EP25, Interview with Adam Hawkins

In this episode of Unstoppable By Design, host Matt Terry sits down with Adam Hawkins, a law enforcement veteran with 22 years of experience, to discuss the vital role of fitness for first responders. Adam shares his journey in CrossFit, emphasizing its importance for physical and mental preparedness in law enforcement. The conversation touches on their origins in coaching and CrossFit, the significance of supporting health and wellness in emergency services, and the essential training tools and methods that translate well to the demands of police work. The episode also highlights the role of community, mental health, and the need for a holistic approach to fitness from a first responder’s perspective. Key timestamps include discussions about coaching CrossFit, the value of mobility and recovery, and advice on maintaining health and wellness in a high-stress career.

00:00 Introduction to Unstoppable By Design
00:27 Meet Adam Hawkins: Law Enforcement and Fitness
01:20 The Journey into CrossFit
02:12 Coaching Philosophy and Leadership
04:04 Fitness and First Responders
07:03 Programming for Law Enforcement
16:21 The Importance of Mobility and Recovery
19:03 Maintaining Composure Under Pressure
23:34 New Hampshire's Physical Fitness Test for Law Enforcement
25:09 The Role of CrossFit in Law Enforcement Fitness
27:44 Common Pacing Mistakes and Quick Fixes
29:27 The Evolution of CrossFit Coaching
35:05 Essential Training Tools for First Responders
40:26 Words of Wisdom for First Responders
45:50 Unstoppable Challenge and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Matt: Let's go. Welcome to Unstoppable By Design, where we talk all things fitness mindset, what it means to truly be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. I'm Matt Terry, and today we'll be talking about fitness. How it relates to being a first responder. My guest is Adam Hawkins with experience of 22 years in law enforcement.

Adam, how are you? 

Adam: I am so happy to be back here, Matt. Um, we've been riffing a little bit for about a half an hour, and it's just, it's really, I really appreciate this opportunity to talk about CrossFit Officer Wellness, how fitness fits into law enforcement, and I'm so happy that I can do it here. At aut.

I know that we're gonna talk about our journeys probably together in CrossFit, but when it comes to coming back here, it's just, it just feels like home. 

Matt: Yeah. Let's go. For the listeners, Adam and I have known each other for a long time, been friends for a long time. He started coaching here in 2015. With me.

That's where we, yeah, we both started at the same time. 

Adam: Yep. So CrossFit for me, well actually for us, we're tied all over the place. Started 2013. Uh, been another affiliate. Yeah. Uh, in the Lake region. And then, uh, I just want to give a shout out to Keith Brit. Keith gave me my first opportunity to coach in CrossFit in, I think it was like 2014.

And then I got my L one down in Canton, Massachusetts in July of 2015. So shout out to Keith. Gimme an opportunity to start coaching because I have been a coach for a long time. I've been a basketball coach for over, yeah, like 23 years. Uh, but when it comes to coaching, CrossFit, uh, that started here at CrossFit Drug on 

Matt: 2015, let's go.

Yeah. Coach for long. Still coaching, still coaching basketball. Still coaching. So coaching athletes on the court in the, uh, in the affiliate. 

Adam: Yeah, I, I think I, I feel just. Coaching is like in my heart. Um, my first coaching job was back in 2001. I came home, my mother-in-law says, Hey, the Wimbleton School needed a basketball coach.

I'm like, okay. And I was at the University of New Hampshire at the time, and so I came in and I coached that, uh, their B team or whatever it was, and, and think about, what's that, 23, 24 years ago. Um, that's kind of where it started. I, I've always felt, um, like coaching has been the thing for me, uh, being able to, you know, we were talking, we were talking about leadership, and leadership is about helping people, like really generally helping people.

Um, and I just felt like, hey, coaching basketball, coaching, CrossFit, uh, being a police trainer for. 18 years or how, how, however long it's been. I just love connecting with people. Um, I love to see when they hit their, their goals. I love to see when they fail and they can rely on me or the other coaching staff or whatever to, to kind of get through those obstacles.

Um, so yeah, coaching is, uh, yeah. I love it. 

Matt: Yeah. Well, I think you, you smashed it. I think coaching is a form of leadership. Throw back to like episode one, episode two of this podcast that talked about the good leaders in my life. Mm-hmm. I counted you as one of 'em. 

Adam: Yeah. I, I didn't know if you were talking about me, but I was trying to read you in the lines.

I'm like, ah, thanks man. Of course. Of course. 

Matt: Yeah. So I guess we, you know, we jumped a little bit into it, but what's your origin story? How did you, how'd you start? Uh, well, I guess we covered how you start, but 

Adam: where'd it go from there? CrossFit came into my life in 2013. Uh, my wife and I, Samantha. Crazy athlete.

Yeah, crazy dude. I, I love her. She's, yeah, she, we just, uh, we just had our second child, or she might've been a year old or or whatever it was, and we're on vacation and she's like, Hey, I wanna start, I wanna start this thing called CrossFit. So we found that affiliate in Toten and went there. And I'm like, man, she's doing, I gotta do it too.

Right. And then so at that point, I would've been eight years in the eight years into law enforcement. And what I found was that the methodology directly spoke to, to my job being a police officer, uh, like a line officer and then a first line supervisor. Um, being on the original SWAT team, I just found that the methodology translated directly to what we had.

Uh, what we had to deal with on a day to day, and in thinking about what we're gonna say today is that if everyone can like, go to what CrossFit has put out in terms of, uh, education, and there's this, I want to call it like a journal article that was put out by Greg Glassman and when, when he talks about what is fitness, he says that the implication is that fitness requires an ability to perform well at all tasks, even unfamiliar tasks, tasks combined in infinitely varying combinations.

And if I think about that, if I can take the word fitness out and put police work in there, it would say the implication here is that police work requires an ability to perform well at all tasks, even unfamiliar tasks. Tasks combined infinitely very in combinations. We deal with so much stuff. Every single day, and you never know what you're gonna deal with.

So if I'm going to be focusing on my health and wellness, um, I need to be as strong as possible in my mind and my body. So having a training methodology that speaks directly to that, it just perfectly, so, you know, starting CrossFit, getting here to juggernaut, um, working through other affiliates too. I, I think I had a lot of growth there.

Um, and then, you know, running an affiliate. Yeah. Um, and being responsible for the, the health and wellness of other police officers is, I am very biased when it comes to that. And, and, and I tell, and I tell everybody like that there's nothing wrong with traditional strength training, mono structural training, anything like that.

But when it comes to police work, CrossFit, I think is the key to unlocking physical health. And mental health. 

Matt: Yeah, totally agree. Like, uh, I, right at the end, you talked about fitness and it not being wrong, whatever fitness path you choose, but if we're talking about being a first responder, whether that's, you know, firefighter or police work, I think that functional fitness side or the CrossFit component is key for what's important to the job.

But all right, so let's say you're coaching, how do you communicate the intended stimulus of a workout to a mixed group of athletes? So that way it hits the right feel for them. 

Adam: Dealing with so many different athletes in so many different environments, police work or in the affiliate or whatever it is, is that I think the number one key we have to give people resources to be successful, right?

And as, and as coaches, we need to be studious in what we're doing and know how we are, uh, need to deliver that information so it makes sense to people. The biggest thing when it comes to that is we have to describe the workout, the, in the intended stimulus of it, uh, rep range if we're looking for something or if, if we're looking for a time domain or whatever we're looking for.

But the biggest thing, and I, and it, and it puts a smile on my face, just think about right now, is the co is the concept of RPE or rate of perceived exertion. Like that changes people's minds, right? Because we'll have, like if we're in the training environment and we're like, Hey, listen. This is six rounds.

You probably want to chill a little bit on the first couple rounds, but if you don't give that education to people right, and you don't have that good communication, they will blow up now. Yeah. I'm a proponent of sometimes blowing up because you have to, you kinda have to test that. Yeah. But what I found successful in, in some of my training environments is giving that education to, um.

And, and, and we'll probably talk about it in terms of what law enforcement has to do right now in terms of physical fitness. But hey, hey, if you're running a mile and a half, you probably don't want to be at a nine. Yeah. Don't sprint the first two. Yeah, exactly right. First couple laps and, and you've, you've heard me say this, it's like, listen, like the first probably eight to 11 laps, you probably want to be at a six.

Yeah. 

Adam: Right. And then we can push hard and you can trust yourself. Um. And, and we'll, and we'll get into the concept of trusting yourself a little bit later on, but, uh, in terms of that rp, so important, right? And as a good coach, we have to communicate with our athletes. Um, it doesn't matter their experience too, because sometimes if you're brand new, there's so much information that's thrown at you.

It's kind of hard to digest that stuff. And if you are a tenured athlete, uh, we still need to give that to you and be like, Hey, remember, like these are the things we want to hit. Uh, but when it comes to like, yeah, rp, I think that's like the key, like understanding, um, uh, the stimulus, getting into that stuff.

But I like when people blow up too, so whatever. It's all good. It's fun to 

Matt: watch 

Adam: the 

Matt: learning happen. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right, so why should a first responder invest in their health and wellness? I think I 

Adam: want to ask a question in terms of that. Yeah. My question to your question is, what happens if you don't?

Yeah, over the past 22 years, I've been able to get through a lot of hard things because of my training, because of my support system. You know, you talked about earlier about, uh, Samantha being a tremendous athlete, but she's a tremendous partner too. Her, she's been a nurse for almost as long as I've been, or probably even more than I've been a police officer.

Kind of understanding how tough it can be as a police officer or an emergency responder working shifts and, and Christmas and, you know, we got Thanksgiving coming up and missing Thanksgiving and all of those things is my question is you are gonna deal with my statement is you're gonna deal with a lot of hard things.

My question is, if you don't like what happens if you don't invest in your fitness, what's gonna happen? We all know that stress is, is. Is tough on a human being. Yep. It can be stress that you put on your own, your own self. It can be external stress. Yep. But being in a controlled environment, like a place like Cross or Juggernaut and other affiliates as well, is that you can test yourself.

You can be around. Like-minded people. We're there to support you. You can have people that you trust in and then you can make those connections. I think sometimes when it comes to officer wellness, we get in trouble because we don't think that there's anybody that can relate to us. The best thing that I've found with CrossFit over all these years is that it is a community, right?

So I can go into the affiliate and I can feel, and I can feel safe, but we have to invest. In our fitness. Mm-hmm. Not only because we want to survive a long year, we want to be there for our families. But here's the expectation, and I really, I don't want to get this like twisted. When you are a police officer and you go and you help somebody, they're expecting a superhero.

Oh yeah. They're expecting, um, that could be the only time that someone ever calls the police and they, the expectation is that you're gonna be. Physically fit enough to deal with whatever is going on, um, mentally tough. Um, it doesn't matter what call you've, you have been to before and where you're going to, like, I've been standing in the middle road for three hours and then I go and I help, I, I remember this one call, you know, we had to go find a grandmother that walked away in the woods.

I could be physically fit enough to go find that person. Mm-hmm. Right? Because people depend on you and it doesn't matter if you are, uh, the chief. If you are a sergeant, a detective, a person who's on patrol, you have to be able to rise to that level. I don't know who coined the term, but, uh, you never rise to the level of your expectation.

You rise to the level of your training. Yeah. So, so again, uh, love that question. I throw the question back to everyone that says, if you are a law enforcement. What happens if you don't invest in your physical fitness? And I think, uh, once you kind of frame it that way, we all know that it's very important.

Yeah. There's a lot at stake. Yeah. The community needs you. Yep. Like they need you. They want, uh, they wanna support you. And I think that if you go in and you go to a couple CrossFit classes, um, again, bias, you go to a couple CrossFit classes as a law enforcement, firefighter, whatever, uh, nurse, whatever you are.

That's gonna put you in the best position to be successful. 

Matt: Yes. Yep. I mean, from a first responder lens, what job tasks show up naturally inside of maybe programming in a CrossFit affiliate? 

Adam: I had a conversation with, and I don't know what we were talking about. We talk a lot about things at bedtime, but I was talking to Charlotte and there's a lot of things that we have to deal with, and that could be like fine motor skill or gross motor skill, right?

So, um, if it's pulling the trigger of a gun, you know, a little bit more fine motor skill, right? But we, if we have to push somebody away, gross mortar skill and we have to be able to deal with stress, uh, whatever we're dealing with, and then go in between those. Those two things there. So when it comes to, I go back to the tenets of CrossFit in general, broad and inclusive, right?

Uh, we want to be able to throw lots of different things at our athletes to make sure they are prepared because, and again, when it comes to being a law enforcement officer, we're talking about unfortunately, a lot of bad things. Mm-hmm. Um. And we have to be able to put ourself in a position where we kind of done that before.

I don't want to go into a lot of specific details about some of the things that I dealt with, but I remember this one time where it was like we were another police officer and I, we were dealing with a bad situation, uh, domestic violence. And, uh, we both actually knew the person that we were, we were dealing with.

He was going through something that was really tough, but we had to get him help. And I remember, um, there was some physicality when it came to that. And I remember getting in a position where I got knocked down, uh, onto a couch and I was like, okay, I need to get off of this couch. And I've been here before, I've been here in a front squat.

Mm-hmm. Right? So, hey, I need to get out of this hole. I need to get this person under control, and then we need to get them help. And that's exactly what happened. So when it comes to programming. And, and what we throw out to all our athletes carries sprinting, recovery, um, pulling, pushing, like all the programming CrossFit nerds out there.

You know what I mean? It has to be variable. We can't do the same thing all the time because we don't experience those things. Um. Over, over the last 22 years. It just, it's always different, you know? That's the best thing about the job too, right? Is because it's never the same. Mm-hmm. Uh, but when it comes to programming, be as diverse as possible.

Also, getting into like traditional strength training is essential as well, right? Because we want to be able to get strong. But when it comes to the CrossFit methodology, again, it's just, it's like the golden ticket to police officer. Well, it's a golden ticket for a police officers. 

Matt: Yeah. Using combination.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Dude, that's awesome. What are your favorite non-negotiables that you put around a program? Maybe something like, uh, mobility for example, 

Adam: has to be holistic. Mobility and recovery is essential for an, and you first responders out there is, listen to this, you have to accept to do the most boring.

Unsexy thing. There is. Mm-hmm. And that's mobility. Yeah. That's rolling out. Yep. Um, my family uses a couple programs when it comes to like, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna sit down. My son does it every single day. He's up there. He is either, uh, uh, he's watching something, but he's, he's mobilizing, right. Uh, and because we carry a lot of weight on our bodies, uh, that could be a do, that could be a duty belt, it could be a vest.

Uh, it could be. With the SWAT team. It's like a heavier vest, a helmet, rifle, all these other things. We like to go and we like to grind, but then after we do that, we have to go and we have to stretch and we have to roll out and we have to eat well, and we have to sleep well. So when it comes to the training program and things like that, non-negotiables, I think if you take a holistic approach to it, it would be.

It's needed. And I think a lot of people that's hearing this right now can relate to that, is like, we skip those things, right? Because they're boring. Like, who wants to sit there for 45 minutes? You know, we're in the Warrior one and we're gonna be here for 45 minutes. It's, it's kind of tough, right? But it will pay off.

And that's the other thing too, is people don't like it because the payoff is like, you can't see it. 

Yeah. 

Adam: You know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's not tangible. You know, I didn't, you know, I didn't hit a PR and a squat clean for. I don't know, like 2 45 or, or whatever it is. Like, oh, I just did that. That's tangible.

You're not gonna have these tangible things. But I think for everyone out there, you take a holistic approach. You do the best you can. If you, uh, you didn't stretch for a couple days, hey, you can go back and you can do that again. But yeah, I think those are non-negotiables when it comes to that, is that we want longevity.

Yeah, 

Adam: we want longevity. We wanna be healthy throughout our life. Yes, we would focus on those things. 

Matt: Yeah. I like that you called it the non-sexy things, dude. Like we used to, so boring. What's the term that came with one of those graphs? I think it was Swollen Flexy. Swollen Flexy. Yeah. Yeah. 

Adam: Yeah. I think I used, no, no, no.

I, I didn't get Sam the, uh, the Swollen Flexy one. I got like a, oh, he's been around for a long time. Noah. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Adam: Uh, Noah, dude. I can't believe I, I can't remember his name. Olson? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Adam: Olson, right? Is that right? He has like his dog. So, so like, I bought her one for Christmas. It's like a picture of his dog. 

Matt: And I, uh, I chuckle because I, I already know the answer to this next question, but when the clock's running, what is your go-to queue for composure under fatigue training, law enforcement officers?

Adam: Um, we, we throw a lot at them driving, shooting. Physical fitness, training, communication, lots of things that we throw at people. I use the queue and I'm interested to see what you said. 'cause Yeah. Or, or what you think is, I used this queue the other day and it's, and it's, I don't know if I've been doing it a lot, but I've been thinking about how to be an effective coach in a large group.

And then depending on, uh, where the athlete is in the program Right. And when I can use this queue. But the queue that I used last week and, and I've been using more is trust yourself, is because we we're giving police officers these skills. Right. I want you to qualify and here's how you shoot better from farther distances or driving.

At some point you have to look inward and you have to say, I can do this. And some people will be afraid, and you've seen it. They're afraid to go there, right? To tip their toe in the in, in uncomfortableness, right? But you gotta do it because that's the, on the margins, that's where you grow. Yep. You, you have to do it.

So last week I was watching, I was watching my athletes and I could see, because the time domain was 12 minutes and from what the work they had to do, a lot of 'em were questioning them. And so I was like, 12 minutes. I'm like, trust yourself, you can do it. Do this in the beginning, but then go for it. And I could see they still were like, ah, scared.

And I was like, tr And I'm just like, you gotta trust yourself. Go up. Hey, where are you at? Okay, you're good. You're good. You, you're you. Uh, you're still moving, right? You're still breathing, you're breathing hard, but you're still getting there. So that's a newer one that I've been using is because at some point my daughter, uh, dances, my son plays basketball.

Yeah. They put in so much work and they work so hard and I'm so proud of them. But at some point you're gonna be on a stage, uh, you're gonna be on the basketball court, show people all the hard work you've done, show the world, show them the hard work. Yeah. And trust yourself. So that's a new one. What do you think I was gonna say, 

Matt: I was thinking specifically towards mobility.

Yeah. And the hide your pain faces all. 

Adam: Yeah, man. Like mobility specifically. Yeah. No one wants to see a pain face. Like, okay, yeah, we know you're working hard. Right? We're the one who's done the programming. Like we know this is gonna be terrible. So hydro, yeah. Hy Hydro Pain Face and the other one too. Is when everyone hems and haws, you know what I mean?

Like, uh, we're in like interval training and, and they, and they sprinted for 30 seconds or whatever they're doing, and they're like, oh, they're hemming and haw. And it's like, keep that inside your body. Nobody wants to hear that, right? Because you're just, you probably need that little hem and haw inside your body because you're, you're, that's energy.

That's energy that's going out. So why don't you just keep it inside? 

Matt: And there's, there's psychology to the practice too, right? Mm-hmm. Because if you're, you're ever. You know, in a, a rescue or lifesaving situation and you're showing that it's hard and exactly, you're not keeping your, your composure, uh, then people are like, wow, he's really struggling.

Instead of being like, that guy is the superhero I called. 

Adam: Yeah. And, um, uh, we're, when we're talking about when law enforcement, I think it's really important to talk about the, in a correctional setting too. Right. So, and what you just said, remind me of that. If you are in a correctional facet and, and maybe you have to do a cell extraction or, or whatever you have to do, like, you can't, you have to put on that face and just knowing the people in, uh, that, that, um, that law enforcement specialty, right.

Either county corrections or, or state corrections, such a hard job. And they do such a good job. They just, when you're going through something, because you're dealing with the same people all the time, you, you gotta go out there and you gotta be composed. Yeah. Right. You can't be like, oh, this is so hard.

I've been for it. You have to be composed because of the deal of the type of people you're dealing with. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Adam: Like, but yeah, composures big. Composures big. 

Matt: Like, like you said earlier, they, they expect superhero. They do to show up. All right, so I guess changing a little bit, what is the current physical fitness test for New Hampshire's law 

Adam: enforcement?

Sure. We both got hired after. January 1st of 20, uh, 2001, one one of 2001. And from that point on, if you were hired as a law enforcement officer, every three years you have to take a PT test. Now the PT test is age and gender norm of sit-ups, pushups, and a mile and a half from, and every three years you have to take that test.

The first step. Is you have to go to your doctors and you have to get medical clearance to perform the test. And then when you do that, you um, a PT test instructor would administer the test and you would get whatever you have to get. There are provisions inside of the law or the administrative rule that talk about like extensions, because if you go through, if you go through law enforcement career, you're probably gonna get banged up here and there, right?

It's just the nature of the beast. So there are provisions if someone's going through a medical issue or something like that, maybe we can get some extensions. Uh, maybe life has just hit you and you failed the test. There are provisions inside there where it gives you a little bit of grace period to be able to be successful to pass the test.

But since 2001, it's age and gender norms sit-ups, pushups, and monitoring. Got it. 

Matt: Yeah. And I think that's all stuff that we, we do in a. Uh, CrossFit affiliate. 

Adam: The test is basic, actually, I should say this as as well, is that it came from Cooper Institute. Yeah. And for the state of New Hampshire, it's the 35th percentile.

So it's a baseline of fitness. It, what I will say is that it, that test is part of the overall health and wellness, but you and I know. That the only people, only two things. If you're employed as law enforcement or emergency responders or anything like that, there's only two things that are probably going to get you to where you need to go when it comes to fitness.

It could be the organization that you work for because they have a health and wellness policy and, and maybe they give, maybe there's a program where if you pass at a certain level, you know, they'll give you a day off or something like that. But in the end. If you wanna be healthy, if you wanna be fit, it falls on you.

Mm-hmm. You have to be accountable to yourself. 

Yeah. 

Adam: You have to be accountable yourself. You have to be accountable. Military, your community, so you wanna be able to train smart, which again, I will say it, I'm biased when it comes to CrossFit. You're in emergency services, do that. The methodology is potent.

It is obvious. I got data all over the place when it, the application of CrossFit into, uh, emergency services. It gets you there. 

Yeah. 

Adam: Unequivocally. Yeah. We have a bunch of buddies all over the state and maybe I'll give a little bit of shout out here. Matt, me showed down in Dover. Yeah. With with Dover Fire.

Yeah. It's just, it's obvious at this point. 

Matt: Yeah. I think it's, uh, it, it, it applies like if your level of fitness is increased and your work capacity is there. It really doesn't matter what the test is because then you're gonna perform well, you know who you are. 'cause a hundred percent you're 

Adam: doing the right things.

And the thing is broad and inclusive. You know, going back to original tenets of CrossFit, broad and inclusive, if we are experiencing lots of different things, variability, right? Doing a test like that, taking care of yourself, mobility you, you know, hopefully you don't get injured. You know, excluding some of those like.

The bad things that can happen if you don't CrossFit, you're gonna pass that test. 

Yeah. 

Adam: Unequally. But 

Matt: yeah. Yeah. And so what is a common pacing mistake that you see people make on conditioning pieces and what could be like a quick 32nd fix? 

Adam: I think the fix has to happen before, I will give an example. Uh, we have a workout.

It's a tribute workout that we, uh, do for law enforcement and it starts with an 800 meter run. Okay. And then you do a, it's a big giant shipper, do an 800 meter run. You end with an 800 meter run. You have to communicate with your athletes. In the beginning, 'cause I was like, Hey, I have an. Doing all out 800, I wanna see if I can PR my 800 on the front end.

Dumbest thing I could have ever done. Dumbest thing I could ever done, but I wanted, but there was a reason for it. It was controlled environment. I wanna see, hey, if I go all out, I'm talking all out. Ran like a 2 19, 800. I'm flying. Yeah. Can I recover? And you know what happened, Matt? What happened? I did not recover.

It was the worst. It was the worst because I couldn't recover, couldn't get my heart rate down. And now I'm doing burpees and I can do like three at a time. And I'm like, this was a mistake, but I gotta finish right? And it's a long workout. And it was just, it was just one of those grinder things. So I think is that sometimes.

Depending on the mono, structural, depending on what you're doing, intended stimulus, things like that, you can recover for me, like I just wanna follow my story. I cannot recover there. So I think, Hey, hey, we gotta make sure. And then me, the amount of education, I'm switching a little bit. The amount of education that CrossFit puts out now to when we were originally or starting CrossFit is a, it's totally different for sure.

Right? For sure. So the coaches. That are coming up now. They have a lot more, a lot more resources. They're so, there's better. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I think if you talk to all the OG coaches out there too, they would say it too. They were like, Hey, we're just trying to figure this thing out. But when it comes to the professionalism of the coaches now and the education that's coming out of CrossFit, I think it's unbelievable.

So now what we can do is we have all of this education, we can push it to our athletes. Yep. And again, I, I don't know if I'm actually answering the question, but I think the answer comes before. We educate our athletes, Hey, this is what you're gonna, and, and because we do our programming. 

Yep. 

Adam: Right? I'm never gonna put somebody through something that I haven't done myself.

Yeah. Hey, this is what you're gonna experience, because I want, I want this to be, uh, a valuable experience from you. Yeah. We're all gonna suffer together and we're gonna do that, but we, we have to learn, because when you're training law enforcement officers, they're gonna experience those things. And usually when they're experiencing those things, it's in a, it's not in the best of.

Environments, right? Yes. So they have, so we have to push 'em there. We have to give them that stimulus and dump all of that. Maybe stress sometimes on it too. Yep. But we want them to experience that. So when it comes up, they'll be like, Hey, I kind of been here before, but education in the front end, RP dude, RPE is like, I'm so like, shout across it, maam.

Right? And, uh, and Hinshaw on all of them, there's a resource out there, uh, where it talks about rrp, right? And the chart. And hey, um, if you're a nerd and you want to talk about heart rate. There's gonna have, there's gonna be all those data points. Um, if you're like, I have no idea what that is, but I wanna know what the feeling is.

Hey, they have that too. So if you're an athlete out there, understand RPE, and then you can apply it and then talk with your coaches about what would be, uh, most successful, what, what is the best place to be, to be most successful in the, uh, in, in, in, in the workout you're doing for that day. 

Matt: Yeah. I think a strong whiteboard with expectation settings and like, this is what we're getting into.

This is how it's gonna feel. This is how to approach it. 

Adam: Yeah. 

Matt: Solves a lot, 

Adam: uh, essential. Yeah. And I love, yeah, I love all of the different types of classes. Uh, you have like, Hey, shout out to all the 5:30 AM people or the 5:00 AM people. Yeah, you are fire wheelers crazy. You're crazy, you're crazy. Right? Or you have your eight or nine, or you have your early afternoon, or you have your, you have your nighttime classes.

They all have like the different thing, but that. A really good coach can take that five minutes, set expectations for the class so they can be successful. 

Yep. 

Adam: Right. And you can set expectations where you're like, Hey, like this is what's gonna happen to you. Trust me as a coach, if I'm, if I see something happening, I'm gonna come to you and hopefully give you a correction.

Yeah. 

Adam: To make you more successful. I think sometimes when it comes to. A newer athlete, you know, they're just taking everything in. You have an athlete who's been an affiliate for 10 years. Each of those people deserve good coaching. 

Mm-hmm. 

Adam: And I think it's on the coach to make sure that everybody is on the same page in the beginning.

And again, it can go off the rails. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? And, and in a workout. But hey, we, we just want to give you the information so you can be as, as successful as possible. 

Matt: And I like, I love that you, you said everybody deserves good coaching, and I think that it looks a little bit different, uh, as you, as you progress, maybe in the beginning, good coaching for you is talking a lot about positional cues or you know, this is where to hold the barbell.

This is, um, how to keep your chest up, you know, and then like maybe if you're closer to that 10, 10 year mark, it's more like, all right, you stop resting here, you go back. Exactly. You know, exactly like good coaching. It just kind of evolves a little bit depending on where you are in your journey. We 

Adam: talked about it before.

Good, good. Coaching starts with trust, right? Actually, I dunno if I could swo on the podcast, but actually giving a shit about the people in your affiliate, you know what I mean? Like generally caring about them truth. Um, and if you, if you can, if the person you're coaching knows you could be terrible at cues.

You could do you or our reciting warrant peace when it comes to, okay, how do I get, you know, how do I do a snatch? And you're just like, it's just like you're just talking too much. The thing that matters is that you care about your athlete. Yep. I think that's a, a strength of mine. And through coaching basketball, uh, working with young people.

Being in the law enforcement environment to be able to communicate with people and to tell them, Hey, I, I care about you. I've said those things to athletes in law enforcement. I care about you. I want you to be successful. I want you to be safe. If you can do that. Right in the beginning and they know that you care about them.

Yep. They're good. Yeah, you're good. And then over, over the years in coaching, you're gonna get better short cues, like short, uh, chest up. Yep. Eyes up, knees out. Right. Body part direction. Right. Those, those are the things that we need to do as coaches. But again, to get buy-in, get trust, your athlete, they need to know that you care about them.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Matt: Now what we're, we're thinking about in a training environment like, uh, a gym or an affiliate, uh, what training tools do you think are more applicable towards first responders and the fitness they would need for their work? Maybe top five 

Adam: Barbell. 

Matt: Mm-hmm. 

Adam: Sneaky is I am a huge proponent of a dumbbell.

Yeah. The reason I'm saying that is because sometimes in law enforcement, in our training environment, we only have these athletes for a certain amount of time, and let's say a snatch pretty hard, right? And I'm talking full snatch, I'm power snatch. Like very technical, A technical lift. Yeah. I find that we can communicate to our athletes if we're using a dumbbell being in right po.

In in, in better positions. But the thing about the dumbbell that I like is that you can manipulate it and go from one hand to the other. Mm-hmm. And in law enforcement, that's transferable. Uh, I un like I unh holster and I'm on a qualification and I need to, uh, I'm doing one handed shooting and then I shoot all my rounds and I have to do an emergency reload.

I have to be pro, I'm manipulating one object and have to manipulate the other. Right? So when it comes to the, uh, the 10 general physical skills coordination, having a dumbbell and doing alternating dumbbell snatches or power cleans or, or whatever it is, but alternating and manipulating it is. I dunno what the right word is, but it's essential.

Yeah. It's essential to what we do. I have to push somebody away while going for, in a different level of force option. Right. So using a dumbbell, I think is essential. Nobody likes it. Get on a bike. Mm-hmm. The devil's tricycle, whatever. Whatever you want to call it. Salt bike rogue, whatever it is. Great. I like, you know, this, um.

I don't like running. I hate running. Hopefully a lot of people out there can relate to that. I'm good. I think I'm good at it. I just don't like it. But getting on a bike or a rower, right, especially longevity, if we're, you know, have a shift and we're on our feet for a long time or we're sitting and things like that, is that we wanna mitigate some of the, um, joint issues that we might have over time.

So I think being on a, a bike or a rower, um, helps longevity for police officers rather than just like slamming your, your feet on the pavement. And again, yep. I just don't like running, so it is what it is. Well, you, you have the wrong form when you're running and cause damage over time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's, that, you know, this, that's always been like a long running joke with me.

So, uh, barbell, dumbbells, uh, those two mono structural and I think anything that you can carry. Uh, if that's gonna be a D ball, if that's gonna be a sandbag, obviously we can do lots of different things with a sandbag, but to be able to build up that armor mm-hmm. Right. To be able to carry things because we could, we might have to carry people away, might have to carry things to a scene.

I think that is probably underutilized. But if you can find places where you can carry things under high heart rate, uh, maybe mimic stress and things like that out on a scene. I think those tools would be very valuable to law enforcement. Yeah. Or to emergency services. I wanna be inclusive there.

Emergency services. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Like any, any maybe first responder or responder type thing. I love that you said dumbbells. I'm gonna throw in kettlebells too. I love those in a, as they translate over to that type of work. Uh, I think barbell's superior with strength training. Because you can, like, you can load the smallest of small weight change plates and you can really get nerdy with your, like, progressions and strength and performance.

Um, but I, I think being able to manipulate a single object around the body is, 'cause you don't need a lot of strength. You talk to a jujitsu athlete, you don't need a lot of strength to do certain types of things. However, you need to be able to manipulate weight outside of the body, maybe in like different planes.

And I think that those are superior in doing that. 

Adam: Yeah. And I'm not an exercise physio person. Yeah. So all that, all the technical things. Yeah. But I can, what I can tell you is that manipulating an external object, it creates armor on your body. 

Yeah. 

Adam: It, it creates protection in your joints. It, it creates that ability.

To be able to move in space and to deal with ever force is being applied to you. Uh, and you get to do it here in a, in a great space like CrossFit, juggernaut, go out and, and, and test, test those things. But yeah, love dumbbells, obviously a barbell bikes and rowers and go carry something heavy. Let's, 

Matt: cool.

Let's go. If you could impart some words of wisdom. To current or aspiring first responders about their health and fitness, what would it be? I think that's 

Adam: the, the heaviest question. Obviously there's a lot going on in the space right now in, in, in, um, emergency services. We deal with a lot of things. Uh, we see a lot of bad things.

You know, you can research it right now or go on chat, GBT, whatever you do. Hey, what happens when you put stress on your body for 20 years when it comes to your physical health and your mental health? You need to be selfish when it comes to those things. Selfish in the. The fact that you want to provide the best service for your, uh, community, that you serve selfish in the fact that there are people who care about you.

And you need to work hard so you can enjoy those moments with your friends and your family, uh, and have the physical skills and the mental skills and the mental toughness to be able to get through the shift, get through the year, get through a career. I find that even though we put out a lot of resources to law enforcement about mental health and.

Physical health, more the mental health part is that there's still a stigma attached to it. My words of wisdom to anybody getting into law enforcement, uh, or currently in law enforcement is have a unbelievable support system to be able to communicate some of the things that you might have experienced.

Be okay with being vulnerable with those people. Find a community of like-minded people to help you. There is a, there's lots of resources out there. Valor for Blue is out there, safe Leos out there. Uh, for all, um, law enforcement officers, financial health, mental health. Um, suicide awareness, things like that.

There's tons of resources out there, and I would encourage everyone to find those resources. But in the end, you need to find that strong support system. Um, you are one of those people for me, my, my family, uh, the coworkers that I had throughout my career. Um, I saw, I, I was, I was sharing a experience with you.

Before we came on the air of, I saw one of guys I trained right. And he was going through some stuff and I, and I saw him and I stopped and I, I wanted to connect with him 'cause I haven't seen him for a long time. Is it's okay to talk about things like that, to have those experiences and to tell people that you actually care about them.

The emergency services we're tough and we're this and we're that. And we can deal with anything. We're human beings. Yep. We need each other. We need to be able to communicate with each other. We need to have fun. We need to go out and support each other. Um, if you make a mistake, we need to be there to help people who make mistakes.

Um, and that could be something that is like super serious or a mistake that's made on, on, oh, I missed, I didn't get my final poll in my, in my snatch, or whatever it is. Like, those are the smaller things, but to be able in an environment where people care about you and to give you, uh, the resources needed to be successful.

I know that was kind of long-winded, but I think in the end have a strong support system. Generally care about people, go help people, um, have fun, um, and don't ever, ever be afraid to talk to people if you're going through something tough. 

Matt: Yeah. There's, there's a lot of gold in there and it's very, very impactful.

I think, um, at the heart of it is connection. Find, find connection, find your people to help you and connect. Yeah. That's the coolest thing about. 

Adam: Coming back to CrossFit. Juggernaut is starting coaching here, like we said earlier, in, in, in 2015, and then being part of other great affiliates and learning from them, you know, being at White Mountain for a while with Ian, with Brad, with all those great people over there.

Battle CrossFit, right? With Jody and Glen. Yeah. Uh, Nick and Ryan, Dave, all those people over there. Uh, it's just, it's so refreshing to come into a place that actually, actually, you know, we've viewed the, we've used the care words so much that actually care about you. Like it's so cool to be able to go and find your people, find your community.

It has. Unequivocally changed my life, changed my family's life. I'm so thankful. Yeah. I'm just, I'm very thankful. 

Matt: Yeah. Heck yeah. Love it. All right, let's go. Unstoppable challenge. Yep. Uh, so check your current training routine. Are you training for how you fit your uniform? Not at all, or the demands of the job.

Remember, duty demands, predictability train. So your performance is reliable, not just hopeful. You're unstoppable by design. Are you a first responder out there looking to train either for your upcoming fitness test or you wanna get in lifesaving shape? Reach out to us@juggernautfitness.com and schedule a get to know you session.

Hit follow drop. A quick review if this clarified your path, and keep notifications on new episodes drop every Tuesday. Next week we'll be diving into how to overcome gym intimidation. Until then be well be unstop. 

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