By Rob Shaul The Fire/Rescue profession is a physically demanding, high-risk occupation. In fire departments, many individual Fire/Rescue Athletes (F/RAs) agree fitness is important, but many fire departments also have notably weak fitness cultures which demonstrate inadequate support for fitness and poor participation in fitness training. With this project, we developed and applied a Fitness Culture Assessment for […]
Adam Scott, MS, CSCS Winston Churchill attributed his success in life to it. For athletes, it could mean the difference between fourth quarter success or failure. For tactical athletes, it could be a matter of life or death. Churchill called it: “economy of effort.” Although, by no means an athlete, maybe the famed British Prime […]
Adam Scott, MS, CSCS Last week marked the end of our 6-week 3 method pull-up training experiment. So, on Tuesday we conducted our post-cycle assessment to see how our athletes (and the 3 training methods) stacked-up. Methods (Quick Summary): Six weeks ago we divided our athletes into 3 pull-up training groups: (1) Volume Pull-Up Training, […]
By Rob Shaul The Mountain Tactical Institute demonstrates our hard pivot to human and mission performance research. It’s built from a serious need for an institution which places the mission first. Our focus is “Mission-Direct Research” – practical, functional, innovative tools and techniques mountain and tactical athletes can deploy in the real world, right away. […]
By Adam Scott, MS, CSCS This article was first published in June 2015 June 15th marked the beginning of our summer Freeski Training Program. This year’s training incorporates new methodologies. Training will begin with a focus on athlete endurance and what we are calling, “chassis integrity” – a combination of core and lower body […]
By Rob Shaul We are pleased to officially announce the development of the Mountain Tactical Institute. The Mountain Tactical Institute (MTI) is the research and development arm of Strong Swift Durable, and represents our continued effort to provide innovative, thought leading solutions to mountain and tactical professionals. MTI’s research initiatives will include human performance but also expand […]
By Dr. Kristen Ouellette and Rob Shaul The goal of our Ruck Deep Dive waa to develop the most effective, efficient, and least impactful methodology to train for rucking performance. Key to developing this methodology is identifying what fitness and other attributes have the most impact on rucking performance. Going into this pilot study, we […]
By Dr. Kristen Ouellett and Rob Shaul We developed The Alpinist Project as a physiological and fitness testing tool for high level and professional alpinists. The tests occurred over two days, with the physiological testing day 1, and Alpinist Fitness Assessment on Day 2. Five athletes were tested; four men and one woman. […]
By Rob Shaul Several studies have been conducted on Firefighters’ work-related fitness demands. Below is a summary of some of the more interesting findings. Which Fitness Assessments Translate Best to Job-Related Tasks? In 2004 researchers at Arizona State University partnered with the Phoenix Fire Department to identify which fitness assessments best predicted performance on […]
By Rob Shaul Our Ruck Deep Dive work has continued this past month. We’ve conduced VO2 Max tests unloaded, and loaded (45 pounds and 60 pounds) with five lab rats and have some very preliminary findings based on this limited, non-scientific work: Athletes with high aerobic fitness do well on short, hard event Athletes with […]