Sometimes even with our best effort we run out of time during our 24 hour shift to accomplish everything we want or need to do. I know that personally I always strive for a minimum of 1 hour of PT and 1 hour of training every shift, but with other duties, and of course calls it can be difficult especially if your department runs EMS or has to staff and ambulance.
So why not combine the two? Someone on my shift came up with the Address Workout and I think it is a great way to combine our fitness with training. Here is how it works.
Simply pick a few addresses from your district (we usually do a minimum of 20) and write them down on a card. Also on the card assign each address an exercise.
For example:
12345 Main St Cross Street of 2nd and 3rd St pushups
You get your shift together with your map book in a circle and the first person reads says the exercise and reads the address. You all start doing the exercise until the person to the right can give turn by turn directions to the address. If they know it stone cold then at least do 20 reps of the exercise, if they do not know it, then after 20 reps they can look it up in the map book while everyone else continues to exercise until they can provide turn by turn directions to the address in question.
You can make it more difficult or less difficult depending on your companies fitness and district knowledge. You can even add a penalty for having to use the map book, and make the addresses more difficult as you go.
This is a great way to combine fitness and training!
Do you have any other ways you are getting creative with your fitness on duty? Share them in the comments section or on twitter @averagejakeff Also follow along on twitter as I post the workouts I do, and follow the hash tag #fswfitness for other ideas.
As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, STAY SAFE!
Knowing your district is VITAL to succesful fireground operations. You may be the best hose stretcher, tactical officer, and firefighter around but if you do not get there all of those skills are for nothing. However knowing your district is not enough, you have to be very familiar with your second, third, and maybe even 4th due!
This is a lesson that has been reinforced to me hard recently, as I have been moved to a part of town I am very unfamiliar with. Sometimes the maps (whether hand drawn, or GIS) is not enough. This (hypothetically of course) could lead to you running a fire in your second due and not knowing 100% were you are going and ending up 2nd due. Sure you still get to do some good fireground work but you should have been on the initial attack line and….well Im rambling and this in no way really happened (lol).
But seriously knowing the roads, buildings, different routes, etc. is very important and sometimes gets very over looked.
So this month dedicate some training time, to driving your district and the surrounding districts, get in the map book, get in your buildings, and take some different routes back to the station to see some streets you may never see. Also no matter how good you know your district always look it up in the map book, or your mapping system it will get you used to using it and will make finding locations easier under the gun.
Be sure to keep following along on twitter @averagejakeff
As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, and STAY SAFE!
Average Jake Firefighter Blog 