By Erin Mathews
Salina Journal – September 23, 2013
To understand why Adrienne Gapter is so excited about the change she’s seen in the attitude of Salina firefighters toward fitness, you have to hear the fried chicken story.
“One old guy said to me, ‘Adrienne, you expect us to eat cold fried chicken? We’re not going to exercise on duty. We’re eating that chicken right when it comes out of that grease.’ Dead serious. He said that,” the clinical exercise physiologist said of her early days of working with the department.
Gapter, who knows the No. 1 cause of death among firefighters is coronary artery disease, followed by accidents at No. 2, said when she first started evaluating firefighters’ physical fitness 28 years ago, her efforts were “underappreciated.”
“Many of those guys hated to come here,” she said. “They’d say, ‘Adrienne, you just tell us we’re fat and out of shape.’”
At the station, the only exercise equipment was a stationary bike that sat unused at Station 1. Although Gapter gave each man an individualized exercise plan, she said she knew it would usually go unheeded.
Fast forward to Wednesday, when firefighter/emergency medical technician Mark Newton was running on a treadmill in Gapter’s Comcare office and setting a new record high on the test she administers to measure the volume of oxygen the body is able to use during physical exertion.
Ahead of the ‘chicken’
At the conclusion of each of the 12.5 minutes Newton ran on the treadmill, Gapter asked him if she should increase the speed or grade at which he was running, and several times he responded “both.”
Afterward, he returned to the station, where the fitness room full of exercise equipment can be utilized for an hour and a half of each firefighter’s 24-hour shift.
Gapter said the Salina Fire Department has emerged from the “fried chicken culture” and is now ahead of most other departments nationwide in requirements that both new hires and current firefighters meet criteria for maximum rate of oxygen uptake. The amount of oxygen the body can utilize is a good indicator of a fit heart and lungs, she said.
You’ll be tested
The test Gapter administers, known as the VO2 Max, measures heart rate and oxygen consumption and provides hard numbers to assess a person’s fitness level, she said. A minimum level of fitness is now required for a firefighter to wear a breathing apparatus, standard equipment for firefighting.
The test has become an annual requirement, as is a timed test of strength and agility that replicates some firefighting challenges. While dressed in full gear, including an oxygen tank—firefighters must carry a 100-foot hose, weighing about 50 pounds, up five flights of stairs; raise another 100-foot hose up to the roof on a rope; simulate the motion of swinging an ax by driving a sled 10 feet by pounding it with a sledgehammer, drag 100 feet of water-filled hose, weighing about 80 pounds, 100 feet, and spray it; and drag a 175-pound dummy 100 feet.
The price of sloth
Gapter said she has performed a VO2 screening test and body fat analysis for firefighters for 28 years, but she said starting in 2011 there were consequences for poor performance on the test.
To keep their jobs, firefighters are required to have a VO2 Max result of at least 30 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. New hires had to have a VO2 Max of at least 35.
In that first year, she said several employees fell below the required range and were placed on light duty, and nine had to be retested after results below the requirement in 2012. But so far this year, no one has fallen below the required level, and the median test score is 46.21, she said.
In December 2012, Comcare acquired new equipment that makes the results much more reliable by measuring the oxygen breathed in and blown out, she said. She said the decision was made to purchase the CardioCoach VO2 Fitness Assessment System shortly after the new requirements were enacted and employees’ jobs could be affected by inaccurate numbers.
One of the new breed
Newton, who tested at 73.7 Wednesday, is among the new generation of firefighters, many of whom were hired after the more stringent fitness standards were imposed. For them, exercise is a necessary part of life that helps them meet the rigorous physical and mental requirements of the job.
Newton said the healthy lifestyle promoted by the job was “one of the things that intrigued me about it.” He said he also relishes the physical and mental challenges, and the feeling that he makes a difference in the lives of people he serves.
“I have a whole new reason to work out,” he said. “It’s not just about myself now. It’s also about the people I’m sworn to protect and the people going in with me.”
Everyone needs to be fit
When walking into the heat of a building on fire wearing an oxygen mask and about 75 pounds of gear after being awakened by a 2 a.m. alarm, it helps to have increased physical stamina, he said. He said he wants to see all of his friends and co-workers reach their fitness goals so that they are better prepared for the 1,500 yearly fire calls and about 5,500 annual medical calls the 84 firefighters working at Salina’s four stations handle.
“The bottom line is that’s a guy I’m going into a fire next to,” he said. “We’re going in as a team, and we leave as a team. We’re only as strong as our weakest link. I’d like to see all of us at a level that would make sure we do the job properly. It’s a safety issue—to make sure everybody goes home.”
Newton said regular exercise is also important for another reason.
“More than anything to me it’s stress relief,” Newton said. “You see a lot of things human beings aren’t meant to see as a firefighter. Exercise helps me deal with that.”
What the old guys did
Salina firefighters have always been willing to risk life and limb to save someone else, but Gapter found that at first many of them were resistant to her message that taking care of themselves was important as well. That changed in 2011.
“When you don’t have to do it, and you don’t want to do it, you don’t do it, and that’s what the old guys did,” she said. “One fireman gained 110 pounds during the time I tested him, but when you think about it that was just about five pounds a year. It’s very insidious because it just creeps up on you a little at a time.”
She had to be tough
Fire Chief Larry Mullikin said the changes have been good for the department but they haven’t come “without some anxiety.”
To enforce the new requirements, he said, Gapter has had to be tough.
“Some of the guys have really given her the stink eye,” he said. “They didn’t like what she had to say, but they needed to hear it. She’s dedicated to it. Without her and Dr. (Reese) Baxter, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
Baxter performs the department’s complete physicals and pulmonary lung tests, which continue to be a part of the firefighters’ fitness evaluation.
“It changed the mentality of the fire department,” said Scott McCready, chairman of the department’s fitness committee. “Some guys didn’t take it seriously and then once we came up with this, they realized, ‘Hey, this has consequences.’ The next thing you know, five guys are out running around the block.”
It’s a good thing
Firefighter/EMT Jesse Levin said he and several co-workers received an award for fitness improvement after they got together and trained for and ran the Fool’s Day 5 in 2012.
“I was able to run about a mile when we first started,” he said. “I was probably the most out of shape to begin with.”
He said although he and others resisted the new emphasis on fitness at first, it’s turned out to be a good thing.
“It definitely gets you motivated,” he said. “It’s been for the better for all of us. We’ve all embraced it now and all feel better about ourselves.”
Gapter said she knew the department had truly embraced the program when she started getting thanks from some of the firefighters who had resisted the program’s implementation. She said firefighters both on- and off-duty are walking, running, biking and playing basketball and other games that require movement.
“One said to me the other day ‘I really didn’t want to do this, but I knew I needed to, so this is making me. I’m kind of grateful for it,’” she said.
Making diet changes, too
In addition to getting more exercise, Gapter said firefighters have also made dietary improvements.
Twenty years ago, firefighters used a large can of shortening every week just to make popcorn at the station. The “food bill,” the name for the food cooked communally for firefighters on duty, was “all about quantity, not quality, and you ate until you were stuffed,” said Capt. Mark Grosland, of Station 4.
“They were fixing a half pound of beef per man, a half a chicken per man,” Grosland said. “There were tubs and tubs of casserole. The main staple every night was popcorn, if we didn’t have ice cream. We still have ice cream, but now there’s always some left. Before it would have been gone.”
Bringing his meals
When Grosland, who had watched his father’s struggles with cardiac problems, attempted to start experimenting with healthier food on his own, he was shamed into getting back on the food bill, he said. Now he mostly brings his own meals, which incorporates more fruit, nuts, grains and natural foods.
“Now you’ll see guys bringing in more healthy options—salmon, spinach, yogurt,” he said.
Mullikin said he shift in focus really started with the physical fitness committee. He said increased fitness has helped firefighters to better perform their duties.
“These guys are seen as community heroes,” Mullikin said. “When they roll up, things are better when they get there.”
Hefting obese patients
One of the more frequent physical challenges that firefighters face is loading obese patients on an ambulance gurney that they may have to maneuver up a flight of stairs, McCready said. Gapter said it would be wonderful for Salina if the entire community could find inspiration from the fire department’s success and make exercise a priority.
“If you’re breathing, there’s still hope,” she said. “That’s my motto.”
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