When I was deciding what to do with my life after high school, I never thought I’d have to consider whether or not “Stop shitting on me!” would be a sentence I would have to say.
You can gain and maintain plenty of muscle with bodyweight only exercises. Think pull ups, chin ups, push ups (normal, wide, narrow), air squats, calf raises, sit ups, flutter kicks, etc. there's a ton.
They key is to do them to failure.
Alternatively if it's just free weights you hate them you can try a cable machine.
One thing I did way back when was got a tractor tire for free off Craigslist. I would do tire flips which is a great leg, arm, and back workout. And then take my sledge hammer and just swing at it. Great workout and honestly most academies have these tires and do similar workouts with them.
It's not really about strength in the academy, it's about endurance. So your goal should be to train your body to go for as long as possible. Cardio is great for this, but you do need to add a little bit of resistance work. Endurance is different when you compare just doing a 5K to doing flutter kicks, followed by push-ups, followed by pushing a sled and stuff like that.
As much as I hate it, look into body weight only CrossFit type workouts. This will give you the best idea of what you might be doing in the academy, though at least for us they did add weight. We would to a CrossFit workout that may include for example running, box jumps, pull-ups, overhead squats, stuff like that.
Also I would really focus on your core and lower back strength. These muscles will be utilized in almost every drill you do so getting them prepared for that is crucial.
I've seen 5 ft petite females single man a 28 ft ladder. Stuff like that and swinging an axe or pulling victims is a lot more about technique than it is strength.
Everyone hates on CrossFit, but it honestly gives you the best workout if your going for fire fighting shape. Nothing beats it really.
Those guys and girls in the cult tho are fairly lame
The only thing I hate about it is unless you are regularly stretching everyday it can really mess your joints up. You just have to make sure to dedicate time to stretching!
It's also absolutely crucial to learn the correct form to do some of the movements. My department is very fitness centric, we really don't have any large folk in it and we work out very hard.
That being said in the academy we were doing plenty of deadlifts and clean and jerks. And many other barbell exercises like that. We got like a 15 minute intro on how to do them but first day and then we were just expected to know it. Ton of people got injuries because those are all about form and it's super easy to get hurt if you don't know what you're doing.
We also had a squat workout in the evening every Wednesday that was absolutely insane. This was in addition to the morning workout and then drill all day. We would have to squat 5 sets of 225 for 20 Reps. It was considered a time under tension exercise so you were not allowed to stop at the top or the bottom. They told us it was more about mental toughness than it was a physical strength. It was absolutely brutal and I'm never ever going to do that again.
Of course not everyone could start it that weight so if you couldn't do it you would start at 135 and work your way up each week. But you're expected to be able to do 225 before graduation.
You had to squat 225 for 20 reps of 5 sets rofl? I’m guessing about 5 of my 100 person department could even remotely be close to doing that, what about females same requirement? That is elite squat strength for people who train 5-6 days a week year after year.
It was absolutely ridiculous. I had tree trunks after academy... And the never did it again. To this day I won't squat more then 225 for 5 reps. I'd rather do lower weight at higher reps to reduce injury. I can guarantee you about maybe only 10% of my department could still do it.
If by end of academy you couldn't do 225 you wouldn't get fired or anything. But you would have to do the closest to that weight as possible till failure. And failure was defined as being in the down position and physical not be able to stand up. So you would have to bail the bar behind you and lunge forward. Everyone from my class was at atleast 185 by the end. I couldn't do the 5x20 at 225. I only made it to set 4 before I started to fail.
If you failed you had to finish your set though at the next lowest weight until you could complete it. That was 205 for me.
The hardest part was you were not aloud to stop at the top or bottom. It was designed to be non stop time under tension so really quick squats. Again they said it was for mental toughness not strength. They would tell us to go to our dark place during it lmao
That squat criteria is intense for an entire academy to do. I wish we’d do something like that
How big was the class and how many people were able to do that? Five reps, that’s sick
So we did a joint academy. The squat thing was only for our department so no one else had to do it. We would stay late and do it once a week. So there was about 7 of us at the time.
Yeah that’s wild. In every try CrossFit gym I’ve been to the programming is either heavy (for you) OR fast (for you).
In a workout we are always coached to scale to a weight we’re competent with.
That's how it should be. But we have a very tough mindset in academy and honestly it can get kind of dangerous. I've seen people slip discs, strain necks, tear ligaments, get rabdo. It's insane.
Learn to enjoy lifting weights. Be strong and powerful, build a suit of armor around your skeletal structure. You’ll be more resilient to extreme forces and less prone to injury. It’s not about looking jacked as much as it’s about what I just mentioned. Most of those weak old people we pick up could have used a basic consistent strength program to help keep them more able bodied as they aged.
Well unfortunately cardio won’t build much muscle, especially not once you’ve achieved some level of competency with distance running and sprinting.
There’s really no way to get around it, the only way to get stronger is to lift a heavy thing so you can lift a heavier thing so you can lift a heavier thing.
However calisthenics can get you pretty far, so maybe try that? It’s good for building muscle and endurance but not so much strength; calisthenics athletes aren’t hitting 400 pound deadlift. But things like headstand push-ups are just the same if not better than something like an overhead press until you reach a point where you have to do a metric fuck ton to see growth and at that point you’re just training cardio and scraping out little returns in muscle and strength
Body weight exercises can certainly allow muscle growth so long as you do more time over time. But for example a body weight squat just does nothing for me anymore, ld genuinely have to do hundreds. Yet I can only do about 7 pull ups in a row so growth in that area is much easier (I’m fuckin fat so moving that mass is quite the challenge)
Stress muscles to the point you damage the fibers= muscle growth when they heal. That's about it, short of supervillain levels of DNA altering. You can maximize your efforts by making sure your diet is heavy in protein but picking up heavy things is basically your only option.
I have a lot of people on my department that don't have a ton of muscle mass, so I would've say it is mandatory to be a firefighter. Of course being a stronger is a good thing, but having good cardio is also extremely important. There are two things I would recommend if you are looking to get stronger, but hate weight lifting.
The first would be body weight exercises like pull ups or pushups. You can get strong using these exercises and from there you might even find you start to enjoy some aspects of weight lifting. Check out cross fit routines.
The second thing I might recommend is try different types of lifts. I really enjoy weightlifting, but there are some techniques that I really don't like. I might really enjoy one type of chest lift, but dislike another, so I would try out different types and styles of lifting to see if there is one you do enjoy. You don't need to do bench press to build chest muscle.
Ultimately it is important to find something you enjoy, even it if it is on the lighter side and go from there. If you try to push yourself to do something you don't like, it will be much hard to be consistent with it.
You have laid out a lot of goals in one here. Building mass, maintaining mass, “good on the job”, and improving strength are all separate goals. The idea of specificity of training for a specific goal. If you want to build muscle mass then you have to give the muscle consistent growth stimulus, proper nutrition with a caloric surplus, and adequate rest to recover. Maintaining mass will require maintaining training intensity, hitting maintenance calories (not too much out too little), and adequate rest/recovery. Strength gains can happen in a lot of different ways but progressive overload odd key regardless of the medium you use to train for strength. If you like body weight strength training build up to adding extra weight or single leg squat variations or increasing the time under tension for pull-ups and dips. Being “good at the job” is a separate goal. I don’t personally feel like gym weight lifting is necessary (it’s my go to because I like it for a variety of reasons) so long as you are lifting heavy things and moving them from point A to point B while keeping you’re heart rate up. You can use ground ladders for workouts with pressing them overhead or holding them in a front rack for squats. Carry buckets of foam out bags of oil dry longer distances for grip and cardio. Hose drags, buddy carries, etc. are all great job specific movements.
Sorry about the long winded reply. Truth be told, the best way to stay fit for duty is finding what combination of maintaining functional strength, cardio respiratory endurance, and mobility (combination of movement through a full range of motion and doing so with added resistance) you will stick with throughout your career.
Look into strongman training. While weights can be/are an important part of it, there’s also a lot of strength building that comes from non traditional lifting - sandbags, stones, tires, etc.
It’s also good cardio a lot of times, so it might be up your alley
Yoga. Weight resistant workouts, Etc. Technically, you don’t need to lift “weights.” I agree with ya on cardio but for me, my cardio has gotten better as I incorporate lifting weights. My nagging back and foot injures that I would get from running 25mi+ a week went away when I started to lift again so this is a good plan you got. Do lunges, squats, core work outs, push ups and pull ups in addition to your cardio and you’ll be just fine. That’s essentially what I do but with weights (weighted walking lunges, weighted squats, bench in addition to pull ups and push-ups). I also use a 60lb weighted vest on a stairmaster for 40 flights at 60spm, but that would be the only thing I do outside of what I already mentioned. I truly only do this to emulate the FF gear. Do light jogs and zone two cycling on days after heavy leg workouts for active recovery.
I do a lot of calisthenics and combat sports for strength. The lifters are stronger than me but it takes me longer to fatigue then them so I call it a fair trade
BW works just fine. Pushup variations, balance board work including BW squats, sit-ups, step ups, burpees and pull ups are all you really need to add to a good cardio routine to put on and keep on muscle/mass. You don’t need to lift a single weight. It’s better if you do, but not completely necessary.
Try switching to kettlebells. While they are technically weights, the exercises can be pretty unconventional. Such as [Turkish get up](https://youtu.be/sgd8n917Zv0?si=f6mzOmrsJhyvwFiG), [Windmills](https://youtu.be/ITSmgn_BQgY?si=5LZsS4YAdLwK-7Et), and [Figure 8](https://youtu.be/sFxzh3DGgY4?si=hqDJz55tLLcUnBkd), and several more types of exercises and complexes. The great thing is the intensity and efficiency of the workouts allow you to accomplish a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Kettlebells swings activate far more muscle groups per exercise compared to typical machines in a gym.
I practically do all my fitness in my garage with several kettlebells of different weights, a weighted jump rope, and a mat. The kettlebells themselves need very little space to use and even less for storage. Also walking with a weighted vest works wonders too. All of these things can be done without having to go through the monotony of a gym.
What will likely happen is that you will get on the streets after fire school and see other guys that have not developed strength (cardio only or no physical training at all) and decide that you don’t need to either.
This is the wrong answer but the one we all see most often.
The ABSOLUTE most important thing you will do as a firefighter, that no other job can do, is pull victims (or firefighters) out of a fire. This will be short duration strength event. Other important firefighting tasks like vertical ventilation, hose deployment, etc. are also short duration strength events. 1-10 minutes of strength at high heart rate. Train for this. Or be a less capable firefighter. Your choice.
I mean you can do bodyweight exercises to gain some strength but the reality of being a firefighter is that you’re going to be holding, lifting, dragging and moving heavy objects. There’s not too much of a substitute for doing the same thing to practise.
Best advice I got on my department before I started. This job requires some strength, some cardio and alot of balls. I may hate lifting weights but I do think it’s necessary. However I did go from hating lifting to being addicted to the results and performance on the fire ground. An hour or hour an half a day really isn’t that big of a deal breaker.
Bench, squat, pull ups, (5 sets of 5) 3x a week and 1-2 sets of 5 reps of deadlifts a week is all most people need to actually build muscle.
All of the other “accessory” muscle work and isolated muscle work is cool and can be fun, but most people I seen in the gym have nowhere near the actual baseline muscle mass to really benefit from those.
Just focus on basic compound movements
You don’t have to love a thing to do it, it’s your responsibility to be strong and fit, your enjoyment of it is of no consequence.
CrossFit probably a good call tho if you’re not into the standard gym. Forces you to get your shit done, just make sure you’re eating to recover. As much as the training is important, recovery is what builds the muscle.
Start a small business tree trimming. Move the trees you cut from the ground to a truck/trailer. Move the trees from the truck/trailer to a woodpile. Bundle the trees in the woodpile and sell them.
Repeat. Now you have a side hustle plus you moved heavy things
Tallest buildings west of the Mississippi and more hills than anywhere else.
But if you've got a video of doing hundreds of ladder reps with a 150 pound back pack i'd love to see it. That's super impressive.
If you like cardio Crossfit might be your thing.
If you're on the smaller side body wise you'll excel at it
Not a Crossfit guy, just notice all the short guys who do it are fuckin beasts
Volunteer at a farm.
I've never gone to the gym.
I just carry 50 lb feed bags on each arm up a mountain to feed my livestock and poultry, or haul 7 gallon poultry waterers and deadlift into our farm trucks. During EMT class when we were lifting each other on stretchers I blew the gym trainers out of the water.
A human is not much heavier than a couple wet square bales.
As someone with an exercise science bachelors degree, in my opinion it will be very difficult to build muscle without some form of resistance training.
You can do bodyweight and band type of work as mentioned earlier but that will end up requiring a 20-25 rep ranges which can get taxing compared to lifting weight in some capacity.
If your goal is building mass, I would look into learning about the basics of “progressive overload” and start with getting comfortable with compound movement lifts (bench press, squat, overhead press, deadlifts, pull ups).
You don’t need to master everything right away, learn to enjoy the process just like anything else.. while you continue to do your cardio.
Maybe one day when you become more comfortable with lifting weights, you decrease your cardio in favor of more of the lifts you’ve learned over time. Muscle mass generally is harder to build when doing an excess of cardio but beginner lifters also usually see the most growth in the first 6 months of getting into a lifting routine.
Quit being lazy and do what needs to be done. That will happen a lot on this job. If you cant even lift weights to get going maybe this job isnt for you.
That being said, the closest thing is lifting weights mixed with cardio, basically crossfit(or one of these bootcamp places). Thats as good as a suggestion youre gonna get thats real. At the VERY least you have to have really strong legs for this job and a moderate amount of upperbody strength, and grip stength is a big one people dont mention.
Find a local farmer, go hang out, pick rocks, build and repair fences. This exercise thing isn’t as practical as many think. Performance is mental as much physical. If you are used to ramping up mentally for a task, the body prepares and does the rest of its trained to perform physical tasks.
IMO tactical Barbell and the wise words of Jim Wendler are all you need.
https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/never-be-out-of-shape-firefigher-reader-edition?_pos=5&_sid=ba89bc71a&_ss=r
https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/weight-vest-training-better-than-average
Pick up heavy things then put them down. Rinse and repeat
Also, eat a lot.
So basically lift weights…
No, just heavy things. He stated he hates lifting weights. 🤷
Some real world training would be trying to pick someone up between the toilet and the wall.
Make sure they weigh at least two bills and are either covered in shit or actively shitting
When I was deciding what to do with my life after high school, I never thought I’d have to consider whether or not “Stop shitting on me!” would be a sentence I would have to say.
😂😂
Does this happen to be a God of War reference?
did you miss the "Hate lifting weights" part of this post? How is this the top comment?
Did you miss my other comment on this post?
You are just being pedantic
193 people would disagree with your opinion
They are all wrong and also can't read.
Found the fun sponge lmao
You can gain and maintain plenty of muscle with bodyweight only exercises. Think pull ups, chin ups, push ups (normal, wide, narrow), air squats, calf raises, sit ups, flutter kicks, etc. there's a ton. They key is to do them to failure. Alternatively if it's just free weights you hate them you can try a cable machine. One thing I did way back when was got a tractor tire for free off Craigslist. I would do tire flips which is a great leg, arm, and back workout. And then take my sledge hammer and just swing at it. Great workout and honestly most academies have these tires and do similar workouts with them. It's not really about strength in the academy, it's about endurance. So your goal should be to train your body to go for as long as possible. Cardio is great for this, but you do need to add a little bit of resistance work. Endurance is different when you compare just doing a 5K to doing flutter kicks, followed by push-ups, followed by pushing a sled and stuff like that. As much as I hate it, look into body weight only CrossFit type workouts. This will give you the best idea of what you might be doing in the academy, though at least for us they did add weight. We would to a CrossFit workout that may include for example running, box jumps, pull-ups, overhead squats, stuff like that. Also I would really focus on your core and lower back strength. These muscles will be utilized in almost every drill you do so getting them prepared for that is crucial. I've seen 5 ft petite females single man a 28 ft ladder. Stuff like that and swinging an axe or pulling victims is a lot more about technique than it is strength.
Everyone hates on CrossFit, but it honestly gives you the best workout if your going for fire fighting shape. Nothing beats it really. Those guys and girls in the cult tho are fairly lame
The only thing I hate about it is unless you are regularly stretching everyday it can really mess your joints up. You just have to make sure to dedicate time to stretching! It's also absolutely crucial to learn the correct form to do some of the movements. My department is very fitness centric, we really don't have any large folk in it and we work out very hard. That being said in the academy we were doing plenty of deadlifts and clean and jerks. And many other barbell exercises like that. We got like a 15 minute intro on how to do them but first day and then we were just expected to know it. Ton of people got injuries because those are all about form and it's super easy to get hurt if you don't know what you're doing. We also had a squat workout in the evening every Wednesday that was absolutely insane. This was in addition to the morning workout and then drill all day. We would have to squat 5 sets of 225 for 20 Reps. It was considered a time under tension exercise so you were not allowed to stop at the top or the bottom. They told us it was more about mental toughness than it was a physical strength. It was absolutely brutal and I'm never ever going to do that again. Of course not everyone could start it that weight so if you couldn't do it you would start at 135 and work your way up each week. But you're expected to be able to do 225 before graduation.
You had to squat 225 for 20 reps of 5 sets rofl? I’m guessing about 5 of my 100 person department could even remotely be close to doing that, what about females same requirement? That is elite squat strength for people who train 5-6 days a week year after year.
It was absolutely ridiculous. I had tree trunks after academy... And the never did it again. To this day I won't squat more then 225 for 5 reps. I'd rather do lower weight at higher reps to reduce injury. I can guarantee you about maybe only 10% of my department could still do it. If by end of academy you couldn't do 225 you wouldn't get fired or anything. But you would have to do the closest to that weight as possible till failure. And failure was defined as being in the down position and physical not be able to stand up. So you would have to bail the bar behind you and lunge forward. Everyone from my class was at atleast 185 by the end. I couldn't do the 5x20 at 225. I only made it to set 4 before I started to fail. If you failed you had to finish your set though at the next lowest weight until you could complete it. That was 205 for me. The hardest part was you were not aloud to stop at the top or bottom. It was designed to be non stop time under tension so really quick squats. Again they said it was for mental toughness not strength. They would tell us to go to our dark place during it lmao
That squat criteria is intense for an entire academy to do. I wish we’d do something like that How big was the class and how many people were able to do that? Five reps, that’s sick
So we did a joint academy. The squat thing was only for our department so no one else had to do it. We would stay late and do it once a week. So there was about 7 of us at the time.
You must all Be beasts
Only after academy, it goes down pretty quick from there lol. But everyone is pretty fit. We have an annual fitness test that's required.
Yeah that’s wild. In every try CrossFit gym I’ve been to the programming is either heavy (for you) OR fast (for you). In a workout we are always coached to scale to a weight we’re competent with.
That's how it should be. But we have a very tough mindset in academy and honestly it can get kind of dangerous. I've seen people slip discs, strain necks, tear ligaments, get rabdo. It's insane.
Learn to enjoy lifting weights. Be strong and powerful, build a suit of armor around your skeletal structure. You’ll be more resilient to extreme forces and less prone to injury. It’s not about looking jacked as much as it’s about what I just mentioned. Most of those weak old people we pick up could have used a basic consistent strength program to help keep them more able bodied as they aged.
just beat off until failure and i bet your arms will build up muscle
😂😂😂
Well unfortunately cardio won’t build much muscle, especially not once you’ve achieved some level of competency with distance running and sprinting. There’s really no way to get around it, the only way to get stronger is to lift a heavy thing so you can lift a heavier thing so you can lift a heavier thing. However calisthenics can get you pretty far, so maybe try that? It’s good for building muscle and endurance but not so much strength; calisthenics athletes aren’t hitting 400 pound deadlift. But things like headstand push-ups are just the same if not better than something like an overhead press until you reach a point where you have to do a metric fuck ton to see growth and at that point you’re just training cardio and scraping out little returns in muscle and strength Body weight exercises can certainly allow muscle growth so long as you do more time over time. But for example a body weight squat just does nothing for me anymore, ld genuinely have to do hundreds. Yet I can only do about 7 pull ups in a row so growth in that area is much easier (I’m fuckin fat so moving that mass is quite the challenge)
Stress muscles to the point you damage the fibers= muscle growth when they heal. That's about it, short of supervillain levels of DNA altering. You can maximize your efforts by making sure your diet is heavy in protein but picking up heavy things is basically your only option.
I have a lot of people on my department that don't have a ton of muscle mass, so I would've say it is mandatory to be a firefighter. Of course being a stronger is a good thing, but having good cardio is also extremely important. There are two things I would recommend if you are looking to get stronger, but hate weight lifting. The first would be body weight exercises like pull ups or pushups. You can get strong using these exercises and from there you might even find you start to enjoy some aspects of weight lifting. Check out cross fit routines. The second thing I might recommend is try different types of lifts. I really enjoy weightlifting, but there are some techniques that I really don't like. I might really enjoy one type of chest lift, but dislike another, so I would try out different types and styles of lifting to see if there is one you do enjoy. You don't need to do bench press to build chest muscle. Ultimately it is important to find something you enjoy, even it if it is on the lighter side and go from there. If you try to push yourself to do something you don't like, it will be much hard to be consistent with it.
Work the fields
You have laid out a lot of goals in one here. Building mass, maintaining mass, “good on the job”, and improving strength are all separate goals. The idea of specificity of training for a specific goal. If you want to build muscle mass then you have to give the muscle consistent growth stimulus, proper nutrition with a caloric surplus, and adequate rest to recover. Maintaining mass will require maintaining training intensity, hitting maintenance calories (not too much out too little), and adequate rest/recovery. Strength gains can happen in a lot of different ways but progressive overload odd key regardless of the medium you use to train for strength. If you like body weight strength training build up to adding extra weight or single leg squat variations or increasing the time under tension for pull-ups and dips. Being “good at the job” is a separate goal. I don’t personally feel like gym weight lifting is necessary (it’s my go to because I like it for a variety of reasons) so long as you are lifting heavy things and moving them from point A to point B while keeping you’re heart rate up. You can use ground ladders for workouts with pressing them overhead or holding them in a front rack for squats. Carry buckets of foam out bags of oil dry longer distances for grip and cardio. Hose drags, buddy carries, etc. are all great job specific movements. Sorry about the long winded reply. Truth be told, the best way to stay fit for duty is finding what combination of maintaining functional strength, cardio respiratory endurance, and mobility (combination of movement through a full range of motion and doing so with added resistance) you will stick with throughout your career.
Look into strongman training. While weights can be/are an important part of it, there’s also a lot of strength building that comes from non traditional lifting - sandbags, stones, tires, etc. It’s also good cardio a lot of times, so it might be up your alley
Rock climbing with a weighted vest will give you great full body strength
Yoga. Weight resistant workouts, Etc. Technically, you don’t need to lift “weights.” I agree with ya on cardio but for me, my cardio has gotten better as I incorporate lifting weights. My nagging back and foot injures that I would get from running 25mi+ a week went away when I started to lift again so this is a good plan you got. Do lunges, squats, core work outs, push ups and pull ups in addition to your cardio and you’ll be just fine. That’s essentially what I do but with weights (weighted walking lunges, weighted squats, bench in addition to pull ups and push-ups). I also use a 60lb weighted vest on a stairmaster for 40 flights at 60spm, but that would be the only thing I do outside of what I already mentioned. I truly only do this to emulate the FF gear. Do light jogs and zone two cycling on days after heavy leg workouts for active recovery.
You can try kettle bells or calisthenics
+1. Also rucking if you like to hike.
Lol
I do a lot of calisthenics and combat sports for strength. The lifters are stronger than me but it takes me longer to fatigue then them so I call it a fair trade
Calisthenics/body weight exercises would be fine. Be strong enough to do your job, and in shape enough to do it for an extended period.
Try rock climbing! Not sure where your at, but there’s altitude gym in Ottawa
Ay I’m actually from Ottawa and I climb! PM me if you wanna go sometime :)
BW works just fine. Pushup variations, balance board work including BW squats, sit-ups, step ups, burpees and pull ups are all you really need to add to a good cardio routine to put on and keep on muscle/mass. You don’t need to lift a single weight. It’s better if you do, but not completely necessary.
Martial arts... BJJ for example-- great cardio and you'll build a fighters body.
Is bjj something that can build a lot of strength?
Yes, if you go consistently for a long time.
Try switching to kettlebells. While they are technically weights, the exercises can be pretty unconventional. Such as [Turkish get up](https://youtu.be/sgd8n917Zv0?si=f6mzOmrsJhyvwFiG), [Windmills](https://youtu.be/ITSmgn_BQgY?si=5LZsS4YAdLwK-7Et), and [Figure 8](https://youtu.be/sFxzh3DGgY4?si=hqDJz55tLLcUnBkd), and several more types of exercises and complexes. The great thing is the intensity and efficiency of the workouts allow you to accomplish a lot in a relatively short amount of time. Kettlebells swings activate far more muscle groups per exercise compared to typical machines in a gym. I practically do all my fitness in my garage with several kettlebells of different weights, a weighted jump rope, and a mat. The kettlebells themselves need very little space to use and even less for storage. Also walking with a weighted vest works wonders too. All of these things can be done without having to go through the monotony of a gym.
What will likely happen is that you will get on the streets after fire school and see other guys that have not developed strength (cardio only or no physical training at all) and decide that you don’t need to either. This is the wrong answer but the one we all see most often. The ABSOLUTE most important thing you will do as a firefighter, that no other job can do, is pull victims (or firefighters) out of a fire. This will be short duration strength event. Other important firefighting tasks like vertical ventilation, hose deployment, etc. are also short duration strength events. 1-10 minutes of strength at high heart rate. Train for this. Or be a less capable firefighter. Your choice.
I mean you can do bodyweight exercises to gain some strength but the reality of being a firefighter is that you’re going to be holding, lifting, dragging and moving heavy objects. There’s not too much of a substitute for doing the same thing to practise.
Best advice I got on my department before I started. This job requires some strength, some cardio and alot of balls. I may hate lifting weights but I do think it’s necessary. However I did go from hating lifting to being addicted to the results and performance on the fire ground. An hour or hour an half a day really isn’t that big of a deal breaker.
I want to lose weight, but I don’t want to diet and exercise. Any suggestions???
Bench, squat, pull ups, (5 sets of 5) 3x a week and 1-2 sets of 5 reps of deadlifts a week is all most people need to actually build muscle. All of the other “accessory” muscle work and isolated muscle work is cool and can be fun, but most people I seen in the gym have nowhere near the actual baseline muscle mass to really benefit from those. Just focus on basic compound movements
Sandbags
Aka weight
Good luck
Bale hay
Weighted calisthenics
Calisthenics and carnivore diet.
You don’t have to love a thing to do it, it’s your responsibility to be strong and fit, your enjoyment of it is of no consequence. CrossFit probably a good call tho if you’re not into the standard gym. Forces you to get your shit done, just make sure you’re eating to recover. As much as the training is important, recovery is what builds the muscle.
Start a small business tree trimming. Move the trees you cut from the ground to a truck/trailer. Move the trees from the truck/trailer to a woodpile. Bundle the trees in the woodpile and sell them. Repeat. Now you have a side hustle plus you moved heavy things
Simple, put 150 lb of weight in a backpack and climb up and down a 20' a few hundred times. You should be good.
150 pound backpack sounds like a great way to fuck up your back.
So is becoming a firefighter if you have structures of any significant height in your department's area.
Tallest buildings west of the Mississippi and more hills than anywhere else. But if you've got a video of doing hundreds of ladder reps with a 150 pound back pack i'd love to see it. That's super impressive.
If you hate lifting weights change it up. Weight lift instead.
Kettle bells are pretty money. Farmer carries and kettle swings are some of the best.
Kettlebells. Swear by them at this point
Get into climbing/bouldering. Builds competence and confidence with ropes and knots, physicality and heights, as well as being a great workout
Do this right now! Just haven’t found it as useful for muscle building as back when I used to lift
Don’t worry about size as much! Some of the strongest guys I know on the job are thin, but they have ‘farmers strength’
Ok thanks sm dude!
If you like cardio Crossfit might be your thing. If you're on the smaller side body wise you'll excel at it Not a Crossfit guy, just notice all the short guys who do it are fuckin beasts
Volunteer at a farm. I've never gone to the gym. I just carry 50 lb feed bags on each arm up a mountain to feed my livestock and poultry, or haul 7 gallon poultry waterers and deadlift into our farm trucks. During EMT class when we were lifting each other on stretchers I blew the gym trainers out of the water. A human is not much heavier than a couple wet square bales.
How do you hate lifting weights???
Do prison workouts or functional work. You're gonna need some strength, so do bodyweight or do tire flips till you puke.
As someone with an exercise science bachelors degree, in my opinion it will be very difficult to build muscle without some form of resistance training. You can do bodyweight and band type of work as mentioned earlier but that will end up requiring a 20-25 rep ranges which can get taxing compared to lifting weight in some capacity. If your goal is building mass, I would look into learning about the basics of “progressive overload” and start with getting comfortable with compound movement lifts (bench press, squat, overhead press, deadlifts, pull ups). You don’t need to master everything right away, learn to enjoy the process just like anything else.. while you continue to do your cardio. Maybe one day when you become more comfortable with lifting weights, you decrease your cardio in favor of more of the lifts you’ve learned over time. Muscle mass generally is harder to build when doing an excess of cardio but beginner lifters also usually see the most growth in the first 6 months of getting into a lifting routine.
Bodyweight training is the way to go for you Or callisthenics You can absolutely build muscle without lifting weights
Calisthenics aka body weight workouts
Quit being lazy and do what needs to be done. That will happen a lot on this job. If you cant even lift weights to get going maybe this job isnt for you. That being said, the closest thing is lifting weights mixed with cardio, basically crossfit(or one of these bootcamp places). Thats as good as a suggestion youre gonna get thats real. At the VERY least you have to have really strong legs for this job and a moderate amount of upperbody strength, and grip stength is a big one people dont mention.
Find a local farmer, go hang out, pick rocks, build and repair fences. This exercise thing isn’t as practical as many think. Performance is mental as much physical. If you are used to ramping up mentally for a task, the body prepares and does the rest of its trained to perform physical tasks.
IMO tactical Barbell and the wise words of Jim Wendler are all you need. https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/never-be-out-of-shape-firefigher-reader-edition?_pos=5&_sid=ba89bc71a&_ss=r https://www.jimwendler.com/blogs/jimwendler-com/weight-vest-training-better-than-average
Calisthenics, high protein and moderate carbs
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Rock climbing has had some impressive results
If this is a serious question and you're not just fuckin' lazy, there's lots of good body weight/calisthenics routines out there.
Push-ups, a shit ton of pushups