days a week you're doing legblasters and two days a week
you're doing, what we call justtouch, jump, touch intervals.
And, uh, we're just trainingthose two things.
And the plan is focused on thosetwo areas.
It includes some core work, itincludes some, upper body stuff,
but the focus is there.
That's, that's where the focusof skiing is.
And so we really focus on thoseareas.
(18:18):
So it's pretty much the samething every week.
Only harder as you go throughthe programming, you're doing
more and more leg blasters.
You're touchdown choppedintervals.
You're doing more work, lessrest, more work, less rest.
And, uh, it's no joke.
It, it, it hammers you.
Um, but ideally, you know, whenyou get to the season, you're
ready to go.
Patrick Fink MD (18:35):
For our listeners who aren't familiar
with some of these exercises, Ican put a link to, I know you
have videos for a lot of yourexercises.
We'll include the leg blastersin there so you can get a sense
of what we're talking about.
Do you know offhand whatequipment is needed for that
program, if any?
Rob (18:50):
The equipment for, our Dry Land Ski Pro is a, 12 to 15 inch
box, a 60 pound sandbag for men,40 pound for women, pair of,
dumbbells and a pull up bar anda foam foam roller.
So it's a really a limitedequipment program.
Patrick Fink MD (19:02):
When you get into the season.
Obviously you cannot train fiveto seven days a week in the same
manner that you can during thepreseason.
For someone who's working as aprofessional ski patroller and
is working on Hill five to sixdays a week, do you see any role
for training during the seasonor any preventative maintenance
to be done during that time?
Rob (19:22):
Yeah, we actually have an,, in season, training plan for
skiing.
And we have it set up for bothrecreational skiers and mountain
professionals and so the, youknow, during the in season, the,
the mount professionals, the skipatrols, they don't need to be
doing leg blasters anymore.
I just looked at our, in-seasondry line ski training for
mountain professionals.
It's two days a week and it'sheavy strength and chassis
integrity work in the gym.
(19:42):
It's not doing leg blasters ormini blasters.
We're just trying to keep the,the overall strength and,
midsection strength for,durability.
I do find that stronger athletesoverall are harder to injure if,
if they do get injured, torecover faster.
Um, so just having total bodystrength is a way to make
yourself more durable?
Patrick Fink MD (20:01):
That leads me to one more question before we
turn our attention to search andrescue, which is say the
patrollers summer job was RAFguide.
They've been sitting on theirbutt and doing pulling motions
all summer.
Very not sports specific to skipatrol.
Do they need to develop any kindof base fitness, aerobic fitness
(20:22):
before jumping into a dry landprogram, or is it scalable
enough that they could start onweek one of your program and
survive it without injury?
Rob (20:31):
It depends on how much time they have to get ready for the
season.
I program for the fitnessdemands of the event or the
sport, not the incoming fitnessof the athlete.
The fitness demands for skipatroller are the same for every
ski patroller.
It doesn't matter what yoursummer job is, how old you are,
how small you are, if you're awoman, if you're a man, how fat
you are, right?
(20:52):
The fitness demands are thesame, and it's up to the athlete
to meet the fitness demands.
So if they get done with theirdrafting, you know, let's say
they.
You know, a typical mountaintown person, Ben's a mountain
town, right?
You know, they'll, they'll,they'll take and they'll do the
rafting, and then they'll gotake, you know, a few weeks off
and go to Mexico surfing orsomething, and then they'll come
in and they gotta go to skipatrolling.
(21:13):
And if they only got six weeks,you gotta jump into the, the dry
land program and just suffer.
Um, you're gonna be sore, it'sgonna suck, but, uh, that's on
you.
This is what you need to do.
Get ready for the season.
If you're professional, you'regonna be ready for the season.
So there's no shortcuts.
You're not special, you know,you make your own decisions and
that's just the way it is.
That's just part of beingprofessional about your fitness.
(21:33):
I get these questions all thetime, you know, like, you know,
I had a, a question from a, um,50-year-old firefighter, um,
recently So I don't like highimpact stuff.
I'm like, well, you know, your,your bunker gear weighs 70
pounds.
I mean, you know, I, I generallydo use steer stepper instead of
running, what do you have tosprint in your gear?
You know what I mean?
This happens a lot on the firstresponder side, but we call
(21:54):
legacy athletes.
You know, they've kind of gottenaway with not having to do
anything their whole career.
Now they're older, they thinkthey can still do it.
Yeah.
There's no, there's no slow firefor a 50-year-old, you know,
firefighters, you know what, ifyou have to drag somebody out
who's 200 pounds, which couldbe, I mean, I weigh 150 pounds,
put, uh, seven five pounds ofbunker gear on me.
I'm at 2 25, right?
And she drag me out, you know,not, not not doing, uh, body
(22:18):
weight squats.
He's gotta be doing high impact,you know, heavy stuff.
So, yeah, that's something that,that comes up.
Some people get away with it,their youth, um, and they, you
know, they get away with it'cause they're young.
But, I think you'll find themost, the most professional
people.
Are doing some type of fitnesstraining.
There's a link between peopleare professional about their
fitness and the way they treatthe rest of their job.
So I wouldn't never trust a, anunfit mountain guide.
(22:41):
I would never trust hisequipment, right?
Is he replacing his carabiners,right?
Is he replacing his ropes?
How are his rope skills?
How are all those other, youknow, technical elements?
Is he training those and up tospeed those?
cause clearly, you know, fitnessis a primary component of, ski
patrolling and mountain guiding.
And if he's let his fitness go,what else has he let go on the
(23:03):
technical side, right?
So if he sees a ski patroller,he is unfit, how's his, first
aid skills, right?
I would question it.
There's a link between them.
I mean, the, there's a reasonthat the most high speed,
military guys, you know,generally navigate towards the
Special forces units, wherethere's the biggest fitness
demand.
They attract just certain peoplewho are, are professional about
all elements of the work.
Patrick Fink MD (23:24):
They're in my relatively limited experience,
two groups of people inprofessional ski patrol.
There are people who are careerpatrollers, and there are those
who are there as a bridge tosome other world, usually in
medicine, whether that'sparamedic and fire or going
into, medical professions likenursing or, or doctors.
I think both stand to benefitfrom training, right?
(23:48):
Because both need to meet thedemands of their job.
But really, I think probably thecareer patroller is the one who
has the most on the line.
In terms of being able topreserve their function over the
long term and be able to performtheir job year after year.
As you put it, a 24-year-old mecan get away with a lot more the
37-year-old me in terms of lackof preparation, just showing up
(24:10):
and winging it.
I have to put in a little bitmore maintenance these days to
maintain strength, what you callchassis integrity.
Those, those features, so youcan actually show up ready and
not get hurt.
Rob (24:22):
It's interesting, you'll see again, especially at first
responder, but even in militaryunits, you know, I've, I've met
Senior Green Brasi are fat andoutta shape, right.
Because they, they think theyget older and they, you know,
I'm never gonna get in thatsituation or whatever.
Patrick Fink MD (24:36):
Let's turn our attention now to search and
rescue, which I'll, I'll outlinea little bit how I think that
that's probably different andthen we can work through it.
I think your average search andrescue participant is more, it's
volunteer.
It's part-time for them.
They have a day job.
They're not professionals andmost of their call outs are
gonna involve, as you said,hiking with heavy packs,
(24:58):
carryouts, litter transports,unknown demands.
So I would think the trainingobjective there would
potentially be more muscularendurance, injury resistance.
But the biggest challenge isprobably integrating it with
their life, with their day job.
So from your perspective, whatwould be the key physical and
mental demands of the search andrescue role that you would be
(25:20):
wanting to target with yourtraining?
Rob (25:22):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I've never actually been askedto, to design a plan for a
volunteer, mountain sar, memberI just did one for a, a
part-time SWAT team.
Um.
We'll, we'll get on that.
Yeah.
But, uh, right off the gap or atthe top?
Uphill endurance under load sowe're just doing step ups
probably with the heavy pack,heavy pack rucking.
I assume that those packs are 45to 55 pounds heavy.
(25:43):
Um, 35 at, you know, at least.
But yeah, probably that heavy,the worst thing to do is, you
know, be a, a SAR team memberand go out there and have to be
rescued because you're out,you're unfit.
Chassis integrity, would bedominant.
A lot of injuries can occur ifyou're just smoke from hiking
uphill.
Right?
Probably, as a preseason thing,um, working some leg blasters
just to train eccentric strengthif you don't have, a spot to
(26:06):
hike up and downhill.
As I got older, I started,packing, water uphill, to train.
And then I would jump to the topand, and come down and load it.
Just'cause the impact on myknees and in Jackson at Snow.
I know you can ride the liftdown, but that, you know, that
that downhill can impact you,but you still need that
strength.
Have you ever done our step up?
Were step ups before?
Yeah, they're total, totaldrudgery.
Patrick Fink MD (26:26):
Yes,
Rob (26:27):
I'm training for a, a hunting season here.
I did over a thousand thismorning, you know, and I got,
you know, the news on podcast.
But it, they fucking work.
Step ups are the most efficientway to train uphill.
And, and you don't need anyequipment.
He needs a pack in a box and,uh, podcast and, uh, you just
gotta grind.
You need to probably do somestep up or some, leg blasters
and, chassis integrity,midsection work.
(26:49):
And, like in the dry line skiprogram, the dumbbells are used
just for, exercise we callScotty Bobs, which is, uh,
pretty much a pushup in a rowwith dumbbells.
It's a great, very efficient twofor one, pretty damn hard t for
one upper body exercise, it'sjust really efficient, really
quick.
And you can do in between legblasters and I can get a T for
one in there.
So.
Yeah, it's not, not complicated.
(27:10):
It's just, it's just hard, youknow?
So ideally, the ideal standardis like a thousand step ups at
45 pounds.
In an hour or, or 50 minutes, Ithink the best guy is under 40
minutes.
I think my best time's like 50minutes.
Twight, he used to say, if youcan do 2000 vertical in 45
minutes, I think it was unloadedwould be his standard for, which
isn't, that isn't a push.
(27:31):
And I've actually done thatmyself.
Patrick Fink MD (27:32):
achievable.
Rob (27:33):
yeah, that's pretty achievable.
So I'll develop an assessmentfor a part-time sar.
The, the tricky part forpart-time sars, it is part-time,
they don't know when the call iscoming.
They have the other job oractivities going on.
Maybe the other training, maybethey're a Ironman triathlete or
something, and they're not doingstep ups.
So, I guess it depends on howmuch importance they put on
their part-time work.
And I think maybe they rely onthe, the full-time people, if
(27:56):
there are any, to be able to,fill in the gaps fitness wise,
that's a tricky one.
Patrick Fink MD (28:00):
If you're showing up to a star, call out,
you have an obligation to, toperform, but also your goal is
to avoid injury.
You don't want to impact the dayjob or you're gonna have to have
to leave the SAR on the side.
So, in addition to, just workcapacity as a, as an insurance
against injury.
Can you speak a little bit tothe chassis integrity concept
(28:23):
and how that ties into both thedemands of the role and keeping
people healthy on the job?
Rob (28:29):
Yeah, chassis integrity is a, kind of the midsection
training, methodology that Ideveloped.
It came about after I had, uh,stepped away from my own,
programming and just did somestuff myself.
Did a lot of body weight, chestintegrity, mostly ground based
stuff like we always done, youknow, crunches and all that
crap.
Went back to the gym.
Load up some heavy front squatsand my midsection collapsed.
It wasn't very strong.
Even though I was crushingsitups.
(28:50):
Uh, so the idea is the, themidsection is like a barrel of
muscle.
Um, it's this barrel of musclethat connects the legs to the
upper body, and a lot of thetorque comes from the upper
body.
You know, if you imagine pullingsomebody or, you know, moving
something heavy from one side tothe other And the midsection,
has some roles.
Um, part of it is movement, youknow, extension, picking up
(29:11):
something heavy, but sometimes alot of rotation, strength, but
also just an isometric, bracingcore strength, a lot of times
anti-rotation.
Prior to development, chassintegrity, we'd always had our
core.
I trained different movements.
We had'em like fire movements,so flexion, isometric,
rotational, extension, but theywere, a lot of'em were
ground-based movements, likesit-ups and stuff.
(29:32):
And, uh, what Chass Integritydid was I started doing the bulk
of our midsection exercises,from standing or kneeling so
that the midsection had to work,in conjunction with the lower
body and upper body.
That's, that's the integrity,right?
It had to maintain the integrityof the system between the two.
And I thought it would be, ifwe're gonna train for that, why
don't we just fucking train forit?
(29:53):
So, we also started using a lotof sandbag stuff., There's
something about a 60 poundsandbag that is so much heavier
than a 60 pound dumbbell or a 60pound barbell.
I don't know what it is, but a60 pound sandbag is a fucking
lot heavier than a 60 poundbarbell.
It's bulky and it's in theweight and it's awkward and all
that, all that stuff helps workthat midsection in a much more
(30:13):
functional way to what you'regonna pick up in the field,
whatever it is.
Our chassis integrity not onlytrains strength, but these are
endurance terms that trainstrength endurance.
And so, for a SAR athlete, ifthey have a long approach or
something and they're reallytired from the endurance effort,
everything else is, you know,that's why mountain endurance
comes first.
For mountain sports, you know,uphill movement under load has
(30:35):
to come first.
That's the most important thing.
But after that, the chassisintegrity, is probably the next
important because, it helps yoube strong in, in these ways that
are just so awkward that foralmost any rescue mission,
there's gonna be some type oflifting that is gonna be
awkward.
And if you don't have thatstrength there, you're just
asking for a low back injury,pretty much.
Right?
But even.
More important than injuryprevention is just function.
(30:57):
You wanna be able to get thatperson from one side of the body
to the other, from the ground tothe gurney or whatever it is.
And, the chassis integrity workhelps you do that.
It's amazing how much, uh, howmuch work you can get in with
the sandbag and, uh, somesimple, you know, it intricated
exercises.
To train that midsection forfunctional strength.
Patrick Fink MD (31:14):
The difference between the barbell and the
sandbag is obvious to anyparents out there who know how
much heavier a 45 pound childis, than a 45 pound dumbbell.
People are, are awkward, heavy,hard to move, and the sandbag is
much more analogous to thatwork.
Rob (31:30):
Yeah, you know, a, a chainsaw is a lot different and
awkward, more awkward than abarbell two, right?
So there's almost no,, piece of,equipment out there that's heavy
or whatever.
You're lifting on a star missionthat is gonna be as easy to grip
and move around.
As a barbell, it's all gonna beawkward.
Patrick Fink MD (31:44):
So star work can often be sort of exhausting,
thankless, sometimes dangerous.
You have emphasized mentaltoughness for industrial
athletes.
What strategies do you have tocultivate that kind of
resilience and build a trainingculture that can carry over into
the field during long rescues?
Rob (32:04):
Yeah, I like to call it mental fitness.
I've been doing a lot ofthinking about, mental fitness,
recently, I had someexperiences, where I had, some
world class optimists come intothe gym years ago, and we just
put'em through a short workcapacity, effort, maybe swings
or sprints or something.
And it seemed like they werementally weak.
And, uh, and they're like, oh, Imean, I, I've never been on a
(32:25):
Himalaya alpine climb, butthey're out there climbing a 40
below.
I mean, these guys are, they'retough.
You know what I mean?
So I, I take a step back andthen it turns out the next time
they came in a couple dayslater, similar effort, they did
a lot better.
So, I learned from that, andI've seen it in my own life,
that mental fitness is, modespecific.
So if you're familiar with themode, if you're familiar, what
(32:47):
it feels like, you're gonna bemore mentally fit.
So, you haven't been putting inyour step ups or your uphill
grind and you're, hiking up3000, vertical feet to direct
you some guy, then your mentalfitness is not gonna be strong.
Being more physically fit makesyou more mentally fit, right?
For that mode.
You know, it can be mentally fitin a, in uh, physical stressor,
(33:07):
you know, but it comes with ahard conversation with your
wife, not be very mentally fit,right?
So, it's more specific.
The other thing is that it canbe built like you're talking
about, I'm, I'm thinking abouthow we could actually train
mental fitness in a moreconscious way.
I just wrote, something, alittle bit ago I developed
eight, uh, core attributes andmental fitness, you know, like
perseverance, resilience,discipline, mental endurance,
(33:30):
which is, you know, beingmentally sharp, you know, after
24 hour, you know, like you in amercy room, right?
You know, you're coming off a 12hour shift.
I hope you're mentally sharp at,you know, 1145 and my kid comes
in, I just recently wrote aboutthe difference between
resilience, perseverance, anddiscipline.
Um, and they're linked together,but there's, you know,
significantly different.
Perseverance is what you didgetting through medical school
(33:51):
it's grinding slower, noprogress, or it's a long way
off.
It's still sticking with it.
Discipline is doing everydaystuff regardless of comfort.
You we think about discipline asthe big stuff, but it's the, the
small stuff.
It's training when you don'twant to train or, doing leg
blasts when you're sore?
and resilience is recovery frombig setbacks.
You go to work tomorrow and getfired'cause you fuck up, and
(34:13):
then you gotta go out and findanother job resilience is more
difficult to get exposure to,but perseverance and discipline
are, are things that we can, Ithink that, what we have learned
is that it takes exposure.
It's just like physical fitness,where if you don't train it or
get exposure to it, it'lldegrade.
I've heard this from guys who'vebeen through special forces
selections, right?
After the selection.
They're in for 15 years andthey're not as mentally fit for
physical stressor as they werewhen they were going through
(34:36):
you.
You just haven't been exposed tothat type of stress.
So exposing yourself to thattype of stress and pushing
yourself.
Physical fitness is a great wayto do that, but it's not
everything.
I've seen too many athletes,professional athletes, who like
me, love to train.
You can hide behind fitnesstraining.
In other words, you can, uh, youknow,, be a SAR guy and, uh,,
(34:57):
what you really need to work onis your navigation and, your
communication skills and yourfrigging first aid stuff.
But instead you get in the gymevery day and you just hammer
step up.
We need to be working on otherstuff.
Patrick Fink MD (35:08):
you're good
Rob (35:08):
Right, that's the problem.
By following someone else'sprogramming it makes you do
stuff that you're notnecessarily good at.
So being pushed in thosedifferent ways, and it takes a
true professional.
To have the discipline to goback over basic first aid stuff,
to make sure they're solved inthe fundamentals.
And then also identify, theholes in their game, their whole
game, and target those and workon'em.
(35:30):
It takes a real professional tosee that.
Not only see that, but, but, uh,a craftsman to when they find
that, get excited about it.
'cause they get to learn andimprove in that certain way.
That's sort of true.
Craftsman is.
Patrick Fink MD (35:40):
That's fantastic.
I want to open up a small canand just have you tell us what
your nutritional recommendationsare.
I'm sure 90% of the listenerswill disagree with some part of
it,'cause that's how nutritionalways goes.
But what's, what's your line onnutrition for athletes?
Rob (35:57):
Yeah, first thing, we, we actually have on a, on a
website, ideal body weight spaceon height.
And, uh, it's pretty lean.
What we do know about allphysical, uh, performance is
that the, the most lean athletesare generally the best athletes.
I think part of that is they canmove faster because they're
carrying around, less body fat.
But it could also be because youget to a low body fat, you have
(36:18):
to be disciplined and thattransfers over to the other
areas of their, professional ortheir sport.
But our nutritional guidelinesare pretty simple, cut all
refined sugar, everything.
The more you can cut, thebetter, especially in
condiments.
Don't drink calories, no fruitjuice, really cut back on all
fruit.
Primarily eat protein, and,leafy vegetables.
If you're under 40, you cancheat one day a week.
(36:40):
Cheat like a mother grossyourself, you know, ice cream
doesn't matter.
You'll find that if you stick tothis diet for a while, you don't
cheat as much'cause you justfeel like crap after, after you
cheat.
But if you're over 40, you gottacut your cheat days,
significantly if you have one atall.
Of alcohol, don't drink beer orwine.
If you're gonna drink, I'm not atea toler.
Drink hard liquor'cause there'sless calories.
And, uh, no caloricrestrictions.
(37:01):
I found that if you're hungry,you can't stay on a diet.
Get all that crap outta yourhouse, if you can.
'cause we're all succumbeded to,uh, temptation.
But if you're younger under 40and you're able to cut all
sugar, we actually did a ministudy one time where we had, one
group of athletes, follow thoserecommendations and another
group athletes just cut sugar.
And the group athletes who justcut sugar, lost as much body
(37:24):
fat.
as group athletes.
But overall, If you're able tocut all refined sugar and, also
cut bad carbs, which are bread,pasta, all the good stuff,
right?
I could eat that all day.
Um, but that's the worst foryou.
Focus your diet around proteinand a few leafy vegetables.
Don't drink calories.
You will shed body fat.
Patrick Fink MD (37:42):
Great.
Well, I, I wanna be respectfulof your time.
We're coming up on an hour.
I want to hear your explanationof what you mean when you talk
about a quiet professional.
Rob (37:50):
Yeah.
This is an idea that, I'vethought about for, for many
years.
The idea of a quiet professionalis a person who, we know'em, um,
a few organizations, identifyand celebrate by
professionalism.
The military doesn't.
The, these are the people whoare key to the organizational
function.
(38:10):
Oftentimes, they're not inleadership, uh, because they put
the mission first over their ownambition or promotion, and
they'll see something that needsto be done on the mission of the
fall in those roles.
They're the craftsmen, they'rethe people who, um, I, I've done
a lot of thinking and work aboutthe craftsmanship ethic, which
is really interesting andliberating.
If you, if you love your work,um, and that's where you're, you
(38:33):
know, continually improved.
Always chasing excellence.
No, you'll never get it and areexcited when you, when you find
out that you've made a mistake.
'cause you're, you get to learnsomething, uh, right.
And, uh, what, what reallydrives you is just learning more
about, about the work.
So they, they put mission first.
They're, they're humble.
They're wise in the sense that,wisdom takes work.
(38:53):
Everybody has experience.
Just'cause you're experienced,you know, it doesn't mean
you're, you're wise.
We've all met bitter,75-year-old, old people, right?
And if you're bitter and you're75 years old, I mean, you're not
wise.
You clearly didn't learnsomething.
No one likes to be around thosepeople.
And no one wants to be thatperson.
You didn't figure something out,right?
Wisdom takes work.
It takes reflection.
(39:14):
It takes forgiving yourself.
It takes commitment not to makea better decision in the future,
but it's really unpacking themistake you made or what you did
well, humor and humility.
Those two are brothers.
Right, seeing humor and stuffand, uh, being humble, embracing
the suck.
Not in a, you know, wear it onyour t-shirt way, you know, like
a CrossFit athlete or a Spartancompetitor.
(39:36):
Everything's hard and, a quietprofessional knows that,
adversity is coming.
Like if things are going easy, Iget a little suspicious.
I'm like, uh oh, I know it'scoming.
Uh, but when it arrive, it's notlike you resent it.
It's like, ah, there you are.
I knew you're coming.
You know, this is gonna make mebetter.
I'm gonna learn from it.
Or another thing to, you know,to move, to move through.
So it's kind of all thosedifferent things together.
(39:57):
The quiet professional in yourworld, you know, is probably
that, one solid nurse that youknow, who has turned down
promotions because they'rereally good at what they do and
they like what they do right?
They just like learning there.
Or they're, they're that oneperson in the organization who
is really key and you don't knowuntil they're gone, all the
different stuff that they didbecause they're not looking for
recognition.
(40:17):
They're doing this stuff that,isn't glamorous often.
Dirty.
If you see something wrong, fixit no matter if it's your job or
not, right?
Usually it's not your job.
Patrick Fink MD (40:26):
What I like to do in the, the er, I don't think
I meet the full standards of thequiet professional, just to be
clear.
But, As an example, is gettingblankets for patients like that
is totally below the level atwhich my license lets me
operate.
And it's a hundred percent thepatients and the nursing staff
want to see from a doctor.
(40:46):
And it's the kind of thing whereyou could think you're above
that and.
message does that, does thatsend to people?
Rob (40:51):
Yeah.
I think, I think it is.
I mean, like the only, uh, quietprofessional was like Jesus,
right?
The rest of us are, you know,kind of, it's, it's an
aspirational goal and you alwaysfall short.
But it's a, it's a worthyaspirational goal.
It's not a career advancer.
In my mind the greatest elementto it is the idea of pursuing
craftsmanship.
In whatever, occupation you'reworking in, because it is so
enriching if you can transferover from resenting the work
(41:15):
because you have to do it orwhatever.
Just the idea of craftsmanshipand embracing that ethic, it's a
very liberating, you end up,being, a happy grinder, you
know, before you're like, agrinder can be a happy grinder
because you're, you're learningstuff more, you're, you're not
as bitter, you know, you likegrinding with a, you know,
smile.
It's pretty cool.
Patrick Fink MD (41:32):
It's'cause you're there for a different
reason at that point, right?
You're not trying to advanceyourself.
You enjoy the process more thanthe outcome.
Rob (41:39):
The process, the journey.
You like it when you, you fuckup.
'cause you, you know, you needto learn something or you, you
see, uh, you know, someonepoints out a mistake in your
work.
It's just a very liberating wayto be, to think about your work.
And it can be applied to anyjob.
You don't have to be a wordworker to be a craftsman.
It can be, you know, somebodylike me who's, you know, pretty
much designs strength, conditionprogramming or someone like you
(42:00):
so is up.
So does up hurt people.
Right.
You know, every, every stitchcould be better.
Right.
Like you've seen, I, I'm sureI'm, I'm sure you've seen, uh,
you know, another doctor, uh, doa job you do all the time and
go, wow.
You know, that that's a piece ofart right there and you can
aspire to that.
Right.
That's kind of cool, isn't it?
Or a nurse who has incrediblebedside manners or, or, or a
doctor who talks down.
(42:21):
A scared parent,
Patrick Fink MD (42:23):
Right.
Rob (42:23):
right?
They have incredible skills.
Those are, that's all part ofcraftsmanship.
Patrick Fink MD (42:26):
Mm-hmm.
Well, thank you Rob.
I appreciate you taking the timeto talk with us and get into the
nitty gritty about some thatmaybe you haven't thought about
before, like the, the VolunteerSAR member.
People wanna learn more aboutMountain Tactical Institute,
where should they find it?
Rob (42:41):
Mtn tactical.com, I answered dozens of questions
every day.
Just rob@mtntactical.com and,uh, happy to answer questions.
I always like learning and Ilearned something today.
We gotta develop a, volunteerSAR fitness assessment and
training plan.
It's great.
I love, I love assessments.
It makes the coach identifywhat's important, right?
And you have to make choices.
You know, we can't, we can'ttrain for everything.
(43:02):
So it, it'll be a really goodexercise for me.
Patrick Fink MD (43:06):
That's it for this episode of Wilderness
Medicine Updates.
I hope you enjoyed thatconversation with Rob.
I know we got into the weeds ona couple different topics, but I
think it's useful informationand if it piques your interest,
I would really encourage you totry one of his training plans.
We're talking, uh, 35,$40investment.
(43:27):
It's not a lot of money and likewe touched on in the show, he
uses equipment.
Minimal plans for a lot of this,so you can get by with having an
18 inch step of some kind ofsandbag, a pair of dumbbells and
a pull up bar.
And with that, you can get somefull body fitness that is going
to make you feel better out inthe mountains, make you safer,
(43:48):
make you more resistant toinjury.
As I mentioned during the intro,Rob has been really kind in
offering a discount to listenersof this show.
So the first 50 listeners whoare search and rescue or patrol
professionals or what have you,who reach out to Rob.
Can get a discount 20% off thepurchase of an MTI training
(44:11):
plan.
So reach out torob@mtntactical.com.
Again, the email isrob@mtntactical.com.
Send him a copy of yourcredentials, be that your search
and rescue membership, yourprofessional membership, your
NSP, your icar, your countycredentials, whatever that may
(44:31):
be.
Rob wants to offer this topeople who are getting out there
and doing the job.
The plans are still affordable.
If you're just a recreationistwho can't, take advantage of
Rob's generous offer.
But I will put his email down inthe show notes along with
everything else that we talkedabout.
If you're not familiar with theleg blasters, the Scotty Bobs
(44:51):
the the touch jump.
Touch intervals.
You can find links to thosethings down in the show notes.
Rob has also developed aassessment, fitness assessment
and training plan for search andrescue professionals.
After our conversation, the linkis in there.
The assessment is pretty cool.
You perform a number of tasksback to back, to back to back.
Keep track of how well you didon each of those.
(45:13):
And then there's a scoringsystem to tell you how you're
doing.
There's targets for both,professional and part-time
members, so take a look at that.
If you're involved in search andrescue, I don't think you'll
find anything quite like itanywhere else.
You'll also find links in theshow notes to the eight core
attributes of mental fitness,the difference between
(45:33):
resilience, perseverance, anddiscipline.
Links to other things mentionedin the show like Rob's ideal
body weights for different typesof mountain athletes and his
nutritional recommendations.
So again, I hope that this was avaluable conversation to you.
I'm interested in your feedbackon the show.
If you liked it and you wantmore of this.
Content that is directed towardsthe profession of being outside
(45:57):
and delivering high quality carein the outdoors, please do let
me know.
As with everything, everyepisode, I love hearing from
you, my email is wildernessmedicine updates@gmail.com.
Whether you just want to passalong feedback, you have ideas
for guests, or show topics thatyou want me to address, reach
out to me there and I'll getback to you as listeners of the
(46:19):
show.
I really value your time.
I want to make sure that I'mbringing you content that is
useful to you in the next coupleof months.
You can look forward to aconversation that I had with
Laura Mclare from ResponderAlliance about psychological
trauma sustained by the rescuerand by professionals and how to
mitigate that and have a longand happy career in the
(46:40):
outdoors.
But I'm also gonna be gettinginto the core content like I did
last year for.
Avalanche Resuscitation gonnadig into the core content of
cold illness, hypothermia, andresuscitation of that as the
beginner of our winter season.
So I hope that you're gonna lookforward to that and that that'll
be valuable to you as well.
(47:01):
If you want to kick back andgive some support to the show,
this is a passion project.
I don't make any money on it.
I just spend a lot of my time onit.
So if you like it, please shareit with someone who you think
would benefit from hearing thisepisode.
Another member of your searchand rescue.
A friend that you go out intothe mountains with who's always
one step ahead of you or alittle bit stronger.
(47:22):
Or your partner who's a littleslower and could use a little
bit of help, a little bit oftraining share with someone
who's gonna like to hear fromRob and will benefit from
learning more about chassisintegrity.
That's it for this episode ofWilderness Medicine Updates.
Until next time stay fit, stayfocused, and have fun.
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