CrossFit in Fire Fighting
http://www.crossfitorillia.ca/category/crossfit-and-fire-fighting/
The article below is what's from the link. It talks about firefighting and crossfit.
CrossFit in Fire Fighting
February 02nd, 2008 | Category: CrossFit and Fire Fighting
This is a great CrossFit Journal including an article on the importance of fitness in general, and CrossFit in particular, for Fire Fighters.
Putting Out Fires
Lon Kilgore
Honolulu Fire Department, Hawaii; Orange Country Fire Authority and Oakland
Fire Department, California; Woodinville Fire and Life Safety District, Washington;
Marietta Fire Department, Georgia; Parker Fire District, Colorado. What do all of
these fire departments have in common?
You’ve probably already guessed part of the answer: They use
CrossFit, officially or unofficially, to prepare for the rigors of their
profession. But there’s more. In firefighter competitions around
the country, it seems that whenever CrossFit-trained personnel
enter, they end up at the top of the field. We might even say that
fire companies like those above dominate the competition.
For those of us familiar with CrossFit and its results, this success is
not terribly surprising. However, we have observed a phenomenon
in these competitions that is curious indeed. In the parts of the
competitions that require contestants to use oxygen tanks,
CrossFit-trained firefighters consumed less from their oxygen
bottles than other competitors. At first this seems odd—winners
using less oxygen? The conventional understanding is that the more
fit you are, the more oxygen you can consume (i.e., the greater
your VO2 max), the higher levels of exertion you can sustain, and
the faster you can get the job done. Doing the same amount of
work in less time should require at least the same amount of
oxygen, if not more. So why would these athletes show a reduction
in oxygen consumed? This flies in the face of all accepted wisdom
on the subject.
Did the CrossFit-trained firefighters somehow become better
at oxygen handling? Is there some kind of elaborate respiratory
adaptation occurring that is related to an improved aerobic
capacity? It is really tempting to look for some elegant explanation
involving gas transport kinetics, enzymatic energy of activation,
and a whole bunch of other scientific jargon. Let’s cut to the chase
though and say that the short answer is “no” to all of the above;
it’s not nearly that complex an explanation.
The first point to consider is
that CrossFit-trained firefighters
are more efficient machines than
their competitors. They are performing equivalent competition
work at a lower metabolic cost compared to their rivals
because they are performing less extraneous work. This is an
adaptation in neuromuscular efficiency rather than an oxygen
kinetics phenomenon. Traditional physical training used by
lots of firefighters is often limited to linear aerobic movement
(running) and linear strength training (machines). Neither of
these modalities is applicable to the multiplanar challenges of a
firefighter competition course—or, for that matter, to the actual
job demands of a firefighter. CrossFit training, with its hugely
variant exercise menu, develops multiple motor and metabolic
pathways in every plane of motion and articulates well with real-
world (and competition) motor challenges.
So, OK, they are more efficient neurally and metabolically. But
how does this reduce oxygen consumption? The single largest
contributor to this reduction is an improvement in body control
across a variety of movement patterns. CrossFit establishes and
develops motor pathways relevant to sport and occupational effort.
A well-developed motor pathway reduces the amount of external
work done by the body and thereby reduces oxygen consumed.
Think of it this way. Remember your first ring dip? Remember
how wiggly your arms were and how much anterior-posterior and
medial-lateral movement there was? Now fast-forward to today
and your mastery of the ring dip. How much wiggling is there now?
The movement is more coordinated and each repetition takes less
time than those first few brutally hard and spastic dips. Regular
CrossFit training has eliminated the extra work you used to do
when you used a bunch of extra muscles to stabilize your body
on the rings. Reducing the amount of working muscle reduces
metabolic cost (calories burned and oxygen consumed). This
will result in either the ability to perform an activity for a longer
period of time or, in this instance with firefighters, in consuming
less oxygen per unit work.
Another factor that contributes to the improvement in efficiency
is the increase in strength that results from CrossFit training. It is
not intuitive, but it is strongly evident in the research literature
that strength training increases running performance without
increasing VO2 max. It is frequently thought that strength training
somehow improves running economy by subtly altering technique.
However, I find it difficult to believe, except in instances of gross
strength imbalances and deficits, that one could hone technique
for a specific skill with a general activity. I would propose that after
you get stronger, the aerobic activity now represents a lower level
of intensity and requires fewer motor units (less active muscle)
to accomplish the same amount of work. Less muscle activity
requires less ATP and requires less oxygen.
So, my explanation of the observed phenomenon in the firefighter
competitions is that CrossFit-trained firefighters become more
neurally efficient and stronger. Both of these phenomena contribute
to a lower muscular demand for oxygen and leave more of it in
the bottle. Both also contribute to winning competitions. While
these results are from competitions that simulate the real world
of firefighting, they point strongly to the fact that CrossFit training
prepares firefighters for the rigors of the profession better than
other training systems.
But let’s go beyond the individual firefighter. Let’s consider the
missions of fire departments. Within the context of those
missions, maximizing the safety of employees is important, as
is having equipment and personnel capable of safeguarding the
public. Administrators are also concerned with the fiscal bottom
line as they have only so many dollars to provide a critical public
service. If we think about these firefighting competition wins
from the administrator’s perspective (beyond the PR perks), two
observations of specific interest arise here:
1. Because they can do more work in less time, these
firefighters can be in harm’s way for a shorter period
of time.
2. By expending less energy and consuming less oxygen,
these firefighters are able to do more repeated bouts
of work.
So the relevance of CrossFit to administrators is that their
firefighters can do more work in less time, have a higher overall
work capacity, are less likely to be injured, and consume fewer
purchased resources (oxygen). This means healthier, more effective
firefighters at a lower operating cost. Everyone wins: firefighters,
administrators, and the public.
And beyond the realm of firefighting, just think of the stunning
importance of this—of being able, merely through effective physical
training, to actually decrease the amount of oxygen required to
fuel physical activity—for divers, astronauts, mountaineers, and
anyone else who needs to work in low-oxygen environments. The
implications are potentially staggering.
Lon Kilgore, Ph.D., is an associate
professor of kinesiology at Midwestern
State University, where he teaches
exercise physiology and anatomy. He has
held faculty appointments in exercise
science at Warnborough University
(UK) and in kinesiology at Kansas State
University. A nationally ranked weightlifter
from age 13, he has extensive practical
experience as an NCAA strength coach
and as coach of international-caliber
competitive weightlifters. He is a coaching
certification instructor for all levels of
USA Weightlifting’s coaching development
system and has been a member or Chair
of the USAW Sports Science Committee
for 9 years. He was also a primary proposal
author and researcher on the USOC
Weightlifting Performance Enhancement
Team project and is a member of the Board
of Certification for the American Society
of Exercise Physiologists. In addition to
numerous articles in both academic and
popular publications, he is coauthor of
the books Starting Strength: A Simple and
Practical Guide for Coaching Beginners and
Practical Programming for Strength Training.
