Operational Endurance Is Required Now More Than Ever For First Responders

In this episode, Andi explains why operational endurance is required more now than ever for First Responders

What You'll Learn:

➡️Exercise and nutrition are definitely a solid base but more tools are needed in order to maintain your operational endurance.

➡️Make sure that  your body is healing, repairing and able to peak whenever that next operation comes

➡️And a lot more! 

Are you ready to learn all the tools needed to live a 911 lifestyle that can help you stay strong throughout your entire career? Then Coach Yourself To Be 911 Shift Strong! Sign up for the FREE TRAINING HERE ➡️ https://911lifestyle.com/coachyourselftobe911shiftstrongjoin

If you want to learn more about the 911 Elite Performance Program before joining, Book A Call with Andi here! ➡️https://calendly.com/911lifestyle/25min?month=2022-06

Or connect with Andi Online! 

Learn more works of Andi at www.911lifestyle.com

Follow Andi on LinkedIn

Join the free Facebook Community - 911 Shift Ready Podcast

I'm Andy Clark, mom and wife of an officer I've been reversing and preventing

burnout and first responders since 2018.

Welcome to the 911 Shift Ready podcast where we will dive into sleep, anger,

energy, hypervigilance, anxiety, and other burnout symptoms in order

to arm you with the knowledge, understanding, and tools beyond exercise

and nutrition to be 911 shift ready.

So you can thrive not only for the remainder of your career but

also at home in your family life.

And then bring those tools back to your service.

So the compound effect can take place and together we can decrease burnout

in the 911 lifestyle community.

Operational endurance is required more now than any other time in

most first responders careers.

The hours that are being asked of you right now, the shift work where

you are doing doubles, triples.

Shoot.

Last week I was speaking with someone from fire where they're back doing six shifts

in a row at busy stations where they have 10 to 15 calls a shift for six in a row

that's 144 hours straight, which is what they were doing the first year of COVID.

And what we're seeing from many of the responders that I speak of and from what

I've seen in my husband himself, the first year of COVID, we saw him three days a

month between working COVID logistics with the uprise in protests that he was

at anti-mask, pro-mask, anti-vax, pro-vax.

There was also so much unrest with Black Lives Matters that

occurred during this time as well.

I was hearing from responders that they knew the risks that they took

when they signed up for the job but they did not sign up for their

family to be put at risk as well.

We had responders whose families with immunocompromised kids.

There were stations going out, fire stations, EMS, entire

stations police services, depending on the size of the service.

My husband's is quite large.

They did have some big outbreaks at some of the divisions and

there was so much where if anybody had symptoms, they were off.

And the amount of short staffing was unbelievable as

well as the addition of hours.

Through that time as well, the civilians themselves, the

anxiety was increasing in them.

Depression, drugs and overdosing.

There were a lot more calls.

There were, I know my husband had a lot more missing person

calls during that time as well.

There was increased violence, domestic violence, so many different

calls that each and every one of you is exposed to were on the rise.

So we're talking about increased call volumes with COVID lockdown

and then stations going out and neighboring stations having to cover

for not only their own station, but these other stations as well.

The operational hours that have been asked of you in the last three

years is starting to take effect.

What we're seeing now is a rise in burnout.

A rise of more first responders medicalling out because of exhaustion.

And it is absolutely important right now for those of you that are still

able to be working your shifts to maintain operational endurance.

Cause if you go down as well, who is going to do the work for you?

Your job requires you to be there 24/7.

We need you.

Civilians, they may not understand how much you hold this world together.

They may not realize how much you do help, what you protect, how many

people you help on a daily basis.

Know that it doesn't go unnoticed.

It is very, very important that this COVID effect doesn't hit you and that you are

able to maintain operational endurance.

Your job needs, you.

Civilians need you.

Heck, I need my husband to stay on top of his game.

You may be trying all of the things that have worked for you in the past and

kept you strong up until this point.

Working out , staying tactically strong.

There's so many different ways you all do that.

There's all different kinds of sports.

There's CrossFit, we have jujitsu, lots of different martial arts, a lot of different

tactical training that a lot of you do.

And that definitely keeps you strong for the job.

Eating healthy when it's possible.

The thing is that with having longer blocks, with more call volume, you're

not getting as much time to be preparing your meals or to be sitting and having

more of these healthy meals as well, and they can only get you so far.

When you are pushing your body as hard as many of you are pushing

and then taking supplements.

A lot of the supplements have done you well for up until this point of your

career but you may be finding that the supplements you were taking to help

heal and repair post workout or the supplements that you were taking to

boost your immune system or keep your body strong, may not be having the

effect that they have had up until this point in your career because of how

hard you have had to push operationally.

It's getting to the point where your body is needing more tools.

So it's not saying that exercise and nutrition or the supplements that you've

been taking are not good anymore.

It's that your body is being pushed to a point that we need to add more

tools into your toolbox in order for you to stay strong operationally, for

you to continue pushing the way that your job needs you to push right now.

Then we all need you to be pushing this way and stay strong

and safe while you are doing so.

Exercise and nutrition, they can only get you so far.

We need to add in more tools.

If we think of it like a sports car that you would buy right off of the lot.

You're going to take that car home and to maintain it you're going

to give it the proper fuel and make sure that car is given what it needs.

Now, let's say though that you want to bring that car to a track to start racing.

Are the tools that you've been using right now to keep that car in peak condition

for what you've been doing off track, are those tools going to be enough?

Is the fuel and the way that you've been maintaining that car going to be enough?

Or do you need to lift the hood of that car, maybe do some more diagnostics,

see where things are being pushed?

Do you maybe need to upgrade some of the parts in that?

What do you need to do in order to make that car go to that next level?

We also think of pro athletes where each step that a pro athlete takes

they may have started playing for fun.

And then they get enough skills that they're able to make it onto like

double A, triple A team, a rep team and then they eventually get drafted.

But every single time that they get drafted, every time that they move

to that next level, they are being introduced to specialized coaches.

And each time that they get these specialized coaches, these coaches are

taking that sports car, doing diagnostics with it and upgrading the parts.

They're pushing their mind further so that they can stay more focused during games.

They are pushing their body more.

Teaching them how to be healing and repairing.

Guys that have gotten to pro athlete status where they weren't

watching their sleep or their nutrition was absolutely horrific.

At a pro athlete level that only carried them so far.

And then they had to start getting better and better tools if they wanted

to continue to stay on top of their game.

That is where we are finding right now with all of the operational stressors that

have been placed on all of you in the last three years, how many hours you're doing.

I mean, the overtime that my husband has worked this year has been astronomical.

If we take the last three years of his overtime, it probably equals

more than his overtime accumulation pre-COVID for his entire career.

It is amazing how much has been placed on all of you.

And if you're anything like my husband, he is continually moving into more

specializations where they are pushed whenever there are special operations.

With a lot that has been going on, there's been more unrest

as well coming out of lockdown.

There's a lot of people that are in this fight or flight mode and

there's a lot more social unrest.

All of these, I know for my husband are leading into more frequent

special operations which requires more time in order to execute.

But now they're more frequent as well.

His recovery time is in between, is less.

Tools that used to work for him earlier in his career were not working for him

and he needed to upgrade that toolbox.

In order to continue moving up the ranks in order to get that pro athlete

status, in order to continue to move your body onto a track where you are

going to push as hard as you can, and you need to make sure that your body

is healing, repairing and able to peak whenever that next operation comes.

Whenever that next block of overtime comes, you need to be ready for that.

I've seen so much of this in my career.

I have a 30 year personal training and nutrition coaching career with

athletes with high level executives since 2018 with first responders.

My background as well is in massage therapy and sports rehab, like

really deep depth knowledge of the body and how it really works.

I am continually taking courses and the thing is that with these courses that I've

taken about five, six years into my career I was eating really healthy working out.

I had done fitness competitions.

And my body got to this point where it couldn't handle the tools that I

was using for it were not enough to be able to handle, to keep my body strong.

And workouts, I was going to work out and my strengths were

decreasing instead of increasing.

I would go in and my energy would be depleted when I'd go to workout.

I used to be one of the strongest girls in the gym then all of a sudden my strengths

just decreased and decreased and decreased and I didn't know what was going on.

I was exhausted all of the time.

Pushing from morning to night.

Injuries started creeping in.

My moods were all over the place and food started bothering my gut, so I

couldn't eat as healthy as I wanted to.

I'm an action taker though and I knew that this was not the life I was living.

I'm like, Okay, these tools were not working.

So I started learning and studying and finding other experts in their fields

to start to figure out what they did complimented the knowledge base that I

had and started learning more and more from them to start putting these puzzle

pieces together of what tools I was requiring in order to help push my body

beyond what exercise and nutrition and the basic supplements could do for me.

And that took me to where I am today.

Where I've been able to teach my husband the tools in order to

stay strong the last three years.

As I said, we saw him about three days a month for the first year of COVID.

This past year he has been a part of so many operational

projects with crazy hours.

He had a 33 hour shift in there, couple over 24 as well.

But the average over those 33 days was 18 hours.

So that means that he had six hours to get two and from work, showered,

dressed fed, and possibly see our family.

And in six hours, that's not possible to get the amount of sleep that you

need during that operational push in order to not create sleep debt.

We needed to make sure that his sleep was as on track as possible and

that the sleep that he was getting during that time or during any of

his operations is quality sleep.

That he's getting enough deep sleep and REM sleep to heal his body and

to be able to problem solve and really figure out all the logistics

and everything that he needs in the day to day operations of his job.

And we need to make sure that his body's healing and repairing and we're

bringing out all of the tools we need to make sure that his nutrition is

getting all of the support that he needs.

There's no way.

Absolutely no way that the healthiest eater, absolute healthiest eater

out there can ingest the proper vitamins and minerals that your

stress system requires in your job.

The shift work already depletes some but also the hours that you're

working, the way that you're pushing operationally, your body requires more.

We need to make sure that everything is on par for him.

He has worked, unbelievable hours.

The thing is, is that he's sleeping great.

He recovers quickly.

We're going on vacation in a few weeks and he's counting down the days

to go cause we haven't gone in like three years cause COVID and lockdown.

But he's not counting down until he can stop.

He's excited to still go to work.

He's excited to be going there because his body is strong.

He's getting the great sleeps.

His body's healing and repairing.

He's waking with energy most days.

When he has a block where he's pulling some more overtime and he's really pushing

hard then yes, his energy does go down.

And yes, he does get a little bit tired but he is so on track

with the tools that he needs.

He gets out of it quickly.

He is playing hockey and curling every week.

He curls Mondays and Tuesdays and also plays hockey on Mondays.

And so that means he's going into his work week, it's technically Monday and Friday,

although he's quite often seven days a week but he's going into technically

his work week with really pushing his body physically hard and he's good.

He's good until Friday.

He is recovered.

And his body is ready to go.

He's running around with our boys.

He just took one of my kids out so that I could record this podcast episode.

He makes most of our dinners.

He does tons around the house to help out.

He is not just sitting on the couch like he has done in the past before

we started instilling these tools because his body was so tired.

I'm the one that actually just took a nap.

He didn't today at all.

And this is, I believe, only a second weekend off that he's had in the

last like, three or four months.

So he's just recovering so quickly because he has implemented the right

tools to recover quickly after all of the operational stress that is thrown at him.

He loves his job and he is operationally strong.

He's ready for.

Oh gosh, knock on wood.

I don't want to say this.

He's ready for what's thrown at him next, but hopefully nothing happens this year.

And hopefully we do get to go on this vacation and all is good.

Now, this is because he has added those tools and the support.

He's added, the right supplements, he's added in all of the

other tools he's added in.

The things that he knows for him gets him into a deep sleep.

And the thing is, is that it's different for each of you.

There are certain strategies that across the board help but then

for us to even fine tune even more is individual to each of you.

So it's really understanding what tools are going to help you get that best

restorative sleep so your body heals and repairs, so you're not getting those

over training injuries and your body is physically ready and repaired and peaking

and you're making gains in the gym.

Getting personal bests able to really push it in workouts in between all of

these operations that are going on.

So does this mean that exercise and nutrition are not important?

Absolutely not.

They are the solid base.

They are that foundation.

But just like the car, these are the exercise and nutrition I equate

to being like your quality gas.

Really good oil, like good oil changes, regular maintenance on your car.

That's how I attribute exercise and nutrition.

The tools that my husband's been adding, those are like going in under the hood,

doing those diagnostics and souping it up or it's whenever somebody in sports

gets to that next level then they start learning from some higher end coaches

that have some extra tips and tricks and tools and strategies in their

tool bag in order to get you to that next level in order to keep you there.

So the exercise and the nutrition are very important.

They are there for you day in and day out but as you're getting to where

the most operational endurance is required from what I've seen and heard

from responders that I've worked with then more tools are needed above and

beyond exercise and the nutrition.

You need to have tools that you can pull out on a call.

That can help you right away during the call to be supporting your stress system.

You need tools to recover quickly after and understanding what to

do between your blocks of shifts so that you are ready for the next

demand on your body when it comes.

So if you would like to see if our 911 performance program is for you, cause this

is everything that I teach in the program are the tools that I teach my husband, the

tools that I teach all of the responders.

We have fire medics, we have flight paramedics.

We have a fire that is also actually a surgeon.

We have police all different, like high level tactical specialized units.

We have EMS.

We work with all different first responders, corrections and making

sure that you have all of these other tools in order to keep you strong

during this operational stress.

And that is our 911 Elite Performance Program.

So if you would like to see if our 911 Elite Performance is for you, email us

at support@911Lifestyle.com and ask for our 911 Elite Performance Assessment.

That's where I'll give you a link to my calendar and you'll book a call where

we can actually talk through what you're currently doing in order to stay strong

operationally, what problems you really want to solve and then we'll see if 911

Elite Performance is a good fit for you.

We don't take just anyone.

We take those who are wanting to really get that push operationally, want to

get that endurance operationally for themselves to stay strong with everything

that is being thrown at you everyday.

So I did cap on a little bit of what it does take to be operationally

strong but let's just break it down into three different phases.

So the first thing is being 911 shift ready.

And the thing is that quite often with exercise, with nutrition as well.

It's taught to civilians who don't work nights, so it's really figuring

out how to make sure that your body is strong 24 hours a day, what to do on

night shifts versus day shifts, how to adjust your sleep on any shift schedule

if you are coming off of a 24, 48, if you're coming off of a 12 hour shift.

And you're sleeping maybe it's seven in the morning.

What do you do?

How do you manage that?

How do you manage that with your circadian rhythms?

How do you make sure that your body knows this is the time to

sleep, to heal, to repair, to get into that deep and REM sleep.

And when it wakes up, how does it know that this is the time for you

to be starting your day so that all of the right hormones are kicking

in so that your body's healing and repairing your mind memory, cognitive

is healing and repairing as well.

And that your whole body is working the way it is should so that

your stress system is supported.

So that's part of being 911 shift ready is making sure that you do understand

the tools beyond exercise and nutrition in order to make sure that your sleep

is really on track for a shift worker.

And to make sure that your body is doing what it needs to do, when it

needs to do to keep it strong from a hormonal stress system perspective.

Then we get into the next phase of strong resting system.

Your strong resting system is really, really important

because your stress system is overpowering your resting system.

Your stress system is so strong, you call on it for every single call

pretty much while you're on shift.

The last three years, the amount of times, the frequency that you have had to kick

into your stress system is astronomical and your stress system gets so strong it

starts overpowering your resting system.

So we need to go and implement strategies just like we would for

your muscles, but for your nerves For your resting nervous system so that

your resting nervous system becomes just as strong as your stress system.

And in order to make it just as strong as your stress system then you can start

controlling which one you're in and when you're not, so that you're not living

in that stress system, that stress nervous system as much, you can shut

it off as soon as it's safe to do so.

As soon as the call is over and finished and it is safe to shut yourself out of

that stress state, you can switch into that resting state where your body starts

digesting and healing and repairing.

Which dives us into the last piece of this puzzle for staying strong,

keeping that operational endurance, which is post-shift recovery.

And there are certain strategies that are necessary in order

for you to recover quicker.

There are certain supplements, there are certain things that can be done

as soon as the operation is over.

As soon as your block of overtime is over, there's things to do to get your body to

recover quickly and to get through that operational stress, so that whenever

the next call comes, you are ready.

Your body is recovered and heals.

So the thing is, is that if you don't do all three of these then you start

getting into this vortex into the spiral where certain things start happening,

where your sleep might not be healing and repairing you as much, where you

might start getting some good sleeps but you're having some crappy sleeps as well.

Where you might not always be feeling like your body's healing, repairing.

You might be able to kick that in the gym sometimes but then there's other

times you're like, what's going on?

Why is my body not able to push today in the gym?

And you're not able to really start getting that recovery going.

So if you're missing one of these pieces, the 911 shift, ready being strong resting

system or post shift recovery then you're not able to get to that next level.

You're not going to be one of those athletes that's on the front lineup

all of the time, able to perform, able to get the high scores all of the

time because there's pieces missing.

So to recap on what we have talked about today, the last three years operationally,

have required so much of first responders, more so than most responders have

experienced in their entire career.

And with that, we're starting to see now there was a lot of overtime, a lot

of operations that increased during the first year of COVID and second

year and they started dwindling.

But now as responders are burning out and going off on medical leave, there's a lot

more short staffing at leaving a lot more overtime and higher call volumes for you.

And so for those of you that are still strong, still standing,

need to stay operationally strong.

You need to increase the operational endurance.

Exercise and nutrition are definitely a solid base but more

tools are needed in order to maintain your operational endurance.

And those tools are understanding what is required in order to be 911 shift

ready, having a strong resting system and understanding what is needed for

post shift recovery on top of the exercise on top of healthy eating.

If you would like to see if 911 Elite Performance is for you.

Definitely email support@911Lifestyle.com and ask for a 911 Elite Performance

Assessment where we will talk through what you are currently doing to stay strong

operationally, what problems you want to solve, and we're going to help you

see if 911 Elite performance is for you.

Again, that support@911Lifestyle.com.

If you would like to start working on your operational endurance right now.

I hope you have found value in today's episode.

Don't forget to like, and share this episode so it's shown to more first

responders and subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss future episodes.

Go to our website, 911ShiftReady.com if you would like to work with us,

learn more about our 911 Lifestyle Program, gain access to our free

training, join our mailing list or find our social media channels.