All About Fitness

Over the past 20 years a whole new category of fitness has evolved: conditioning programs that meet the specific needs of military and first responders. Other than the fitness requirements to get hired, many departments did not have specific fitness protocols and the employees were left to working out on their own, often following bodybuilding programs that did not adequately prepare their bodies for the physical demands of their job. September 11, 2001 identified a need for first responders to possess a high state of fitness to handle any challenge they might face in the line of duty. In response hundreds of millions of dollars of federal aid was made available to help fire departments update their exercise protocols. In addition, after almost two decades of continuous combat operations, much of it in urban environments, most of the branches of the military have changed the way they physically and mentally prepare for operating in the field. The fact is that whether fighting a fire, working a car accident, d