The First Twenty's Blog (35)

 By: Jordan Ponder

How does fire travel? Path of least resistance! Why? Because it does have the ability to think! How do firefighters move when we are focused on tasks at hand? Path of least resistance or in whatever way is easiest. Firefighters continue to experience…

-        Knee…

Sleep Tips and Strategies For Firefighters

By: Jordan Ponder

BE SUCCESSFUL: Improving Your Sleep

Everyone can agree that sleep is important to your health.…

By: John Spera

Being trusted that you can do your job when it counts is more important than being liked.

As firefighters, the responsibility before us is great, as we are given automatic trust the day we take the oath. It’s a trust…

By: John Spera

"The mind is the battleground. It is here that the future is told." 

Goals are destined to be lost if the mindset to reach them is not built first. Our lives are a reflection of our mindset and have been built through our beliefs and perspectives of the world, to include ourselves in it. We have complete control over the mindset we choose to have on any given day—it’s up to us to create the…

Developing a Firefighter Workout

By: Jordan Ponder

Firefighter fitness is vital to our performance and longevity.  It is the cornerstone to increasing our safety and a critical element to protecting firefighters.  It’s a fact that can’t be overstated. The tragic trend of firefighter obesity, diabetes, hypertension and stroke can be positively impacted by implementing…

Firefighter Line-of-Duty Deaths: Are we Missing the Big Picture?

By: Dan Kerrigan & John Spera

“The Shortest Route to Fewer Firefighter Deaths is through the Heart.”

-National Fallen Firefighters Foundation

When an operational fire service line-of-duty (LODD) death occurs, we give it…

Would You Want You Rescuing You?

 …

Be Selfish with your Personal Fitness

The Olympics are here, and most of us have been watching our American athletes as they perform to the best of their ability. We sit mesmerized watching these athletes compete against the best from other countries. These athletes are the elite of the elite, and they are amazing to watch. We cheer at successes and cringe at defeat right…

Prevent Fitness Plateaus for Continued Growth

Why do people stop their fitness program?  There are many different reasons, but one of the most common is because they stopped seeing progress.  Nothing is more motivating that starting a new program, staying with it, and then seeing your body and performance grow.  Nothing is more disappointing than training and not seeing any changes.  …

Take a Look in the Mirror

I was recently sitting in the doctor’s office after completing my annual physical.  As a Fire Chief, this is a moment that I had worked diligently towards the last 14 months.  This painstaking process would ensure that every member of my department received an NFPA 1582 compliant annual physical as well as the full implementation of…

PPE for your Mind

As firefighters, we face a multitude of stressful events each and every shift. Sometimes they’re physical stressors like lifting or climbing. Sometimes they’re mental stressors like sights, sounds and smells at a traumatic scene or feelings of failure when we can’t intervene in time to save someone. Fortunately, the human body is designed to handle stress, even…

Muscle Imbalances and Injury Potential

As firefighters there are so many things we need to be thinking about during an emergency scene.  Rig placement, radio communication, building construction, fire location, and smoke color, volume, and pressure are only a fraction of the things that run…

The First Twenty is being put to the test. 

The program is being studied in two federally funded research projects.  The first is funded by FEMA’s Assistance to Firefighter Grant’s Research and Development mechanism and is…

You Deserve a Health and Wellness Program

Who is the most valuable asset to the fire service?  You are!  You, the firefighter, are the most valuable, most critical, and most important asset to your fire department!  This is why you follow the Phoenix Model, why scene safety is the first step at any of your EMS scenes, and why you change your strategy and/or tactics when an incident begins to move in an…

Evolution of Health and Wellness in North Carolina’s Fire Service

North Carolina has always strived to deliver the highest quality of fire training to its emergency service family. Year after year, we remain among the top states for offering IFSAC accredited fire and rescue certification programs. The folks at the North Carolina Office of State Fire Marshal (NCOSFM) have worked diligently to provide…

A “Flexible” Effort Results in Organizational Health and Fitness Success

 

In the world of firefighter functional fitness, flexibility is a primary yet often overlooked component.  Increased flexibility translates to improved performance on the fire ground and reduces the chance of injury.  There are many ways to improve flexibility; most of them have traditionally consisted of various…

How the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge Changed My Life

We all have that defining moment, the event that changed us. The moment that changed our lives, changed our paths, changed the way we view the world.  Some people have more than one.  And for some of us, we find something that continues to change and shape our lives.  For me, that discovery was the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge.

I…

The Definition of Insanity

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  In the fire service we often use this definition to conveniently fit certain situations or our own agendas, especially when it comes to health and fitness.  We see it every day in many of our firehouses.  We make comments to one another; and maybe, just maybe, we express our…

Firefighter Nutrition:

3 Quick & Easy Tips when there’s no Time to Cook

Let’s face it; as firefighters, you don’t have loads of time to spend on meal prep. Yet, there aren’t many jobs that have higher energy demands than firefighting,…

10 Ways to Achieve Better Work-Life Balance

            It seems the only way to get ahead in our profession these days is to get behind at home. I find that I am guilty of living my life in the hamster wheel of “business as usual.” Many articles and books have and are being written about finding a healthy work/life balance. It is a widespread problem that continues to elude people, especially those of us…