Working out on duty is a great thing for improving our fitness as well as strengthening the team. But we can take it further than that and use those workouts to directly benefit our fireground skillset.
One of the ways we can do this is by wearing an SCBA and breathing air during a workout. The reality is that we have to perform on the fireground while breathing air. Spending some of our PT time in the SCBA provides the benefit of getting additional time in our masks and allowing us to monitor and control our breathing as we work. As a crew we quickly learn who sucks their bottle down and who can make it last while working, which allows us to understand each other as a team. For more firefighter breathing resources check out this post here!
Here are 9 workouts you can do as a crew.
Another way that we can enhance our fire ground skills as part of our PT is to dedicate a period immediately after the workout ends but while we’re still breathing air to a specific fireground skill, especially firefighter survival skills. Our go-to is giving a NUCAN/LUNAR report on the radio followed by wheel breathing our bottle down.
If we ever find ourselves in a situation where we have to call a mayday and provide a clear NUCAN, you can bet we’ll be breathing hard and have a high heart rate! Well it just so happens that high intensity workouts cause similar physiological and psychological responses in our body. Practicing a NUCAN immediately following a workout is a great way to work through the noise, settle down, and do what you need to do.
Following the NUCAN, work on your wheel breathing technique and see how long you can extend your bottle once you hit vibralert. At first it’s a challenge to find your rhythm while your heart and respiratory rates are high. Don’t worry, you’ll quickly settle down and find your groove and you’ll be amazed at how long that last bit of air can last. Put a clock to it and see for yourself.
Here’s a video to help you with the wheel breathing technique if you are new to the concept or could use a simple refresher.
Increasing your level of fitness will increase your chances of survival plain and simple. Coupling your daily fitness training with specific fireground survival skills could be a game changer in the event you every find yourself in Mayday situation. We believe in doing everything in our power to increase our effectiveness on the fireground and we believe this is part of the process. Give this a try and let us know what you think!
