Ep. 044 | The Firefighter's Path to Peak Performance w/ Ryan Provencher

In this episode, Christopher Warden interviews Ryan Provencher, an experienced operations battalion chief and fitness advisor, about the vital role of fitness and wellness in the fire service. Ryan shares insights from his extensive career and emphasizes the importance of functional fitness tailored to the demands of firefighters' duties. He advocates for a mindset shift, encouraging firefighters to view themselves as tactical athletes to enhance their performance and resilience.

The conversation covers key topics such as training intensity, the benefits of periodization, and effective recovery strategies. Ryan highlights the necessity for comprehensive wellness programs supported by buy-in from individuals, labor unions, and management. He outlines the three pillars of firefighter peak performance: physical fitness, mental resilience, and personal responsibility.

Provencher delves into injury prevention, the value of a performance mindset, and the importance of a supportive community. He encourages firefighters to take proactive steps to manage their health and wellness, continuously build their skill set, and actively seek support from their peers and available resources. This episode provides valuable insights and practical advice for firefighters striving to effectively meet the high demands of their profession.

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Keywords

firefighter wellness, fitness, functional training, periodization, tactical athlete, health, recovery, exercise science, firefighter performance, training metrics, firefighter fitness, peak performance, mental resilience, physical training, wellness programs, athlete mindset, firefighter health, injury prevention, self-care, tactical fitness

Transcript

Christopher Warden (00:01.587)
Welcome back to priority traffic podcast. Today we have the pleasure of welcoming, welcoming Ryan Provencher to our show. Is that how you say your last name?

Ryan Provencher (00:12.01)
It's Provincher. Provincher, yep.

Christopher Warden (00:12.447)
Provincial. Perfect. Ryan Provincial to our show. Ryan is an operations battalion chief with over 30 years of fire service experience. He is the founder of Firefighter Peak Performance and serves as the executive fitness advisor for Crackle magazine. With a background in exercise science, Ryan has dedicated his career to helping firefighters achieve their fitness and performance goals, ensuring they are always response ready. Welcome to Prioirty Traffic Ryan.

Ryan Provencher (00:42.35)
Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I'm excited for our conversation today.

Christopher Warden (00:45.659)
absolutely pleasure so typically on the record podcast and bring guests on that have a wealth of knowledge and experience in a specific realm relative to fire service if you look back at a lot of episodes not a lot of fire talk right there's there's technical stuff there's technical skills

Ryan Provencher (01:01.538)
I have, yeah.

Christopher Warden (01:08.671)
tactics and strategies uh... i love it but that's the typical of the work uh... so on this podcast we're at other aspects of the fire job information is that the human rights rights for me fitness nutrition stress management and uh... building community and and they have no doubt that i think are important or not with you did

I really look forward to having a cool discussion about what you're bringing to the table in the Fire Service. And I think the audience will really enjoy it. So let's get rolling. So you are a battalion chief of 30 years. Can you give myself and the audience a little bit of background on how you got into the Fire Service, where you're at currently, and what your plans are?

Ryan Provencher (01:32.854)
Absolutely.

Ryan Provencher (02:00.6)
Yeah, so as you mentioned, I've been in the fire service for 30 years. That's the first thing they tell you when you walk in the door is that this career is going to go by in a blink of an eye. And I just can't even believe how fast it's gone by. As I reflect on my time in the fire service, I am approaching retirement. So I have been reflecting on it a lot lately. And it really is like watching a movie. mean, going all the way back to being a kid and really my path

to the fire service began with my passion for physical fitness. And I'm sure we'll dive into all of that, but I always loved physical fitness and physical training. I was always involved in team sports and I just didn't have any of the skill required to take that any further in terms of playing football or doing any of that stuff. And then I discovered firefighting. And coincidentally, when I was working as a volunteer firefighter, I was going to college pursuing my degree in exercise science.

And while I'm learning all about kinesiology and biomechanics and energy systems and all of this really cool stuff that I loved anyways, I'm also training to become a firefighter and starting to make those connections. So that was kind of where the fabric of this combined career path came together. And then reflecting on my fire service journey specifically, it really was a choose your own adventure. And as I reflect on my career and I talk to young firefighters, I really encourage them.

to do different things. How many jobs can you embark or participate in where you really can do so many different things, right? So I started as a volunteer firefighter EMT, was hired in 1996 as a career firefighter EMT, ended up going through paramedic school and working at the paramedic for six years. I was promoted as a company officer, worked on the engines for seven years. I went into the training division as a training captain.

Christopher Warden (03:36.607)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (03:58.102)
and then promoted to training chief. And then now I've been a battalion chief for the last couple of years and winding down my career in operations. And man, it's, like I said, it's really been an amazing journey.

Christopher Warden (04:10.479)
That's awesome. I hope at the end everybody's day we're gonna have something like that reflect on and say that in way that we're hear about a lot of the people that I've experienced looking back saying they love their job and love their work. I think that's amazing that you're able hear that. One aspect that for me and me, I think we're on the same path. You're much, much, much, much,

Christopher Warden (04:38.431)
that same as that and that have the ability to couple passion for like you did with the other sex and high science and bring that to reflection on the fire service is pretty awesome and just like you I tell the loop in life and I get exposed to it and like find what you love and find a way to marry the fire service

How can I make that short? No matter what it is, try to find a way to bridge that gap. just disperse our service. your own. Does that make sense?

Ryan Provencher (05:19.704)
It makes perfect sense. for you and I, that happens to be physical fitness, firefighter wellness. I work with a lot of folks. They have other interests, whether it's forcible entry or hazardous materials, or we could go all down that list, but that's the key. And we're talking about the upside of the fire service, but there's a dark side, there's a downside, there's challenges. The cards are stacked against us in a lot of ways when it comes to our health and wellness and the experiences we have.

Christopher Warden (05:28.637)
Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Provencher (05:49.354)
If you can, throughout your career, just follow your purpose and find ways to find novelty in the fire service and be challenged and navigate your career that way, you're always looking forward to something.

Christopher Warden (06:05.163)
So you mentioned it. Purpose. How did you decide or stumble upon or wake up two years? I believe this is a key element. How did you come up with your purpose?

Ryan Provencher (06:26.478)
that's, it's really been at different benchmarks in my career and in my life. it starts with my dad. My dad was in law enforcement and he took his fitness very seriously. So he had a, an old school weight set in our garage, literally those old plastic weights with the cement in it. And they'd always crack and crumble and, but he'd always bring my brothers and I into the gym to work out with him and we're, we're kids, young kids. He'd take us to the track and run with him. But.

Christopher Warden (06:31.645)
Sure.

Ryan Provencher (06:56.142)
he took it seriously and he was a police officer, a law enforcement professional. So he's, through his actions, without really even saying anything or especially not forcing us to do it, he's exposing us to that. And so as a kid, that was my first, that spark was lit, so to speak, early in my adult life. And my dad provided that for me.

Christopher Warden (07:20.831)
That's awesome. That's, that's, that's, that's, means a lot of money. as well in in the, the first responders, right. it's, it's definitely a value of mine to have that. super glad people are sharing that as well. So that's pretty sweet.

Let's move into some deeper topics here. Fire, fitness, That's a pretty big discussion. Amongst fire departments across the country, and you have quite the experience with it, and you have education to back it up. Let's talk about how did you start to bring fire, fitness, fitness to your department where you were?

Ryan Provencher (08:14.296)
Yeah. And so this is another example of where my personal journey reflects what I'm able to contribute in my profession. you know, as I mentioned, my dad had that, that real influence on me early in my life and introduced me to strength training and weightlifting and all of those things at a young age. And I was also very fortunate. There's two other mentors and influences that I came upon kind of in my professional and personal journey that not only changed the way that I approached my own.

Christopher Warden (08:27.423)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (08:44.046)
physical training, personal practice. It also put me in a position to share that in my own fire department. I've been fortunate my whole career, as I mentioned, when I got hired in my department, they knew about my educational background. They knew that I've been working in the fitness industry for several years before I joined the fire service. So right away, I was already put in a position of influence, let's say. And there were others way before I got there, others that had

Christopher Warden (08:59.813)
Nice.

Christopher Warden (09:06.085)
Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Provencher (09:11.886)
paved a culture of fitness in our department. I'm fortunate I didn't have to get a lot of buy-in because there were others that paved the way for me before I came in and certainly others that have come in since I did to build this culture of fitness. coming back to the influences and kind of those benchmarks, so the first mentor and influence that I had that changed the way I look at fitness is Mark Verstegen.

I went to Washington State University. I worked in the equipment room as a football equipment manager and I had access to all of the facilities, which was awesome for me. And Mark Grisega just happened to be a strength coach there. So he was so gracious, so nice. He wrote strength programs for me, similar to the players. I'm in the gym with the athletes and it was just an amazing experience for me. And he made a very specific impression on me, not only with the depth of his knowledge, but just

how gracious he was with it and how willing he was to share. And then years later, he went on to, he founded a company called Athlete's Performance, which is now Exos. And in think 1999 or 2000, he wrote a book called Core Performance. And so I'm like, that's Mark Verstegen, that's Mark Verstegen's book. I was all over it. I followed that program to the letter and it was different than anything I had ever, like before. I'm doing.

you know, traditional, you know, bench and squat and deadlift and kind of the more traditional stuff. And he's introducing concepts like movement preparation, prehab, physio ball for pillar strength, active isolated stretching, like a very intentional and measured approach, which, which I would call my introduction to functional fitness. And, and I really committed to that. And then I had very specific experiences that reinforced the benefits of that training. So one story that comes

mind I'll never forget I was carrying two aid kits, snow and ice, and I'm walking up to the front door, we're on an aid call, and I begin to slip on the ice and my body just reacted in a way that I had not experienced before, call it core activation or whatever. Not only did I not fall, but I didn't drop the aid kits and I'm just like standing there in the moments after that thinking to myself, holy smokes, I feel like Spider-Man or something like.

Christopher Warden (11:31.935)
Sure. Sure.

Ryan Provencher (11:32.94)
It was just a really impactful experience. so I went to athlete's performance. They offered a firefighter train to train a course, myself and a couple other colleagues were able to participate. We brought it back to the department and you'll find to this day, 20 years later, you'll find a copy of Mark's book, Core Performance in all of our weight rooms. We integrated that at the time into our recruit academies. And so I would say he was my first influence to functional fitness.

Christopher Warden (12:02.911)
What would you say the biggest transition was from your...

Christopher Warden (12:09.669)
training like bench press squat to like core performance obviously you notice the difference but what what what would

Ryan Provencher (12:23.864)
Yeah, so in my experience, you know, I started lifting weights at 14 years old, never really was introduced to a warm up beyond start light. You know, if you're going to bench, you're going to start with the bar and then you're going to build up and that's your warm up. And then we didn't do really any stretching or anything like that. We certainly didn't talk about mobility or flexibility or core strength or any of that stuff. It's like, how much do you bench, bro? Well, I bench this much. cool. That's good.

And then the other thing that really impacted me, I was born with hip dysplasia and so I've had orthopedic issues my whole life. And so for me to load my joints at a very young age, 14 years old, for the next 10 years, without really accounting for mobility or flexibility or recovery or any of these things that we know now, I had terrible joint pain. I had multiple surgeries. So not only was I kind of in a bad way and not really fully understanding

why when I was introduced to a different approach that it just made me feel so much better. I didn't sacrifice really the strength that I had, but I was gaining mobility, flexibility, and I was managing this joint discomfort with just a more comprehensive approach and a more functional approach to physical training.

Christopher Warden (13:44.957)
stuff I don't know why but the warm-ups and cool downs and maybe it's because we're at work we don't have time we're gonna get a call I just gotta get right in the

Ryan Provencher (13:55.566)
Yep.

Christopher Warden (13:57.233)
the guys I work out with and even at home with my wife. We try to warm up for five to ten minutes no matter what it is prior to getting under the bar for instance and that just seems to make so much sense and it's it's almost worth it to know that if you just get the warm up there and add to it that'll help and if you get a call so be it. Your warm up is actually you pretty helpful. Do you your warm ups like how do you

Ryan Provencher (14:24.918)
Absolutely.

Christopher Warden (14:27.071)
How do you use your warm up? Do you only do a warm up before you train or do you do it in the morning to like get moving for your shift or like at the end of the night to kind of get, you know, maybe settled down, maybe do a little slower or something like that.

Ryan Provencher (14:41.774)
It depends. I'll use all of those applications, but typically, I'll always do a warmup before my moderate or high intensity training. And on my lower intensity days, that is the workout. Like I'll walk for X amount of time, and then I'll go through a really extended joint mobility session, know, half an hour, going through head to toe joint mobility, do some stretching and some foam rolling. And that's the workout. That's it. And so

Christopher Warden (15:03.529)
Nice.

Ryan Provencher (15:09.55)
And then I have a habit now of before shift, I'll go through that type of a comprehensive warm up in the morning so that whatever the day has in store when I show up for work, I feel like I've at least checked that box. My body's ready to go. I can do other workouts. I can do other training if I want to or need to, but I've definitely done that before I report to work.

Christopher Warden (15:30.527)
What I hear you saying is it's okay not to burn it down every single day. We can run through something that's a little bit more gentle, intentional, maybe attached to our breath, calm, rather than turning it up to 11 and feeling like we're gonna puke at the end of the day. We can do that.

Ryan Provencher (15:52.178)
Absolutely. And this is me, the old guy telling everyone out there, please do that. If I could go back in a time machine and tell my younger self, hey, man, let me introduce you to a funny concept called mobility and warming up. And let me introduce you to a funny concept called cooling down and flexibility and maybe some soft tissue work. Your future self will thank you. And I just didn't have that as a younger person, but I'm very thankful that I was introduced to it and that I've embraced it later in life.

Christopher Warden (16:21.951)
So you mentioned two other things, medium intensity and high intensity. You might just describe those a little bit.

Ryan Provencher (16:31.404)
Yeah, and so in my mind, there's a couple of ways to measure that. So rating of perceived exertion on a 10 scale is one way to kind of monitor your intensity. And when we're putting together our firefighter fitness program, that is one of our, call it intentional training metrics. So it's a subjective measurement of how you feel on a scale of one to 10. So 80 and above, I would consider that to be high intensity. You know, five, six, seven would be moderate.

And then of course, a more objective way to rate that is heart rate monitoring. So if you have a sense or even an estimate of what your heart rate max is, then you can use your heart rate. I wear an Apple watch. Maybe it's not pinpoint accurate, but man, for me, it's very effective. It seems to line up very well with my own rating of perceived exertion. So that's how I would measure intensity, either RPE and or measuring heart rate.

Christopher Warden (17:29.062)
Great. So we could wear a heart rate strap. can, you know, watch that as we're working out. If we get into what? Zone five, zone four, that's going to be high intensity type stuff. OK.

Ryan Provencher (17:41.942)
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, and we'll get into it, I think, but that's where a periodized physical training plan comes into play. So for me and for anyone I'm working with, it's never an arbitrary approach. It's not like, hey, today we're just going to kick ass. It's like, here's a four week training cycle. Here's how we're going to wave the intensity around our shift work and

Christopher Warden (17:49.641)
Yeah, okay.

Ryan Provencher (18:11.264)
also have the flexibility built in to call an audible. If you've got a moderate or high intensity day planned and you're crushed at work and it takes you two days instead of one day to recover, hey, throw in another lighter mobility day and then just pick up where you left off.

Christopher Warden (18:27.199)
Absolutely. So let's take a step back and talk about that arbitrary concept where it's just willy-nilly, hey, today's a bench day, it's Monday, so we've got a bench. And since we benched today, tomorrow's leg day or whatever. Can you explain that a little bit and then we'll get into what it looks like to program for multiple weeks?

Ryan Provencher (18:51.906)
Yeah. So I want to use a fire service analogy. One of my favorite authors is Dave Dotson. Of course, most folks know him for the art of reading smoke. He also wrote a book called Fire Service Incident Safety Officer, Fire Department Incident Safety Officer. One of my favorite books as a captain and a chief officer, by the way, just for those that are interested in that. But in the book, he talks about arbitrary aggressiveness and intellectual aggressiveness as it relates to firefighting operations. Arbitrary, as you said.

Christopher Warden (18:59.188)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (19:21.664)
It's on a whim. It's without a specific plan. You're going to blow through the front door without doing a 360 size up, for example, versus an intellectual approach where you do your 360 size up. You consider what your strategy and tactics are going to be, and then you execute on that. In my mind, that is very specific to how we program our physical fitness for firefighters as well. It makes no sense to me, hey, I'm going to show up at work and we're going to do 1,000 burpees.

Okay, you're going to get your heart rate up. You're going to be affected by that, but you're going to suffer. But what is the adaptation to that? What are you trying to accomplish? Versus, if you have very specific goals, whether it's to improve your strength, to improve your aerobic capacity, or to take a comprehensive approach to improving a little bit of all of that, I believe it starts with an assessment. And there are lots of different ways.

Christopher Warden (19:53.843)
You're gonna suffer. All right.

Christopher Warden (20:01.94)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Provencher (20:22.374)
You could do a general fitness assessment. I have kind of a simple tactical fitness assessment that I've used. There's job specific assessments out there, whether it's CTAB or the firefighter challenge or something customized around that idea. But if you have a baseline, then you can set your goals. And once you know your goals, then you can select a strategy or a plan week to week to achieve those.

Christopher Warden (20:46.053)
Excellent. So let's say we have some goals. What is that going to look like week to week? And you mentioned periodization. For anybody out there who doesn't know what that is, do you mind elaborating on that? Just giving a brief intro.

Ryan Provencher (21:01.846)
Yeah, so periodization basically in the athletic realm is, know, if a football player is out in the off season, you're basically building an annual training plan to peak for their in-season performance. So they've got their general physical preparedness and then their specific physical preparedness. And then when they get closer to their competition season, it becomes more sport specific so that they peak in their season. For us as firefighters, obviously we don't have a

I will say I consider Recruit Academy to be in season. So the way that we program for athletes is very, for recruits is very different than how we would program for ops. Just a side note there, but for those in operations, depending on where you're at physically and what your goals are, you could do, start with a more conventional fitness program, more general approach to physical fitness to build a baseline. And then for me,

Something more specific is that along the lines of a more functional fitness program that we talked about. And then for me, sport specific for firefighters is a firefighter tactical fitness program. And there are very specific elements of that that make it a tactical fitness program versus a functional fitness program versus a conventional fitness program. So depending on where the athlete is and what they want to accomplish, they can start in any of those three categories. And then it's a systematic approach.

whether it's general or specific or sports specific, you have day one, day two, day three, week two, week three, week four, and it's a moderate intensity day, whether that's moderate intensity interval training, moderate intensity strength training, and then you maybe have a recovery day. So it's lighter, it's mobility, it's foam roll, and then you've ramped up to your high intensity peak performance day, whatever that is for you in your program.

Christopher Warden (22:49.631)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ryan Provencher (22:58.52)
You're going to go pedal to the metal on that day with intention and paying attention to your training metrics. So you're doing that safely and then you recover from that. So if you look at a training cycle, even a four day training cycle, you're moderate, you recover, you're high intensity, you recover, and then you follow that sort of a wave over a seven day training cycle, especially if you're on admin assignment, or maybe it's an eight or nine day training cycle.

if that's the duration of your shift cycle. So what I've really been drawn to later in my career is my physical training schedule is in absolute alignment with my cycle.

Christopher Warden (23:38.153)
Nice. So how does it align? What is the key alignment for you on your shift?

Ryan Provencher (23:47.534)
So I'm not, I'm a BC, so I'm kind of a lone wolf. I'm not on a crew. So I don't do my moderate or high intensity training at work. Like I mentioned, I'll do my, so if my day one, we work one on two off, one on four off. So my first work day, no intensity, low intensity, joint mobility. I go to work, I get off shift. I do again, walk. I'll do my like zone two cardio. I'll do my,

Christopher Warden (23:51.305)
Sure. Sure.

Ryan Provencher (24:17.198)
foam rolling, my stretching on that day, and then that next day before my second shift in my cycle, that's moderate. And then I'm on shift, it's mobility day, I'm off shift, it's flexibility, cardio day, and then moderate, and then recover, and then my high intensity day is that last day of my shift cycle before I start it all over again.

Christopher Warden (24:40.128)
Nice. So let's play imaginary. I'll be the firefighter. I work at 2448. How would you want me to plan, let's just say for a week, seven days, nine days, whatever that looks like in your opinion?

Ryan Provencher (24:57.006)
So if you work 24 or 48, you work your shift and you, it's mobility day in the morning. If you choose to do some workout with your crew or certainly your firefighter training, go for it. You come off shift. I always plan for a lighter day. The day after shift is going to be a recovery day, light cardio, stretching. That second day off before your next shift, that's a moderate intensity training day. So you're going to do your strength training or your moderate interval training. You're back on shift.

No intensity, you're off shift, low intensity. And then on that third day, maybe that's your high intensity day. And you can plug that in and that's your cycle. you're on a six day training cycle. You've got one moderate and one high day. And you can really play with that depending on what your baseline fitness level is, what your goals are. You can do another moderate. And then that third day is a high intensity day. But what I really recommend and ask firefighters to consider

don't add more moderate and high. If you're getting two moderate days and one high intensity day in a seven-ish day training cycle, that's plenty on top of what you're experiencing as a firefighter to make steady progress. And I promise, if you do commit to those recovery days, you embark on those recovery days with the same enthusiasm that you do the tougher days.

You'll feel so much better and you'll recover so much better from the stress of firefighting and shipping.

Christopher Warden (26:28.752)
Absolutely, the shift work is brutal because it's out of your control and then not only did you decide to go like on shift, if you send it and then you don't get any sleep, now you're just wrecked. And if you decide not to do anything that next day, now you're a whole day behind. You don't have that recovery. And it's now we're talking we're in the middle of a medium or high day and now we're behind. So I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense. It really

Ryan Provencher (26:47.918)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (26:54.221)
Yeah.

Christopher Warden (26:56.319)
It gives you a lot more control than you think because now your on shift workouts can be more beneficial, more intentional, and you're not gonna miss it if something happens. And if you catch a fire, catch a job or two, now like, shit, that's the best. That's like the test, right? That's, hey, we just did it, we crushed it. We had a good call, we stretched. That's what we're hoping for. And you're not coming to work.

Ryan Provencher (27:23.585)
Absolutely.

Christopher Warden (27:24.861)
wasted not wasted but just exert exhausted

Ryan Provencher (27:31.15)
And that's the thing to remember. It's never about the workout. It's about the adaptation to the workout. And that's not a mystery. You can gauge your progress and maybe we'll get into talking about training and scoring metrics, but you can, in each of your workouts, collect the data, so to speak, that informs you. You're either making progress or you're not. You don't have to guess about it. It's not a mystery if you're progressing or not progressing. And if you're not, why is that? Let's look at...

Christopher Warden (27:38.526)
Right.

Ryan Provencher (28:00.864)
why you're not making the progress you want to make. And it might be just as easy as pointing to the fact that, hey, you are not recovering. You are doing high intensity four times a week. You're working for a busy fire department that's challenging your body at a high intensity level for your job, independent of your workout. Where are you recovering in that period of time? And if you're not, it's very difficult to make steady progress.

Christopher Warden (28:26.431)
Yeah. If you can go a hundred percent on your workouts, we need, or we ask that you go a hundred percent on your recovery to offset all of that other stuff. So while we're there, let's talk about recovery metrics and exercise metrics.

Ryan Provencher (28:35.789)
Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

Ryan Provencher (28:45.964)
Yeah. And so we've developed a system to really help people monitor their progress in their training. So what I would call intentional training metrics are subjective. The first one there is it's a movement rating and it teaches individuals to measure their movement quality. And we rate that on a 10 scale and we teach a six point self check to just help people understand how to do that.

So it's basically a head to toe survey for any exercise, pick any exercise, lunge, squat, press, whatever you're doing. How's your body lined up? Your head, your torso, your hips, your shoulders, your arms, your legs, and are you activating the musculature properly to execute the movement safely? we teach, especially, I like using Recruit Academy when we're talking about this because you're taking people from a very

Christopher Warden (29:41.086)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (29:44.3)
diverse background, maybe fitness, maybe not, maybe fire service, maybe not in your teaching them and giving them tools in the gym that will help them to perform better and more safely on the job. So movement rating is one, intensity rating is two. So we talked about that on a scale of one to 10, what's your rating of perceived exertion. Discomfort rating is the third metric and not discomfort related to exercise, but like

Christopher Warden (30:12.191)
Cool.

Ryan Provencher (30:12.526)
Oh man, my shoulder, oh god, my knee, I'm feeling a little wonky. If that exceeds a two or a three on a 10 scale, that's a red flag. That's a check engine light. That's something that says to you, do not power through this. Make an adjustment, and if that resolves the issue, okay, but if it doesn't, you need to stop or do something different. Do not power through discomfort. The fourth thing is a focus rating. So...

If you've heard the word tunnel vision, we talk about cognitive function. If you're operating at high intensity, that's where that tunnel vision comes in. Your sympathetic nervous system is at high alert. That's where we lose cognitive function as firefighters. And that's decision-making and a lot of that sort of thing. So if we can experience and pay attention to that, to the point where we're rating it in the gym, if your heart rate's 170 in your workout,

Christopher Warden (30:41.887)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (31:09.986)
and you're trying to track your reps or what round am I in or you're trying to, it's easier said than done. And you're experiencing that in the gym. And so we teach our recruits in particular to think about that so that when you're on the fire, you have a very intuitive sense of your cognitive function related to the stress you're under. And then we have a dexterity rating. So that's fine motor skills, time not.

Christopher Warden (31:15.417)
Sure.

Ryan Provencher (31:38.99)
coupling hose in the gym. We actually have recruits write their scores on a written score sheet. So they have to grab a pen, they have to grab the clipboard, they have to document their reps, and they're paying attention to how that feels and how their fine motor skills are impacted by the intensity of their workout. So here we've got these intentional training metrics. We teach it in the gym, and you can see your progress. If you're doing more work and your movement quality is higher,

Christopher Warden (31:54.994)
I really like that.

Ryan Provencher (32:08.758)
or you're doing more work and your intensity rating is lower, that's progress. And then when we come back to more objective ratings, heart rate, load, volume, you're recording all of those things as well. So you do this workout week one, day one, and then you come back to this workout week three, day one, you're performing objectively at a higher level, whether it's increased load, increased volume.

whatever the case may be. And you just monitor that day after day after day, over an entire 16 week, whether it's your accrued academy or just your own physical training program, that's all tracking your progress with intention.

Christopher Warden (32:41.532)
you

Christopher Warden (32:51.857)
So you mentioned something, but first off, I really like the cognitive piece, right? Bringing the awareness to what this high level of physical intensity does to us cognitively and dexterity. That's really cool. That's a really, really unique perspective and probably very helpful. So that's super cool. But another question is you said you do

exercise or a workout day one week one. And then I heard you say week three day one. Right. So what I'm understanding is, and this makes sense to me, but you're, you have the same workout to come back to. Like you don't just do 7,000 different workouts over the course of your career. You're, you have one it's built, it's intentional and you come back to it. Same one. And then you compare, right? Is that, is that what I'm understanding?

Ryan Provencher (33:29.24)
Yes.

Ryan Provencher (33:44.748)
Yes, yes, absolutely. So just for the sake of this discussion, if you've got a 16 week program, that program could be three phases. And you might have a series of workouts that you focus on for phase one based on the adaptation you're looking for. And then you may have a new set of workouts in phase two and a new set of workouts in phase three. And you can manage those in each phase based on the goals or the adaptation you're striving for. And then you're tracking it.

all along the way. And then as I mentioned, I've been working with this, what I'm calling a firefighter tactical fitness assessment. You've already done that baseline in this one workout that you will come back to time and time and time and time again. And it gives you all of those same opportunities to evaluate your subjective metrics in this workout, this baseline tactical fitness assessment and objective metrics. And how are you improving

and what does that look like over a period of 16 weeks?

Christopher Warden (34:46.815)
Yes, that makes perfect sense. So while we're deep in the thick of fitness and tactical things, what's your stance on firefighters and first responders in general getting the moniker tactical athlete? It's kind of a buzzword. There's a camp of people who think it's inappropriately applied. There's some people who think we're only tactical, we're not athletes. There's a group of us that

think it fits perfectly and we can make the case for it. Where do you stand on that?

Ryan Provencher (35:23.116)
Well, I think words have meaning. And if you describe someone as an athlete, that's all you have to say. If you describe someone as an athlete, you're immediately conveying to anyone that's listening that that person is involved in some sort of physical activity that requires physical fitness and skill. That activity requires physical fitness and skill. And if we're not using that as firefighters, I believe

we're absolutely missing out on an amazing opportunity to move the fire service forward in the area of health and wellness and fitness. So to go deeper on that, let's look at any sport. A football player is an athlete playing football. A basketball player is an athlete playing basketball. A soccer player is an athlete playing soccer. And coming back to you, those are all unique physical activities that require fitness and skill. How is it different than a firefighter

is an athlete fighting fires, a police officer is an athlete enforcing the law because both of those jobs require physical fitness and they require skill. And then, so what are your thoughts on that?

Christopher Warden (36:35.539)
You know, I think that makes perfect sense to me. And the way I see it is the demands of the job require, like you said, specific skills and a biological skill set that we need to perform to fitness. Right. so those demands are across the board in the fire service for everybody. Does everybody have to visualize themselves as an athlete? No, but

In the realm of firefighting, I think it demands it of us. And for me, it drives my mindset of how I approach meeting that demand, Building my capacity to show up. And I really think that when we see it that way, now it changes our mindset to, I need to prepare. need to warm up. I need to maintain mobility, flexibility, stability, core strength. It just.

It opens your eyes to a bigger perspective on what the human body is capable of, but also needs to be prepared for. And if you're not approaching your fitness in the form like an athlete, I think you're really missing the boat.

Ryan Provencher (37:53.294)
Yes, yeah, and so going deeper on that, yeah, and so you couldn't agree more. And I'll share another just kind of anecdote and then tie it back into what you said about mindset. So I mentioned that I worked for the equipment room at Washington State University. I had a front receipt to everything going on with the football team at the time. And the support that these athletes received, and this was in the 90s.

Christopher Warden (37:53.769)
So that's my two cents.

Ryan Provencher (38:21.068)
I'm going to date myself. This was in the early nineties. They had nutritionists that did all their meal planning. They had strength coaches that did all of their strength and conditioning. They had tutors that helped them with class. had counselors that helped them with mental health and all these things. They had access to all of these resources with the sole purpose of optimizing their performance on the field. That's the functional application of supporting an athlete.

And so when you talk about a mindset, a big part of the mindset is buy-in. How do we get buy-in? So if we can get buy-in from individuals first and most importantly, that's the mindset you're talking about. If an individual, whether it's a brand new recruit or a seasoned firefighter, can view themselves as an athlete in the fire service, that doesn't mean you have to be athletic. The offensive lineman on a football team has a totally different skill set than a wide receiver.

No one's going to ask the office of linemen to run routes. Like that's just not, that's not their job. No one's asking a firefighter to go run a, a screen pass. Like that's not, but, but we are going to ask you to do a rig to door evolution. We are going to ask you to throw ground ladders. We are going to ask you to rescue a down firefighter. Like these are all physically demanding tasks. There's no, there's no denying that that's the case. So if we can embrace that concept of being an athlete.

We get buy-in from the individual. That's the first important step because then they'll do all these things that we're talking about in support of their own fitness and wellness. And then the other thing is we need to get buy-in from our labor union. I couldn't be happier to see what the IAFF and IAFC is doing with the wellness fitness initiative. It's amazing. Help me understand how more departments aren't embracing that, right? So you talk about missing opportunities like that.

Christopher Warden (39:57.021)
Mm-hmm.

Christopher Warden (40:10.429)
Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Provencher (40:15.64)
there. That work is being done. Sometimes our labor unions fight back against something like that. There's fear around it. We're going to lose our jobs or we're going to be judged for this or that. Let's just not even have that part of the conversation. Let's take the punitive side out of it and let's not use a stick. Let's use a carrot to inspire people and motivate people on the labor side and then buy in from the management. Our departments will spend

million, literally millions of dollars on purchasing apparatus and maintaining apparatus. Like we just bought a brand new fire engine. That fire engine literally cost eight hundred thousand dollars. That fire engine goes into the shop on a regular schedule to get the oil changed and get the tires rotated. Why? So it doesn't break down. Help me understand why as a fire service in general we're not willing to spend a fraction of that to to keep our firefighters

Christopher Warden (40:50.611)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Provencher (41:14.732)
you know, well maintained. so, so coming back to the to the term athlete, if we can get the city council to buy into the fact that firefighters are athletes, if we can get the fire chief to buy into the idea that firefighters are athletes, and the union president buys into it, and and most importantly, the individual firefighter or brand new recruit buys into it. That's where this whole thing starts, then you start building fitness and wellness programs, then you start addressing and taking advantage of

Christopher Warden (41:15.763)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (41:42.976)
all of this framework that is currently available to us to build these programs in our department.

Christopher Warden (41:47.743)
Yes. Yes. Like that's all I could say. I agree. I'm in alignment with that. And you're right. The buy-in is huge. And for me, just being the firefighter, I'm, you know, I'm just the firefighter. So I'm trying to be an example, be the model and just kind of live it. the, man, it is a challenge to do, but the lifestyle is

Ryan Provencher (41:52.109)
Hahaha

Christopher Warden (42:16.401)
not only going to support our performance for who we serve the community, but it's going to serve us. It's going to fight against the big three, cancer, heart attacks and suicides. And, you know, it's going to improve mental health. And before I dig too deep into that, that kind of aligns or is basically lines up with the fundamental pillars of firefighter peak performance. So let's let's dig into that a little bit. Introduce

Ryan Provencher (42:28.366)
Yeah.

Christopher Warden (42:43.927)
what you're doing with firefighter peak performance, but let's talk about the three pillars that support the foundation of your mission when it comes to helping firefighters.

Ryan Provencher (42:55.413)
for sure. So this kind of comes back to everything we've talked about. And the idea of peak performance resonates with me for a lot of reasons. One of which is just the idea of a peak means that there's something underneath it. So to achieve peak performance, all of this other stuff has to be squared away. Your physical fitness, your mental health, your nutrition, your sleep, stress management.

All of that kind of goes into supporting this peak performance. So that's where that idea comes from. The idea of firefighter peak performance is to be at your peak, have to account for all of these other things. The other thing that really resonates with me about this idea is you're only talking about your best self. You're not comparing yourself to anyone else. Your peak performance is yours. And it doesn't have to be

this specific thing, is it better today than it was yesterday? And so for me, and I shared with you, I've had access to all of these mentors and all of these influences. And I just happen to have some knowledge and education that has really helped me navigate this career. And I'm here to tell you, I've had many setbacks. I've had many challenges. I've been in crisis, literally.

multiple times in my firefighting career, but to have these things that I could draw from, these health and wellness strategies that I could lean on in those times because someone either taught them to me or I found that information somewhere, it's been a game changer. So I'm going to retire relatively healthy, all things considered, because I was able to focus on this idea of performance. for me, because I was

Christopher Warden (44:36.735)
Sure.

Ryan Provencher (44:49.234)
fortunate and I had access to so much throughout my career, I am deeply motivated to paying it forward. And in the short term that's just sharing information with anyone that's interested. If any of this resonates with you, I am happy to share information if it has value for you.

Christopher Warden (45:05.823)
And anybody out there listening guys, Firefighter Peak Performance, there's a website.com and Ryan is very well insulated with Crackle Magazine and you write a lot for them and you're the head of their, I can't recall it real quick.

Ryan Provencher (45:19.32)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (45:29.3)
So my title with Crackle is the executive fitness advisor. And that just means that I am a regular contributor. I help support the idea of physical fitness for the magazine. There are lots of contributors to the magazine in the area of physical fitness. But and I just want to say, so Crackle, that's just another example of everything we're talking about. So Corey Pern, he's the editor for Crackle magazine. If you talk to that guy, he is deeply passionate and motivated.

Christopher Warden (45:31.561)
Okay.

Christopher Warden (45:36.478)
Okay.

Christopher Warden (45:39.955)
Got it.

Ryan Provencher (45:58.232)
to support firefighters as a lifestyle. And Cracko goes even beyond the wellness. get into financial, they get into relationships, they get into all of the things that we talk about at the kitchen table. And everyone that works there, everyone that I've come across as a colleague at Cracko Magazine has that same spirit of giving for the right reasons. They want to support firefighters. They're highly motivated to do it. And it's been a really cool project to be part of.

Christopher Warden (46:01.662)
Right.

Christopher Warden (46:20.127)
guys.

Christopher Warden (46:26.399)
Well, that's awesome. And we will make sure we share all the links for all of that in our show notes. But let's get let's talk about pillar number one, right? We've kind of dug into it. We don't have to dig into it two more. Just the physical fitness that is a pillar of peak performance as far as you're concerned.

Ryan Provencher (46:42.466)
Yes. Yes. And I want to take that a step further. For me, so there's physical activity, right? That's one thing. You're going to walk and you're going to do these things. But, we've talked about conventional fitness and functional fitness and tactical fitness. For me, and we're talking about pillars of peak performance, the idea of performance training for firefighter tactical fitness is critical. It's not random. It's not arbitrary. It's not

Christopher Warden (46:45.906)
Okay.

Ryan Provencher (47:12.534)
You know, you're in the gym doing bench necessarily, unless there's a reason to do that as part of your programming. It's very specific performance training for the job that we

Christopher Warden (47:23.005)
What would be a, just an example of something very specific for people listening just so they, okay, that makes sense.

Ryan Provencher (47:33.582)
So I have a whole list of kind of key components of what I consider to be firefighter tactical fitness programming. And again, this is, this is me. It's a framework that has worked for me and it's been a majority for myself and for folks I work with for the last 15 years or so. instead of targeting the first thing, instead of targeting muscle groups, we're looking at movement pattern. So coming back to the recruit in Academy, they're doing a vertical press or they're doing a squat or they're doing a lunge.

in their firefighting task. They're not working a specific muscle group. They are executing a series of movement patterns to do the work. So the exercises we select have a tactical application for firefighting. That's the first thing. Second, we can load those movement patterns with very simple tools. Sandbags, kettlebells, steel clubs, med balls. These are very simple tools that are infinitely less expensive than a commercial treadmill.

They don't take up any space at all to store or to use. They're more fun, in my opinion, than anything that you would do in a commercial gym per se. using those simple tools, interval training is a very, very effective modality for training firefighters. And it's not just high intensity. You could do moderate intensity interval training. You could do low intensity interval training where you're doing, just for example, 30 seconds of contract and relax, and then 30 seconds of full relaxation. And that's on

a timer that you're doing that through a series of recovery exercises. And then coming back to the idea of intensity, and we talked about it, I've got 10 things here, but those are the first four. That's where it starts. If you're being intentional about your programming with those four things to include intensity, and you're waving that intensity around your shift work, you're off to a really great start in terms of your tactical approach to your things.

Christopher Warden (49:25.663)
Thank you for expanding on that idea. So I hope that makes sense to everybody. Let's move into pillar number two, mental resilience. What is your perspective on that?

Ryan Provencher (49:37.902)
So just summarizing that into what we talked about before, you talked about mindset. And so to have a mindset, whether you resonate with the idea of being an athlete or not, but you're committed to a performance mindset as a firefighter, to me that begins with self-care. You cannot pour from an empty cup. whatever that means for each of us, that's number one. Prioritize your self-care so that you can be a better public servant.

Other areas, teamwork is a big part of that mindset. Having a sense of purpose is a big part of a mindset. Having a performance mindset requires discipline and focus and attention similar to an elite athlete. And so that's why it's such an important pillar, performance mindset, because it sets the table, it sets the tone for everything else you're going to do. If you don't have a performance mindset,

you're going to have a hard time being consistent. We talk about the difference between discipline and motivation. You're going to have hard time staying motivated if that mindset isn't important.

Christopher Warden (50:47.615)
Absolutely. The mindset, you know, basically just the way we have preconceived notions about things, right? That's what we bring to the table, what we're already thinking about something we may not know. And then like you said, having an operational or tactical peak performance mindset is really going to allow us to start seeing things a little differently, a little different perspective, right? I don't have to work out, I get to work out. And following a program like you're discussing,

think will definitely yield results for people who are fit and who aren't. And let's just say we have a group of people who are fit. do we, what does it look like to get those people who are say they're, just not as fit. They're not, they're not into it. They're lacking a little motivation. they're 10, 15 years on the job, right? They know they got time left and they're going to be called to do the same job that the fit guys are in. What do they do? What, what do we do for them to get them up and going?

Ryan Provencher (51:49.006)
This comes back to everything we've talked about around performance training. So we talked about intentional training and scoring metrics. So whether you're the most fit firefighter on the crew, or maybe you've been sedentary for a while, those metrics are valuable in comparing yourself to yourself. You're not comparing necessarily to your teammate. So that's the first thing to remember. And we talked about arbitrary versus intentional. So we're not doing a random 1,000 burpees.

workout as a crew, doing a more intentional workout that is scalable, that involves auto-regulation for every member of the crew to participate at the level that's appropriate for them.

Christopher Warden (52:32.383)
Responsibility. Whose responsibility is my fitness?

Ryan Provencher (52:38.936)
To me, it's everyone's individual responsibility. Take ownership of your own fitness.

Christopher Warden (52:43.975)
Yes, I think. And that's something as you get to work with recruit classes and people in academy. So I think that's the greatest place for this conversation. But your wellness along all of those holistic realms, relationships, finance, your relationship to the environment, that is all of those things, including our fitness, nutrition, self care. Those are our responsibility. And it's probably a hot take, but I think

firemen given the skills that we need and they include what we're talking about today. You can't, you can't glaze over that and say, well, nobody taught me how to do that. Like just as you can read a book on how to stay oriented in the dark or do a search, you can go pick up a fitness book. And I think the onus and the responsibility is on us to realize that we are professionals and these things fall into our realm of knowledge and requirements.

to meet the demands of our job, and it's our responsibility to get there. I know not many people might agree with me, but how do you feel about that stance?

Ryan Provencher (53:55.842)
I 100 % agree and it comes back to this idea of what we talked about the cards being stacked against us when we begin our careers as firefighters, chief deprivation, the trauma, the tragedy that we on calls, the physical, mental and emotional demands. Like there's a lot of that that we can't control, but there's so much that we can control. All of these lifestyle choices that we've talked about, I get to choose that. I get to choose how I work out. I get to choose how I eat.

There's lots of strategies that I can use to optimize my sleep around shift work. I can be intentional about managing my relationships. There's so many things and so many tools and so many strategies that if I'm willing to look at it and see what my gaps are and set some personal goals for myself, I can control a lot of that.

Christopher Warden (54:48.007)
I controlling what we can control is probably the best place to start, right? If it's within your control, take control. And there's seems to be this fear of change, right? Like, and I've heard it said everybody in the fire service or firefighters hate change, but hate the way things are or however that goes, right? and the ability to in any given moment,

Ryan Provencher (54:56.162)
Yes. Yes.

Ryan Provencher (55:10.744)
Yes, yeah, yes.

Christopher Warden (55:18.365)
make it better choice to support a lifestyle that we've decided to support a vision that aligns with our purpose, I think is so important. maybe it takes some work on the front end. What is my purpose? What is my vision? What does my lifestyle look like? Does it support the demands of the life that I'm currently living or am I like just surviving?

Do you think those... Go ahead, go ahead.

Ryan Provencher (55:51.214)
So, and so we're just talking about so many things and I get it. It can feel overwhelming and maybe it's hard, you know, to get started, but that's where this whole idea of a framework is so important to me. So whether the three pillars of firefighter, peak performance, that's a framework that's meant to give you a list of things that you might consider evaluating. First of all, for yourself is, are those areas that you're really thriving in or are there areas where

Christopher Warden (55:55.048)
Alright

Christopher Warden (56:05.14)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (56:20.524)
man, you need some help. So whether it's that or any other framework that you can lean on or kind of apply to your own personal circumstances, I just encourage people to do that. Like just do a self-evaluation of where you're at. And if your physical fitness is not on point, find someone to help you with that. If your mental health is struggling with the peer support programs that we have,

the attention that's being paid to mental health. There's so many resources out there to help us with that. If there is emotional things going on, I know divorce and just all these things can really impact us off the job. Hopefully we have a friend network or a network of coworkers or other resources that we can tie into, but it takes that first step. You got to take that first step towards any of these things that you're struggling with. Just take the first step.

Do you follow Jocko Willink at all?

Christopher Warden (57:17.437)
I do, I sure do.

Ryan Provencher (57:20.28)
So he, and I love all these books and I consume all of this information, right? So I'm a nerd in that sense and I own it. But he talks about managing overwhelm. And he just says, keep it simple, man. Prioritize, plan, execute. Like what's, okay, if I've got all this stuff going and I'm just, the world just feels out of control, okay, time out. What's my number one priority right now?

Christopher Warden (57:27.039)
I know, yeah. Me too.

Ryan Provencher (57:49.144)
What's the plan that I need to make progress on that? And what's the first action step? How do I execute on that? And just do that thing. Like just start with that one thing. And then pretty soon you'll get your feet under you. You'll start to feel a little bit more settled. Okay, cool. What's next? And then what's next? And then next thing you know, six months goes by and you've got this whole kind of master plan to make sure you're staying on top of being healthy and achieving your

Christopher Warden (58:13.346)
Yeah, I like that. And the idea of getting the plan, the priority, the plan, the execution, I think that's very important. don't sit around waiting once you get the plan, right? Once you get it prioritized, choose the priority. What can you do today to move you closer to that?

Try to keep that latency period between Identifying the plan and the execution to as minimal as possible, right? Don't do it tomorrow. You're gonna run out of tomorrows, right? We don't have that many tomorrows and today's the best day to start doing anything so So real quick, let's let's shift our our discussion over to people the people that have worked with you at

Ryan Provencher (58:51.15)
Yes, absolutely.

Christopher Warden (59:03.443)
firefighter peak performance. Can you tell us about some of those success stories and where they were and maybe how they are doing now?

Ryan Provencher (59:12.75)
Yeah, and so this goes all the way back to the beginnings. What firefighter peak performance is now began with the seeds of starting early in my career. So my first opportunity to work with firefighters as a fitness professional was when I was a resident firefighter. And this was before I got hired as a career firefighter. I was doing fitness testing and exercise prescription. And there was one individual, for one, he was a...

say a seasoned firefighter and a little bit salty. And he was struggling with his weight and he had some other things going on. And to his credit, he was open to this kid, literally this 23 year old kid coming in. And so I was doing the fitness assessment. I mapped out this workout program for him and he embraced it. And even after I got hired, I would come back to that same department and continue to do that work with them. did that for several years and I would see the same individual

And he had lost weight and he, you know, and as his physical appearance or his weight changed, the smile on his face would get bigger and then it would get bigger. And the next thing you know, he's confident, he's thriving. So for anyone that out there that is a coach in any capacity to provide something to someone and to have them kind of implement that and be successful, that is just one example. All these years, decades later that

that still sticks with me and resonates with me. So that's one example. The other thing, as I mentioned, I had the opportunity to do the programming for our recruit academy. so like many departments, we're cranking out two academies a year. We were averaging 12 recruits per academy, which in a department our size is a lot. And that was over a period of years. And so I had a very unique opportunity

Christopher Warden (01:00:50.454)
Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (01:01:09.198)
different than anything I'd ever experienced in my career to do these programs for these groups of people from a very diverse background. And the first thing I would say to them on day one is rule number one, don't get hurt. Rule number one, don't get hurt. how do we achieve that? Well, I'm going to give you these tools, these metrics that I want you to practice in the gym, movement rating, intensity rating, discomfort, focus, dexterity.

And then I want you to apply them on the drill ground. And then I'm going to give you a six point self check for your biomechanics in the gym. And then if I call you out on it, when you're lifting a ground ladder, you know, they respond instantly to it. Like they, all you have to say is spine straight and boom, they just access it. They've been practicing it so much. And so we do pre-academy fitness testing and then post-academy fitness testing. So I had a colleague or a good friend with another department. had a

Christopher Warden (01:01:55.811)
Fix it.

Ryan Provencher (01:02:08.328)
physical fitness expert come in there and she did two things that I didn't really understand. The first thing is she used running and sprinting as the primary modality for training the firefighters and they had an Achilles rupture and a knee injury and so that was one thing. And then she told those recruits on day one, I expect you to be beat up and broken down at the end of this. This is a very rigorous training process. And I think for a lot of departments, there's

Christopher Warden (01:02:30.331)
Interesting.

Ryan Provencher (01:02:35.212)
Yeah, it's very physically demanding, it's very rigorous. There's the potential to be beat up over the course of an academy. That was not our mindset at all. For one, you're in-season athlete, so your fitness programming is not designed to have personal records necessarily, but it is designed to have steady progress in these very specific metrics over a 16-week academy. And it comes back to that number one rule, don't get hurt.

Christopher Warden (01:02:44.177)
Right.

Christopher Warden (01:02:53.427)
Right.

Ryan Provencher (01:03:04.974)
Injuries happen, of course, but there's so many injuries that are preventable when you're intentional about it. So that's my long-winded way of sharing with you in terms of success stories over all these years of working with recruits. We had very few injuries, none of which were related to exercise. And all of the recruits across the board made steady progress in their physical assessment metrics pre-academy.

Christopher Warden (01:03:08.403)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Provencher (01:03:34.734)
and post academy.

Christopher Warden (01:04:03.682)
Well that stinks looks like we're having a little technical difficulty we got disconnected and We'll come back. We'll figure this out

Ryan Provencher (01:04:12.843)
you

don't worry.

Christopher Warden (01:04:25.363)
Hmm... Why did that happen?

Christopher Warden (01:04:31.123)
Hey, welcome back. Sorry, we had a little disconnect issue.

Christopher Warden (01:04:37.747)
Are you there? All right, cool. Yes, I can hear you good. So you were just saying that was a long-winded way of discussing injury prevention, not getting hurt, and basically explaining pillar number three.

Ryan Provencher (01:04:40.077)
Yes, can you hear me?

Ryan Provencher (01:04:55.534)
And really all three pillars tie into it.

Christopher Warden (01:04:58.862)
my goodness.

Christopher Warden (01:05:44.221)
Hey Ryan, can you hear me?

Ryan Provencher (01:06:05.166)
you

Okay.

Ryan Provencher (01:07:03.95)
you

Ryan Provencher (01:08:03.726)
Yeah.

Christopher Warden (01:08:31.763)
Hey, Ryan.

I can't, there you are. I have no idea what happened. That's never happened in the two years I've used Riverside. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Let's just, we'll just pick up where we left off. We were discussing pillar three and I believe we were just discussing don't get injured, right? Don't get injured.

Ryan Provencher (01:08:39.533)
That figures.

Ryan Provencher (01:08:47.787)
Sure.

Ryan Provencher (01:08:56.396)
Well, you had asked me about success stories and I was just kind of sharing that I had a very personal success story with one individual and then I've also had a series of success stories in Recruit Academy when you have an opportunity to share a methodology with a group of very eager and receptive young firefighters and in embracing that and it really does boil down to all three pillars for Recruit. So when we talk to Recruits, we do talk about mindset.

We talk about lifestyle and specifically nutrition for fueling the demands of a Recruit Academy. And then of course, our physical training program is a very specific performance training program that takes into account the occupational demands, the physical demands of the Academy itself so that we're not doing too much intensity in the physical training. And then to have them every day, including their off days,

they would do the workouts that we assigned to them for this whole 16 weeks. And in the end, very few injuries, zero injuries related to exercise, then improvement, objective improvement on their subjective and objective scoring metrics on these different workouts. So I was always very proud of that. It felt really good that we were able to support our new recruits in that way.

Christopher Warden (01:10:21.011)
Yeah, that's interesting you mentioned that because I work at an academy as well and you can see the mindset and maybe it's not a mindset, but the approach to fitness varying from age group and individual when they lead, let's say lead PT, like certain individuals want to smoke the cadets or crush them and other people are trying to build their confidence and keep them safe and

just make them better rather than showing them how weak they are, right? And there's gotta be something we get rid of. It's super old mentality. I know there's a lot of places out there, like in the military where, know, blood, it's just about doing something to these people that changes them for the rest of their lives. But the approach that you're bringing to the table, I think is very, very appropriate.

Ryan Provencher (01:10:53.774)
Yes.

Christopher Warden (01:11:18.633)
And I'm excited to learn more about Firefighter Peak Performance and get that out there to more individuals. So if you don't mind, us all an idea of where we can get a hold of you, how we can get a hold of you. And I'll make sure I share all of that in our show notes as well.

Ryan Provencher (01:11:36.45)
Yeah, so as you mentioned, my website is firefighterpreperformance.com. I'm on the Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. My business profile is firefighterpreperformance. My personal profile is my name, Ryan Provinsher. My email address is ryan at firefighterpreperformance.com. I welcome any feedback that folks have, if folks have questions. I'm here to support. I want to support folks in achieving their fitness and performance goals.

Let me know if you're out there and you have some questions or how I might do that for you.

Christopher Warden (01:12:11.249)
absolutely well had a very in-depth conversation about a lot of things and you know there's anything that anybody out there can find that one thing that might help them take that step today i think ryan i agree that taking the steps today doing the next opportunity to make that choice is going to be the best bet to get that motivation and get that progress in the momentum in the right direction i do have one last thing

uh... if you had a priority traffic for anybody other than that uh... uh... party traffic that comes over the airwaves on the fire ground everybody stops and listens or keeps working with you know listens to absorbed information um... what would your traffic to our audience

Ryan Provencher (01:13:00.974)
So we've talked, I'm sitting here reflecting on 30 years in the fire service. And my priority traffic, my message to anyone that's listening, build your toolbox and build your team. And whether you're a candidate, a recruit, it's never too early to build your toolbox, build your team. If you're a seasoned firefighter, it's never too late to build your toolbox and build your team.

Christopher Warden (01:13:27.465)
That's awesome. I think that encapsulates everything I've talked about and it leaves space for those other things. Finance, management, stress management. There's a lot of things we didn't talk about today, but if you can take your fitness serious, I think you can do really well in a lot of other areas of your life as well. So Ryan, it's been a very pleasure to have you on. Sorry for the technical difficulties we've made it through it.

Ryan Provencher (01:13:48.832)
Absolutely.

Christopher Warden (01:13:56.87)
I your time. Is there anything else you want to mention or discuss?

Ryan Provencher (01:14:04.706)
No, I think we covered a lot of ground. Again, just offering if anyone has any follow up questions or if I can support you in any way, please let me know.

Christopher Warden (01:14:13.993)
So that's all right. Well, thank you so much for making time again on behalf of the audience and myself. It was a pleasure. I appreciate you being on today.

Ryan Provencher (01:14:22.798)
Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate you having me on and I hope to talk to you again here soon.

Christopher Warden (01:14:27.291)
absence partner but i have a great day thanks for listening