Why We Are Athletes

By Nathan Cragg

It’s 0330 in the morning. You’re sleeping in your bunk in the corner. Suddenly your sleep is interrupted by the all too common radio tones sounding a fire alarm. You crawl out of bed; get to the truck start putting your turnout gear on. As your rolling to the scene, the details of the call are coming in although your sleepy mind isn’t interpreting things very quickly. The truck arrives on scene, there’s a good BBQ going. It’s going to be a long night. Now you are going to have to perform very strenuous work for the next couple hours. Are you prepared? Will you win the fight against the red devil?

This question is answered by several factors. One of which is physical preparation. In the following article I will outline the similarities and differences in preparation between those of us in the fire service, law enforcement and military compared to those of professional athletes.

What is an athlete?

ath∙lete: a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina. This is Webster’s definition of an athlete. As you can see already professions can even be placed with this definition. Being a grunt requires skills to survive. Chasing a dust head around the block and over a fence requires agility. Dragging Miss Jones, the local 300 pound whale out of a burning structure takes physical strength, stamina, and pure guts to the obese creature out! If you think you can just sit by and hope your skills training will get you by, that is when you’ll get hit hardest. The biggest difference between sport athletes and us, is the sport athlete goes home if he places second. Our professions don’t allow this! Second place is the first dead guy! If you are not physically prepared alongside your skills, you are putting in jeopardy yourself, your fellow team and others around you. I’m probably preaching to the choir, so I’ll get off my soap box and continue on.

Physical preparation for athletic endeavors

For the last couple years, fire departments and law enforcement are becoming more aware that being fit for duty is indeed important. The military has known this for centuries. Unfortunately most training programs are still stuck in the Stone Age. A professional athlete has every resource available to him for preparation of his given sport. I’m not especially referring to equipment either. The main thing that separates elite sports from others that attempt fitness is the knowledge of proper training. Although this isn’t always true. In fact most athletes are just as confused on training as everybody else. Even at the Olympic level, proper training and nutrition is not always conducted in the most efficient manner possible. So if professional athletes are training incorrectly, what do you think that says about you ‘health and wellness’ program? I’ll give ya a hint. If you don’t run a couple miles on the job, even in the worst circumstances, then why are you running miles in training?

Specificity is something athletic trainers have been using for several years for athletes. The law of specificity states that your body will adapt to whatever muscle energetic you train is what you will adapt to. E.g. If you were to swim every day, you will increase your ability to swim, but it will not carry over to running. So applied to our professions, which means unless you park the truck 5 miles from the scene and run with no gear or equipment, you’re probably wasting your time doing aerobic training. So why are you still on that treadmill like a little high school anorexic cheerleader?

Let me also do a quick definition between aerobic and cardio. The two are often use interchangeably. They are very separate components. All aerobic training is cardio. Not all cardio training is aerobic . In the training world cardio is generally considered high-intensity work such as sprinting, rope skipping, high rep kettlebell work etc. Aerobic exercise is purely long duration low-intensity work like jogging. Again this is something even high level coaches ignore. Running long distance will not make you faster and there are better methods for building work capacity.

I’m sure you see a certain pattern here. I also must mention one thing about training to failure. For an athlete, it is the absolute worst thing possible! Ever wonder why you shake when you hit “muscle failure”? Because the muscle didn’t fail, you damaged you nerve! To learn more about this read Joel Marion’s article ‘Center Your Training’.

Now back to how we are athletes. Why is it that a soldier should train with calisthenics that the top sports coaches say are useless? Trust me you won’t see any well coached athlete doing “fire hydrant” drills.  You also will never see an explosive athlete training in the ‘heart rate zone’. By the way max HR formulas are pretty useless. I’ve had my heart rate up to 240 before, obviously more than my supposed max.

I will be following this up with future articles. I hope I’ve at least got the door open and your mind is starting to open and question. Next time an “expert” tells you how you should train, ask yourself if it will transfer to your occupation, which is your sport, because you are and athlete.

Nathan Cragg is currently a COLT (Combat Observation Laser Team) Team Chief in the 49^th AD TXNG. Having served active duty time as well, he knows the hardships encountered. Being involved with law enforcement and fire service since early high school; his drive is to help prepare fellow firefighters, police officers and soldiers to be their physical best. Becoming a Certified Fitness Trainer with the ISSA and Olympic weightlifting coach is only a continuation of a lifetime of learning optimal human performance.

You may reach him at nathan@redwhiteandbluefitness.com

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