Training for the Firefighter Physical Ability Test

Forcible entry firefigther test – I bet you’d kill at that right now with all the rotation strengthening you’ve done – particularly the chops/lifts and ½ kneeling anti-rotation presses. On days when it’s not raining, we can add rotational med ball tosses to just nail this.

Healthy eating is about choices

In this case, the 420 calories is what’s not to like! Yikes! I put the cookie down (after taking a picture naturally!) and contemplated the protein bar. In the end, I decided to skip the snack and tough it out until lunch. But I couldn’t stop thinking about this ridiculously caloric cookie.

Addressing poor shoulder movement

It’s a concept of how we should position our shoulder when doing any sort of lifting with our arms. Now some will say that this is ridiculous – we just move our arms and that’s how they should move. I could get behind that line of thinking. Except for one thing: many of the people that come and train with me don’t actually position their shoulder properly when moving their arms, and then they complain of pain or discomfort in their shoulder or neck when doing exercises like pushups, rows, and planks. But when I help them to position their shoulder properly, they proceed to exercise without pain or discomfort.

Are you strong enough to slow down?

What is it that makes us ignore the very clear signals our body provides? I talk about this without judgment, as I have been there. I know what it’s like to include “vitamin I” as part of my daily nutrition (in fact for me it evolved to Celebrex). But most of these long term injuries are completely preventable. If we listen to, and respect, the pain signals our body gives, we can avoid months (sometimes years) of pain and medical expenses. The irony of course is that our effort to not miss a few days or weeks of our beloved sport leads to missing weeks, months or even years of our beloved sport.

Stop Confusing Your Muscles

It is important to acknowledge adaptation theory when doing exercise, but here’s the key problem with P90X, insanity, and any workout that involves always shocking your body with new exercises: It takes time for your body to adapt, and it is during that adaptation period that you improve. If you are always shocking your body, then you are not allowing your body to get stronger.

My Favourite Training Tools: #4 – the FMS

Today’s entry features the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). This makes my list even though it does nothing to get you strong. That’s because it is an assessment tool. I love this tool because it helps me to see where people have problems with the fundamental way that they move, and then that helps me to create a great training program for them that will not only get them “faster, higher, stronger”, but will also help fix movement dysfunction that they have developed in life.