Chris (00:04.318)
Welcome back to priority traffic podcast where we dive deep into the lives and expertise of outstanding professionals in fitness and in firefighting. Today we have a special guest who embodies the perfect blend of the two worlds. Eric Haskins is a senior firefighter for the city of Nampa with a rich background in strength and conditioning, holding a degree in exercise science and certifications in the NSCA strength, excuse me, certified strength and conditioning specialist and

Westside Barbell conjugate instructor, Eric brings unparalleled expertise to his field. Notably, he's also Idaho's first graduate of the prestigious Georgia Smoke Diver program and a dedicated coach to fire law enforcement officers, military professionals, and even Olympic athletes. His journey is one of resilience, passion, and a wavering commitment to helping others achieve their peak performance. Join us as we explore Eric's fascinating career.

his training philosophy, and what it takes to excel in both the gym and on the front lines as a firefighter. Eric, welcome to Party Traffic Podcast.

Eric Haskins (01:12.716)
Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be here, man.

Chris (01:14.888)
No problem. So I really want to have you on to dig into your training philosophy, get to know you, get your background a little bit. The West Side Barbell Conjugate Tactical stuff is super interesting to me. I think there's a lot of firefighters out there who would benefit kind of understanding how that program works, how that philosophy can help them. I do have a bunch of questions about what it means to be a Georgia smoke diver.

and how that impacted you into your career. And, you know, it's something that not a lot of people have, but a lot of people talk about. And then, you know, just some injuries or obstacles that you've had to overcome and what it means to be a firefighter in your life, balancing the coaching, the private stuff, and then, you know, how you're doing. But first, let's dig into your background. And do you mind giving everybody a little introduction? How you got here, who you are and where you work?

Eric Haskins (02:16.848)
Yeah, man, I'll try to simplify it. It's been a long and a fun journey to kind of where I've been. I've done things. I've been able to travel the world. Years ago, I was a professional snowboarder, trained with the US Project Gold Team and was on the Pro Tour, I think about six years. I ended up retiring from that.

in 2009. I lost my World Cup spot in 2009 and decided to kind of call it there. After that, I ended up going to school. I went to Boise State and I grew up playing ice hockey my entire life. so when I retired from snowboarding, I had a hard time just being a student. I'd been an athlete pretty much my entire life.

And, man, I just wasn't fulfilled. don't, I don't know what it was, but I took some advice from, a coach and he just said, Hey man, like, you should try to walk on, to, a hockey team. Like it'd be a waste to throw all this away. you know, and, so, ended up going to Boise state. got recruited, recruited to play ice hockey there. I got a degree in exercise physiology.

Chris (03:40.638)
Nice.

Eric Haskins (03:45.459)
And, you know, I wanted to be a physical therapist. been injured so many times and had so much physical therapy that I thought, you know, I'd make a good physical therapist. But yeah, so I graduated. played four years of hockey there and then graduated. And then kind of at the last minute, you know, I wasn't really happy with where the physical therapy thing was going and decided, you know, I wanted to really focus on being a strength and conditioning coach.

So I opened up a gym and at that time I was with my girlfriend and that was going well and she kinda, we were looking to pivot and do some other things and I was looking at going into the army. I wanted to, I was getting ready to sign like an 18X contract to go special forces and when I told her about it, she wasn't very thrilled and she kinda, yeah, she was like,

Chris (04:30.941)
Okay.

Chris (04:40.445)
I, yeah.

Eric Haskins (04:45.353)
You know, think you'll be great at that. I just won't be here when you get back." And I was like, all right, well, what would you stick around for? And she's like, you know, you've always been interested in the fire service. You know, I'd shared that with her, you know, for a long time. Had a lot of good friends in the fire service and I always talked about wanting to do that. And, you know, she mentioned that and I said, is that something you'd stick around for? And she said, yep. And so I made a call to my buddy, Frank.

And yeah, I just said, hey man, sell my gym. Want to get, you know, get into the fire service. Can you help me? And I think within like two weeks he had a whole posse of people up to my house. I was living in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho at the time and they packed my whole house up, moved me and my girlfriend down there and just put everything into getting on the job. Lived my girlfriend, myself and my two dogs moved into his house.

You know, got my NT, did all the things and to make this long story, hopefully shorter, I now ride the backseat on Frank's engine and I work for the city of Nampa and that girlfriend is now my wife and we've got two kids. So I'd say that, you know, it all worked out the way it was supposed to. So here we are.

Chris (06:06.91)
Heck yeah, Dude, that's pretty cool. The experience with snowboarding, that's probably a pretty high level operation, right? Like you're competing at a pretty high level. I guess my question is, what skills from that high level, competitive, high risk job, being a snowboarder like that, do you think serve you the most in your job now?

Eric Haskins (06:39.095)
Probably like training. you know, one developed this like just love for the process, right? Which is, which has become such a trademark thing, you know, like a catchphrase. But, but back then, you know, you just for snowboarding is training. I was on snow, you know, probably 200 days a year. You're traveling the world. was, I was, you know, training with the national team and everything was

Chris (06:46.708)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (06:53.748)
Sure.

Eric Haskins (07:08.354)
was very focused and everything was geared towards like getting better and all your resources were put towards, you know, this end goal, right? Which mine was to win Olympic gold. And to do that, you know, you maybe only compete like such a fraction of the time, right? But the majority of your time is training so that like when, you know, you do get your shot, you're

Chris (07:13.79)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (07:37.644)
you're ready to go, right? I mean, does it sound familiar? It's like for the fire service, it's like you spend a career training for, know, none of us are getting, you know, I'm still yet to meet anyone that says they're getting too much fire, right? I think everybody wants more jobs. So you spend the majority of your time training for, you know, when that call comes in, you know, and so I think that, you know, the time

Chris (07:38.665)
Yeah.

Chris (08:00.628)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (08:07.351)
snowboarding and really being dedicated towards a craft like that shaped me in the way that I probably approached the fire service the same way. It's the majority of my time is spent training so that when the call comes in, all my resources have been dedicated. So when that happens, it's like, win your Olympic gold that day for lack of a better term, right? So you're ready. So I think that really formed kind of foundation on

Chris (08:22.836)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (08:30.526)
Yeah. Right.

Eric Haskins (08:37.194)
how I prepare for the job and really how I think about it.

Chris (08:40.946)
Nice. So you go in from snowboarding, hockey and school, and you start digging into, you know, physical fitness and what had you always wanted to do that? Is that something you were always curious about?

Eric Haskins (08:58.2)
Yeah. So I was, I was training. I was living in Alberta at the time and I was training with the Canadian national team. had kind of an interesting, really cool environment up there where it was an international group of, of young, young riders. And we were all trained together up at, the Canadian Olympic park. And, and I are strength and conditioning coach, Scott, Scott Wilgres for the national team.

Chris (09:15.678)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (09:27.086)
He was really my first introduction into probably what a strength and conditioning, like a real strength and conditioning coach is. And I loved like the training. He always had these things like, Hey, you know, want to test this and test that. And that was kind of my first introduction into that. And I think I probably enjoyed like the training more than anything. And I asked him like, man, how do you get into this field? And so he was, he was a good

mentor to me. And that was probably what gave me the real itch or the interest in the science and practice of strength and conditioning. And so when it came time to go to school, like that's what interested me. You know, I want to take my experience as an athlete and then train other athletes. And, you know, I just, I just always enjoyed that learning about that process and the testing and kind of a nerd when it comes to that stuff. So.

Chris (10:03.508)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (10:27.134)
Yeah, I can relate to that. you say enjoy the process and then I hear you say enjoying learning, just, you know, that just makes me think that likely we align on the core value of being a lifelong learner.

Eric Haskins (10:41.154)
Yeah, absolutely.

Chris (10:41.306)
And I think the fire service is one of the greatest places to just continue to learn about yourself, other people, and sharpen that stone. Would you agree with that?

Eric Haskins (10:56.636)
Absolutely. mean, there's no shortage of like new one, like the evolution of what we're learning, especially through like science and studies with fire behavior and those things, know, new kind of tactics or I don't want to say new, but like things are getting improved on and we're learning better ways to do things. then like the stuff that

Chris (11:08.478)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (11:25.405)
happens on a day to day basis. It's like, you know, I work one of my buddies, Dave that work with, he always says, he's like, you can't make this up, Because it's just like you show up and you're like, Wow, I've never seen this before. We got to figure it out, you know, and it was just a few weeks ago. You know, we had a hair was a was a car drag racing on the street. was like 9am on a Sunday morning. And

Chris (11:33.366)
Right.

Eric Haskins (11:53.117)
The call came in as a 1050 unknown vehicle into a house. And so, you know, they show up and they're like, you know, what's the address? We can't seem to find it. And so he's doing his 360 and like looks up and the car is on the house next door. And he's like, go ahead. And he just starts dispatching all the resources and this car had been drag racing.

lost control, hit like a little three foot like landscape and embankment and launched over the house and landed on the roof next to it. And like in that moment, they had to figure out like, yeah, like where in what book or in what academy did they teach you specifically for that, right? And so, man, our people had a great response. You know, this car had been doing

Chris (12:42.056)
Yeah, right.

Eric Haskins (12:50.706)
I think, you know, well over a hundred miles an hour. and, and so they, you know, they in that moment had to put together everything that they have formerly like learned, known whether it was, in a book, in a class, and then also combine that with experience to come up with like how to solve that problem. And that's like, that's every day, not, not a car on top of a roof, but like, I mean, every call, you're just putting together information that, you know.

Chris (12:52.168)
Yeah, easily.

Chris (13:17.726)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (13:20.007)
And if you aren't constantly learning, man, like you're going to fail somebody because they expect us to be able to show up and solve that problem. You know, and so yeah, the need to be a lifelong learner, especially in the fire service. I think that that's the only way to approach it.

Chris (13:32.648)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (13:42.056)
Nice. And, and it kind of leads me into like discussing your philosophy and training and principles, but that, that ability to maintain that learning or that desire to improve or grow. I think there's something that happens in a fire career where you get there and you've arrived and you're there. And then that spark goes away and you know, whether it was your purpose or

passion or you're just overloaded with the job, that we lose that. And I think one of the greatest ways to rebuild that or reconnect with that is fitness. It's typically a low barrier to entry, right? It just requires you to put in something. Everything's uphill. So if you want to get to the top of the hill, you have to work. And, you know, I think this is a great opportunity for you to introduce firehouse strength and conditioning. Do you mind give us a quick

rundown of what that is to you and kind of how you got got involved with this because it's it's been around for some time and it's it's pretty awesome.

Eric Haskins (14:51.285)
Yeah. Yeah. You know, firehouse strength and conditioning. It's funny because it was, that was never the goal or the intent. My buddy, Frank and I, Frank owned a gym. So when I moved back to get on with fire service, you know, I had sold my gym and he's like, you you come work at my gym. And so I worked at his gym for a long time and kind of been doing that and we'd worked with a lot of firefighters. So when I got on the job,

Chris (14:59.027)
Right.

Eric Haskins (15:21.794)
And, you know, he'd been already like a captain for, you know, 10 plus years. We just started getting phone calls of like, Hey, can you help us with our Academy? Right. Or can you help? Can you come give our people a class with this? And so, you know, that's kind of where it started. And we had departments calling us. We would go do one, two, three day workshops, seminars, building. And the goal was to train.

their training division, we would write their recruit academy PT, we would train their people, basically, you call it a train, a trainer, whatever, with the intent that basically you won't need us. And so we would go do these and I kept getting the same questions at the end, every time. I'd spend two, three days with these people and I would stand up on the whiteboard and deliver lectures on

Chris (16:00.02)
Train the trainer,

Eric Haskins (16:20.783)
on exercise science and physiology and basically like, like, I'm to just teach you everything I think you need to know. Here's the program. And, you know, at the end of it, they always asked, you know, that that looks like a lot of work. How much to just pay you to like, do the programming. And every time I was just like, like, well, why didn't you just ask that? And the kid is like, you know,

Chris (16:25.31)
Hmm.

Eric Haskins (16:49.559)
You mean after two or three days, like you don't want to, you know, it's like, so after enough of this, I'm like, all right, here's what I'm going to do. I, you know, I found a platform and I was like, I am going to upload what I do for my training and what I recommend to people. cause that, that was always a question I got man, what do you do? And I'm like, you know, this is what I do. And they're like, would you, you know, what would you recommend for a firefighter? It's like,

Chris (17:06.164)
There you go.

Eric Haskins (17:19.534)
Well, that's what I do. is, and so that's kind of the origin story of firehouse strength and conditioning. And, and, you know, I was just putting up the programming that I do for the job is designed specifically for firefighters. have minimal equipment. So I needed a program that was accessible when I was at work, right. with the equipment that I had available there. Also, it needed to be like reasonable.

Chris (17:39.924)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (17:48.387)
Like I have spent a lifetime training in a gym two to three hours a day for like years. And like, I'm done with that, man. Like I don't need to do that. And so when it came to training for the job, it's like, I need something that is effective, minimal equipment I can do on minimal sleep.

Chris (17:55.966)
Right.

Eric Haskins (18:17.013)
And I can get an interrupted, you know? And so that's kind of formed the foundation of it. And then when it came to putting it out there, I was like, you know, I really want this to be a minimal barrier to entry, you know, funds for firefighters and fire departments. It's like, I want this thing to be. I don't want the price of it to be something that holds back, like a firefighter from reclaiming their fitness and being able to train for the job.

and so it was like, look, let's, I'm just going to make it like a Netflix subscription. It's like 20 bucks a month. I'm not out to, to really make money on this thing. I get asked enough, like, what do you do? I just point, I'm like, here it is. And at 20 bucks a month, it's like, you know, have at it, you know, do you, so that that's kind of, that's where firehouse strength and conditioning kind of came from and where it's at. So.

Chris (19:13.492)
If you could you kind of elaborate on maybe just your core principles of your philosophy when it comes to training like a firefighter?

Eric Haskins (19:26.865)
Yeah, so, you know, there is a aspect of specificity, right? So whether you're a professional snowboarder or ice hockey, like there is an aspect of specificity to whatever your sport or occupation is, right? So firehouse strength and conditioning and the principles is one that is specific to the job in that aspect of

Chris (19:31.229)
Okay.

Eric Haskins (19:56.571)
We need a few things. We need maximal strength. And this is kind of where we can talk about the conjugate system and how well it works. when it comes to lifting a patient off the ground, and I don't know, mean, they're getting heavier and heavier. So we'll just say like a typical, like when it comes to lifting a 400 pound person off the floor, like that's not something

Chris (20:14.228)
They sure are.

Eric Haskins (20:25.128)
that you're doing for reps. mean, I hope not, right? Like you need the ability to organize yourself in a way that is safe, efficient and effective to lift that person up, whether it's just off the ground or onto a gurney without injuring them or yourself. And that requires maximal strength, right? That's a one-time thing. And there's a lot of aspects of the job that require maximal strength. And then, you know,

Chris (20:28.242)
Right.

Eric Haskins (20:54.216)
lifting a maximal weight. And then on the other side of things is kind of the explosive power. So there's a lot of things that we need to do that requires, you know, maximal amount of force as quickly as possible. know, whether, you know, easy one is forcible entry, right? Is the impulse that you can give that door. But, you know, when it comes to making a push down a hallway or throwing a ladder, like these things require a special strength. And what it looks like is this

you know, continuum of, you know, it's a force velocity curve where velocity is very low, the force is very high and vice versa when the velocity is high, force is low. Well, we want to train both aspects of that curve so that, you know, we have these capabilities to meet whatever the demands of the job. So when it comes to programming strength,

for firehouse strength and conditioning, those things are taken into account. You want to develop those special strengths in conjunction with one another so that you're bringing all those tools to the table. Right. So that that's kind of a, hopefully a simple version of the strength side. And when it comes to conditioning, you know, I've spent, I spent a long time in in CrossFit gyms and coaching there and building work capacity and

Chris (22:16.105)
Right.

Eric Haskins (22:21.65)
When, when it comes to conditioning for the fire service, we're really looking at, at work capacity and what is that like work capacity, you know, really look at how much time do you have on a bottle? What are the types of movement patterns that, that you use while working on the fire ground or, know, maybe it's an extrication or those things. And so when we think on the conditioning side of things, we're really trying to build work capacity and almost it's like grunt work.

Chris (22:36.756)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (22:51.551)
You know, kind ability we need, we need, we need to have a strong and stable spine under load, under duress with high heart rates. And we need to be able to sustain that for, you know, a bottle two, three, and those, right. And so on the conditioning side of things, that's where we're really trying to, to, to be specific about the energy systems that we train. You need to be able to go fast and hard.

Chris (23:04.094)
Sure.

Eric Haskins (23:17.196)
But you also need to be able to sustain, right? So if you're to be doing overhaul or maybe you're working the fire line, it's like, well, you need to be able to go for a long time. So just being a sprinter isn't good enough. You need to be able to sustain and keep working. And, you know, we always look at it as, you don't want to be the guy who's low air alarm is the first to go off, right? So like in my department, it's like when that bell starts ringing, everyone looks and it's like, okay.

Chris (23:19.113)
Right.

Eric Haskins (23:46.902)
doesn't matter where you're at, like it's time to go. And like, no, nobody wants to be that. So the goal is to build a work capacity so that you have the tools and the engine to get the work done that you need to without, you know, coming up short or placing yourself or your crew or the citizens in danger. So hopefully that answers that question.

Chris (24:07.604)
Absolutely. No, I think it does. And you actually, you, you mentioned two things, building capacity and then the demand of the job. And maybe we'll take a little left turn here and dig into this, but capacity and demand. And we kind of talked about it briefly to start, but the, the fire service is a capacity demand ratio. The job is going to be the job until forever.

As we get older and decay our capacity naturally diminishes right unless we're leaning into that trying to maintain that And you've said that a handful of times. I've seen it on a lot of your your social media stuff Do you mind kind of digging into your your thought process when we see? Capacity over demand and and just kind of you know share your thoughts on that

Eric Haskins (25:01.326)
Yeah, the capacity over demand. You actually got that. So I was at a seminar with Gus of Westside Barbell. And at one point during one of his lectures, he just wrote up capacity greater than demand. And I remember when I saw that it was like, like that's it. I'm not clever. And so I don't, I'm not able to come up with those things. And I just remember seeing that and it was like,

dude Gus like that's it. And so that really became a thing after talking to him that really simplified really the goal of firehouse strength and conditioning and really any aspect like you're talking about. And so the goal is, that your capacity always exceeds the demands of the fire ground. Right. And the reason that is, is, you know, one we're seeing this, you know, what's, what's one of the major, if not the major killer.

Chris (25:49.757)
Always.

Eric Haskins (26:00.053)
of firefighters, Like sudden cardiac events. What causes that, right? Demand exceeded the capacity of the heart, right? And then when you look at the injuries that are sustained on the fire ground, it really is like an injury, whether it is a bone, soft tissue, ligament, like these things, like those happen when

Chris (26:01.0)
Right. Exactly.

Chris (26:09.864)
Right. Simple.

Eric Haskins (26:29.593)
the demand exceeds the capacity of whatever that is. And so it's very simple when it comes to our training, we want our capacity to always exceed demand so that we don't get injured, we don't die, all right? We're able to meet the demands and serve the citizens on the day that they called. And so that's a very easy way and way to kind of sum things up.

And then over time, you you mentioned it as we age, like the reality is, like, these things are just going to decline. Like that's, that's father time. And so, you know, the real goal is to push yourself. And it's a continuum barring like a catastrophic injury or disease. Like no one just one day wakes up and they've lost all physical abilities. Naturally, right? know, disease, injury.

Chris (27:24.926)
Naturally, right.

Eric Haskins (27:27.865)
those things can do that. But for most, it is a slow decline over time. So our goal is to push ourselves so far to the end of the continuum that over the career, as those things naturally decline, you still exceed the demand of the fire grounds, right? Which is such a hard thing to do, right? Like, I mean, you talk about the things that the fire service present.

Chris (27:48.948)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (27:57.328)
Man, this job is not healthy. I didn't get into this job one to get rich or to live super healthy. You just think about all the things that are stacked against us and it makes it very hard. Yeah, you make it very hard. It makes it very hard to maintain these things. And so it's a career, it's a lifelong.

Chris (28:08.456)
Yeah. Probably funny it's not good for your health or wellness.

Chris (28:15.07)
Yeah, it can.

Eric Haskins (28:24.754)
process of just trying to fight off that decline. And, you know, I heard a song a while ago and it was Toby Keith's, Don't Let the Old Man In. And like capacity over demand, when I heard like that line, I was like, like, that's it. Like, why, why, why am I training? Why do I keep pushing these things? It's like, dude, I'm just, I don't want to let the old man in. I got two kids.

Chris (28:28.372)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (28:35.4)
Yeah, yes.

Chris (28:43.06)
That's it.

Eric Haskins (28:53.487)
I got a job that demands like everything of me. The day I stop trying to keep the old man from coming in, it's like, gee, that's when things get bad, right? And so, yeah, man, you're just constantly pushing back and over a career, that's a tough thing to do.

Chris (29:11.742)
Yeah, I remember, I think I heard Clint Eastwood say something like that too, because he's, he's got to be up, up there eighties, nineties, or I don't know exactly how old he is, but he takes that same mentality. Like he's just, he's not accepting that he's, he's pushing back. And there used to be this number that I think it was found out to be made up, but firefighting takes

10 to 15 years off your life immediately. Right. And I think, I think we debunk that it sounds right. It seems to fit, whether that's accurate or not, I don't know, but fighting into that and taking those years back is what it means to build your capacity. Right. And the demand is such that it, it, it only gets harder. Right. I don't see the fire service finding ways to make itself easier. Right. It's just,

Can we adapt? The job doesn't care if you're a man, a woman, short, tall, young or old. The demand is the demand. If your heart's 65 years old or 25 years old, it's still gonna push you. And if you have a surplus of capacity, you'll probably come out on the better side of that, barring anything outside of your control, you know, major catastrophes. And like you said, injury and illness. But there's just something about the mindset

Eric Haskins (30:28.788)
Yeah.

Chris (30:35.788)
people like you and that I try to embody that It's part of what we do. It's not just I'm going to work. I'm gonna get through today See what happens and I don't bust my ass every day, but 90 % of the time We're in the gym, right? We're doing it What would you say is something that can help someone who's struggling to find that? Intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to start looking at the lifestyle they have and and maybe evolving into

one that is supported by strength and conditioning or, you know, find that again. How can we help people get that?

Eric Haskins (31:14.695)
Yeah, for,

My simple approach to that is I would ask you like, what are you willing to do? And so you made a comment there of like, you know, I don't, not every day, you know, is, am I like all out or, you know, bust my ass or those things, right? Like you give it everything that you have available on that day. And sometimes that's like, man, I'm giving a hundred percent of my 60%.

Chris (31:35.358)
Right.

Eric Haskins (31:47.881)
because I haven't slept in two days. I've got a newborn. Maybe I just got a puppy that likes to get up every 30 minutes to pee on the carpet. And so the important aspect is like on that day, I'm going to bring everything that I have. And that might look like a hundred percent of my 70%, right? And then when it comes to like the fitness thing is

Chris (32:11.028)
Yeah, I like that.

Eric Haskins (32:17.111)
is people get really caught up with, you know, these big like challenges, you know, especially we're coming up on New Year's, it's going to be the new year, new me. And people are going to sign up for, you know, some, you know, a common one. It's going to be like, they're going to sign up for the Navy SEAL program. But yet they're a firefighter. And it's like, what, like, you know, that's designed for Navy SEALs. It's not designed for firefighters.

Chris (32:27.604)
Yeah, right.

Chris (32:42.451)
Right.

Eric Haskins (32:46.518)
it's going to destroy you. anyways, yeah, like, and, and, and, so they go for it, like a hundred percent all in on this thing way over the top. And then of course they don't last more than a week. Like, it's just not sustainable. And so, you know, a better approach is like, what are you willing to do today? Especially if you've lost your fitness or lost your momentum.

Chris (32:49.492)
Right, good luck on your 15 mile ruck.

Eric Haskins (33:15.634)
is so many times I've got a garage gym and I will go in there and it's like, I just start with a warmup. I've got a warmup that I've been doing for years. It's the same thing I do every day. It takes seven minutes. And it is a warmup that I've designed that works really well for me. And it's like, I don't know how many days I go in there. It's like, dude, just start there. And then once I get warm, I'm like, I feel pretty good.

Chris (33:37.864)
Right?

Eric Haskins (33:43.703)
All right, what's the first thing on my program today? Main lift. It's like, all right, I can bench press today. Like, you know, getting that. then like all of sudden you're starting to build up these small wins. And then after the bench press or whatever you're doing, it's like you throw on you're like, man, I'm feeling good now. 45 minutes later, you're like, dude, I just got in a killer workout. Now had I written that all up on the board, looked at it an hour before with the state that I was in, I'm like,

Chris (34:01.012)
Alright, blood's flowing.

Eric Haskins (34:13.911)
Yeah, no, I don't got that today. So, so, so I don't start versus if I just, and I'm just going to start with a warmup. And some days that's literally riding one mile on the assault bike. And it's like, dude, I'm just, and, and for me, that's what it looks like on most days is that's how I get started. and so that would be my, my recommendation is start with something you're willing to do. It doesn't have to be this, Olympic caliber program.

Chris (34:24.841)
Right?

Eric Haskins (34:43.084)
that might look like doing nickels and dimes, know, five pull-ups, 10 push-ups, maybe, you know, on the hour, every hour for 10 hours of the day. You know, you go to the station and, you know, we did something a while back called like basically a deck of calls. I'm sure you've done like a deck of cards workout. So worked at a really busy station and the idea of having a

Chris (35:04.99)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Haskins (35:12.035)
a standalone workout time was just, it was a dream and it would never happen. So what I did, and you know, we got a whiteboard and on every call that we went on, on the way back, you know, someone in the engine would just call out a movement and reps. And so typically it'd go by seniority. So the captain would be like, all right, you know, we just came back from a chest pain, right? It's like, what do you got, Cappy? He's like, 10 air squats. It's like, okay. So we write 10 air squats.

Chris (35:15.892)
Right.

Eric Haskins (35:39.834)
Up next to a chest pain on the whiteboard in the bay. When we got back from that call, we did 10 air squats as a crew went inside. Next call comes out. We keep doing the same thing. You know, every call gets a new movement reps and everyone gets gets to figure out what it is. Well, okay. Say another chest pain comes in. It's like, okay, we owe 10 air squats. Now you start rolling a few calls. You go out. I've got a chest pain. I've got

two falls and we had a 1050. Well, you go to the board and you're like, okay, we owe five pull-ups, we owe 20 air squats and 10 burpees. And it's like, that's what we were doing. know, over, we do 4896s and over 48 hour tour, you know, it's like you'd look up there and we got way more in than had we tried to get in like an hour in the gym, right? And then we,

Chris (36:19.486)
Yeah.

Chris (36:25.204)
Okay.

Chris (36:36.062)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (36:39.321)
man, we had this weird thing. we never slept through the night, which was always a, know, man, if I could just like sleep through the night, right. And we played a trick on ourselves where it was, okay, if we sleep through the night, then you got to clear the board. So meaning that the next morning, if like we didn't get a call from like 10 to 6 a.m., we'd have to go out there and you do the whole board. And that one little thing,

turned it from like bitching about like not being able sleep through the night to God, I hope we don't sleep through the night. Like, like, dude, we get a call that would come in at like 5am and the crew would be like, yes, I did not want to do all that shit. And it was so funny. It was like, it was like, listen to us. Like last week we would have been bitching and moaning about this. And now like we hope we don't sleep through the night.

Chris (37:15.362)
Right

Chris (37:24.168)
Right.

Chris (37:30.814)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Eric Haskins (37:35.346)
You know, and so it was a psychological thing, but it was just kind of funny. And, and we, kind of just made it up on our own. And as we went and it just stuck and I was like, man, this, works really well. And so sometimes, sometimes it's just that instead of I have to go into the gym for 90 minutes uninterrupted. If I don't get in the entire workout and I don't make any progress, it's like, eh, it just doesn't work that way. And for the fire service, it's going to look more like.

Chris (37:37.172)
For sure.

Chris (37:46.174)
That's awesome.

Eric Haskins (38:05.851)
getting in a few things between calls than the actual uninterrupted thing. At least that's the way it is in my world.

Chris (38:14.1)
Yeah, so two things I want to touch on real quick. What is your down and dirty thoughts of 4896?

Eric Haskins (38:24.925)
I think there's better. I think there's better out there. the, the 48 96 at a busy house is brutal. didn't really feel it until I had kids and to come home after not sleeping for two nights. My wife is ready to be off duty. You know, I walked through the door. haven't slept for two nights. My wife also hasn't slept for two nights. You know, she's ready to hand them over.

Chris (38:27.06)
Okay. Okay.

Chris (38:39.582)
Okay.

Chris (38:46.825)
Right.

Chris (38:53.971)
Yeah.

Eric Haskins (38:55.141)
And now I'm not in a good, place to, to, be the best version of myself, right? Let alone, you know, don't know how many times I've walked down a hallway on night two after like not sleeping and I'm walking behind my driver who is like walking down the hall, leaning into the wall. And it's like, that's the dude that's going to drive that rig. You know, it's like, that's the guy getting behind the wheel.

Chris (39:19.688)
Right. Dude.

Eric Haskins (39:24.448)
Imagine if you were leaving like a restaurant and you saw someone walking down the hall on the way to their car like that. It'd be like, like no way, like give me your keys. But yet with a 4896, any of these like long shifts, it's like, that's the reality of it. So people make, you know, they get in accidents, they make mistakes on the fire ground, they make mistakes drawing up medication. know, if you look at some of the studies we've

Chris (39:30.408)
Yeah, you'd stop them.

Eric Haskins (39:53.267)
been doing studies here locally, but it's like, you know, the amount of may days that come in on day two versus day one. Right. So it's like, yeah, if we want to bang the drum about safety and, know, everybody goes home, whatever, whatever the new thing is. and yet like still roll out the shift schedules that are like the worst things for our health. Like it just doesn't match up. So.

Chris (39:59.72)
Day two, right? Yeah.

Chris (40:21.001)
Right.

Eric Haskins (40:23.347)
now it's not as easy as, just switching the schedule. realize. Like there's a lot of aspects to it, but I think we could do better on that aspect. my department, like I would prefer if we did like a 24 on 72 off. When I look at schedules, I'm like, I'm like, man, that looks pretty good. I'd like to give that one a try. And the people that I talk to that are rolling that,

Chris (40:27.443)
Right.

Chris (40:40.968)
Yeah, let's go.

Chris (40:45.534)
Yep.

Eric Haskins (40:51.745)
are pretty happy with it. You know, they're like, yeah, I can do one night knowing that I'm going to like go home the next day and be able to chill, you know, and recover. Where we get into trouble though is, you know, okay, so you get that 24 72 and now, now you pick up some overtime shifts. Maybe you're working a second job and it's like, well, we're giving you this time off to take care of yourself and you're kind of

Chris (40:52.734)
there.

Chris (41:11.965)
Right.

Eric Haskins (41:22.036)
you're going the other way with it. So, you know, we can do, we can be better on our days off as well to maximize our recovery. So I know you asked for down and dirty, but I just gave you a long answer. So my bad.

Chris (41:22.856)
Right, right.

Chris (41:33.832)
No, dude, that was solid and just looking for more thought process there, because we considered it too at our department, right? It was brought up, it was talked about. It fell on its face. I don't know what happened with it, but it didn't even come to a vote, I don't think. The second thing I want to ask you was seven for seven. Can you run us through that real quick just for those guys looking for, hey, Eric does this thing, seven for seven, he says it works.

Eric Haskins (41:54.943)
Yeah.

Chris (42:01.298)
And maybe that's all most people need is to start with that warm up and maybe that'll get them going somewhere like you mentioned.

Eric Haskins (42:06.121)
Yeah.

Eric Haskins (42:10.647)
Totally, So seven for seven is seven movements for seven minutes. And it's 20 seconds of each movement for three rounds. it starts with jumping jacks. Then you go into a mountain climber. And this could be like, this is more of a mountain climber stretch. Then you go into pushups. You go down on your belly for arm haulers. You flip over on your back.

for flutter kicks, you stand up, you do air squats, and then your seventh movement is just an up down. And so, yeah, I set a timer for 20 seconds and I just rotate from one to the next. And it's not like going for high score. It's like, dude, I'm just, I'm just moving, man. And yeah, sometimes it's like, that was my workout today.

Chris (43:09.428)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (43:10.486)
you know, or maybe you just do that every couple of hours. And if you were to start tallying up the amount of movements and the things that you're getting, it's like, dude, we're making progress. It's like, it's the 1 % better mindset. So yeah, seven for seven, 20 seconds of each movement, three rounds, jumping jacks, mountain climbers, pushups, arm haulers, flutter kicks, air squats, and up downs.

Chris (43:38.676)
We will throw a video in the show notes of that if you don't mind. Just so people can check it out.

Eric Haskins (43:44.64)
Yeah, I'll send you, I've got a YouTube link to it, so I'll send that to you.

Chris (43:48.244)
Perfect.

Chris (43:51.728)
Excellent. yeah, if you're listening along and you're like, man, I need to try this. You're not sure what any of those means. We'll have a good resource link to the website, YouTube, all that stuff. We'll put that in there for you guys. So, so let's move out of the warmup a little bit. And, if you don't mind to expand on the conjugate, the technicalities of it and the philosophy. and I'm super, super excited to learn about this because I, I didn't know it existed until several months ago when I started following you. and

Eric Haskins (44:18.531)
Yeah.

Chris (44:21.436)
I had followed some of the West Side Barbell stuff in the past for powerlifting and I did a powerlifting meet. It was cool, I learned a lot. I've only done one, probably won't ever do another one. But super interesting. yeah, introduce us to Conjugate Tacti-

Eric Haskins (44:32.205)
Yeah.

Eric Haskins (44:38.882)
Yeah, we'll start kind of first talk about kind of what conjugate is, because that's a huge thing. And man, there are a lot of different definitions and opinions. However, the conjugate system, it works best to kind of compare and contrast it against, like a traditional

periodization model. like typical Western periodization is this idea of high volume, low intensity. think, you know, high reps, low weight, and then over time, like the reps decrease and the weight increases. And so that's your like traditional Western classic periodization model, 16 weeks, that's it. And so

Chris (45:29.918)
like, some, right, progressive overload type stuff.

Eric Haskins (45:36.4)
You're just going along there and you've got a start date and an end date. And the idea is that you peak at this end date and that's it. Or you've got these kind of block periodizations where, you know, you've got muscular endurance phase, then you've got a strength phase or a hypertrophy. And then you've got like power and it's in, you know, we're really training these specific blocks, you know,

which are fine for say classic like sport models or those things where it's like, okay, I've got in season and out seat and off season. These are specific dates that I need to peak for. Or maybe I'm just a like a beginner novice, like just learning. Like there's nothing wrong with these traditional systems because they can serve depending on what the goals are.

Chris (46:15.432)
Right.

Chris (46:29.673)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (46:35.207)
those things very well. However, those models do not work well for tactical populations. And we'll just say the fire service, for our example, because we don't have an off season, right? You don't know when your game is going to be, right? At any given time, you need to be able to bring all of your traits to the table or to your field, the fire ground at once.

Chris (46:48.328)
Right, right.

Chris (47:04.5)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (47:05.576)
You don't have, imagine you get a call coming and you're like, ooh, I'm in my endurance phase right now. I'm not sure I'm gonna be good on this one. You got a 400 pound, God, I wish, maybe I'll try that next round. When a lift assist comes in, I'm like, I just haven't been training for strength lately. We'll have to dispatch another unit. Yeah, yeah, like, no, you guys got that. I haven't lifted heavy in a while.

Chris (47:11.763)
Right?

Chris (47:18.494)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris (47:24.232)
Right. I'm at the endurance phase. I'm gonna hang out in the truck. Sorry guys.

Chris (47:32.82)
All right.

Eric Haskins (47:35.142)
So like that just doesn't work for us. So you take something like the conjugate system and the conjugate system is training, you know, multiple, using multiple methods in conjunction with one another to train all or bring up all traits at the same time or, you know, simultaneously, which works really well for our people.

Chris (47:56.884)
Gotcha.

Eric Haskins (48:04.539)
Like I want to be getting stronger. I also want to be developing explosive power I want the work capacity to go all out for five minutes And I also need the engine to go for 20 30 minutes or a few hours on a major incident So the conjugate system the way that that is designed and the different methods you use Trains all of those traits at the same time now if we

Chris (48:19.604)
Yeah, great.

Chris (48:31.678)
Gotcha.

Eric Haskins (48:34.814)
You know, now we kind of go into the specificity of say, conjugate tactical. The tactical side of things is we're really thinking about what movements are we using? What kind of work capacity would it make sense to do high rep, gymnastics and pull ups, or would it make more sense to maybe do like loaded carries? And we're doing stuff like farmer carries. Maybe we're putting on a backpack and doing box step ups.

Hey, that looks a little bit more like my job than doing, you know, a hundred pull-ups unbroken for time. Right now, if, if, if yes, but Hey man, like if you are a competitive fitness athlete and that's your thing, then Hey, I'd recommend doing that if that's your, but for us, right. looks different doing stuff like, like planks, like, like really focusing on trunk stability. we're doing workouts in gear.

Chris (49:11.636)
Right, butterfly.

Chris (49:23.742)
Yeah, a specificity.

Eric Haskins (49:32.586)
because we know that that imposes unique demands on us, right? So we have our work in the gym and then we have our work on the apron or in the bay in our gear that kind of bridges the gap between our general fitness and the specific fitness that's required on the fire ground. And so the conjugate, yeah, go for it.

Chris (49:35.369)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (49:52.916)
question for you.

Real quick, so we're talking about gear and we're talking about weight room. How do you feel professionally about when you see people putting on their SCBA and all their gear and getting on a rower or trying to do like those real specific movements like squats, and rowing's not very specific, but technical movements, squats, that type of stuff in gear, would you rather they separate the two or what's your thought there?

Eric Haskins (50:22.381)
okay. Good question. So, when it comes to movement patterns, so we think about like, when I put on a, my gear, SCBA, all of that, and do barbell back squats. I would not. and, my concern there is, like, what, what are you trying to train? you, you put on your gear.

and all that stuff to train for the fire ground. So let's make that, like that workout should look like the fire ground. And that should have movements, movement patterns that are used on the fire ground, like squats, lunges, crawling. You do pushups. It's like you're getting, when you're doing a search, like the pushups, right? So step up. So if we're in gear, that workout should look and kind of smell like

the movements and things that we're doing on the fire ground. Now, and I want to separate that and then the specific work we do in the gym, I want you in shorts, t-shirt, whatever your gym attire is, I want you in good shoes because these lifts require technical proficiency, right? And so I want you in an environment that sets you up to move perfectly.

Chris (51:21.278)
Yeah, agreed.

Chris (51:33.362)
Right, right. Good shoes.

Eric Haskins (51:48.906)
so that we can develop these capacities in these movement patterns, get you as strong as possible in these build your capacity in these movement patterns using our traditional kind of weight room stuff so that when we impose the demands of the fire ground, like our gear, speed, increased heart rate, like heat, that those movements, movement patterns, like don't degrade as fast.

Chris (52:17.534)
Gotcha.

Eric Haskins (52:18.936)
And if we only do workouts in gear, then we're always training basically at a, like a below say like capacity. We're always imposing these demands. like, can, can you maintain a good squat position? Well, you've never done it in gear. how do you, you know, how do you know? And so hopefully I'm answering this question is, is the importance of separating those two is I want the movement to look perfect in the gym.

so that when we put the gear on, it will hold up better when we put those demands on it. yeah, don't think you, go for it.

Chris (52:54.024)
Yeah. So I see it. No, I was going say, I think what you're saying, if I understand correctly is like in the gym, right? We're shooting for that bullseye when it comes to patterns, right? And the more bullseyes we can get in the gym, when it comes to movement patterns, the better we're going to be able to function outside in our other field of context, our fire ground, even though we're only hitting to eight ring, right? We're hitting the eight ring, but we know

Eric Haskins (53:07.267)
Yes.

Chris (53:23.72)
we can maintain that because that demand is challenging our capacity. And we understand technically that anytime we put anything on our body, load carriage, it's going to reduce our range of motion. It's going to make us heavier and slower. We're putting on breathing apparatus. We're not breathing efficiently. So we're already behind the eight ball, but we've done so well in the gym that we have this capacity. say a hundred percent's great, but you work so hard. You've got 120 % capacity.

Eric Haskins (53:46.372)
Yes.

Chris (53:53.8)
and now you're only coming down to the 98 when you go on the fire ground, right? Is that kind of tracking?

Eric Haskins (53:59.565)
Yeah. And man, I love the use of the target kind of analogy and you couldn't be more correct there. So you're right. That traditional gym setting, those things, we are working on accuracy and we're doing our best to hit the bullseye so that when we impose those demands, it's like we still stay in a close bunch, right? Because we don't want to deviate so far.

that now like we get injured, right? And we want to create this buffer that yeah, we can bend a little bit on the fire ground because we move perfectly and we've trained our capacity in these full ranges of motion and those things so that when those demands get imposed on you, you can bend a little bit and you're like, you know, I'm good here. And that you're always trying to fight to get back to a good position, right?

Chris (54:29.415)
right.

Chris (54:37.737)
Right.

Eric Haskins (54:57.691)
But if we don't train that way, then you just don't have that buffer and you're rolling the dice. Especially we start adding in sleep deprivation, hydration, all of the things that our job throws at us. It's like, man, I'm surprised more people don't get hurt. And I'm surprised more people aren't dying on the fire ground. Like that's it.

Chris (55:18.164)
It is a, it's a very big surprise for sure. So let's get back onto the conjugate tactical. So we were talking about, you know, having the two options were in the gym and then we're, in our gear, right? And you were getting into the specifics of kind of how it looks for you outside the outside the gym, but in our gear.

Eric Haskins (55:40.229)
Yeah. you know, the, so do you want like gear workouts?

Chris (55:45.484)
so I I'm really glad that you are a proponent of wearing your gear to work out because avoiding wearing your gear It's only doing you a disservice in my opinion If you're not good in your game, you don't ever wear it. How are you gonna operate? PFOS and all that stuff aside Again, this job isn't made to keep us functioning healthy. It's it's the demand is what it is. It's just is so Just

Maybe kind of talk about how, like we know what we're doing in the gym a little bit. We're lifting heavy. We're lifting fast, right? but how are people, how do we want to develop a, a workout that replicates the demands of the fire ground safely? And, what does that look like for individuals who were like, man, if I work out hard here and we take a call, I'm punching out, like I got nothing. And I, I understand those people. I don't want to call them a liability, but

They're the ones who need the training, but how do we, how do we support them while we build that crew continuity or we build that trust amongst the crew? I don't want to smoke my guy because I need him, but I'm going to work hard. How do we, how do we do that?

Eric Haskins (57:00.008)
Yeah, okay. So you've got a few things here and this is all really good. So let's, let's talk about say like conditioning in the gym. So here this we're in our shorts t-shirt like, all right. So the goal, you know, to, sum up strength and conditioning strength is the heavy stuff. Conditioning is the sweaty stuff. All right. So conditioning. All right. We want to, we want to get our heart rate up. We want to take our body through certain ranges of motion, right?

Chris (57:08.701)
Okay, let's start there.

Chris (57:19.678)
Got it.

Eric Haskins (57:29.948)
and we want to sustain the highest amount of output that we, that we can, we want to train at this threshold, so that that threshold gets higher. Right. So, you know, a simple workout that I might do say in the station might be like an assault bike, some kettlebell swings and some pushups or some air squats. Right. Like these are just real basic movements. I'm taking my body through full ranges of motion. I've got my heart rate up.

And my goal is to really maintain good position as fatigue increases, because I want that capacity on the fire ground, right? So we're kind of creating this threshold with real general basic movements, elevated heart rate in an ideal environment that's kind of reduced our risk of injury. We're able to move perfectly in those things. So that might be a traditional like conditioning in the gym. Now,

Chris (58:13.481)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (58:27.991)
to go out now in gear, all right, I wanna get my heart rate up and I want you to think about like, what does it feel like on the fire ground? Where am I going on that as far as intensity wise? And what movements am I doing? And I want it to look and smell like the fire ground. So, you know, or maybe taste. And so I put my gear on, okay, I'm gonna get a ladder out. If I've got a tire.

We have sleds. think sleds, like if you want to get a piece of equipment for your station, I think sleds are one of the best investments you could do. And we'll load up a sled. We've got a ladder out there and maybe a tire. And my crew and I will just rotate. It's like someone pushes the sled down and back and that's got a moderate amount of weight on it. It's like, hey, can everyone push this? And it's like, it's easy for you and hard for him. It's like, okay.

you know, beast mode over here, you're going to push that for 200 feet down and back. Like, believe me, you're going to feel that. And then you that this is challenging for, I just want you to go 50 feet down and back. And so now we haven't changed the weight. It's, but we've made it. We've created a threshold for both of them. And then the tire, that can just be a flathead ax. I'm just chopping on that thing. And then the ladder, I'm just picking it up off the ground.

Chris (59:31.838)
Right.

Chris (59:40.916)
Perfect.

Chris (59:46.632)
Right.

Eric Haskins (59:55.926)
Okay, 24 foot extension ladder. I'm gonna pick it up. I'm gonna get it into my high shoulder. I'm gonna throw it against the building. I'm gonna raise, lower, bring it down all under control. And so what I've done is I've elevated my heart rate. My gear is imposing the demands on me. And then I've also added in some technical proficiency. So when I bend over to pick up that ladder, I'm using a hinge pattern that I have made very robust.

Chris (01:00:16.094)
Yes.

Eric Haskins (01:00:24.856)
by doing deadlifts. So my hinge pattern is good because of the work I've done there. So now when I bend over, tired, sweaty, heart rate going up to pick up a ladder, it's like that position holds up. I get it to my shoulder. I did that using a technique very similar to the one that I use in the gym when I power clean things from the ground to the shoulder. Now,

Chris (01:00:49.246)
Right. Right.

Eric Haskins (01:00:53.163)
I train that in the gym, that position holds up. Now, when I pick up the ladder, right, like you see the blend here.

Chris (01:00:59.39)
Right. We got a push press coming yet. And what I'm hearing is we need to, and I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm hearing you have to pay attention to what you do in the gym because if the carry over doesn't carry over to the fire ground, you need to really consider not whether it's worth investing in and taking that risk, doing it in the gym. Right. Like just like you said, we're, getting that, that deadlift, we're hitting the bullseye or deadlift in 315, 225, whatever that looks like for you. That, and then

Eric Haskins (01:01:25.774)
Yes.

Chris (01:01:29.864)
We're going out and doing it in the fire ground on the apron with the ladder, with the pack, all our gear. It might not be that bullseye that we're looking for because we've got those demands showing up, but we're strong within that movement pattern, like you said. So yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Eric Haskins (01:01:44.121)
we're still getting on target, you know, it just, it's closer, right? And so now, you know, raise that ladder and we just, everyone, can be on air. It's like, depending who your crew is, I might have one gear, one guy in just a turnout code. Cause for whatever reason, it's like,

Chris (01:01:46.376)
Right. Yep.

Yeah, it's much closer.

Chris (01:02:04.425)
Right.

Eric Haskins (01:02:10.041)
We'll just maybe use the example of, okay, maybe I've got one guy that's just like, I don't work out in gear. It'll kill me and give me cancer. We're going to leave that conversation alone. We're to use him as an example and just say, okay, well, why don't you, do you want to just still do the workout in your like comfortable gym equipment with us or gym like attire with us? Like, and if that is what will get him into the workout for us, that's a win.

Chris (01:02:17.362)
Right, Standard. Understood.

Chris (01:02:32.168)
Right.

Eric Haskins (01:02:40.497)
Where we lose is if we create this environment that's like, no, you have to be in gear, like you have to, all these things. And the guy's just like, yeah, I hate that. So I'm not going to work out. Now we lost him. Now we lost him. So, okay, man, like, what are you willing to do today? He's like, I'd wear, okay, I'll put on my brush coat so that the ladder doesn't like hurt. And it's like, sweet, man. That's awesome. Okay. And then, know, beauty.

Chris (01:02:47.827)
Yeah.

Chris (01:02:56.98)
Right.

Chris (01:03:04.03)
Let's Grab your gloves, put your helmet on, let's do it.

Eric Haskins (01:03:10.054)
So now that that guy's rolling with us and then we might be on air and it's just like, Hey, we're going to go until one of us hits like a low air alarm. And then whoever hits the low air alarm, that's going to be the end of the workout for us. And then whoever that person is, I want you to call or go through your emergency procedures and call a mayday. And then the other two will come over package you and we'll move you to like.

safe refuge and it's like, and that's it. And so that workout maybe takes 10, 15 minutes or you get, you know, whatever 20 minutes, but start working hard. You burn a bottle and, you know, and then we've tied in some real job specific things. and then, you know, we always just like to finish with like the, you know, the emergency procedures, you know, you're going to lay down, call your mayday.

Chris (01:03:50.046)
Yeah, whatever.

Chris (01:03:59.774)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:04:10.524)
And something we stress there is calling like a real Mayday. So, you know, when I have people come work with me and we do this, it's like, don't want you to call you're like, everyone's got a canned Mayday. It's like wherever they are, they call the same Mayday, right? My problem with that is, is if they ever found themselves in a Mayday situation, what do you, what do you think they're going to call? Yeah, likelihood.

Chris (01:04:24.21)
Right, right, right.

Chris (01:04:29.78)
They're gonna say it.

Yeah, they're going to call that practice one over and over and over.

Eric Haskins (01:04:37.178)
because they've done it. So I really stress, it's like wherever you're at, just call like a real Mayday, like take a look around, go, okay, it's firefighter Haskins, I'm down, Charlie side of station six, my low air alarms going off, I'm going to self rescue, heading to this door, activate the RIP team, I'll sound my.

Chris (01:04:45.822)
right.

Eric Haskins (01:05:05.44)
like whatever your procedure is, but sometimes it's like, hey, it's sunny and 60, life is good. Like no emergency here, leave me alone, get me a drink of water. Like, okay, that's it. But the idea is to really think about your surroundings and what's going on instead of creating some of those training scars. So anyways, that's kind of what a gear workout might look like for us. And then the...

Chris (01:05:06.28)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Chris (01:05:20.681)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:05:30.398)
Beautiful. think, go ahead, go.

Eric Haskins (01:05:35.645)
And then, you you asked about like intensity, right? about the, about the guy, like, you know, I, I don't want to kill myself in the gym, right? I'm on duty. My workouts on duty look different intensity wise than they do off duty. So when I'm off duty, like some of those conditioning pieces, those are the days that you might catch me like laying on my back, like, man, I shouldn't have, shouldn't have ate before this workout. Like I feel sick.

Chris (01:06:03.678)
Yeah.

Eric Haskins (01:06:05.343)
and, that's okay because the, the consequences are very low other than possibly puking on your garage floor. That's, that's going to be about as bad as it gets. But when it comes to the conditioning on duty, you know, to steal phrase from my buddy, Frank is he always said, he's like, you got to save some for the citizens. And so we think about, and something we would do in a lot of our seminars is we'll do a conditioning workout and then.

Chris (01:06:11.518)
Mm.

Eric Haskins (01:06:35.397)
stop them in the middle of the workout and just say, Hey, quick show of hands. Who could go on a fire right now? And some people raise their hands and some people go, I like I, couldn't. And it's like, okay. So I want you to gauge back now and think about how you tack this workout, knowing that in a moment's notice you could get interrupted and that you need to be able to respond. And so that's important. So when we do conditioning at work, it's we save some for the citizens.

and the physiological or the break that I'm using is periodically throughout that workout. I'm going, could I respond right now? And if I catch myself, I really like starting to, you know, mouth breathe and you know, things are getting gnarly. It's like, like I got to pump the brakes a little bit. And sometimes we look at each other and it's like, hey bro, like dial it down, man. And they're like, I'm going for it. It's like, yeah, but you got snot coming out of your nose, man. Like,

Chris (01:07:15.1)
In a hole,

Eric Haskins (01:07:35.143)
It's okay. Today's not the day to win the YouTube Olympics, man. Like, it's all good.

Chris (01:07:36.594)
Right.

You're you're red, you're Take a breather. I get it.

Eric Haskins (01:07:42.599)
Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of, that's, that's how we, we really look at the intensity on duty versus off duty.

Chris (01:07:50.996)
Perfect. There's so much there and I really, I appreciate your philosophy on getting on the gear, wearing whatever level of kit serves you for that moment, that day, what are you willing to do today, right? And then the tactical aspect or the technical aspect I think is so important because now we're combining stress, we're combining job specific things that carry over to the real

the real deal right now we're, today's the first time you've thrown a ladder. Well you threw it three times in practice, know, working out. You've greased that groove. You're not worried about whether or not you can throw a ladder anymore, right? You know you're going to do it. And I like that when you do the Mayday or you find yourself in a scenario where you need to report something, making up stuff is okay. And I think we're understanding the value of not doing that anymore. But we do the same thing. If you find yourself

giving a mayday call or something of that nature. Don't make it up. Assess your scenario, assess your surroundings, situational awareness. Be real. Tell me you're on the bay floor. Tell me what you see, what you need. Don't make up something that you say all the time. I'm on the second floor and you're on a driveway. Let's not lose our minds here.

Eric Haskins (01:09:10.688)
Yeah, there's been a collapse and I'm in the basement and activate the RIT team. Like I'm out of air and it's like, well, like actually, no, you're on the bay floor. The door is right there and you could crawl out 10 feet away in a safety. Like that's what I want you to be able to recognize in that moment of like, still call your mayday, but be like, I'll be headed towards the Charlie side looking to self-rescue.

Chris (01:09:13.692)
Right.

Chris (01:09:27.432)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:09:31.443)
Right.

Eric Haskins (01:09:40.736)
And it's like, go ahead and crawl. And now your goal, get over there before you run out of air. And it's like, you know, and, and you can set, can, you can set those things up of like, you can have a task to do when your low air alarm hits. It's like, okay, when low air alarm hits, we're all going to switch to this task. And we have to get that task done before that person runs out of air. And so now we've just done some stress inoculation. It's like.

Chris (01:10:08.222)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:10:10.006)
you know, like use your creativity. But I think where we're going is just like, yeah, don't create those training scars, man. That's dangerous.

Chris (01:10:16.69)
Yeah, they definitely can be. So speaking of dangerous and stress inoculation, man, I've been excited to talk to you about this. You are a certified Georgia smoke diving graduate. And if I understand it correctly, you are the first one from Idaho to graduate. Super cool experience, I'm sure. Awesome achievement. Let's dig into that, man. Tell me, you know, first off, what is

it mean to be a Georgia smoke diver and what is the program for anybody who's not familiar?

Eric Haskins (01:10:54.319)
Yeah, for a long time I've tried to figure out like an elevator pitch for lack of a better term for it just because it's like, my God, how do I sum up? When I got back, you'd start talking and then they would just like look at you and walk away in the middle of it. And so the Georgia smoke divers were trained in search and rescue survivability and making critical decisions.

making critical decisions in high stress environments. Like, that's it. And the program, when I first heard about it, I was in a place and I walked in a room, my buddy was talking about this Georgia smoke diver thing and I was like, what's that? And he's like, dude, they're the Navy SEALs of the fire service. And I'm like, that sounds rad. Like I want to sign up for that.

Now, knowing what I know now, it's like that does an extreme disservice to the Navy SEALs. So like, let's not call it the Navy SEALs and the fire service. But, you know, I didn't really, and at that time there wasn't a lot of social media on it. They just had this archaic website. And so I went, studied it, looked at it I was like, I think this is kind of what I'm looking for. I want realistic training.

Chris (01:12:00.808)
Fair enough.

Eric Haskins (01:12:22.509)
that is going to take me to the absolute edge of my capability. I want to learn something. And I also want to learn like where the edges of, you know, I want to be tested, right? Like I want to know what I'm, what I'm made of. And I also want to like learn that about myself. And I'm looking for the hardest training available. And at that time it was like, that looked like it. And so, you know, I went down there. It's a, it's a six day course.

It's got a very high attrition rate. It can be upwards of 75, 80 % don't graduate. And that is similar to special operations and those things. So I think that's probably where that whole Navy SEALs and the fire service thing comes from because they share in common. Yeah, share, like the only thing they have in common is a high attrition rate, right? But, and yeah, I had no idea what I was getting into.

Chris (01:13:03.753)
Right.

Chris (01:13:08.562)
Right, that 80 % number.

Eric Haskins (01:13:22.312)
And by the end of the week, you know, I walked away from that with that was everything that I was looking for and more. And I was taken to the edge of my capabilities. I was put in positions that challenged me to harness and utilize everything that I had learned, like up to that point in the fire service, but even the mental skills and the training that I'd done in my

previous careers in life. I felt like it just harnessed everything. And there were evolutions in there that I thought for sure. I'm I may be going home. I'm not sure I can do this, but I'm going to give it everything that I have. There was no tricks. There was no nothing.

Chris (01:13:52.467)
Right.

Eric Haskins (01:14:18.216)
you know, relied on my training, my skill set, and then you come out the other end and you're like, wow.

I feel powerful and motivated and it's like, man, I really believe in myself and my ability to overcome pretty much anything that you throw at me. So yeah, the program meant a lot. I learned a lot, learned a lot about myself. It was very difficult. And now I have the honor of going back and...

Chris (01:14:28.233)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:14:51.782)
being able to help instruct and serve there each year for class. And so I think that's an important aspect of the only people there that are instructing or assisting our previous graduates. And what's cool about that is I remember, you know, I had failed in evolution and I was getting some coaching and counseling and I was looking at this kind of guy. was like, you know,

You know, he was older, probably maybe lost his fitness a little bit, right? but I'm looking at him and I'm like, well, you've done this. And so you have these people there training you that have actually done the thing they're trying to get you to do. And unfortunately, like that's not super common in the fire service. Like I've been to a lot of classes where people are teaching techniques that they've never done.

Chris (01:15:36.414)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:15:42.609)
Agreed.

Eric Haskins (01:15:50.957)
they've never done in real life or, you know, it's, yeah, it's just theory or it's like, you know, sometimes it's like, okay, like that sounds awesome. Why don't you show me how to do that? And then it's like, they can't do it. Right. And so, you know, I think that's a really unique aspect about that program is being able to just look at the people around you. it's like, if they could do it, I can do it. So.

Chris (01:15:52.094)
Right, no competency.

Chris (01:16:01.564)
Right. Right.

Chris (01:16:18.452)
What would you say if, so I've got some guys I work with and myself included, what do we need to do to start? Like obviously sign up, pick a day, but what are the three things that somebody should really get squared away before they commit to this? Like maybe commit first and then get it dialed in so you got your ass in the line, but.

Eric Haskins (01:16:46.132)
Yeah. Okay, one, I would first start by like defining your reason why. Like, why do you want to go do that? And everyone's why is different. And that's, that's totally, that's good. I would encourage people that are interested to really define that, write it down. And it should be something that is very like intrinsic.

versus the external motivation. Like there's a lot of people that like because of the notoriety that it's gotten is like the hardest training and the fire service and those things. Now there are people that just want to go accomplish it like a a go-rock or like a Spartan race. It's like they want to get their patch, right? And they just, yes. And those people don't stand a chance.

Chris (01:17:34.962)
Right. They want their trophy.

Eric Haskins (01:17:43.328)
I see them come every class and they're typically the same people that talk about it on social media and they're like, I'm training for this, watch me, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, see a man like, because when things get hard and they will get hard very quickly, like that's not enough to motivate them to keep going. They quickly learn and decide, they go, okay, no, this isn't for me.

Chris (01:17:55.188)
Sure.

Chris (01:18:10.396)
Right, I don't need to prove this to them.

Eric Haskins (01:18:13.708)
Yeah, but then on their way out the door, especially after they get home, they've got a different narrative of like, man, I got screwed, they did this to me. It's like, it's interesting. It didn't, that's not how it went down. But, so you've got that. And so I would really start to find your why. Why do you want to do it? Hopefully it comes from something that would mean a lot to you. Cause you're going to need that to get you through when things get really hard.

Chris (01:18:22.036)
Sure.

Chris (01:18:32.638)
Right.

Yeah, and that

Chris (01:18:39.432)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:18:42.033)
And something that helped me was the thousands of miles between me in Georgia and at home and the amount of money that I spent to go do it. And when I was there feeling sorry for myself, it's like, it was going to be very difficult for me to just like go home. And there were my family and people, you know, that I wanted to be proud of me and those things. And my reasons why it's just like.

Chris (01:19:06.004)
Yeah.

Eric Haskins (01:19:12.398)
Yeah. The thought of quitting or not succeeding like wasn't an option. but I think you see people that are close, especially local, it's very easy for them to quit. Cause it's like, Hey, I've got a warm bed, like 30 minutes away from here, man. Like, you know, the, PT instructors may or may not use like certain technique to get you to think about that, you know, and want to go home. I can neither confirm nor deny that, but,

Chris (01:19:16.532)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:19:25.555)
Right.

Yeah.

Chris (01:19:41.204)
All right, heads up.

Eric Haskins (01:19:42.968)
So anyway, so I've kind of belabored that. So we start with your why. And once you've got that, then you really need to start your physical training. And I would say, like, don't sign up until you're ready. And for most people, that could be six months to a year of really focused training. And that focused training should be one,

really focusing on your gear workouts and those things. You need to be very comfortable working in your gear, working from multiple cycles on a bottle. As far as technical proficiency, as far as what is the firefighter skill set that I have to have, it's like you don't have to be some advanced, yeah, that knows all the nozzle techniques or the fancy

Chris (01:20:31.582)
Guru.

Eric Haskins (01:20:39.06)
extra like forceful entry stuff. It's like it's it is bread and butter fireman work at a very intense the intensity is high and the expectation or the standard is even higher and so getting really good in your gear and then you know beyond that it's going to be training you know

more physical fitness side of things, especially like body weight calisthenics and that stuff. And putting in the time, man, six to 12 months is really, I think what it will take most people to be able to have the capacity to meet the demands of what's going to be asked of you down there. And for some that may look like many, and this is where people struggle is they go, well,

Chris (01:21:25.396)
There it is. Yeah, for real.

Eric Haskins (01:21:36.629)
I'm doing CrossFit or I'm training for half marathon, like whatever their thing is that they really like to do. And where people struggle is they don't want to give that up. It's like, well, I train a certain way. know, I, I lift weights twice a week. do Zumba for three days a week. And then I do, I don't know, underwater basket weaving for like, this is my training schedule and it's perfect for me. And it's like, that's great.

Chris (01:21:48.456)
Right.

Chris (01:22:01.33)
I bet that has a ton of carryover too,

Eric Haskins (01:22:05.188)
It's like, man, I don't know if that'll be successful down in Georgia. And if it is like, awesome, man, like let's start putting out a Georgia smoke diver program with lifting weights, Zumba and underwater basket wave. And that thing will be awesome. But you your training has to be very specific for it. And that might mean that you, you have to sacrifice some of the things that you really enjoy doing.

Chris (01:22:18.132)
Yeah, basket weaving.

Chris (01:22:26.546)
as we've discussed.

Eric Haskins (01:22:33.906)
because your ultimate goal is this, is graduating from smoke diver program. And that's a hard thing for people to get over. But know that it's like, you can go right back to all those things when you graduate, you'll have a giant smile on your face. And you're like, dude, that was amazing. I don't think I'm ever going to do a pushup or an up down in gear for a long, long time. And it's like, cool, like totally fine.

You know, kind of use the said the reference to Navy SEAL shouldn't be there, but if I work with people for selection, you know, I do personal training and do some stuff, private training and people will want to go to like say Buds. And so if I'm training someone for Buds, they have very similar obstacle there where they want to, you know, lift weights. They want to do all these things. Hey, I've got this.

Chris (01:23:25.769)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:23:31.3)
soft program that I got and it's like, okay, well, if your goal is to graduate buds, like here, like, or, know, before you even get there, it's like, what are the minimum standards for the PST? Like if you, if you even want to like get entrance into the program, you're going to have to be a good swimmer. You have to be able to run and you're going to need pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups. It's like,

Chris (01:23:55.305)
lot.

Eric Haskins (01:24:00.894)
So we're gonna develop those aspects. We're gonna put all of our resources into that so that you can at least get an invite to the party. Because if you can't do those things, like all that other shit doesn't matter. You never get to use it. And so I use that reference. It's very much the same. It's like, people start thinking way farther ahead. It's like, actually, no, you just need to really focus on a couple of these simple things. If you get really good at them, you'll be successful.

Chris (01:24:08.53)
Right. Right.

Eric Haskins (01:24:30.74)
And that's a challenge for people, you know.

Chris (01:24:33.448)
Yeah, I've noticed that in my experience and with people I've come in contact with and myself included sometimes, but we, we favor the, that those high end skills, those technical skills that are few and far between, but they're so flashy or fancy that they're, they've garnered all this attention where, and you said it a minute ago, but when we can perform the basics, well, we're good.

You know, but when we can perform the basics at a high intensity under a time compression and high demands or high standards, now we're doing something, right? We're really leaning into our job specific tasks. And I think that's something that I'm going to probably take from this episode, but mastering the basics and then being able to perform them under time compressed high standards is probably going to garner more than

doing the basics every so often and then really just getting those special one-off fancy technical skills, I think, is what I'm trying to say.

Eric Haskins (01:25:39.189)
Yeah, yeah, no, and that, you know, if I have a philosophy, it is trying to constantly simplify, constantly trying to strip away what's unnecessary and keep only what's needed. You know, I mentioned I used to train for two or three hours a day every day. And now it's like, I've got two kids. I'm so short on time.

Chris (01:25:53.502)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:25:59.752)
Yeah, that's a long time.

Eric Haskins (01:26:07.671)
Because I want to be doing other things. I want to be spending time with my family. I want to be doing some of the other things that are really important. Now my fitness and my capacity are important. like, how do I design a program to have the highest return on my investment? And so that's what I'm constantly trying to do. And that's what doing with Firehouse is really that a program continues to evolve as I strip away what is unnecessary and keep what is working.

And when it comes to the basics, and I forget who I heard this from, they said this line, I wrote down, it's like, you know, we practice the basics until they become advanced. And so that's really what I think about is just like, man, you just get so good at these that they become advanced at them. And, know, I have a short, short story about this. was training a guy for the Olympics and he was phenomenal athlete.

He'd been given programs that were super, super fancy and all this. And he reached out and he's like, Hey, you know, I need help. you know, going to go competing in Sochi and would you do the strength and conditioning for me? said, no problem. And so we talked about what he'd been doing. And, and then I started working with him and writing him a program. And, what I learned and over time working with him is.

that there were things that he liked to do and that there were things that he didn't like to do. And the stuff that he liked to do was kind of the fancy like flashy stuff, right? Because it's cool, like, you know, like it makes you like a lot of people are creating these programs that are really complicated and.

Chris (01:27:36.776)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:27:45.095)
Okay, okay.

Chris (01:27:51.358)
Something, yeah.

Eric Haskins (01:27:59.239)
oftentimes they're just trying to like flex their brain and say, look at how complicated I can make this program. Like it's the best in the world. And it's like, like, no, that doesn't work. But that's often like the smoke and mirrors that people are using. And so what I found with him is, is through testing and time with him is there were certain, he had deficiencies that I had, I really needed to fix. And these were things that he imagined that.

Chris (01:28:04.467)
Yeah.

Eric Haskins (01:28:28.847)
He wasn't very good at them and he didn't want to do them. And that was the thing that he needed to do. so, yeah, like, so I had to couple those with the things that he liked to do. And so one of the things he loved to do was bench press, man. mean, this dude is like, he's mad. He wasn't going to miss a bench press day. And I'm sorry, but like bench press, in my professional opinion has very little carry over in snowboarding. Right. It's like,

Chris (01:28:30.472)
Right. His blind spot.

Chris (01:28:56.852)
Right, right

Eric Haskins (01:28:59.1)
However, the days that the stuff they really didn't do, I'd put bench press in there and then I'd check in with them. And he's like, dude, I knocked the bench press, blah, blah. And it's like, awesome. But he did a thing that I needed him to do. And so unbeknownst to him, I'm, I don't know, maybe he figured out, but yeah, I just coupled it, the stuff that he didn't want to do with the stuff that he did. And he never missed those days. And, and so that

Chris (01:29:22.91)
Yeah. Nice.

Eric Haskins (01:29:28.55)
You know, and the things that he needed to work on were the basics. wasn't the high technical or any of that. And, you know, maybe we got lucky. He ended up winning two gold medals and, and, the Olympics and, you know, he had a great career. I don't think it had anything to do with me. think he was a good athlete, but that was the approach that I took with him. It was the focus on the basics and to get him to do the boring stuff. had to couple it with the stuff that he liked doing, you know,

Chris (01:29:56.53)
Right, you gave him some icing on his cake. He need to eat the cake. That's cool.

Eric Haskins (01:30:00.026)
That's it, man. It's like, all right, you want to rip bicep curls? OK, I'm going to do the bicep curls with this barbell complex. I need you to do that first, but you can finish with bicep curls. Go for it, Cool, man. As long as you do this thing. Right on.

Chris (01:30:11.732)
Thank you.

Chris (01:30:16.86)
As long as you're put in the effort and he's getting his benches that he likes and he's still hitting those weak spots or those things he need to shore up, I think that's a really good way to do it. Real quick, what does a day look like for you between balancing family, fire, service and career, and then this coaching on the side?

Eric Haskins (01:30:41.468)
Man on like like on on duty or off duty or

Chris (01:30:42.855)
I'm gonna shut up.

Chris (01:30:46.844)
Let's talk about on duty, because off duty is, that's a little bit more private, that's your routine and stuff at home, but how does an on shift day look like for you when it comes to all of these, again, demands, right?

Eric Haskins (01:31:03.152)
Yeah. Well, for us, you know, unfortunately I've got a crew of just like pipe hitters that we all have a similar mindset of like what our values and what's important. So our shift typically looks like, you know, we show up, we get our rig checks in, we see what we got on the schedule. We get together for a little cup of coffee, make sure we kind of know what we hope.

Chris (01:31:15.762)
Nice.

Eric Haskins (01:31:32.523)
for the day, kind of what our intent is. If we need to go shopping for food, it's like we can do that. But really after getting the intent for the day and figuring out the schedule is we're to try to get our workout in like pretty much first thing as soon as possible. Because as the day goes on, the likelihood of getting interrupted or as like, you know, everyone is vying for your time, like the citizens get first choice.

Chris (01:31:59.316)
Right.

Eric Haskins (01:32:02.56)
But just as things stack up, know, battalion calls, hey, I need you to do this, right? And you're running and doing these things. So we found that to be successful, we try to get our workout in as soon as possible in the day. It sets the tone, 8 a.m.

Chris (01:32:16.008)
What time do you guys start shift?

Okay, so you're 8 a.m. What time are you working out by?

Eric Haskins (01:32:24.576)
hoping by 10. Yeah. And I'm trying to get in there earlier and it's always like pushing these guys in there because they're like, you know, I can do this. I'm like, dude, like email that can wait. At least this is my opinion. It's like, all right, did we, did we do the necessary? Like we got the rig check, we got the pass down. We're good on equipment. We aren't low on anything. Are we in service and ready to roll? Cool. Does anybody need food? All right. You didn't eat. Get some food in you.

Chris (01:32:26.386)
Okay, cool. Good.

Right.

Chris (01:32:37.96)
Understood.

Eric Haskins (01:32:53.52)
And then what's our schedule for the day? Okay, we got it. Let's try to get that workout in. That's just the hardest thing. it's often like, especially when it comes to fitness, it's often the first thing to go, right? Whether you're a firefighter, like, you know, General Joe, it's, it's, that's always, it's always the first thing to go. And, you know, I think that gets people just in a sticky situation.

Anyways, and then, yeah, so we, try to prioritize that upfront, you know, and, and, and it sets the tone. Everyone's got good energy for the rest of the day. And then there's also the, like the stress of like trying to get a workout in sometime later today is gone, you know? And, and so that's, that's kind of our priority. And then the rest of the day, if we get a workout in the morning and then we're, we're training, in the afternoon, you know,

Chris (01:33:26.356)
Nice.

Chris (01:33:31.358)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:33:51.56)
hands on, in gear, doing something. We've got a pretty rocking training division that typically always has something scheduled. But if we don't, then we're out in district doing something. So yeah, that's a good day. That's a good day.

Chris (01:33:56.148)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:34:02.654)
Nice. That's some awesome stuff, brother. Well, yeah, that sounds like a great day. And you got that 4896, so you get to do something on day two, too.

Eric Haskins (01:34:13.918)
Yeah. Yeah. So, then, you know, and then, you know, for me, it's, it's also like, like nighttime is, you know, I try, I do my best to stick to like a routine. So like the, the bedtime that I have off duty, I try to hold when I'm on duty and, know, I've done a lot of research and there's a lot of this research coming out.

Chris (01:34:14.014)
So where can you go ahead?

Chris (01:34:24.212)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (01:34:30.11)
Yeah, for sure.

Chris (01:34:43.038)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:34:44.032)
sleep, wake time variability and circadian rhythms. it's just like, the best thing you could do is try to maintain the same sleep and wake time. And so if I'm on duty, it's the same thing. I know I'm going to woken up and those things, but the goal of that is so that when I come off duty, my

Chris (01:35:00.5)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:35:07.258)
like routine and my circadian rhythm and those things are still in line so that that first night back, I can really optimize my sleep and start that recovery process just as quickly as possible over a four day. Because I've noticed if I do something different at work, it carries right over into my four day and it takes me two or three days to get back on and I'll get like, I'll finally get a good night's sleep and it's like, you're going back to the station.

Chris (01:35:14.964)
Hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:35:36.493)
It's like, man, like, you know, so I'm very much a fan of a routine and trying to maintain that the best I can.

Chris (01:35:44.02)
I would double down on that and anybody out there listening guys, if we could inspire you to take all of your effort to build a sleep routine at home and make that work for you at home and prioritize sleep at home and then bring everything you can from that home routine to work. What time you go to bed, what time you wake up, whether you have a fan on, you wear eye shade, you listen to white noise, you have

things that smell, whatever it is. Try to match those routines as closely as possible from home because that's where we have the most control to work where we're again, we're shooting for that bullseye at work, but we understand that we're not going to always be in that bullseye because it's out of our control. I think that and like Eric said, that's going to give us the most opportunity to get the sleep that we can while we're on shift. And we know we're not granted sleep on shift. It's not ours to have.

and we know that, but if you get it, man, at least you went to bed early and you got what you could. What time do you normally go to bed?

Eric Haskins (01:36:51.162)
Yeah.

Eric Haskins (01:36:55.141)
I try to start kind of my routine by nine and hopefully embed by 10 is kind of the thing lights out. So, you know, I've got everything from like a hot shower to reading a little bit, you know, try to avoid all the blue lights, know, the screen times and those things I've got in this station I'm at now, there's a lot of like artificial lights in my room.

Chris (01:37:02.856)
Nice.

Chris (01:37:11.358)
Okay.

Chris (01:37:16.286)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Haskins (01:37:26.181)
Like there's the thermostat over here that's got a light that I've got tape on. And then there's like a smoke detector that's blinking and it's like, know, so something I started doing was wearing like an eye mask. And man, did that make a difference at work. But yeah, think ideally, man, if I can be lights out by 10, you know, that's good. And then, you know, I wake up.

no matter what between like four and six AM. If I can sleep till six AM, that's awesome. It's typically gonna be waking up by four or five.

Chris (01:37:56.616)
Nice. Dude, that's awesome. So brother, I really appreciate you making time to come on to our show today. We've had a lot of awesome discussion. Where can everybody get ahold of you and find you the best?

Eric Haskins (01:38:13.625)
easiest is probably through my Instagram. It's firehouse SC. So it's firehouse underscore SC. And that's where firehouse strength and conditioning is, is that, and that's where, you know, I get a lot of messages and I interact with lot of people there. so that'd be a good place to reach out to me. There's the website, firehouse strength and conditioning.com. That's got, that's a good landing page. If you want information about kind of what.

what we're doing with the program and those things. And yeah, think that's probably it. Those would be the best ways.

Chris (01:38:49.94)
Perfect. Well, Eric, I appreciate you coming on again. Like I said, this has been a very enlightening conversation and there are gems throughout the last 90 minutes that we've just talked about. again, I appreciate you coming on. It's been a pleasure and everybody out there, thanks again for listening to priority traffic podcast. See you on the next one.