Ep. 031 | Annette Zapp of Fire Rescue Wellness shares huge insights, her journey through fire and more!

In this episode, Annette Zapp shares her journey into the fire service and her challenges as a female firefighter. She emphasizes the importance of firefighter wellness and the need for proactive strategies to offload trauma and stress. 

Annette discusses the four pillars of wellness: sleep, nutrition, mental health, and movement. She also highlights the impact of shame and gossip in the fire service and the need for self-awareness. 

Annette challenges the idea of exercising in fire gear and advocates for fireground-specific training instead. This part of the conversation focuses on the challenges faced by female firefighters, the connection between mental and physical health, the importance of holistic wellness, the need for professional intervention in firefighter health and wellness, the flaws of fit-for-duty tests, strategies for helping firefighters improve their health and wellness, the role of mentors in fire service wellness, and the future of wellness in firefighting. 

Finally, Annette shares her insights on the importance of human performance in fire departments and the need for collaboration and scaling. She emphasizes hiring meaningful professionals and provides information about an upcoming event in January. 

The main takeaway is the importance of caring for one's mind and body through sleep, nutrition, mental health, and movement.

Takeaways

• Female firefighters face challenges due to ill-fitting gear designed for male measurements.
• Mental and physical health are interconnected and must be addressed for overall wellness.
• Proper training and support are essential for peer fitness trainers in the fire service.
• Health and wellness in the fire service require professional intervention and cannot be solely the responsibility of individual firefighters.
• Fit-for-duty tests need to be comprehensive and administered by professionals to ensure accuracy and fairness.
• Meeting firefighters where they are, getting them out of pain, and helping them achieve meaningful goals are effective strategies for improving their health and wellness.
• Mentors are crucial in guiding and supporting firefighters' health and wellness journey.
• The future of wellness in firefighting includes the widespread adoption of embedded health and wellness personnel in fire departments.

Connect with Annette HERE:

• FireRescueWellness
• FireRescueWellness on Instagram

Transcript

Chris Warden (00:01.413)
Welcome back to the Priority Traffic Podcast. I'm your host Chris and I would like to introduce and welcome Annette Zapp. Annette, welcome to the Priority Traffic Podcast.

AZ (00:10.91)
Oh my gosh, hi, how are you? You know what I didn't even ask you? Are we doing video too? Damn, I should have got a better background.

Chris Warden (00:13.677)
What? Yeah.

Chris Warden (00:20.149)
It looks pretty good from here.

AZ (00:21.578)
Yeah, I'm low tech. I don't do video. It's too big of a barrier to entry.

Chris Warden (00:25.173)
It is a challenge and I've considered not doing it every time I'm done with a show.

AZ (00:31.447)
Okay, you're not convincing me to do it, so thank you.

Chris Warden (00:34.561)
You're welcome. You're welcome. It's it's if I was going to trim any fat, that would be the first place I had just stopped doing stuff. So.

AZ (00:41.458)
Yeah, it just it just seems to me overwhelming. Like starting a podcast was it was easy for the most part. But the whole video part is obnoxious, I think.

Chris Warden (00:47.553)
Yeah, right.

Chris Warden (00:52.329)
It's, it eats up a lot of my personal bandwidth. It's fun. And it's kind of like an outlet for me, but at the same time, I find myself banging my head against the wall.

AZ (01:01.682)
Okay, you know, I'm not gonna do it. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Chris Warden (01:05.161)
You're welcome. So in today's episode, I really wanted to talk to you. I know you're rocking and making a huge impact in the world of fighter, fighter wellness. And I just, I don't think I could be a very good podcaster and not talk to you because I've been watching you for a while. Apparently I wasn't following you, but you were showing up in my feed all the time. So I thought I was.

But thanks for joining me today. It's an honor and a privilege.

AZ (01:34.922)
Of course, and I always love being on other people's podcasts. It's really cool to be on the other side of the microphone now.

Chris Warden (01:41.205)
Absolutely. You've been on quite a few it sounds like.

AZ (01:44.094)
I have, I was like on a ton of them and then I started my own and then it's been kind of like a dry spell so this is good.

Chris Warden (01:49.625)
Good. Welcome back to the game, I guess.

AZ (01:52.596)
Welcome back to Guesting.

Chris Warden (01:54.481)
Yeah, exactly. So today I wanted to touch on basically your story and how you got into A, where you are today, but B, into the fire service and what that journey looked like for you, because there's not a lot of people out there screaming from the top of the mountains that firefighters need more wellness. And you are definitely doing that.

AZ (02:13.942)
I think what you're trying to say is I'm loud and you're absolutely correct. So I have an interesting path and if I started at the beginning it would take me so long. So I'll kind of start in the middle. I really desperately wanted to be a law enforcement agent. In fact I wanted to do federal law enforcement and that the cards just never sort of laid down right for me. And so in early 2000s I was working full time at a fitness center crushing it.

is making a ton of money. I worked for Johnny G and Spinning, traveling on the weekends, but I had...

Chris Warden (02:45.359)
Yeah.

AZ (02:51.926)
just this issue with if my clients were sick, if my clients canceled, I couldn't go on vacation, I couldn't take a sick day or I didn't make money. And I hated that feeling. I have these sort of scarcity feelings around money. So I started looking for the next sort of career and what I was really looking for was stability and then the ability to help people. And there were some firefighters at my gym and they told me all the great parts about being a firefighter.

Chris Warden (03:20.321)
Right.

AZ (03:22.12)
You get to drive a really cool vehicle, you get to make noise, you get to help people, you get to work every third day, you get vacation and benefits and a good salary and I was like SIGN ME UP! And it was okay for a while.

But what I found was I got hired with nine men, so nine men and me, and we worked tight, and we worked really hard on probation, and all of us made it, and the day probation was over, all of those guys went, whew, I can relax, and I never had that feeling, because I had to keep proving myself every day, just kinda like I was on probation.

And so things got really dark for me really fast. I wasn't prepared for the sleep deprivation. I wasn't prepared for the trauma. I wasn't prepared for the isolation. I wasn't prepared for any of it. And so I can tell you now I was deeply depressed at the time I didn't know it. And yeah. And so, I mean, classic, classic symptoms. Hanging out on the couch, canceling plans with my friends, drinking too much wine, rotting my mind with TV. It was just classic.

Chris Warden (04:09.733)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (04:18.146)
Sure.

AZ (04:32.398)
And one day there were a lot of events between that and the light bulb going on, but the biggest thing that happened was a gentleman from the Illinois Firefighter Peer Support came and spoke at my department and he talked. The thing that he said was, I got into this career to help people. I never knew that I would be an alcoholic, suicidal asshole. And the lights just went on for me. I was never suicidal.

but I was definitely depressed and I thought it was alone and I thought this wasn't happening to anyone else. And once that light bulb went on, I realized this is happening to everyone. And what probably saved me from ever being suicidal was the fact that I have a huge love affair with sleep and nutrition and training. And so those three pieces of it, I think, kept me from dipping my toe across that line to suicidal ideation.

Chris Warden (05:24.857)
Perfect.

AZ (05:32.288)
And so I just realized that it didn't make any sense for me to be training high school hockey players and baseball players and 45 year old women who want to do a bikini competition. Like I know both sides of the coin. I know the job and I know health and wellness and there's no one better to help a firefighter than a confident and credentialed firefighter. So that's kind of how we got where we are today.

Chris Warden (05:49.667)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (05:58.937)
Wow, that is, it really makes me, your story reminds me of my story. It's a similar thing, got in the fire service, found out that I needed the help that I wasn't getting, got some help, and now it's like, how can we help firefighters more? And I'm just kinda at a lack of words for your story because it is probably a lot more people's story than both of us really, really think.

AZ (06:27.734)
Well, and I think the biggest piece of it, well there's two pieces. You have to get these people either in the academy or in their probationary year, you have to start teaching them about that. But the other piece of it is my friend Megan Young, who is just, she's a legendary strength and conditioning coach. She actually won strength and conditioning coach of the year, professional this year. I mean, she's amazing. But.

Chris Warden (06:34.157)
Yep.

Chris Warden (06:45.473)
Woo, let's go. Megan Young. Awesome.

AZ (06:49.318)
Megan Young, she had acute myeloid leukemia in 2016, and she gives a talk where she says, it's not helpful when people come up to you and say, how are you feeling? And they put their hand and they pat you. So that's not helpful. What's really helpful is when people say, how can I support you? What can I do for you? And they show up.

Chris Warden (06:53.667)
Okay.

Chris Warden (07:04.142)
Right.

Chris Warden (07:12.793)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (07:13.374)
And so the other thing that Megan said is it's really important to normalize a story. So when Megan had cancer, she normalized the story of cancer. So now it's not like, oh, cancer. It's like, she has cancer, we're kicking ass, we're taking names, and Megan beat the odds. I mean, obviously she has won an award this year, but I think normalizing a conversation and just realizing you're not alone.

Chris Warden (07:26.36)
Right.

Chris Warden (07:33.529)
Right.

Chris Warden (07:40.033)
Yeah, that's huge. Being, not being alone really, really helps. And that feeling of alone, like I can completely agree, not agree, but the story of being on the couch, canceling plans, drinking the wine that resonates with me. And I know before my light bulb went off, I was stuck, but it sounds like you and I have a very similar path. And it's, if, if you need help,

I think there's plenty of people out there to help you, but we have to do a better job of making sure that the firefighters know that this is a very common issue. Would you say that's pretty accurate or no?

AZ (08:21.65)
Yeah, I mean the other thing is that we as observers have to have the courage to say, alright, this person is not acting right and as uncomfortable as this is, I need to have a conversation with this person and hold out my hand and see if there's something that I can do. Because many times...

Chris Warden (08:33.274)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (08:44.93)
They've got a divorce going on at home, a sick kid, lost a patient, whatever, and they're overwhelmed and they're spinning.

Chris Warden (08:56.013)
What would, what would you, in the terms of wellness coming into 2024, if you're listening to this is probably beyond 2024 at this point, but, um, what, what is wellness looking like, uh, from your dashboard, moving forward for firefighters? What does that look like? What does somebody who's spinning like, I'm fine. I'm just, I just, I'm used to this. What does it look like?

AZ (09:21.458)
I used to say it was mental, physical, financial, spiritual, emotional, community. I used to say that, but I think...

Chris Warden (09:27.897)
Right.

AZ (09:32.186)
One of a better way to describe it is if somebody used this analogy recently for me and I was like, oh, this is good. If you're worrying about your health insurance or your salary or your owie on your right knee at a structural fire, you're not doing your best work.

Chris Warden (09:40.282)
Gotcha.

AZ (09:52.19)
So the ability for the firefighter to feel taken care of in a way that allows them to focus on the task at hand and then simply be happy and functioning in their daily life. I think that's wellness.

Chris Warden (10:07.493)
Yeah, that's like a high performing individual who can show up and do their job and be present to that job rather than distracted by, like you said, the knee pain, the financial issues. That's a really good way to put that. I think, yeah, go ahead.

AZ (10:24.63)
and the problem with that is that this job attracts

Chris Warden (10:31.278)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (10:34.874)
nervous systems, if you will, nervous systems who are able to thrive in spite of the, am I allowed to swear on your podcast? In spite of the bullshit that gets thrown at them on a shift or in their life, they're able to thrive in spite of it. And so sometimes they start to feel like if I don't feel like I'm going 90 miles an hour with my hair on fire, I'm not doing it right.

Chris Warden (10:44.533)
Yeah, 100%.

AZ (11:04.688)
So there's that perspective too.

Chris Warden (11:07.285)
Yeah. And I think you're right there that, that for me, that speaks to the ability to function at a calm level, right? Like, and for me personally, it was a, I brought a lot of unhealed trauma to the fire service with my life and I didn't know about it. I mean, I was conscious or subconsciously aware of it, but do you think that's a common thing where we're bringing a bunch of other baggage?

to the profession that kind of just gets lit on fire after we miss a couple years of sleep and are exposed to certain things.

AZ (11:43.57)
Yeah, I mean, the data actually are pretty clear that people with adverse childhood experiences are attracted to services such as fire service, law enforcement, and the military. And so, yeah, we're coming in, again, not my analogy, don't know where I stole it, but it's a good one. We're already coming in with our little backpacks shoved full of rocks, and then we have, we lose our first peas, another rock. Then we...

Chris Warden (11:53.955)
Yeah.

AZ (12:13.078)
go to the car accident where it's an extended extrication and we can't save the patient, another rock, and then we go to the Christmas day shooting, another rock, and if we're not offloading those rocks, they just become overwhelming and fast, coupled with the sleep deprivation, because we process trauma while we sleep.

Chris Warden (12:25.635)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (12:29.189)
Sure. And I mean, so now we're talking about collecting and accumulating rocks and in other essence, trauma and stress. And now we have to start, we should have started a long time ago, but now we have to start finding a way to offload that. So, I mean, how, as an expert in wellness and what, what are a couple things we can start doing today to start taking those rocks?

digging through the dust and finding the boulders and processing.

AZ (13:02.186)
Well, I like to say...

Finally, an original thought, I like to say, everything gets better when you sleep. And so simply paying more attention to your sleep is going to improve everything. Everything gets better when you sleep. But the other thing is that just sleeping more isn't gonna help you process all of that trauma. So you need help. And that's why I tell these little fresh-faced babies that get hired, I get to talk to them on their first day, and I tell them, I need you to go try

Chris Warden (13:22.626)
Right.

AZ (13:34.044)
some counseling, like try them on like a pair of pants. Does this one fit? Does this one fit? Oh my gosh, this one feels great. Okay, that's your counselor. And then I want you to make an appointment. I love to say once a month, but how about once a quarter, even if you don't feel like you need to go in there once a quarter and just start working through your crap. And then when the proverbial poop hits the fan in the fire service, you already have a relationship. You're

Chris Warden (13:41.507)
Right.

Chris Warden (13:55.555)
Right.

AZ (14:03.976)
I know I need help, but now I can't find someone, and oh, I found someone, and this person is a jerk, and I don't like them, and therefore counseling doesn't work. So start the relationship early and sleep.

Chris Warden (14:15.461)
That, sleep is huge and I think that's like, I would say that's a given, but I don't think it is yet. It's not. So that, and then developing your resource bag, right? Your personal wellness, mental wellness, RIT bag, if you will, and I stole that from a discussion I had with a gentleman. And building those resources before you need them, if I'm understanding correctly what you're saying, is.

AZ (14:22.538)
It's not, it's not, it's not a given.

Chris Warden (14:44.085)
pretty much the way to go. And you're intervening day one before there's a problem, you're dealing with potentially healthy people.

AZ (14:52.11)
And you know, the other thing is, I put it as four pillars or four spokes or whatever you want to call it, but the sleep is number one, nutrition is number two, mental health, meditation, whatever you want to call it is number three. And number four is movement.

Chris Warden (15:09.176)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (15:10.53)
And I understand, like, you know, if we think those are buckets and your sleep bucket has a huge hole in it because you have an infant or a sick mom or whatever, if you can put more in the other buckets, it'll help buffer and mitigate the impact of the sleep deprivation. But what I see is...

People just go to hell in a handbasket on everything. And so they're not sleeping, they're not eating well, they're not paying attention to their mental health. And by the way, they don't feel like moving because they're tired and they feel like crap. Fill up the buckets if one is hemorrhaging.

Chris Warden (15:36.867)
Right.

Chris Warden (15:49.057)
Nice, I like that a lot. Fill up your buckets if one is hemorrhaging. So we have the four buckets, right? The sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, meditation, mental, and yeah, however, whatever that resource looks like, and then the movement one. Nice, and go ahead.

AZ (15:58.766)
mental health, journaling, whatever you want to call it.

AZ (16:07.338)
Everyone always is shocked because I'm a strength and conditioning specialist. So, and a nutritionist. So not a dietitian, but a nutritionist. So they always think, oh, exercise first and nutrition second. But I put them in that exact order because they're upstream interventions and of the intervention, sleep is the most upstream.

Chris Warden (16:20.547)
Right.

Chris Warden (16:26.04)
Okay.

Chris Warden (16:30.905)
So we would say, when you say upstream, can you explain that a little bit?

AZ (16:35.466)
can it's just like fire prevention. So we will never know how many lives the panic hardware, the fire alarm...

the sprinkler system, we can guess, but we will never know for sure how many lives we save because those are upstream interventions before the problem even happens. Same thing with sleep and nutrition and mental health and movement. Downstream interventions are putting out the fire or sending someone to a 30-day inpatient rehab or

Chris Warden (16:56.356)
Gotcha.

Chris Warden (17:06.361)
Gotcha.

AZ (17:07.798)
you know, getting them on a CPAP after they've already had a heart attack or something like that.

Chris Warden (17:13.049)
Gotcha. Reactive and proactive. Beautiful. What would you say has been one of your more proactive, personal solutions to your experience in the fire service? Like what did you find that you naturally did and you didn't know you were doing it and it worked?

AZ (17:15.478)
Versus proactive, exactly.

AZ (17:32.338)
Well, again, I think sleep saved my life. And that is not because I was smart about it. It was because I had young parents who...

Chris Warden (17:38.435)
Right?

AZ (17:43.338)
Again, they were very young parents, they were very poor, they did not know what they were doing parenting, they were emotionally immature, and so the only thing they knew to do with me is to put me to bed. And I had a really early bedtime. I took naps until I was in, I don't know, in the summer until I was probably in second grade. People don't do that. And I had a bedtime on school nights of nine o'clock, even when I was in.

Chris Warden (18:05.624)
No.

AZ (18:11.73)
early high school. I think I got to stay up til 10 on the weekend. So, whoo, partay. But, I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but also that's what I reverted to when I was grouchy, when I didn't feel good, when I was sad. I put myself to bed. And because of my expertise in health and wellness, the movement was always there, the nutrition was always there. What I was missing was the mental health aspect of it, the self-awareness.

Chris Warden (18:15.661)
Woo. I know. Wow. Careful.

AZ (18:41.584)
In fact, I'm just now, I'm 52 years old, I'm just now understanding I have a self and I get to vote. And when I feel like something is weird, I'm not wrong. I don't need to question it because that's my self, that's my nervous system talking to me. And again, I had no sense of self for 48, probably eight years of my life.

Chris Warden (18:52.601)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (19:02.733)
Yeah.

AZ (19:11.524)
missing and that's the piece that made a big difference too.

Chris Warden (19:15.757)
What is something that you, that kind of triggered that self-awareness or the, the recognizing the lack thereof for you? Cause that's a very common thing. And my, my self-awareness showed up when I was like 32. Well, I'm only 39. So it's

AZ (19:30.884)
Oh, you're lucky.

AZ (19:35.719)
Well, okay, bring me back to that question, but I wanna give you an example of how this showed up recently. I have been in physical therapy for six months. I had a knee replacement in June. I went back to full duty at the end of September, but I kept going to physical therapy just to get optimal, best outcome. So I stopped to get gas before physical therapy one day. I was getting gas and...

Chris Warden (19:40.941)
Yeah, I would love to hear it.

Chris Warden (19:52.514)
Yeah.

AZ (20:00.626)
I looked over and this guy in the pump next to me had like sort of slinked slunk slinked I don't know what the word is like creepy walked over and he was taking a picture of me and my license plate.

Chris Warden (20:10.578)
Oh, yeah.

AZ (20:15.39)
Now the old me would have been like, oh, I can't say anything. He's probably not doing anything wrong. I'm misunderstanding. The new me walked strongly towards him with my hand out like it was gonna hit him and said, get out of here. And as it turns out, like this is a serial weirdo in the area. So trusting, being able to trust myself in that situation probably eliminated me from going through

Chris Warden (20:19.606)
Right.

Chris Warden (20:31.79)
Yeah.

AZ (20:46.407)
potentially something bad, who knows. So your actual question, which I already forgot was,

Chris Warden (20:48.389)
Sure.

Chris Warden (20:53.005)
Basically, what was a light bulb scenario for you where you're like, Oh, wow, I, this self-awareness thing is a thing and I don't have it.

AZ (21:01.678)
don't have it. So most people once the light bulb goes on, I think that was around 20, maybe 16 or 17 when that Illinois firefighter peer support guy came and talked to us. So light bulb. Most people would then go, oh, I should probably go get some counseling. I did not do that at the time because I was feeling so much better about my life. I just, I didn't think I needed it.

Chris Warden (21:16.773)
Gotcha.

AZ (21:30.518)
In 2020, I met someone and I was in a relationship and I tend to implode relationships. And so I was like, I'm not going to do this time, I'm going to go get some counseling and figure out my crap. And so I went to a traditional, I don't know if you would call her cognitive behavioral therapist, but the ones where you talk about your feelings, like how did that make you feel? And

Chris Warden (21:58.489)
Feelings? What are those?

AZ (21:59.474)
She told me flat out, because I was like, I have this feeling, I think it's like a gut feeling, I think there's something wrong. Like in this relationship, I don't want there to be something wrong, but I think there's something wrong. And she basically told me like, no, that's your mind playing tricks on you. I was like, oh, okay.

Chris Warden (22:10.158)
Right?

AZ (22:19.146)
Well, after six months, she actually quit her practice. She got pregnant. It was during COVID. She didn't want to practice great. And so I sort of went back out on my own. And then I was like, no, I really, really want this relationship to work. I really want to get some help. And so I found a woman. Her name is Cody Todd. She's Illinois famous, at least. She works with a lot of first responders. And she works basically with the nervous system. Now, I'm well familiar with the nervous system and safety when it comes to movement.

but I didn't realize like the nervous system was so involved in keeping me safe and alive and all of that stuff and so we've been working now almost two years on me finding myself and trusting like what am I feeling in my body what is going on so that's basically how I got here yeah

Chris Warden (22:59.321)
Right.

Chris Warden (23:06.369)
Your gut? Yeah.

Chris Warden (23:12.005)
Awesome. So do you do much, I guess you could call it intuition, but do you find that you're doing that more now, like following that or standing up for that tingle in the back of your neck?

AZ (23:27.014)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what she said was, she's like, you're not doing it wrong. You didn't end up this way. You didn't get this far in your life because you were doing it wrong. You got this far in your life because, excuse me, because you were surviving.

Chris Warden (23:39.364)
Right.

AZ (23:46.738)
And so that's the mode that I'm trying to get out of now. Like making more conscious decisions and listening to what's going on in my body and not just trying to executive function and you know, fix everything.

Chris Warden (23:59.373)
Yeah. That's amazing. The executive function stuff is super interesting to me. And

AZ (24:08.086)
Yeah, she's like, if this was a logistics problem, hold on, please, hold on.

AZ (24:20.631)
Good grief. The coughing is not good. If this was a logistics problem, we wouldn't be having a conversation right now because you can logistic the hell out of anything and everything. So it's not a logistics problem. It's a self-awareness issue. Yeah.

Chris Warden (24:31.106)
Right.

Chris Warden (24:37.581)
Interesting. Were you onto something here with the relationship?

AZ (24:43.594)
Oh yeah, we're not together anymore.

Chris Warden (24:45.173)
Okay, so your gut was there, but you were overriding that a little bit.

AZ (24:48.247)
Yeah.

I was because I was like, I'm not doing this again. I'm not getting into another relationship and quitting. Cause I kept.

Chris Warden (24:55.055)
Right.

AZ (25:01.27)
Because shame is a big motivator too. When you grow up like I grew up, shame is what keeps you in line. And also shame is very much a huge piece of the fire service. When you are a new guy and you're starting the saw, they don't tell you how to start the saw. They just throw it at you and make you figure it out and then make you feel ashamed of how poorly you did.

Chris Warden (25:05.25)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (25:26.582)
And then they'll tell you a couple wrong ways to do it and watch you suffer.

AZ (25:29.81)
Yes. Yeah. So yeah, shame. Shame is a huge MFer. And it's, and it's great to finally be able to say, okay, I'm done with that. Shame is not welcome here anymore. Yeah.

Chris Warden (25:32.206)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (25:36.65)
It is.

Chris Warden (25:44.437)
Awesome, well good for you. That's awesome, that's huge. How do you feel about celebrating small victories like that? Do you think it's important to give yourself that proverbial slap on the back at a boy at a girl type stuff, or is that stuff like, ah, I'm an adult, I should probably just jot that down to, I needed to do that.

AZ (26:08.61)
Well, the old logical, you know, logical me would be like, I cannot believe you didn't figure this out before. I get so disappointed in you. And now I'm like, hell yes. Let's have a party about that one.

Chris Warden (26:16.077)
Right?

Chris Warden (26:23.385)
Good.

AZ (26:23.986)
So it's serving me very well. And the other thing that I've realized through doing this work is that it really isn't, it isn't about me. All the ways that people treat you and they come at you and it's really not about you. You might be being a jerk, that may be true, but more than likely, their reaction has nothing to do with you, and in my case, me.

Chris Warden (26:34.19)
Right.

Chris Warden (26:52.393)
Yeah, people's treatment of us has, and I've learned this recently and multiple times, I think it has way more to do with them than it does us. That's, that's huge.

AZ (27:05.998)
Well, and again, the shame stew, which is the firehouse, I noticed something that it was making me feel really yucky, because I noticed that when certain people on my crew were absent, the other people in the crew were gossiping about those people.

Chris Warden (27:15.013)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (27:26.762)
And then when different people were absent, they were gossiping about those people that were gone. And I finally realized like, they're all doing this to divert shame from themselves. So if I can talk crap about someone who's not here, then I'm diverting everything away from me. So I finally just, I made a rule. I'm like, we do not talk this way at the station. If you have something to say to someone, I need you to say it to them. And if your words have no impact on them,

Chris Warden (27:37.826)
Right.

AZ (27:56.796)
I still don't want to hear it at the kitchen table, because it's not fixing the situation to talk crap about that person at the kitchen table, and oh, by the way, you're making me feel terrible. My nervous system isn't happy when that's going on. I'm not happy.

Chris Warden (28:01.09)
Right.

Chris Warden (28:09.862)
I can relate to that too. And a lot of that undermines leadership, right? As from a professional level, like we're talking crap about a chief, right? Somebody's like, oh, that training was the dumbest thing I've ever had to do. Well, your chief thought it was important. And as a leader, and maybe you're an officer, you probably shouldn't be saying that to your new people.

AZ (28:32.41)
especially in the climate that I'm not sure what you guys have going on in your state, but stuff is not good in my state as far as recruitment and retention. It's not good. We're losing people. I think we have seven people on our hiring list right now and we have 10 openings. Yeah, Wawa's right.

Chris Warden (28:43.617)
No, it's not ideal.

Chris Warden (28:51.929)
Wow.

Yeah. Thanks. So let's, let's take a little bit of a transition and talk about some of the challenges that you faced within your career outside of just a finding some self-awareness, but from being a female, I know that maybe it sounds awful to say, but it's different for men and women coming into the fire service and to deny that I think is kind of silly.

AZ (29:20.79)
Well, let me start at the happy ending because yesterday we have a new training and safety chief. He is awesome. His name is Scott Gray. He should be a chief somewhere, but he's an amazing guy. I've always liked him. He has a great head on his shoulders and I happened to be at the headquarters station yesterday dropping something off and I stopped by to talk to Scott and I mentioned that I

Chris Warden (29:22.7)
Yeah, let's hear it.

Chris Warden (29:33.326)
Awesome.

Chris Warden (29:42.456)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (29:50.704)
allowance my last pair of duty boots because I'm retiring in March. Thanks. Very excited.

Chris Warden (29:54.425)
Congratulations.

AZ (29:58.614)
And Scott said, so what are you going to go with? And I said, well, I'm going to go with the stupid red wings I've been wearing for less than 10 years because there just isn't anything better. And my gripe has always been female feet and male feet are not the same. You can't just take a size six and a half men's boot and call it a female eight. They do, but you can't. And so my feet are jacked up and I've had multiple foot surgeries. There's another female in my department, multiple

Chris Warden (30:20.227)
Right.

Chris Warden (30:26.629)
Wow.

AZ (30:28.428)
And anyway, Scott said, well, why don't you just go get any boot you want and we'll reimburse you. And I was like, what? They always told me I couldn't do that. I had to get the boots that were on the.

the list and he said, no, we're not playing that game anymore. We actually were getting like uniforms. There's multiple female uniforms because the new girl had to go cut off the bottom of her uniforms to make them fit. And I'm like, hello, welcome to my career. I've been doing that for 20 years and no one cared.

Chris Warden (30:59.415)
right?

AZ (31:00.934)
And the new girls that are coming in, the new ladies, have the option to get female fire gear, which they never offered before because it was too expensive. And so that's fantastic.

Chris Warden (31:11.682)
Right, of course.

AZ (31:15.35)
But where I started was we used to get large, extra large, and double extra large EMS gloves. And I said, can we please get small gloves? These don't fit me. And the EMS chief at that time was like, well, no, we can't order small gloves just for one person. 10 years it took us to get small gloves until there were four females.

Chris Warden (31:25.999)
Right?

AZ (31:37.578)
And I told him at the time, I'm like, I'm going to be here for 20 years and not one minute longer. I promise I will use up a case of small EMS gloves. I promise.

Chris Warden (31:46.534)
Right.

AZ (31:50.742)
I've had a hip surgery, I've had a knee replacement, and I attribute both of those to poorly fitting fire gear and poorly fitting fire boots. So things are getting way better. It was just unfortunately the side effect of a time when there weren't, I guess, quote unquote, enough women to really have it matter.

Chris Warden (32:03.781)
Good.

Chris Warden (32:14.545)
That's such a shame. And I, you said something very interesting. Injuries from poor fitting fire gear, to sum up what you said. Let's, let's talk about that for a second. Cause I know you have a, I wouldn't call it unique because I agree with you, but it might not be the most, um, widely supported take on exercise, but working out in your gear. Let's talk about what that looks like.

AZ (32:23.183)
100%, 100%.

AZ (32:41.762)
Oh, we're going there. Okay, in 2022, the IAFF and the Metro Chiefs came out with a position stance that said, hey, knuckleheads, this gear has PFAS chemicals in it. This gear has carcinogens in it. So you shouldn't be wearing it on EMS calls. You shouldn't be wearing it on calls that don't require that level of...

Chris Warden (32:42.945)
Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

AZ (33:07.89)
protection, you should be laundering this stuff. I mean, on and on and on and on. But the part the piece that they missed was you should not be doing exercise training in your fire gear. Now, I want people to hear me. Yes, you need to train in your fire gear. You need to force drawers, I just had drawers. Yeah, those two.

Chris Warden (33:13.524)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (33:27.588)
Yes.

Some people have to force their drawers on, I'll be honest.

AZ (33:33.746)
I have to force my drawers on now too, because it's hard to bend my knee in the middle of the night. But force doors, pull hose, ladders, crawl. I get it. Yes, you need to be able to do all of that stuff in your fire gear and you need to feel comfortable doing so, because it's life and death. But.

Chris Warden (33:37.432)
Yeah, for sure. Horse Tours.

Chris Warden (33:44.29)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (33:52.421)
100%.

AZ (33:53.794)
There is no stinking reason on the planet that you need to be doing deadlifts and rowing and assault bike and burpees and pull-ups in your fire gear. A. None of that crap transfers to the fire ground. I have never, never once seen a firefighter laying on his back with his air bottle and doing single leg lift crunches with a 20 pound weight on the fire ground. Never seen it.

Chris Warden (34:01.25)
Right.

AZ (34:21.374)
So not only are they the exercises not transferring because there's that specific adaptation to impose demand, those exercises aren't transferring, you are now exposing yourself to carcinogens and PFAS chemicals for no good reason. And then the other argument is like, well, you know, I can't move very well in my fire gear. So if I have to force myself to move against the fabric on my whatever shoulder press,

Chris Warden (34:26.85)
Right.

Yeah.

AZ (34:51.828)
then I'm gonna be able to do it on the fireground. How about you get movement competency in your shorts and your t-shirt and then go do stuff you actually do on the fireground in your gear so you're competent? It is.

so incredibly frustrating when I kind of understand it. If you're a firefighter in the middle of Bufu nowhere and you're just trying to do your darn best, it kind of like, it kind of makes sense. Like I have to perform in this gear. So maybe I should exercise on the gear. It kind of makes sense. But the strength and conditioning coaches that are condoning it

Chris Warden (35:12.804)
Right.

AZ (35:35.336)
that are again condoning it and prescribing it and putting t-shirts out that say like whatever I died in my gear. Like it's irresponsible and it makes me want to punch someone. And we need to do better. Now someone had the audacity to say to me well yeah but there's no research that says like you're gonna get cancer from exercising in your fire gear.

Chris Warden (35:41.901)
Yeah, whatever dogma.

AZ (36:04.89)
Okay, there's also no research that says drinking bleach is gonna kill you, but that's because no institutional review board is gonna approve that research because we know it's gonna kill you. So I'm just at a loss. But that said, I have a research study starting with Dr. Jade Asit, Oklahoma State University, and we're gonna look at movement competency.

Chris Warden (36:28.726)
Awesome.

AZ (36:32.858)
He has a fancy machine, can't remember what it's called. It analyzes your movement, and we're gonna do it geared and not geared, and just show people like, our hypothesis is it's not going to be effective. So in real science, we have to ask the question and then, you know, demonstrate the research. But I'm telling you right now, doing box jumps in your gear is asinine. Drop the mic.

Chris Warden (36:37.765)
Nice.

Chris Warden (36:58.037)
I, yes, like turn off the show, it's over, but I totally agree with you. And that is, it's something that I, I didn't really have that thought process until recently in the past couple of years. So I'm really refreshed to hear you saying that. And it's, it's not necessarily about, for me, beating myself up in the gear and doing deadlifts. It's hard enough to do a deadlift right without hurting yourself, without all that crap on. Like I can barely,

bend over and do stuff I need to do in the fire gear, let alone pick up a barbell and maintain perfect form. So exercising in the gear, probably a horrible idea, but like you said, fire ground tactics, fire ground specific stuff, push, pull, crawl, drag, lift, throw ladders. That makes sense, right? Doing that's... Right.

AZ (37:47.112)
The risk is worth the reward.

or the reward is worth the risk in that case. And the other thing too, revisiting, I'm back on female fire gear. I did a post like, I don't know, two years ago now, a female firefighter in a nearby department invited me to this female only firefighter Facebook group. Now I declined to join because I hate Facebook and I did read some of the posts and I'm like, this is not my vibe. But one of the first posts was,

Chris Warden (37:57.603)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (38:01.538)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (38:09.367)
Awesome.

Chris Warden (38:16.291)
Little cringe.

AZ (38:19.504)
guys, does any, does this happen to anyone else? At every single fire, I fall down, ha ha. And then like 50 comments, like me too, girl, it's not just you. And I couldn't like hold my tongue anymore. And I said, oh, someone was like, I'm so clumsy. I'm like, I could not hold my tongue. And I put like in all caps, I'm like, ladies, you're not clumsy, your shit doesn't fit. And they're like, oh, but it's true.

Chris Warden (38:47.339)
Absolutely.

AZ (38:47.522)
The gear is not made for female measurements. The patterns that it's built on, they're not made for females.

Chris Warden (38:55.204)
Right.

And, and as we know, men and women are not the same. And.

AZ (39:01.034)
women are not small men. And Dr. Anthony Walker says, you can't pink it and shrink it and call it good.

Chris Warden (39:03.908)
Right.

Chris Warden (39:09.877)
If we had a bunch of mics, they'd be falling all over the place. I, that is, that is absolutely accurate. Um, holy cow. There's just so many challenges that men and women, but women specifically face in the fire service. Um, but bringing it back to just firefighters in general, what, what would you say some of the firefighters as far as maybe not gear related, but just the challenges of health, right? Like, and you said it.

AZ (39:13.142)
I know, he's such a smart man.

Chris Warden (39:37.513)
in one of your snippets you sent me, mental and physical health are just health, right? They're not separate. Can you dig into that for me a little bit?

AZ (39:42.574)
Mm-hmm

Yeah, absolutely. It's not like mind and body. It's just the body. It's one piece. And I say they're married, mental and physical are married, and they can't get divorced. It's like, it's unfortunately, I mean, mine, my mental and physical were probably not like on speaking terms for 40 some years, but they still weren't divorced. So they work in joint twins who didn't speak to each other.

Chris Warden (40:08.932)
Right?

Chris Warden (40:12.185)
that can join twins.

Chris Warden (40:16.277)
Right. How miserable.

AZ (40:17.515)
But...

You know, you can't just have a physical injury. I had a knee replacement, I'm back on the knee replacement, but that was more mental for me than physical. More mentally difficult than physical. Because I wasn't able to do what I wanted, needed, and usually did. So I felt lonely, isolated, incapacitated, it sucked. But the other thing is,

Chris Warden (40:29.057)
Okay, how so?

AZ (40:48.688)
mentally well, so depression, OCD, anxiety, whatever it is, that's going to manifest itself physically because you're not going to take care of yourself like you should when there's something going on in your head. So we have to consider it's all one package. When you look at firefighters who are morbidly obese, and you know the ones I'm talking about, not the ones with the little belly, but the ones who are like 450 pounds.

Chris Warden (40:50.05)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (40:53.838)
Yeah.

AZ (41:18.122)
That is not just a physical manifestation. There is a reason, a mental health reason, that person is 450 pounds. And the problem is when your chief says, Hey, Peer Fitness Trainer, go help...

Sam lose, you know, 250 pounds, ready, set, go. And by the way, we're not gonna pay you or give you any time to do it. You just have to do it. They're never gonna be successful because first they don't have the capacity or the expertise, but the next part of it is it's a mental health issue as well. It is a holistic problem. No one wants to be

Chris Warden (41:35.78)
Right.

Chris Warden (41:56.165)
Right. It's a holistic problem.

AZ (42:02.474)
200, 250, no one even wants to be 10 pounds in their mind, 10 pounds overweight. They don't want to be it, but they are. And there's a reason for it.

Chris Warden (42:07.909)
Sure.

Chris Warden (42:11.653)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (42:16.518)
And that just compounds every other problem that they're facing in their career, from gear fitting well, to sleeping, to mental health support, personal growth, all those things just suffer.

AZ (42:27.83)
Yeah. They do. And, you know, this is my other soapbox that I'm on all the time is like...

This is not a DIY solution. I am sorry, I don't care if your department is only 15 or 12 or 10 people. You cannot put this on someone that's a line firefighter and say, fix the problem. You can't do it. This is a professional intervention. Health and wellness for fire is a professional intervention. End of story, drop the mic again. You cannot put that on firefighters. Can they help?

Chris Warden (42:39.95)
Right.

Chris Warden (42:45.733)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (42:53.401)
Right.

Chris Warden (43:04.014)
Yeah.

AZ (43:08.392)
Yeah, under the supervision of someone that knows what the heck they're doing, they can absolutely be helpful force multipliers. They can be the people that say, hey Sam, after you get done with lunch, let's go for a 10 minute walk around the station and start that habit. But to put that person in charge of someone else's health and wellness is a huge mistake and a liability in my opinion.

Chris Warden (43:24.716)
Right.

Chris Warden (43:32.473)
Yeah.

Absolutely, you're asking, there's a lot of liability there, especially somebody who might not even be trained to handle fitness, let alone all of the underlying conditions that person is experiencing.

AZ (43:47.838)
Well, you know how those people get picked? They're the people that are interested in fitness or they've run a marathon or done a bodybuilding show or powerlifting me. Well, the problem with the people that are interested in fitness is most of them are interested because they don't know how to help themselves either. So they think, oh, if I go to this class, I'll learn something and I can help myself.

Chris Warden (43:52.482)
Right.

Chris Warden (44:04.963)
Right.

AZ (44:10.262)
Well, and I'm sorry, the marathoner and the powerlifter and the bodybuilder, they might be able to help marathoners and powerlifters and bodybuilders, but that doesn't qualify them to help firefighters.

Chris Warden (44:22.629)
Wow. So speaking of helping firefighters, when we talk about somebody that's already in the service, as long as let's say Sam, our big fella, um, or woman or man, however that goes, our hypothetical character here, what could we have done earlier in their career to start establishing things and making, and maybe not making, but promoting people to take their health and wellness.

as their responsibility when they join the fire service.

AZ (44:58.626)
You want to open up that can of worms because it's the worms are just going to come out everywhere but okay. The first thing is when you hire a quarterback, you're not going to say, hey, good luck. Hope you, you know, don't fizzle out. We just paid you half a million dollars, whatever.

Chris Warden (45:02.971)
It's an alley-oop. Let's go.

Chris Warden (45:17.026)
Right.

AZ (45:17.394)
they give them the resources and the expertise to do their thing. So that I think it's our responsibility in the fire service to also give them the resources. And just saying we have this 10 by 10 room with dumbbells and a yoga mat in it, good luck isn't enough. Unfortunately, it isn't enough.

These people are firefighters and our expectation is that they fight fires, do extrications, hazmat, TRT, whatever. That's our expectation. Our expectation should not be they know how to set up a comprehensive wellness program for themselves. So providing resources is I think the biggest one.

And I'm also, I know that most of your listeners are gonna be like, hey, no, do not talk about fit for duty. But I think it's irresponsible to not have fit for duty. But here's the thing with fit for duty. You can't use half-assed.

guessing tests, like you can't take the Wellness and Fitness Initiative test and make it a pass fail. That is not validated. You have to have an actual test that you can clinically measure the results administered by professionals. If you're going to talk about people losing their job or going off the line. So that's the first part of that. The second part of that is you have to have a plan

Chris Warden (46:23.459)
Right.

Chris Warden (46:46.564)
Right.

AZ (46:52.617)
doesn't pass. You have to have a plan to rehabilitate him and help him and do whatever it takes to get him back to where he needs to be. Now Indianapolis has had fit-for-duty for

five ever and I think someone told me only two ever two people have just said, I think I'm going to retire instead of messing around with this crap. So they do a really good job of rehabilitating their people. But the typical department doesn't want to spend any of that money. They want to say they want to have the chief come up and say, okay, you got to do 50 pushups and run two miles in.

Chris Warden (47:21.422)
Yeah.

AZ (47:33.422)
14 minutes and if you don't, there's going to be consequences. Okay, how did you come up with 50 push-ups? Well that's the number he can do. How did you come up with 2 miles in 14 minutes? It just sounded good. Okay, that's not going to hold up in court. I cannot run 2 miles in 14 minutes. I am going to lose my job. It's not going to hold up in court.

Chris Warden (47:34.981)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (47:41.859)
Right.

Chris Warden (47:49.958)
Right.

Chris Warden (48:00.185)
we have to do a better job of giving people resources, like you said, and the fit for duty thing, you're right. A lot of people hear that and they just leave the table. Like, nah, not interested, not gonna jump on that. And that, and if you're not fit for duty, you're putting me at risk. You're, I think that's probably where I saw that.

AZ (48:24.03)
Oh, I just did a post on that yesterday.

Chris Warden (48:28.997)
And it's huge. Like, if you are a liability, guess what my chance of getting hurt just did? It just went up. And it's a wild, wild risk we take.

AZ (48:44.074)
Well, you know what else is wild? People want to question the capability of females, but who by the way, are more fit than males in the fire service. That research has been done. People want to question the capability of females, but very few people are worried about Sam. Cause when it comes to push to shove, he'll get the job done. At what cost? Possibly his life or mine.

Chris Warden (49:10.333)
It's crazy. What, what are some of, yeah, it's, it's a, it's super crazy. What are some of the, um, strategies you use to, to help your firefighters?

AZ (49:12.27)
It is crazy.

Chris Warden (49:24.773)
Hmm.

AZ (49:25.038)
That's a good one. You have to meet them where they are. Absolutely meet them where they are. I have a matrix, I call it my matrix. So number one, meet them where they are. If that is a sixer after work every morning and stopping at McDonald's, okay, can we make that a four pack instead of a six pack? Can we start there? Meet them where they are.

Chris Warden (49:32.708)
Okay.

Nice.

AZ (49:46.626)
The next thing is every single firefighter, it doesn't matter if they're young or old, they are in pain. Something on their body is killing them. Help them get out of pain. So meet them where they are, get them out of pain. Third thing, ask them.

Is there something that would make you proud? Or is there something that you really, really would mean something to you if you could do? And be ready to sort through the weeds and the answers because they'll say things like, I want to be able to hop up and down off the floor to play with my grandkids. That's pretty clear cut. I want to look in the mirror and just be proud of what I see in the mirror. Well, that's a little bit kind of, we got to figure that one out. I want

Chris Warden (50:29.861)
That's deeper. Yeah.

AZ (50:34.352)
225 for 10 reps. Okay, then like why what does that mean to you? Oh, well, that was my college warmup Okay, help them do something they want to do so meet him where they are get him out of pain Help him do something that they want to do then and only then can you talk to them about performance? You should probably be working on your cardiovascular training You should probably be trying to get stronger because now you've got them They know you're not a jerk because you met them where they were

Chris Warden (51:01.079)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (51:04.912)
and you didn't take away their monsters or whatever vice they have, okay? You got them out of pain. If you get someone out of pain, they will love you forever. And you helped them do something that was meaningful to them before you even worried about the crap out there. Firefighters have to feel like the person.

Chris Warden (51:08.129)
Yeah, yeah.

Chris Warden (51:19.715)
Right?

AZ (51:25.23)
coaching them or taking care of them actually cares about them and not about the employer. Now I do I care about the employer. I have to they pay my contract fee. But if the firefighter feels like I'm just there to decrease workers comp or to whatever, they're gonna write me off. I have to let them know that I care about them the most.

Chris Warden (51:27.194)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (51:35.525)
course. Right.

Chris Warden (51:51.854)
Yeah.

AZ (51:53.918)
And this stuff over here, the workers comp and the happy employers, that comes naturally and it comes quickly once you get the buy-in from the firefighters because buy-in is just another word for trust.

Chris Warden (52:06.681)
Nice, I like that. Buy-in is another word for trust. And when you're doing all that work with the firefighter, investing in them and being their advocate, that, like you said, that all happens. It's a byproduct of improving them within, in their heart, in their soul, and doing those things that they need and they want.

AZ (52:27.094)
and they are your best advocates because I tell the story all the time. My main contract that I have with one agency, they hired a really big group of 10 right at the same time they contracted with me. So I call these guys like my babies.

Chris Warden (52:40.652)
Oh nice.

AZ (52:43.466)
And those guys, I didn't do a lot with them. I met with them every day for like two weeks. We worked on the hinge. We worked on the squat. We worked on warming up our bodies, foam rolling, and all of this stuff. And like soft tissue work for after tower days, all of this stuff. One of those babies who's now been on like five or six years is the biggest proponent for warm up

this, Annette helped me get through my three weeks of days because I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I would have been in too much pain, too stiff, whatever. So when he opens his mouth, the new babies listen.

Chris Warden (53:28.121)
Thanks.

You can't pay for better advertising than word of mouth.

AZ (53:32.758)
No, no, you can't. But how did that happen? Well, the problem with a lot of these academies is the cadre of badasses wanna beat the crap out of you and show you you're weak and you're small and you're not strong.

Chris Warden (53:38.286)
Right.

Chris Warden (53:47.225)
Right.

AZ (53:51.646)
I don't do that. It doesn't help anyone. They might have been weak and small and not strong, but beating them down for two or three weeks wasn't going to help them. I had to build them up.

Chris Warden (54:07.565)
Hmm. I, there's, there's so many things. Yeah. I, yeah, really just, I feel like you're reading my mind sometimes so far in this conversation because I just got hired and I work with a Academy and there's just so much of that, that work harder, do more. Oh, it's hard. Well, just try harder. You suck, do more. Right. And that, that mentality, I don't know. It probably comes from

AZ (54:10.534)
Chris is speechless.

Chris Warden (54:37.549)
the old culture and I feel like fire culture is shifting right now towards a different take on teaching people things because we're learning so much. But this just beating people down, it is sickening and it doesn't work. And it's a waste of time and people don't want to come to the fire service and get beat up when they don't even know what they're doing.

AZ (55:05.95)
Well, when I got hired, I mean, I didn't have to take that. I could have quit, but there were 600 other people ready to step into my job. Now, like I said, we have 10 openings and seven people on our brand new list. We have to do better. We have to treat people better. And like you said, it doesn't work. The guy who sat on me during a blackout maze when I was...

Chris Warden (55:11.437)
Right.

Chris Warden (55:16.037)
Sure.

AZ (55:33.966)
stuck. I wouldn't have been stuck in the wire simulator except he tied a wire onto me because I was doing too good of a job because I was doing what I was supposed to do so he decided to make it harder and show me and then he sat on me and I started to run out of air my vibrolerts going and I started to panic. That has stuck with me not as a learning experience but as a terrifying anxiety. I don't want to do mazes to this day.

Chris Warden (55:42.501)
Sure.

Chris Warden (55:47.33)
Right.

AZ (56:03.67)
That was 20 years ago. We can't teach people that way.

Chris Warden (56:05.349)
Sure. Yeah, the whole let's make them fail so they learn thing is, I think that's old and redundant. If you die in training, you're not training properly.

AZ (56:19.082)
And if you walk away from training embarrassed, ashamed, sad, anxious, that's a bad instructor. Now how could we have made that better? Because I don't want to just be negative. He could have laid down on the floor beside me and said, you are doing a great job. So I'm going to up the ante just a little bit. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tie this around your bottle. Now

Chris Warden (56:21.633)
Right?

Chris Warden (56:26.145)
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more with you.

Chris Warden (56:31.876)
Yeah.

AZ (56:45.434)
I want you to, actually, what do you think you should do if you think something's tied around your bottle? Slow down your breathing, think about it. What do you have in your pockets? Yes, yes, your cutters. Where are those cutters? Oh, they're in my right pocket. Okay, you're laying on your right side. What do you need to do to get those out? Okay, okay, you're doing a good job. Now take those behind your bottle. Be careful, you don't wanna cut it. He could have really, yes, he could have really made

Chris Warden (57:10.152)
You don't want to cut your mainline.

Chris Warden (57:14.788)
Yeah.

AZ (57:15.968)
by starting with saying, you're doing such a good job, I wanna just challenge you a little bit more. I'm not gonna make this scary. I'm not gonna make you fail, cause you're doing a good job. Let's just see if you can take it up one notch. Totally different experience.

Chris Warden (57:26.37)
Right.

Chris Warden (57:31.029)
Absolutely. That we had, I had a guy I worked with, he got tangled up in that stuff and he started cutting and he cut his regulator line right in half. Yeah, I know, right? And just that embarrassment and that shame didn't, it followed him around for a long time at his department. And it's just, I don't know, it doesn't seem fair, but like, he kind of made a mistake that time.

AZ (57:40.63)
Oh, oh no.

Chris Warden (58:00.013)
He's a great firefighter now and he's doing awesome, but.

AZ (58:00.386)
He did.

AZ (58:04.246)
He did, but what would have happened if someone was watching him closely enough to say, hey, stop for just a second. What might be right there that you don't wanna cut? Feel around, like that still could have been a really great and non-shameful learning experience. But the thing is they don't watch us closely until they wanna mess with us, or at least they didn't used to. They weren't watching and waiting for teaching moments. They were just waiting to screw with us.

Chris Warden (58:13.742)
Right.

Chris Warden (58:18.297)
Exactly. I really appreciate that. Yeah.

Chris Warden (58:35.174)
And I hate that about the fire service.

AZ (58:37.758)
I do too. We know too much about pedagogy and all of those things. We know too much about mental health, human performance, cognitive, behavioral. We know too much about it to just ignore it and say, this is the fire service. It doesn't work like that here. It works like that here too.

Chris Warden (58:42.786)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (58:49.251)
Yes.

Chris Warden (58:56.001)
Yeah, it works like that. So can you talk to me about your reflex performance reset? I know it's a big left hand turn, but kind of.

AZ (59:06.241)
Absolutely. So I use, let me back up. If you have quote unquote tight hamstrings, so if your body perceives your hamstrings as being tight.

Chris Warden (59:20.278)
Okay.

AZ (59:21.846)
But I have firefighters all the time tell me my hamstrings are so tight, they're so tight, but then they lean over and they touch their toes. That's not a tissue length problem. They have fine mobility. They're able to get their leg up to 90 degrees if they were laying on their back. Their mobility is fine. Why is their brain saying that their hamstrings feel tight? So I call it there's a hardware problem or there's a software problem. If your hamstrings are

physically so tight that you can only lift your leg 15 degrees off of the ground.

that might very well be a hardware problem. There might be something within the hamstrings or the hip joint or something that's the issue. But if you're able to lay on the ground and bring your leg up to 90 degrees, that's probably a software problem. That's a brain problem. And you can stretch those hamstrings for the rest of your life, and some people probably have been stretching their hamstrings for their entire life, and they've made no progress. That's where reflexive performance reset

Chris Warden (01:00:09.913)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (01:00:13.753)
Gotcha.

AZ (01:00:28.148)
Those are two totally separate things, but I use them together and they're magic. So reflexive performance reset is based on...

They're not trigger points, they're pressure points. And I always forget there's a special name for them and I can never remember what it is. But reflexive performance reset is more or less you're breathing intentionally and then you're stimulating in a certain order on yourself these points. So you put your hands around your belly, do some three, four deep breaths, really sort of feel relaxed. Then you take your knuckles, just like you're doing a sternal rub and you sternal rub down to the bottom.

Chris Warden (01:00:41.611)
Okay.

Chris Warden (01:00:57.273)
Okay.

AZ (01:01:09.856)
and then you take your thumbs and you go around the bottom of your rib cage and there's like probably eight or nine of these various things you're moving in order. The idea is we are, I hate to say it this way because it's um it's a big stretch to say it this way, but we're resetting the order in which muscles

Chris Warden (01:01:17.613)
Yeah.

AZ (01:01:38.736)
behind it. What do I think is really happening? I think we're stimulating our parasympathetic nervous system to the point where we're down regulated enough that we can allow our body range of motion. So I would do a test retest on you. So I might do something like, Hey Chris, show me your deepest squat. And you would show me and then I would have you do the zone one reset. And I guarantee you, you would drop down into a very beautiful and better squat.

Chris Warden (01:01:39.578)
Gotcha.

Chris Warden (01:01:58.533)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (01:02:06.145)
Nice.

AZ (01:02:08.696)
me or do you think this is hocus pocus? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to breathe really fast and shallow through your mouth like you're panting like a dog. Do that for like three to five. Let's see your squat again. And your squats gonna look crappy, probably crappier than when we started. So there's a test retest. You can do it with say arm flexion. You can do it with arm abduction. You can do it with whatever. So that's the first part of it.

Functional range conditioning has nothing to do with reflexive performance reset, but it works like magic afterwards. So functional range conditioning, the philosophy is if you

Chris Warden (01:02:35.012)
Yeah.

AZ (01:02:46.834)
If you're active and passive, range of motion are different. So if you're laying on your back on the floor and I say, Chris, show me how far you can move your leg into flexion. So like a hamstring stretch without using your hands. Show me, show me. And you do say 90 degrees. And then I take and I push you a little bit further and I can get you to 100 degrees.

Active is the 90, passive where I helped you is the 100. You do not own the range of motion between 90 and 100. So great example, the barbell snatch. People love to do the barbell snatch, but a lot of people that love to do the barbell snatch can't get their shoulders into actual enough active flexion to get their hands above their head.

And most of your listeners probably know what a snatch is, but I'll just tell them in case. You take a barbell from the ground, straight up and over your head in one motion. So if you don't have the active range of motion to take your arms over your head and get the biceps even with your ears, doing a snatch is a terrible idea because you don't own that range of motion. You're only getting there because the barbell is flinging you there.

Chris Warden (01:03:45.433)
Yeah, no, go ahead.

Chris Warden (01:04:09.637)
Gotcha.

AZ (01:04:10.946)
functional range conditioning helps narrow that range of motion. So for example,

your hamstrings, you got to 90, but I can passively get you to 100. We can do it's going to sound familiar, like PNF stretching to get you strengthened into that range of motion so you can control that range of motion. So I use so reflexive performance reset. So they're nice and down regulated and have maximum mobility and then functional range conditioning to start strengthening that new mobility range, because where do firefighters get hurt? Low back shoulder.

Chris Warden (01:04:46.433)
Right, shoulders, yep.

AZ (01:04:48.938)
knee. Why? Because their ankles, hips, and thoracic spine don't move very well. So functional range conditioning can help with the ankles, hips, and thoracic spine.

Chris Warden (01:04:55.458)
Exactly.

Chris Warden (01:05:01.565)
So we have reflexive performance reset, and then we have the functional range conditioning. Perfect.

AZ (01:05:04.79)
Yes.

Yeah, so reflexive performance reset is Cal Deitz from University of Minnesota and RJ Holter, I think his name is. He's a big lifting guy. And then the reflexive, I'm sorry, functional range conditioning is Dr. Andrew Spina.

Chris Warden (01:05:12.772)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (01:05:30.893)
So two really good strategies that we can start at least investigating and improving our awareness of and maybe implementing in our fitness routines.

AZ (01:05:41.91)
It's like a Reese's, two great tastes that taste great together.

Chris Warden (01:05:45.557)
Excellent. All right. I have a big question for you.

AZ (01:05:53.518)
Am I gonna go on another yelling tangent?

Chris Warden (01:05:55.965)
I hope so. No, I don't think this is one of those. I like setting you off though, because it's been very entertaining. And if I was listening to this episode, I would be engaged. So.

AZ (01:06:05.57)
I get really passionate. Go ahead.

Chris Warden (01:06:08.273)
That's good. We need more of that. Um, mentors, if you had one, let's come up with two. Who's your biggest and who's been the most influential.

AZ (01:06:19.362)
Oh, okay, so I have, I'm not a big like fire service hero girl. I'm not your typical fire service person, okay? I don't collect challenge coins. I don't do t-shirts. I don't like wear my job shirt off duty, okay? But I have one person in the fire service. His name is George Carvajal and George is a legendary strength and conditioning coach. He trains NFL combine.

first he trained special operators legendary strength and conditioning coach who also just happens to be a captain at Miami Dade. So George is awesome. We connect periodically and he just sets my head straight sometimes it gets crooked he sets it straight.

Chris Warden (01:06:51.205)
guys.

AZ (01:07:05.33)
And then I would say as far as business goes, my friend Shante Cofield, who's the movement maestro, she, her basically philosophy in life is be relentless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire. And so, and if it's not a hell yes, it's a F-U-C-K no. And so I've been able to tap into a lot of that in creating my business and

Chris Warden (01:07:12.184)
Okay.

AZ (01:07:35.204)
opposed to just a job.

Chris Warden (01:07:35.267)
Yeah.

Dude, that's huge. And having a job is one thing, but having something that makes you get out of bed early and nail all that stuff is huge. So you're lucky to be one of the few that have that. And that's, it's exactly what we're trying to build here for myself. And it's something that sets the soul on fire. But speaking of fire rescue wellness, can you tell me about some of the principles that you're bringing to that business for lack of a better term?

AZ (01:08:08.538)
Sure, absolutely. So the first thing that usually confuses people is I don't train clients one-on-one. So I don't write programs for individual firefighters or anything like that. The bulk of my business is managing health and wellness programs for fire departments, providing educational content for them in terms of generally live or webinar lectures. And then I also provide consulting services

Chris Warden (01:08:16.088)
Okay.

AZ (01:08:38.392)
can have me come into your department. I spend three days to a week with you. I do a needs analysis. I meet your people. I meet your stakeholders. I talk to everybody and we figure out

how to get you going at your department. And then I recommend resources and most generally those resources don't include me. I will say I would recommend that you hire an athletic trainer, start them out at 20 hours a week, blah blah. Do you need help finding an athletic trainer? I know people. And then the last, I guess I could call it a vertical of the business is, it's probably my favorite.

Chris Warden (01:08:59.031)
Right?

Chris Warden (01:09:10.532)
cool.

AZ (01:09:17.698)
The fire service is very hard to break into for health and wellness professionals because they don't understand the culture. And if you don't understand the culture, you're not going to survive. Because if you again come in, I know everything, I'm going to fix you, you're not going to get any engagement. And so I teach physical therapists and chiropractors and dietitians and strength coaches and basically anyone that works in health and wellness.

Chris Warden (01:09:20.421)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (01:09:47.992)
Get in, meet people, get yourself able to do a needs analysis, craft a proposal, price the proposal. How do you follow up? How do you like from basically A to Z? See what I did there? From A to Z, how do you do that process? Because it can be arduous. And if you don't have someone helping you, it can be really frustrating.

Chris Warden (01:10:01.465)
Hey, nice.

Chris Warden (01:10:11.406)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that would be pretty challenging. And most departments are pretty open to fitness now. Are you seeing that a little bit of a culture change with the departments that you're working with? Like, wow, this wouldn't have been this easy 20 years ago.

AZ (01:10:31.162)
Yes, I'm seeing that. What I'm not seeing is them realizing that they need to truly make a good chunk of change in a monetary investment. They're very worried about return on investment. And although I can tell you right now, you're gonna get probably at least three to one and probably way higher if you have a quality person. What I need you to understand is that even if it's a wash, if you pay me 95,000

Chris Warden (01:10:41.421)
Okay.

AZ (01:11:01.856)
95,000 and you didn't make anything on that, why wouldn't you do it? Why wouldn't you provide that service to your personnel? So I did a whole talk at Tactical Annual on different ways to measure return on investment. I got to tell you, I thought it was pretty good. But

Chris Warden (01:11:08.453)
Sure.

AZ (01:11:22.59)
The big analogy I use is that we are so willing, fire departments are so willing to invest in equipment. Like we just paid $1.8 million for a ladder truck 18 months ago. So it has weekly, monthly, quarterly, periodic maintenance, new tires. Like that's right in the budget.

Chris Warden (01:11:33.923)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (01:11:38.905)
Yeah.

AZ (01:11:42.374)
and people were like, well, yeah, we spent $1.8 million on it. I did the math. Over the course of my career, they're spending over $2 million on me. I'm an appreciating asset because I'm getting smarter, I'm getting better.

Chris Warden (01:11:55.426)
Yeah.

AZ (01:11:56.842)
At least until recently, I can't see anymore and I can't hear anymore and I'm old and crabby, but at least for like 18 and a half years I was getting better. That ladder truck is depreciating. So, yes, we want to take care of it so that we get maximum life out of it. But why don't we treat our employees that well?

Chris Warden (01:12:04.779)
Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Warden (01:12:16.429)
Drop the mic. Yeah, that's like five. You were just on fire.

AZ (01:12:18.174)
Again. I know. My friend that used to be the tactical manager at NSCA would always say drop the mic, but very carefully where a not for profit. And mics are expensive. He would say that mics are expensive.

Chris Warden (01:12:30.861)
Mics are expensive as we both have learned. Oh man. So Annette, as you see it, what is the future of wellness in firefighting? What does that look like going forward?

AZ (01:12:46.694)
question. So four years ago I said within 10 years every department of any appreciable size and by appreciable I think 50.

Any department of any appreciable size will have at least a part-time embedded health and wellness person. So I said that four years ago. It's supposed to happen within 10 years, so within six years. Now the great news is, you know, we have these pockets. South Metro Fire has a very comprehensive team, like 11 people. Fairfax County.

Denver, Phoenix, we have these pockets of human performance teams, but we're seeing these starting to pop up. Austin, Texas has like four or five people too, but we're seeing these jobs start to pop up. Oklahoma City just advertised for an athletic trainer. Can I go on a tangent for a second?

Chris Warden (01:13:27.704)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (01:13:45.658)
Please do.

AZ (01:13:47.498)
I always advise fire departments if you can only afford to hire one person, an athletic trainer is a great first hire. And I say that not being an athletic trainer. I'm a proud member of the public safety athletic trainers, but I am not one. That said, their job description that they wrote it, I think they're setting that athletic trainer up for failure because they put them as a health and wellness coordinator to do fitness testing.

Chris Warden (01:14:13.432)
Not there, Joe.

AZ (01:14:16.222)
exercise prescription, sleep education, nutrition education. I even think they had peer support stuff in there. That's not an athletic trainer, that's me. That's me.

Chris Warden (01:14:24.421)
Yikes. Right.

AZ (01:14:29.262)
Most athletic trainers aren't even super comfortable coming up with an exercise program. Like, that's not their thing. They are injury prevention and they are, you are injured, we're gonna help you. They are not, let's set up a program for the academy. I'm sure there are some out there.

Chris Warden (01:14:44.962)
Right.

AZ (01:14:47.19)
But primarily no. So my point is these pockets exist and individual jobs are popping up. There's departments that have contracts with people like me and mark my words, now within six years, every department over 50 people will have someone embedded at least part time. That's what I think. How big is your department?

Chris Warden (01:14:55.013)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (01:15:07.606)
Awesome.

Chris Warden (01:15:11.215)
So we're just shy of a hundred. I think full-time employees were sitting right around 75 or 80.

AZ (01:15:18.73)
Okay, same, we have 87, so similar size department.

Chris Warden (01:15:21.045)
Okay. Yeah. And don't quote me on that last time I checked. Cause we're taking on recruits. We're having new hires all the time. So.

AZ (01:15:31.966)
Okay, well, and so my chief, I had a conversation with my chief the other day because he listened to my episode about South Metro who has a very robust program, but they have 850 people. And he's like, it is a lot, but also, I mean, it's not 3000, okay, so it's not New York. But I just made that up too, I don't know how many New York has, but should we say five, eight?

Chris Warden (01:15:38.532)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Warden (01:15:45.069)
That's a lot.

Chris Warden (01:15:49.988)
Right.

Chris Warden (01:15:55.265)
I think they have a few more than that, but yeah.

Chris Warden (01:16:00.041)
Nah, they have a lot. Let's just leave it there.

AZ (01:16:00.13)
We'll just make stuff up. It's your podcast. They have a lot.

But my chief said, I just, we can't do that. Like on a scale, we can't do that. But I said, chief, they have 800, we have 80. They have 11 human performance people. We should be able to have one at a minimum to scale if you're going on scale. And in Illinois, we have this fabulous thing called the mutual aid box alarm system, which are intergovernmental agreements between departments. Like if we have a box alarm, we don't have to ask like, please, will you come? Like they're on our cards.

Chris Warden (01:16:15.949)
Right.

Chris Warden (01:16:33.185)
Right, a good call.

AZ (01:16:34.352)
They signed an agreement. Yeah, so we have these like Mabus divisions. Some of them have a ton of departments. Mine has I think three. I'm the worst. I'm not on any team so I never remember but I think we have three. There's no reason that those three departments at a minimum couldn't have one full-time person to share. There's no reason.

Chris Warden (01:16:56.565)
Yeah. Yeah, there's, there's plenty of people out there. And with companies like fire rescue wellness, providing training to the people outside of the fire service to bring them in, there's no reason that we couldn't see an influx in the next six years of people signing on with fire departments and hopefully that fire departments will start to see that it's humans over hardware and we get people on board.

AZ (01:17:24.798)
And I think I would implore, I haven't used that word in a long time, I would implore your listeners who are decision makers though, just be really careful. Because as much as like yoga is awesome, like,

Chris Warden (01:17:28.163)
Woo.

Chris Warden (01:17:38.213)
Mm-hmm.

AZ (01:17:40.63)
that shouldn't maybe be your first step, like a yoga instructor three days a week. I don't know if that would necessarily be a good first step. There's a department that hired a Zumba instructor. I don't know how she gets those firefighters. I wouldn't do Zumba at the firehouse. You would get both of my middle fingers. But I mean, again, yes, they're exercising, but if you're gonna hire someone, hire someone meaningful.

Chris Warden (01:17:50.306)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (01:17:55.91)
Alright.

Chris Warden (01:18:07.822)
Yeah.

AZ (01:18:08.602)
Like an athletic trainer, like a strength coach, like a massage therapist, you know, just make it meaningful. Dietitian, I always forget the dietitians, I love them.

Chris Warden (01:18:16.993)
I like that. Yeah, don't forget them. That's actually how I was connected to you through the, I know, we won't tell her.

AZ (01:18:23.786)
Oh, Megan would be so mad that I forgot her. She'll probably listen, because she's such a good friend.

Chris Warden (01:18:30.829)
Well good, I hope she does.

So yeah, I think getting people in the fire service is going to be huge. Um, is there any way that people listening can get ahold of you and maybe you're doing something in January that they can watch?

AZ (01:18:50.326)
Oh my gosh, I almost forgot about this. Okay, first of all, if you want to get ahold of me, Instagram is the way. It's gonna be really tricky. At fire rescue wellness, no underscores, no dots, no nothing, that's me. And I put out, I don't know, I'm not as good as Megan. Like three or four posts a week. I got a podcast and then I do a science post and then sort of a summary of the podcast. But in January.

Chris Warden (01:18:53.441)
I got you.

AZ (01:19:17.182)
second one. We did the first one in November. My friend Drew Gonzalez, who's a PhD candidate at Texas A&M, great guy. He and I want to get the research to the firefighters. But here's the thing, firefighters don't want to read papers. They want someone to say, here's the research, here's what it means, here's what you should do. And so we came up with this idea where we invited seven scientists, they each get seven minutes and not one second longer, I will cut them off. I will

Chris Warden (01:19:31.448)
Right.

Chris Warden (01:19:46.85)
You are cut off.

AZ (01:19:47.276)
The first, they all made it. I don't know how they did it. Dr. Mark Abel was like, his hair was on fire, but he made it. So seven minutes, I have told them, listen folks, no tiny charts and graphs, no boring, blah, blah. You have to be interesting, you have to be entertaining and give them the so what, now what. The cool thing is it's free, you don't have to pay for it.

Um, the uncool thing is we promised everyone a recording the first time and Zoom ate our homework. So we're promising the recording again, and I am crossing my fingers and toes that Zoom doesn't do us dirty again. But register, there's a link to register. Do you show notes? We could put in the show notes. Okay.

Chris Warden (01:20:18.81)
Oh no.

Chris Warden (01:20:27.055)
Right.

Chris Warden (01:20:31.501)
Yep. I will put all of that in the description of this episode.

AZ (01:20:35.902)
Yeah, so register even if you can attend because you will crossing our fingers, get a recording. Dr. Sarah Janke is going to be talking. So that's pretty cool. She's a badass. It's a badass. Dr. Jacob Moda, Dr. Andrew Jagum. I present with Dr. Jagum all the time. He's awesome. Amar, Amar

Chris Warden (01:20:41.708)
Awesome.

Chris Warden (01:20:45.657)
She's a... yeah, high-end doc there. I know.

Chris Warden (01:20:56.613)
Cool.

Chris Warden (01:21:03.169)
Yes, please guys. January 22nd, 2024 at noon central time. That's gonna be a, yeah, central time, right?

AZ (01:21:10.53)
and in Central.

Yeah, central noon central. Exactly. And the cool thing is that you should, crossing my fingers, I think you get your reminders in your time zone. I hope. Yeah.

Chris Warden (01:21:15.589)
Cool, noon central.

Chris Warden (01:21:22.773)
You should, yes, if that is, that's how I believe it goes. So everybody check it out. And, and then that one last thing before we close out today's episode. So it's priority traffic. If you had priority traffic for the fire service regarding what's big in your heart, what would be the priority traffic that you sent out to all the firefighters, men and women listening today?

AZ (01:21:32.703)
Oh my gosh, what is it?

AZ (01:21:49.484)
Oh, I didn't prepare for this one.

priority traffic from fire rescue wellness. It is imperative that you take care of your mind and your body, which are all one thing through sleep, nutrition, mental health, and movement. There is assistance out there for every one of those things. And so reach out your hand for help. There are people everywhere willing to help you. How's that?

Chris Warden (01:21:56.461)
Let's go.

Chris Warden (01:22:20.993)
Well guys, you heard it here first. That was excellent. And I really appreciate you making time to jump on in the middle of the holiday span here. I know, I'm not sure if it's a weekday or a weekend or if this is a workday or not, but I go back to work in a couple days, so we should be good.

AZ (01:22:24.002)
Thanks.

AZ (01:22:39.314)
I like that meme. It's like the time between Christmas and New Year's. You don't know what day it is and you've eaten way too much cheese.

Chris Warden (01:22:45.377)
Yeah, for sure. Cheese is a thing around here. So thank you so much. If I didn't miss anything and if you have anything else you'd want to add to this show to make it just a little better, please go ahead. Otherwise.

AZ (01:23:01.106)
No, I think I would love to have any and all of your listeners come over to the Fire Rescue Wellness Instagram page and check out my nonsense. And I hope to see you all at 7 Minute Science.

Chris Warden (01:23:13.281)
Absolutely. Well, thanks again Annette. It's been a pleasure. This is Chris with Priority Traffic Podcast. Thanks for listening and tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.

AZ (01:23:23.362)
Thank you.