Full Transcript for Ep. 26 - Physical Training for Mountain Rescue Professionals with Rob Shaul of Mountain Tactical Institute

--> 00:02:26.843 Use it annually to prepare yourself for specific needs or specific goals, and they have a great app to walk you through that training plan day by day. 00:02:26.889 --> 00:02:26.949 It. 00:02:27.449 --> 00:02:29.128 We dive into a lot of topics here. 00:02:29.399 --> 00:02:45.519 How to prepare yourself physically for seasonal work, be that ski patrol or wildland fire, how to address the fitness needs of a search and rescue member, or ski patroller, who's in season, who has part-time role in search and rescue, or works in a non-physical job for the rest of their life. 00:02:46.019 --> 00:02:47.834 I hope that you'll listen to this with an open mind. 00:02:48.334 --> 00:02:51.693 Rob gives nutritional recommendations for industrial athletes. 00:02:51.693 --> 00:02:55.498 We discuss professionalism and training craftsmanship in your career and more. 00:02:55.998 --> 00:02:57.468 I think you can get something out of it. 00:02:57.968 --> 00:03:12.269 I know that fitness and nutrition are things that people have a lot of opinions about that are closely held, like religious beliefs, but I think if you come to this conversation with an open mind, you'll find if nothing else, some useful concepts to take back to what you're already doing. 00:03:12.688 --> 00:03:19.169 Maybe Rob's chassis integrity concept connects with you or you find his nutritional information beneficial or. 00:03:19.618 --> 00:03:26.489 You become interested in the usefulness of the sandbags for training for industrial athletes, and you take that back to your own training. 00:03:26.989 --> 00:03:38.538 So be sure to listen through to the end of the podcast because Rob has been kind enough to make an offer to the listeners of this show who are in search and rescue, ski patrol, or other such professional or semi-professional roles. 00:03:39.038 --> 00:03:43.538 Now without further delay, here is my conversation with Rob Shaw. 00:03:43.623 --> 00:03:44.468 I hope you enjoy. 00:03:45.968 --> 00:03:48.579 Rob, thanks for joining me on the podcast. 00:03:48.579 --> 00:03:53.739 I'm excited to have you on here because I've used your training plans previously. 00:03:54.038 --> 00:04:06.258 I've gotten a lot of benefit out of them and I now find myself in a position where I'm moving into medical direction roles and can encourage folks that I work with to start branching out thinking about preseason training. 00:04:06.508 --> 00:04:12.959 I want to, give my listeners who I think are predominantly search and rescue and ski patrol folks. 00:04:13.209 --> 00:04:18.358 A framework for thinking about the fitness demands of their job and how they should be addressing those. 00:04:18.608 --> 00:04:25.749 bet that there's a pretty wide variety of folks out there in terms of some are doing nothing, others are probably, deep in the world of CrossFit. 00:04:25.999 --> 00:04:31.908 I think your background is perfect here, and we'll dive a little bit more into the mission specific thoughts.

00:04:32.158 --> 00:04:35.098 let's just start with an introduction from you. 00:04:35.098 --> 00:04:39.598 Where are you coming from with Mountain Athlete and how did that become the Mountain Tactical Institute? 00:04:39.848 --> 00:04:46.134 So I was in, my, mid late thirties, uh, sold a company and, uh, before I had sold, I'd always been a gym rat. 00:04:46.134 --> 00:04:50.168 Grew up, uh, small town of Wyoming, and, did some time in the military. 00:04:50.288 --> 00:04:53.569 I was in the Coast Guard, went back to my small town, started a business,. 00:04:53.569 --> 00:04:55.519 I'd always been a gym rat, not much of an athlete. 00:04:55.769 --> 00:04:59.519 The mountains were my gym, you know, a 20 mile loop, no problem. 00:04:59.879 --> 00:05:00.838 Those types of things. 00:05:01.088 --> 00:05:02.829 There was real no commercial gym there. 00:05:02.889 --> 00:05:08.788 And, this, uh, physical therapy place had like a universal machine of one rack and a bunch of treadmills. 00:05:09.038 --> 00:05:14.119 And I, I'd go in there train that the owner started noticing that, you know, people were kind of watching what I was doing. 00:05:14.129 --> 00:05:18.718 And so I took like a weekend course got a cheesy, uh, personal training, certification. 00:05:18.968 --> 00:05:24.088 And so started teaching, courses I had all, pretty much all soccer moms, but these are like some badass soccer moms. 00:05:24.338 --> 00:05:26.829 I'd have'em go out and, uh, you know, we'd get out in the summer. 00:05:26.858 --> 00:05:28.569 There was an irrigation ditch above the place. 00:05:28.569 --> 00:05:33.158 I, I'd make'em swim against the current irrigation ditch, run downhill, do burpees, pick up lock. 00:05:33.579 --> 00:05:35.528 They just loved it, you know, they just ate it up. 00:05:35.778 --> 00:05:37.769 And so Jackson's a little bit north decided to go up. 00:05:37.769 --> 00:05:41.278 Jackson and I, I wanted to work with mountain guides and on the mountain side. 00:05:41.278 --> 00:05:42.178 So I started Mountain Athlete. 00:05:42.209 --> 00:05:43.048 I thought it'd be interesting. 00:05:43.439 --> 00:05:49.733 Had no idea really what I was getting into, because I was bringing to it everything I'd learned studying for, strengthening conditioning. 00:05:49.783 --> 00:05:54.103 the existing strength and conditional literature for, mountain athletes, was pretty much non-existent. 00:05:54.564 --> 00:06:01.809 I remember reading the rock climbing books and they were talking mostly about mental stuff and hand movements all that stuff didn't work, started experimenting in the gym. 00:06:01.809 --> 00:06:06.569 That's where we kind of got, you know, my first season, training for, dry land ski stuff. 00:06:06.569 --> 00:06:10.319 I had my athletes doing lots of dead lifts, lots of back squats. 00:06:10.319 --> 00:06:11.999 Oh my God, their legs were so strong. 00:06:12.178 --> 00:06:17.139 Then they came back from the first day at the lift and they were all pissed at me because they got smoke skiing. 00:06:17.408 --> 00:06:18.668 I'm like, how is this possible? 00:06:18.918 --> 00:06:24.889 Well, it turns out when you ski, you, don't use concentric strength, moving your legs up or coming up from the squat. 00:06:25.129 --> 00:06:27.348 You're, you actually, your body is. 00:06:27.598 --> 00:06:29.728 Bouncing down the hill, gravity's bouncing down the hill. 00:06:29.728 --> 00:06:33.569 And it's your job, your legs, to stop your ass from hitting the ground every time you bounce. 00:06:33.928 --> 00:06:36.629 So you gotta decelerate, and that's called eccentric strength training. 00:06:36.988 --> 00:06:38.009 Totally messed that up. 00:06:38.428 --> 00:06:40.439 Made the same mistake with, uh, rock climbers. 00:06:40.689 --> 00:06:42.108 Um, gotta learn a lot. 00:06:42.108 --> 00:06:46.189 That season started, uh, you know, designing specifically for mountain athletes. 00:06:46.189 --> 00:06:47.509 Pretty much had to vent everything. 00:06:47.608 --> 00:06:50.548 All my rock climbing theory came from me'cause all the books are terrible. 00:06:50.673 --> 00:06:55.084 You know, no one developed or found leg blasters to start training eccentric strength for skiers. 00:06:55.394 --> 00:07:02.353 I got really good identifying the fitness demands of an activity and designing programming specifically for those fitness demands. 00:07:02.603 --> 00:07:06.863 And, uh, 2009, Obama did the Afghanistan surge. 00:07:06.863 --> 00:07:08.334 We were getting our asses kicked in Afghani. 00:07:08.834 --> 00:07:12.913 Served in, I think there were six 8,000 troops there, surgeon 30 more thousand. 00:07:13.163 --> 00:07:20.223 And guys, uh, going down range Afghanistan, were getting smoked, doing mountain patrols because a, you know, we're running and rucking on flat stuff. 00:07:20.389 --> 00:07:23.478 So I developed a plant called Lee Afghanistan, pre-deployment plan. 00:07:23.689 --> 00:07:25.278 Give it away to thousands of guys. 00:07:25.528 --> 00:07:28.769 I remember, I, I lost count at 13 battalion commanders. 00:07:28.769 --> 00:07:30.178 He did their entire battalions. 00:07:30.428 --> 00:07:33.678 And, uh, that kind of kicked us over into the tactical side. 00:07:33.928 --> 00:07:39.009 And pretty soon those guys were asking for plans for ranger school and special forces selections. 00:07:39.059 --> 00:07:45.434 And then, on the mountain professional side, rangers, some SAR professionals, wildland Fire, started getting requests for programming. 00:07:45.434 --> 00:07:47.899 Generally, I start designing programming when I get a request for it. 00:07:48.348 --> 00:08:00.334 And so, uh, it kind of builds organically but the overall theory that we developed, identifying the fitness demands of the activity, the exercise that trained those fitness demands, we can't train for every fitness demands, just the ones we can train efficiently in the gym. 00:08:00.584 --> 00:08:05.774 Um, identify end of cycle goals,

pretty much program backward to get to those goals. 00:08:05.803 --> 00:08:07.634 Start the progression and hammer down. 00:08:07.884 --> 00:08:12.593 For example, our mountain, base fitness programming has a significant bias towards uphill endurance. 00:08:12.713 --> 00:08:15.353 Just about every mountain sport starts with a hike uphill. 00:08:15.774 --> 00:08:20.744 And so we do a lot of running or, step ups or uphill hiking under load in our mountain base fitness. 00:08:20.744 --> 00:08:25.418 They still train relative strength and work capacity, all their stuff, but there's a bias towards, uphill endurance. 00:08:25.468 --> 00:08:28.009 The military athlete, instead of hiking uphill, they rock. 00:08:28.278 --> 00:08:38.458 They run the, for their work capacity, they'll do sprints repeats, which is similar to movement under fire, sprint, get down, up sprint again, someone's shooting at you. 00:08:38.708 --> 00:08:40.719 So there's just all these types of different things that we do. 00:08:40.719 --> 00:08:44.318 We're always constantly testing and evaluating and improving. 00:08:44.769 --> 00:08:46.109 And, that's the story of MTI. 00:08:46.359 --> 00:08:50.224 It is, an impressive progression from beginning in Pinedale. 00:08:50.474 --> 00:08:54.104 You touched on this briefly, but I think it's a useful concept to think about. 00:08:54.403 --> 00:08:59.144 How do you think about the different types of athletes and the relative demands for those? 00:08:59.144 --> 00:09:04.274 I'm thinking about an industrial versus a recreational athlete or a tactical athlete. 00:09:04.274 --> 00:09:05.933 How do you parse those out 00:09:06.109 --> 00:09:09.833 Um, it's, it's real easy to do this to, to see a difference on the mountain side. 00:09:09.994 --> 00:09:18.114 Like I have ideal body weights for, different athletes based on height and, the mountain athlete body weights are lower than the tactical athlete body weights. 00:09:18.163 --> 00:09:22.339 Tactical athletes, generally have, uh, higher strength demands. 00:09:22.369 --> 00:09:23.178 Their packs are heavier. 00:09:23.428 --> 00:09:24.389 Let me just give you an example. 00:09:24.389 --> 00:09:31.649 A, you know, like a, a professional rock climber or a recreational athlete, he's an alpine climber or, uh, wants to compete in ski mountaineering. 00:09:31.839 --> 00:09:35.078 Races really don't need much upper body strength, right? 00:09:35.438 --> 00:09:42.614 And so there's no use putting a lot of upper body mass on him, I don't know if you've ever seen a, tour de France, competitor for of those cycling races with their shirt off? 00:09:42.764 --> 00:09:44.624 I mean, I mean it's total spoon chest. 00:09:44.803 --> 00:09:45.614 Yeah, right. 00:09:45.793 --> 00:09:49.693 So, any extra upper body mass is just, extra weight they gotta carry around. 00:09:50.173 --> 00:10:00.099 So there are some significant differences, but if you are a, what I would call an industrial athlete, someone who, is getting paid, to do a specific job, they're not competing in a sport. 00:10:00.599 --> 00:10:07.019 The, the fitness demands you're gonna face are not as identifiable as they are for a schema racer. 00:10:07.198 --> 00:10:08.818 Schema racer can get down. 00:10:08.938 --> 00:10:17.668 I mean, for a specific race, I know exactly how much vertical, exactly how much downhill, you know, idea of how long the race is gonna be, all that other stuff. 00:10:17.719 --> 00:10:26.048 If you go out on a,, SAR mission and it's supposed to be a simple, you know, say a couple snowmobiles got lost, it could turn into a multi-day event. 00:10:26.139 --> 00:10:30.158 You know, um, your pack's gonna be heavier'cause you gotta carry extra gear in. 00:10:30.158 --> 00:10:31.328 Like your med bag, right? 00:10:31.359 --> 00:10:32.109 That shit's heavy. 00:10:32.448 --> 00:10:38.068 So the, the strength loads for industrial athletes, the, I mean, the packs are heavier, period. 00:10:38.469 --> 00:10:39.698 So that means they have more strength. 00:10:39.698 --> 00:10:45.969 Plus you might get there and then you gotta lift, you know, the sled off the guy or pick him up you know, all that other stuff happens. 00:10:46.149 --> 00:10:54.394 So industrial athletes need to be stronger, which means they need to be heavier because the strength is muscle and the session to weight, they need to do more strengthening. 00:10:54.403 --> 00:10:56.894 We need to give more emphasis to their midsection strength. 00:10:57.144 --> 00:11:01.514 The main difference from my perspective is the events are not as predictable. 00:11:01.764 --> 00:11:07.974 Every rescue's a little bit different or could be different, it could turn into something crazy and you have to be prepared for it. 00:11:07.974 --> 00:11:16.744 So the, what you're preparing for is less known, which means that the, the fitness training needs to be a little more comprehensive and a little more general than it would be for a specific event. 00:11:16.994 --> 00:11:19.009 So if you were a SAR member or. 00:11:19.259 --> 00:11:26.918 Professional ski patroller coming into an upcoming season and you're thinking to yourself, well, I'm, I'm a very active person. 00:11:26.918 --> 00:11:28.808 I go out, I ride my mountain bike all the time. 00:11:28.808 --> 00:11:31.399 I trail run, I carry my kids around. 00:11:31.619 --> 00:11:40.153 Where are the deficits gonna be for the professional role in comparison to just what someone accomplishes recreationally. 00:11:40.403 --> 00:11:47.333 I, I can't tell you that on, on the mountain side, there's, there's not really a tradition, uh, strength conditioning preparation for skiing. 00:11:47.693 --> 00:11:48.984 There are some exceptions to that. 00:11:49.234 --> 00:11:55.323 The hardest athletes, hardest working athletes, and most dedicated professional athletes I've ever worked with are world Cup ski racers. 00:11:55.573 --> 00:11:56.653 Those guys get after it. 00:11:56.903 --> 00:12:01.533

I mean, they are, you know, they're fit and they train in the gym hard, and it's part of that culture. 00:12:01.783 --> 00:12:06.624 But if you're a ski patroller going in, and let's say, I mean, ski patroller is a, you know, seasonal job. 00:12:07.043 --> 00:12:11.974 Let's say your summer job is, you know, as a ranger or working construction, whatever it is. 00:12:12.224 --> 00:12:16.173 You're not gonna have the eccentric leg strength or strength endurance to handle ski. 00:12:16.173 --> 00:12:17.254 You're just like anybody else. 00:12:17.504 --> 00:12:18.433 But here's the difference. 00:12:18.683 --> 00:12:30.854 A recreational athlete who doesn't prepare for ski season gets up there and on the third day of the first week, decides to take one more run even though his legs are smoked, you know, pops his ACL'cause he gets lazy or falls down or whatever. 00:12:31.104 --> 00:12:35.854 And then the ski patrol has to go up and execute, the rescue and bring him down. 00:12:36.104 --> 00:12:46.399 Um, the difference is that the ski patroller, if, if that person goes into the season and he's not, or she's not ready, fitness wise for that event, well now they have this other person depending on'em to get down the hill. 00:12:46.649 --> 00:12:53.673 And if they're also tired and smoked, it's just a cascade of issues that could result in, something that should be simple. 00:12:53.923 --> 00:12:54.283 Um. 00:12:54.533 --> 00:13:01.504 Turn into, something that could be bad, not just because a ski patroller wasn't professional about their fitness before they started their professional job. 00:13:01.754 --> 00:13:08.038 If you're a professional, a mountain professional, you need to be professional by your fitness and prepared for what could happen on day one. 00:13:08.198 --> 00:13:10.849 And, if you're not, then been unprofessional by your fitness 00:13:11.024 --> 00:13:16.634 well, and you, you stand potentially not just to lose your ski vacation, but your livelihood for the winter. 00:13:16.634 --> 00:13:19.663 If you go out with an injury in the, in the early weeks. 00:13:19.913 --> 00:13:20.543 Yeah, absolutely. 00:13:20.543 --> 00:13:21.774 That's, that's another component though. 00:13:21.774 --> 00:13:24.653 I don't think a lot of people understand that I worked lots of mountain guides. 00:13:24.903 --> 00:13:26.203 They're not salaried, right? 00:13:26.203 --> 00:13:31.649 They're contract workers, and, a knee can take out an entire year of earnings for a mountain guide. 00:13:32.078 --> 00:13:34.999 So yeah, it's certainly something to be, considerate about. 00:13:35.328 --> 00:13:42.599 We do know that the best way to be durable for a specific sport or event is to be supported, specifically fit for that event, right? 00:13:42.629 --> 00:13:47.229 So we have our athletes on the tactical side, we'll have'em run with ruck. 00:13:47.479 --> 00:13:53.369 Because if you go to ranger school they have a 12 mile ruck with the, like 60 pounds and before

that they're getting smoked. 00:13:53.619 --> 00:13:58.869 So a lot of those guys, you know, they gotta run the last six miles to make the, to make the time or they are part of it. 00:13:59.198 --> 00:14:00.519 They've never done that before. 00:14:00.788 --> 00:14:02.828 Um, you know, they, they're asking for injury. 00:14:02.828 --> 00:14:08.899 So yeah, you need to be ideally, um, prior to training, know what it feels like and be fit for it. 00:14:09.149 --> 00:14:13.278 So you saying that you can just do the sport I can get fit for skiing by just skiing a lot. 00:14:13.778 --> 00:14:14.558 Absolutely. 00:14:14.619 --> 00:14:19.089 What I mean by that is, uh, the problem is that you can't ski year round, right? 00:14:19.149 --> 00:14:23.359 So, it's different from day one versus middle of the season. 00:14:23.609 --> 00:14:25.469 Ideally, you come into it and you're fit. 00:14:25.719 --> 00:14:28.599 Now certainly if it's in the middle of the season, you're skiing every day. 00:14:28.778 --> 00:14:31.509 Your legs are pretty fit for skiing, but that's the middle of a season. 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:32.119 Right. 00:14:32.369 --> 00:14:37.318 So, unless you're, going down south to or New Zealand every year, and I did have a couple guides who do that. 00:14:37.318 --> 00:14:38.578 They're crazy, eternal winters. 00:14:38.828 --> 00:14:39.609 I wouldn't want that. 00:14:39.859 --> 00:14:45.938 Uh, but uh, yeah, they, you know, they would just ski year round and uh, they have to worry a little bit about overuse injuries and stuff like that. 00:14:45.938 --> 00:14:49.928 But, you know, getting injured from a, you know, ski injury is not that big of a concern. 00:14:49.928 --> 00:14:51.469 So that's something that comes up. 00:14:51.469 --> 00:14:57.168 I take, I can tell you it's a lot more fun to just ski, to get fit for skiing than it is to do leg blasters. 00:14:57.168 --> 00:14:59.298 And our touch up to intervals, they suck. 00:14:59.739 --> 00:15:02.078 But you're not gonna be fit to day one of the season. 00:15:02.359 --> 00:15:03.528 It's gonna take time to do that. 00:15:03.589 --> 00:15:05.499 And, you cannot escape the work. 00:15:05.749 --> 00:15:07.099 You're gonna have to do the work one way or the other. 00:15:07.349 --> 00:15:11.038 And so from my perspective, if you're a mountain professional, who gonna ski hill? 00:15:11.428 --> 00:15:16.808 If you're not fit for skiing when you arrive day one, uh, that's very unprofessional. 00:15:17.078 --> 00:15:20.989 And if you're a professional competing athlete and you're not fit from day one. 00:15:21.394 --> 00:15:22.234 You're gonna get smoked. 00:15:22.234 --> 00:15:26.224 You're not professional about your sport, and someone else who comes in fit is gonna, you're not gonna get the podium. 00:15:26.474 --> 00:15:30.923 So let's take this and make it specific to ski patrol and just dive in there first. 00:15:30.923 --> 00:15:34.344 And then I'd like to dig into search and rescue as well.

00:15:34.344 --> 00:15:42.153 So, the demands on ski patrol, as we've already highlighted, is that it's, it's a full-time job with various demands. 00:15:42.274 --> 00:15:43.953 It's strongly seasonal. 00:15:44.203 --> 00:15:47.514 There's kind of two sets of demands that I can imagine there. 00:15:47.514 --> 00:15:51.594 There's the preparation for season and then there's the in-season maintenance. 00:15:51.844 --> 00:15:53.673 Let's consider preparation for the season. 00:15:53.673 --> 00:16:00.418 How far in advance of starting in that setting would you recommend that someone starts preparing and training for that role? 00:16:00.668 --> 00:16:03.298 Uh, depending on the training time, at least four weeks. 00:16:03.458 --> 00:16:16.323 And, six weeks would be best to be really fit for the, when the season starts, our, our dryland programming is primarily focused on, eccentric lake strength and, what I call leg lactate tolerance, or the ability just to take long days on the hill. 00:16:16.423 --> 00:16:26.533 If you think about, a full day of skiing, there are individual parts that are strength, you know, short, explosive, demands, but it's it's really a strength endurance effort, right? 00:16:26.783 --> 00:16:27.563 At the end of the day. 00:16:27.833 --> 00:16:29.394 Um, there's a lot of impact on your leg. 00:16:29.394 --> 00:16:32.903 So it's an endurance effort and it takes time to develop strength endurance. 00:16:33.244 --> 00:16:34.673 You just can't, do it quickly. 00:16:34.974 --> 00:16:37.104 So those are the two things to be focused on. 00:16:37.354 --> 00:16:37.744 Um 00:16:37.846 --> 00:16:38.025 But 00:16:38.193 --> 00:16:48.673 also,, because of the heavier pack, and the upper body, strength that might be, I mean, ski patrolers, you know, they're doing their, opening, closing lots of, like, they're carrying shovels everywhere, right? 00:16:48.923 --> 00:16:56.874 They might need to dig people out of, uh, you know, digging somebody out of a avalanche is a, core upper body work capacity, full on effort, right? 00:16:57.183 --> 00:16:59.374 Their multimodal work capacity needs to be high. 00:16:59.403 --> 00:17:01.203 They need to have some upper body strength. 00:17:01.384 --> 00:17:10.354 All of these things aren't necessarily needed for a ski racer or a free skier, but they are for a ski patrol or if their packs gonna be heavier, so their midsection needs to be stronger. 00:17:10.804 --> 00:17:12.753 So all those things ideally come into the season. 00:17:12.963 --> 00:17:14.733 Some of those things might carry over from their. 00:17:15.148 --> 00:17:23.888 Summer fall work job, you know, if they're a ranger, hiking or rucking, or they're working construction or something, some of those things might transfer over, but what won't trance over is the eccentric leg strength. 00:17:23.888 --> 00:17:25.689 There's nothing, nothing that really changes for that. 00:17:25.939 --> 00:17:32.683 So if someone has not completed a dry land training program before, what, what would they expect that program to look like? 00:17:32.683 --> 00:17:34.334 What kind of movements? 00:17:34.334 --> 00:17:37.148 What kind of equipment is this something they can complete at home? 00:17:37.398 --> 00:17:37.689 Yeah. 00:17:37.743 --> 00:17:40.584 Our dry land ski programming is a limited equipment plan. 00:17:40.614 --> 00:17:42.023 It doesn't require a weight room. 00:17:42.183 --> 00:17:47.463 One of the things we always try to focus on is always to simplify So there's two major components. 00:17:47.564 --> 00:17:57.828 The focus of our dry ski training is, eccentric leg strength, which train you for bouncing down the hill and a leg lactate tolerance, which is just a way to train, be able to put off, having to stop. 00:17:57.828 --> 00:18:00.469 And then if you do, stop, be able to recover really fast. 00:18:00.719 --> 00:18:05.239 Two days a week you're doing leg blasters and two days a week you're doing, what we call just touch, jump, touch intervals. 00:18:05.659 --> 00:18:07.548 And, uh, we're just training those two things. 00:18:07.548 --> 00:18:10.068 And the plan is focused on those two areas. 00:18:10.459 --> 00:18:15.259 It includes some core work, it includes some, upper body stuff, but the focus is there. 00:18:15.259 --> 00:18:17.058 That's, that's where the focus of skiing is. 00:18:17.058 --> 00:18:18.709 And so we really focus on those areas. 00:18:18.949 --> 00:18:21.318 So it's pretty much the same thing every week. 00:18:21.439 --> 00:18:25.929 Only harder as you go through the programming, you're doing more and more leg blasters. 00:18:26.179 --> 00:18:27.558 You're touchdown chopped intervals. 00:18:27.558 --> 00:18:29.989 You're doing more work, less rest, more work, less rest. 00:18:30.239 --> 00:18:31.709 And, uh, it's no joke. 00:18:31.739 --> 00:18:32.788 It, it, it hammers you. 00:18:33.209 --> 00:18:35.669 Um, but ideally, you know, when you get to the season, you're ready to go. 00:18:35.919 --> 00:18:41.983 For our listeners who aren't familiar with some of these exercises, I can put a link to, I know you have videos for a lot of your exercises. 00:18:41.983 --> 00:18:46.243 We'll include the leg blasters in there so you can get a sense of what we're talking about. 00:18:46.644 --> 00:18:50.124 Do you know offhand what equipment is needed for that program, if any? 00:18:50.374 --> 00:19:00.614 The equipment for, our Dry Land Ski Pro is a, 12 to 15 inch box, a 60 pound sandbag for men, 40 pound for women, pair of, dumbbells and a pull up bar and a foam foam roller. 00:19:00.733 --> 00:19:02.683 So it's a really a limited equipment program. 00:19:02.983 --> 00:19:04.653 When you get into the season. 00:19:04.653 --> 00:19:10.294 Obviously you cannot train five to seven days a week in the same manner that you can during the preseason. 00:19:10.544 --> 00:19:21.913 For someone who's working as a professional ski patroller and is working on Hill five to six days a

week, do you see any role for training during the season or any preventative maintenance to be done during that time? 00:19:22.163 --> 00:19:25.703 Yeah, we actually have an,, in season, training plan for skiing. 00:19:25.703 --> 00:19:34.653 And we have it set up for both recreational skiers and mountain professionals and so the, you know, during the in season, the, the mount professionals, the ski patrols, they don't need to be doing leg blasters anymore. 00:19:35.084 --> 00:19:38.534 I just looked at our, in-season dry line ski training for mountain professionals. 00:19:38.814 --> 00:19:42.624 It's two days a week and it's heavy strength and chassis integrity work in the gym. 00:19:42.624 --> 00:19:44.094 It's not doing leg blasters or mini blasters. 00:19:44.094 --> 00:19:48.723 We're just trying to keep the, the overall strength and, midsection strength for, durability. 00:19:48.973 --> 00:19:55.743 I do find that stronger athletes overall are harder to injure if, if they do get injured, to recover faster. 00:19:56.223 --> 00:20:00.834 Um, so just having total body strength is a way to make yourself more durable? 00:20:01.223 --> 00:20:10.223 That leads me to one more question before we turn our attention to search and rescue, which is say the patrollers summer job was RAF guide. 00:20:10.374 --> 00:20:14.364 They've been sitting on their butt and doing pulling motions all summer. 00:20:14.723 --> 00:20:18.473 Very not sports specific to ski patrol. 00:20:18.723 --> 00:20:31.394 Do they need to develop any kind of base fitness, aerobic fitness before jumping into a dry land program, or is it scalable enough that they could start on week one of your program and survive it without injury? 00:20:31.644 --> 00:20:34.973 It depends on how much time they have to get ready for the season. 00:20:35.223 --> 00:20:40.503 I program for the fitness demands of the event or the sport, not the incoming fitness of the athlete. 00:20:40.753 --> 00:20:44.564 The fitness demands for ski patroller are the same for every ski patroller. 00:20:44.834 --> 00:20:52.364 It doesn't matter what your summer job is, how old you are, how small you are, if you're a woman, if you're a man, how fat you are, right? 00:20:52.794 --> 00:20:56.334 The fitness demands are the same, and it's up to the athlete to meet the fitness demands. 00:20:56.584 --> 00:20:59.913 So if they get done with their drafting, you know, let's say they. 00:21:00.318 --> 00:21:03.838 You know, a typical mountain town person, Ben's a mountain town, right? 00:21:04.138 --> 00:21:12.959 You know, they'll, they'll, they'll take and they'll do the rafting, and then they'll go take, you know, a few weeks off and go to Mexico surfing or something, and then they'll come in and they gotta go to ski patrolling. 00:21:13.439 --> 00:21:17.909 And if they only got six weeks, you gotta jump into the, the dry land program and just suffer. 00:21:18.388 --> 00:21:21.628 Um, you're gonna be sore, it's gonna suck, but, uh, that's on you. 00:21:21.878 --> 00:21:22.749 This is what you need to do. 00:21:22.749 --> 00:21:23.679 Get ready for the season. 00:21:23.679 --> 00:21:25.479 If you're professional, you're gonna be ready for the season. 00:21:25.969 --> 00:21:27.288 So there's no shortcuts. 00:21:27.378 --> 00:21:31.308 You're not special, you know, you make your own decisions and that's just the way it is. 00:21:31.308 --> 00:21:33.858 That's just part of being professional about your fitness. 00:21:33.909 --> 00:21:43.838 I get these questions all the time, you know, like, you know, I had a, a question from a, um, 50-year-old firefighter, um, recently So I don't like high impact stuff. 00:21:44.108 --> 00:21:47.148 I'm like, well, you know, your, your bunker gear weighs 70 pounds. 00:21:47.398 --> 00:21:51.298 I mean, you know, I, I generally do use steer stepper instead of running, what do you have to sprint in your gear? 00:21:51.598 --> 00:21:52.138 You know what I mean? 00:21:52.138 --> 00:21:55.949 This happens a lot on the first responder side, but we call legacy athletes. 00:21:56.128 --> 00:21:58.769 You know, they've kind of gotten away with not having to do anything their whole career. 00:21:58.769 --> 00:22:00.358 Now they're older, they think they can still do it. 00:22:00.608 --> 00:22:00.969 Yeah. 00:22:01.028 --> 00:22:11.858 There's no, there's no slow fire for a 50-year-old, you know, firefighters, you know what, if you have to drag somebody out who's 200 pounds, which could be, I mean, I weigh 150 pounds, put, uh, seven five pounds of bunker gear on me. 00:22:11.858 --> 00:22:13.429 I'm at 2 25, right? 00:22:13.729 --> 00:22:18.868 And she drag me out, you know, not, not not doing, uh, body weight squats. 00:22:19.118 --> 00:22:21.618 He's gotta be doing high impact, you know, heavy stuff. 00:22:21.618 --> 00:22:23.568 So, yeah, that's something that, that comes up. 00:22:23.568 --> 00:22:27.719 Some people get away with it, their youth, um, and they, you know, they get away with it'cause they're young. 00:22:27.999 --> 00:22:30.888 But, I think you'll find the most, the most professional people. 00:22:31.138 --> 00:22:32.669 Are doing some type of fitness training. 00:22:32.919 --> 00:22:37.558 There's a link between people are professional about their fitness and the way they treat the rest of their job. 00:22:37.683 --> 00:22:41.403 So I wouldn't never trust a, an unfit mountain guide. 00:22:41.814 --> 00:22:43.594 I would never trust his equipment, right? 00:22:43.703 --> 00:22:45.804 Is he replacing his carabiners, right? 00:22:46.304 --> 00:22:47.594 Is he replacing his ropes? 00:22:47.923 --> 00:22:49.153 How are his rope skills? 00:22:49.403 --> 00:22:51.564 How are all those other, you know, technical elements? 00:22:51.564 --> 00:22:53.544 Is he training those and up to speed those? 00:22:53.794 --> 00:22:59.334 cause clearly, you know, fitness is a primary component of, ski patrolling and mountain guiding. 00:22:59.584 -->

00:23:05.193 And if he's let his fitness go, what else has he let go on the technical side, right? 00:23:05.374 --> 00:23:09.243 So if he sees a ski patroller, he is unfit, how's his, first aid skills, right? 00:23:09.273 --> 00:23:10.023 I would question it. 00:23:10.128 --> 00:23:11.388 There's a link between them. 00:23:11.388 --> 00:23:20.038 I mean, the, there's a reason that the most high speed, military guys, you know, generally navigate towards the Special forces units, where there's the biggest fitness demand. 00:23:20.538 --> 00:23:24.798 They attract just certain people who are, are professional about all elements of the work. 00:23:24.989 --> 00:23:31.679 They're in my relatively limited experience, two groups of people in professional ski patrol. 00:23:31.739 --> 00:23:44.548 There are people who are career patrollers, and there are those who are there as a bridge to some other world, usually in medicine, whether that's paramedic and fire or going into, medical professions like nursing or, or doctors. 00:23:44.969 --> 00:23:48.429 I think both stand to benefit from training, right? 00:23:48.429 --> 00:23:50.469 Because both need to meet the demands of their job. 00:23:50.469 --> 00:23:55.788 But really, I think probably the career patroller is the one who has the most on the line. 00:23:56.179 --> 00:24:01.709 In terms of being able to preserve their function over the long term and be able to perform their job year after year. 00:24:01.959 --> 00:24:11.179 As you put it, a 24-year-old me can get away with a lot more the 37-year-old me in terms of lack of preparation, just showing up and winging it. 00:24:11.354 --> 00:24:18.054 I have to put in a little bit more maintenance these days to maintain strength, what you call chassis integrity. 00:24:18.054 --> 00:24:21.983 Those, those features, so you can actually show up ready and not get hurt. 00:24:22.233 --> 00:24:31.433 It's interesting, you'll see again, especially at first responder, but even in military units, you know, I've, I've met Senior Green Brasi are fat and outta shape, right. 00:24:31.683 --> 00:24:36.044 Because they, they think they get older and they, you know, I'm never gonna get in that situation or whatever. 00:24:36.294 --> 00:24:43.858 Let's turn our attention now to search and rescue, which I'll, I'll outline a little bit how I think that that's probably different and then we can work through it. 00:24:44.108 --> 00:24:49.509 I think your average search and rescue participant is more, it's volunteer. 00:24:49.628 --> 00:24:50.888 It's part-time for them. 00:24:50.919 --> 00:24:51.999 They have a day job. 00:24:52.249 --> 00:25:01.068 They're not professionals and most of their call outs are gonna involve, as you said, hiking with heavy packs, carryouts, litter transports, unknown demands. 00:25:01.318 --> 00:25:06.838 So I would think the training objective there would potentially be more muscular endurance, injury resistance. 00:25:06.838 --> 00:25:11.969 But the biggest challenge is probably integrating it with their life, with their day job. 00:25:12.219 --> 00:25:22.318 So from your perspective, what would be the key physical and mental demands of the search and rescue role that you would be wanting to target with your training? 00:25:22.568 --> 00:25:23.433 Yeah, that's interesting. 00:25:23.433 --> 00:25:30.398 I've never actually been asked to, to design a plan for a volunteer, mountain sar, member I just did one for a, a part-time SWAT team. 00:25:30.648 --> 00:25:31.038 Um. 00:25:31.489 --> 00:25:32.538 We'll, we'll get on that. 00:25:32.628 --> 00:25:32.868 Yeah. 00:25:32.868 --> 00:25:34.759 But, uh, right off the gap or at the top? 00:25:34.808 --> 00:25:39.949 Uphill endurance under load so we're just doing step ups probably with the heavy pack, heavy pack rucking. 00:25:40.308 --> 00:25:43.429 I assume that those packs are 45 to 55 pounds heavy. 00:25:43.848 --> 00:25:45.709 Um, 35 at, you know, at least. 00:25:45.709 --> 00:25:53.538 But yeah, probably that heavy, the worst thing to do is, you know, be a, a SAR team member and go out there and have to be rescued because you're out, you're unfit. 00:25:53.538 --> 00:25:55.128 Chassis integrity, would be dominant. 00:25:55.528 --> 00:25:58.888 A lot of injuries can occur if you're just smoke from hiking uphill. 00:25:59.308 --> 00:25:59.699 Right? 00:25:59.888 --> 00:26:07.489 Probably, as a preseason thing, um, working some leg blasters just to train eccentric strength if you don't have, a spot to hike up and downhill. 00:26:07.798 --> 00:26:12.098 As I got older, I started, packing, water uphill, to train. 00:26:12.098 --> 00:26:14.558 And then I would jump to the top and, and come down and load it. 00:26:14.558 --> 00:26:17.298 Just'cause the impact on my knees and in Jackson at Snow. 00:26:17.798 --> 00:26:22.239 I know you can ride the lift down, but that, you know, that that downhill can impact you, but you still need that strength. 00:26:22.239 --> 00:26:23.193 Have you ever done our step up? 00:26:23.344 --> 00:26:24.578 Were step ups before? 00:26:24.759 --> 00:26:26.588 Yeah, they're total, total drudgery. 00:26:26.838 --> 00:26:27.058 Yes, 00:26:27.301 --> 00:26:29.342 I'm training for a, a hunting season here. 00:26:29.342 --> 00:26:33.632 I did over a thousand this morning, you know, and I got, you know, the news on podcast. 00:26:33.682 --> 00:26:34.971 But it, they fucking work. 00:26:35.362 --> 00:26:38.122 Step ups are the most efficient way to train uphill. 00:26:38.122 --> 00:26:39.501 And, and you don't need any equipment. 00:26:39.682 --> 00:26:44.241 He needs a pack in a box and, uh, podcast and, uh, you just gotta grind. 00:26:44.311 --> 00:26:49.211 You need to probably do some step up or some, leg blasters and, chassis integrity, midsection work. 00:26:49.541 --> 00:26:57.642 And, like in the dry line ski program, the dumbbells are used just for, exercise we call Scotty Bobs, which is, uh, pretty much a pushup in a

row with dumbbells. 00:26:58.001 --> 00:27:05.301 It's a great, very efficient two for one, pretty damn hard t for one upper body exercise, it's just really efficient, really quick. 00:27:05.301 --> 00:27:08.241 And you can do in between leg blasters and I can get a T for one in there. 00:27:08.241 --> 00:27:08.571 So. 00:27:08.821 --> 00:27:10.172 Yeah, it's not, not complicated. 00:27:10.172 --> 00:27:11.731 It's just, it's just hard, you know? 00:27:11.731 --> 00:27:16.122 So ideally, the ideal standard is like a thousand step ups at 45 pounds. 00:27:16.182 --> 00:27:20.471 In an hour or, or 50 minutes, I think the best guy is under 40 minutes. 00:27:20.741 --> 00:27:22.511 I think my best time's like 50 minutes. 00:27:22.942 --> 00:27:31.041 Twight, he used to say, if you can do 2000 vertical in 45 minutes, I think it was unloaded would be his standard for, which isn't, that isn't a push. 00:27:31.041 --> 00:27:32.271 And I've actually done that myself. 00:27:32.509 --> 00:27:32.788 achievable. 00:27:33.038 --> 00:27:34.388 yeah, that's pretty achievable. 00:27:34.439 --> 00:27:36.568 So I'll develop an assessment for a part-time sar. 00:27:36.818 --> 00:27:41.169 The, the tricky part for part-time sars, it is part-time, they don't know when the call is coming. 00:27:41.199 --> 00:27:43.239 They have the other job or activities going on. 00:27:43.239 --> 00:27:47.898 Maybe the other training, maybe they're a Ironman triathlete or something, and they're not doing step ups. 00:27:47.929 --> 00:27:52.773 So, I guess it depends on how much importance they put on their part-time work. 00:27:52.773 --> 00:27:59.834 And I think maybe they rely on the, the full-time people, if there are any, to be able to, fill in the gaps fitness wise, that's a tricky one. 00:28:00.084 --> 00:28:08.124 If you're showing up to a star, call out, you have an obligation to, to perform, but also your goal is to avoid injury. 00:28:08.193 --> 00:28:12.723 You don't want to impact the day job or you're gonna have to have to leave the SAR on the side. 00:28:13.114 --> 00:28:19.443 So, in addition to, just work capacity as a, as an insurance against injury. 00:28:19.864 --> 00:28:28.923 Can you speak a little bit to the chassis integrity concept and how that ties into both the demands of the role and keeping people healthy on the job? 00:28:29.173 --> 00:28:34.588 Yeah, chassis integrity is a, kind of the midsection training, methodology that I developed. 00:28:34.838 --> 00:28:38.548 It came about after I had, uh, stepped away from my own, programming and just did some stuff myself. 00:28:38.548 --> 00:28:43.568 Did a lot of body weight, chest integrity, mostly ground based stuff like we always done, you know, crunches and all that crap. 00:28:43.818 --> 00:28:44.749 Went back to the gym. 00:28:45.138 --> 00:28:47.689 Load up some heavy front squats and my midsection collapsed. 00:28:47.929 --> 00:28:48.798 It wasn't very strong. 00:28:49.048 --> 00:28:50.638 Even though I

was crushing situps. 00:28:50.818 --> 00:28:55.118 Uh, so the idea is the, the midsection is like a barrel of muscle. 00:28:55.368 --> 00:29:00.828 Um, it's this barrel of muscle that connects the legs to the upper body, and a lot of the torque comes from the upper body. 00:29:01.009 --> 00:29:08.519 You know, if you imagine pulling somebody or, you know, moving something heavy from one side to the other And the midsection, has some roles. 00:29:08.578 --> 00:29:20.239 Um, part of it is movement, you know, extension, picking up something heavy, but sometimes a lot of rotation, strength, but also just an isometric, bracing core strength, a lot of times anti-rotation. 00:29:20.489 --> 00:29:23.489 Prior to development, chass integrity, we'd always had our core. 00:29:23.489 --> 00:29:24.898 I trained different movements. 00:29:24.898 --> 00:29:32.759 We had'em like fire movements, so flexion, isometric, rotational, extension, but they were, a lot of'em were ground-based movements, like sit-ups and stuff. 00:29:32.909 --> 00:29:45.068 And, uh, what Chass Integrity did was I started doing the bulk of our midsection exercises, from standing or kneeling so that the midsection had to work, in conjunction with the lower body and upper body. 00:29:45.318 --> 00:29:46.848 That's, that's the integrity, right? 00:29:46.909 --> 00:29:49.308 It had to maintain the integrity of the system between the two. 00:29:49.558 --> 00:29:52.949 And I thought it would be, if we're gonna train for that, why don't we just fucking train for it? 00:29:53.199 --> 00:30:01.979 So, we also started using a lot of sandbag stuff., There's something about a 60 pound sandbag that is so much heavier than a 60 pound dumbbell or a 60 pound barbell. 00:30:01.979 --> 00:30:07.028 I don't know what it is, but a 60 pound sandbag is a fucking lot heavier than a 60 pound barbell. 00:30:07.459 --> 00:30:17.219 It's bulky and it's in the weight and it's awkward and all that, all that stuff helps work that midsection in a much more functional way to what you're gonna pick up in the field, whatever it is. 00:30:17.558 --> 00:30:22.628 Our chassis integrity not only trains strength, but these are endurance terms that train strength endurance. 00:30:22.929 --> 00:30:33.439 And so, for a SAR athlete, if they have a long approach or something and they're really tired from the endurance effort, everything else is, you know, that's why mountain endurance comes first. 00:30:33.439 --> 00:30:36.318 For mountain sports, you know, uphill movement under load has to come first. 00:30:36.318 --> 00:30:37.429 That's the most important thing. 00:30:37.798 --> 00:30:48.818 But after that, the chassis integrity, is probably the next important because, it helps you be strong in, in these ways that are just so awkward that for almost any rescue mission, there's gonna be some type of lifting that is gonna be awkward. 00:30:49.098 --> 00:30:52.759 And if you don't have that strength there, you're just asking for a low back injury, pretty much. 00:30:52.759 --> 00:30:52.999 Right? 00:30:53.388 --> 00:30:53.898 But even. 00:30:54.148 --> 00:30:56.848 More important than injury prevention is just function. 00:30:57.098 --> 00:31:02.479 You wanna be able to get that person from one side of the body to the other, from the ground to the gurney or whatever it is. 00:31:02.868 --> 00:31:05.028 And, the chassis integrity work helps you do that. 00:31:05.028 --> 00:31:11.868 It's amazing how much, uh, how much work you can get in with the sandbag and, uh, some simple, you know, it intricated exercises. 00:31:12.239 --> 00:31:14.153 To train that midsection for functional strength. 00:31:14.403 --> 00:31:24.223 The difference between the barbell and the sandbag is obvious to any parents out there who know how much heavier a 45 pound child is, than a 45 pound dumbbell. 00:31:24.473 --> 00:31:29.784 People are, are awkward, heavy, hard to move, and the sandbag is much more analogous to that work. 00:31:30.034 --> 00:31:34.993 Yeah, you know, a, a chainsaw is a lot different and awkward, more awkward than a barbell two, right? 00:31:34.993 --> 00:31:38.824 So there's almost no,, piece of, equipment out there that's heavy or whatever. 00:31:38.824 --> 00:31:42.884 You're lifting on a star mission that is gonna be as easy to grip and move around. 00:31:42.884 --> 00:31:44.324 As a barbell, it's all gonna be awkward. 00:31:44.574 --> 00:31:49.733 So star work can often be sort of exhausting, thankless, sometimes dangerous. 00:31:49.854 --> 00:31:54.834 You have emphasized mental toughness for industrial athletes. 00:31:55.314 --> 00:32:04.394 What strategies do you have to cultivate that kind of resilience and build a training culture that can carry over into the field during long rescues? 00:32:04.644 --> 00:32:06.594 Yeah, I like to call it mental fitness. 00:32:06.713 --> 00:32:18.794 I've been doing a lot of thinking about, mental fitness, recently, I had some experiences, where I had, some world class optimists come into the gym years ago, and we just put'em through a short work capacity, effort, maybe swings or sprints or something. 00:32:18.794 --> 00:32:20.773 And it seemed like they were mentally weak. 00:32:21.023 --> 00:32:28.874 And, uh, and they're like, oh, I mean, I, I've never been on a Himalaya alpine climb, but they're out there climbing a 40 below. 00:32:28.903 --> 00:32:30.683 I mean, these guys are, they're tough. 00:32:31.044 --> 00:32:31.703 You know what I mean? 00:32:31.703 --> 00:32:38.344 So I, I take a step back and then it turns out the next time they came in a couple days later, similar effort, they did a lot better. 00:32:38.594 --> 00:32:44.304 So, I learned from that, and I've seen it in my own life, that mental fitness is, mode specific. 00:32:44.453 --> 00:32:48.903 So if you're familiar with the mode, if you're familiar, what it feels like, you're gonna be more mentally fit. 00:32:49.153 --> 00:32:59.614 So, you haven't been putting in

your step ups or your uphill grind and you're, hiking up 3000, vertical feet to direct you some guy, then your mental fitness is not gonna be strong. 00:32:59.683 --> 00:33:02.834 Being more physically fit makes you more mentally fit, right? 00:33:02.834 --> 00:33:03.493 For that mode. 00:33:03.824 --> 00:33:11.693 You know, it can be mentally fit in a, in uh, physical stressor, you know, but it comes with a hard conversation with your wife, not be very mentally fit, right? 00:33:11.693 --> 00:33:13.354 So, it's more specific. 00:33:13.453 --> 00:33:20.824 The other thing is that it can be built like you're talking about, I'm, I'm thinking about how we could actually train mental fitness in a more conscious way. 00:33:20.913 --> 00:33:36.364 I just wrote, something, a little bit ago I developed eight, uh, core attributes and mental fitness, you know, like perseverance, resilience, discipline, mental endurance, which is, you know, being mentally sharp, you know, after 24 hour, you know, like you in a mercy room, right? 00:33:36.663 --> 00:33:38.463 You know, you're coming off a 12 hour shift. 00:33:38.463 --> 00:33:45.703 I hope you're mentally sharp at, you know, 1145 and my kid comes in, I just recently wrote about the difference between resilience, perseverance, and discipline. 00:33:46.153 --> 00:33:49.213 Um, and they're linked together, but there's, you know, significantly different. 00:33:49.213 --> 00:33:54.913 Perseverance is what you did getting through medical school it's grinding slower, no progress, or it's a long way off. 00:33:54.913 --> 00:33:55.933 It's still sticking with it. 00:33:56.334 --> 00:34:00.183 Discipline is doing everyday stuff regardless of comfort. 00:34:00.273 --> 00:34:03.094 You we think about discipline as the big stuff, but it's the, the small stuff. 00:34:03.094 --> 00:34:06.874 It's training when you don't want to train or, doing leg blasts when you're sore? 00:34:06.973 --> 00:34:11.153 and resilience is recovery from big setbacks. 00:34:11.253 --> 00:34:22.643 You go to work tomorrow and get fired'cause you fuck up, and then you gotta go out and find another job resilience is more difficult to get exposure to, but perseverance and discipline are, are things that we can, I think that, what we have learned is that it takes exposure. 00:34:22.728 --> 00:34:26.659 It's just like physical fitness, where if you don't train it or get exposure to it, it'll degrade. 00:34:26.909 --> 00:34:29.938 I've heard this from guys who've been through special forces selections, right? 00:34:30.219 --> 00:34:30.938 After the selection. 00:34:30.938 --> 00:34:36.423 They're in for 15 years and they're not as mentally fit for physical stressor as they were when they were going through you. 00:34:36.639 --> 00:34:38.889 You just haven't been exposed to that type of stress. 00:34:39.309 --> 00:34:42.219 So exposing yourself to that type of stress and pushing yourself. 00:34:42.393 --> 00:34:45.454 Physical fitness is a great way to

do that, but it's not everything. 00:34:45.764 --> 00:34:51.034 I've seen too many athletes, professional athletes, who like me, love to train. 00:34:51.284 --> 00:34:52.903 You can hide behind fitness training. 00:34:53.153 --> 00:35:03.889 In other words, you can, uh, you know,, be a SAR guy and, uh,, what you really need to work on is your navigation and, your communication skills and your frigging first aid stuff. 00:35:04.139 --> 00:35:06.748 But instead you get in the gym every day and you just hammer step up. 00:35:06.778 --> 00:35:08.039 We need to be working on other stuff. 00:35:08.141 --> 00:35:08.501 you're good 00:35:08.568 --> 00:35:09.849 Right, that's the problem. 00:35:09.898 --> 00:35:14.168 By following someone else's programming it makes you do stuff that you're not necessarily good at. 00:35:14.228 --> 00:35:17.048 So being pushed in those different ways, and it takes a true professional. 00:35:17.298 --> 00:35:23.679 To have the discipline to go back over basic first aid stuff, to make sure they're solved in the fundamentals. 00:35:23.798 --> 00:35:29.929 And then also identify, the holes in their game, their whole game, and target those and work on'em. 00:35:30.179 --> 00:35:31.708 It takes a real professional to see that. 00:35:31.958 --> 00:35:37.449 Not only see that, but, but, uh, a craftsman to when they find that, get excited about it. 00:35:37.688 --> 00:35:39.548 'cause they get to learn and improve in that certain way. 00:35:39.548 --> 00:35:40.028 That's sort of true. 00:35:40.059 --> 00:35:40.719 Craftsman is. 00:35:40.969 --> 00:35:41.708 That's fantastic. 00:35:42.208 --> 00:35:48.034 I want to open up a small can and just have you tell us what your nutritional recommendations are. 00:35:48.094 --> 00:35:53.914 I'm sure 90% of the listeners will disagree with some part of it,'cause that's how nutrition always goes. 00:35:53.914 --> 00:35:57.483 But what's, what's your line on nutrition for athletes? 00:35:57.733 --> 00:36:02.483 Yeah, first thing, we, we actually have on a, on a website, ideal body weight space on height. 00:36:02.664 --> 00:36:04.014 And, uh, it's pretty lean. 00:36:04.164 --> 00:36:10.074 What we do know about all physical, uh, performance is that the, the most lean athletes are generally the best athletes. 00:36:10.123 --> 00:36:14.094 I think part of that is they can move faster because they're carrying around, less body fat. 00:36:14.344 --> 00:36:22.733 But it could also be because you get to a low body fat, you have to be disciplined and that transfers over to the other areas of their, professional or their sport. 00:36:22.983 --> 00:36:27.483 But our nutritional guidelines are pretty simple, cut all refined sugar, everything. 00:36:27.664 --> 00:36:29.974 The more you can cut, the better, especially in condiments. 00:36:30.414 --> 00:36:33.893 Don't drink calories, no fruit juice, really cut back on all fruit. 00:36:34.143 --> 00:36:37.114 Primarily eat protein, and, leafy vegetables. 00:36:37.364 --> 00:36:39.853 If you're under 40, you can cheat one day a week. 00:36:40.103 --> 00:36:43.114 Cheat like a mother gross yourself, you know, ice cream doesn't matter. 00:36:43.384 --> 00:36:48.003 You'll find that if you stick to this diet for a while, you don't cheat as much'cause you just feel like crap after, after you cheat. 00:36:48.434 --> 00:36:52.253 But if you're over 40, you gotta cut your cheat days, significantly if you have one at all. 00:36:52.353 --> 00:36:54.568 Of alcohol, don't drink beer or wine. 00:36:54.568 --> 00:36:56.579 If you're gonna drink, I'm not a tea toler. 00:36:56.699 --> 00:36:58.588 Drink hard liquor'cause there's less calories. 00:36:58.878 --> 00:37:01.099 And, uh, no caloric restrictions. 00:37:01.349 --> 00:37:03.648 I found that if you're hungry, you can't stay on a diet. 00:37:03.898 --> 00:37:06.009 Get all that crap outta your house, if you can. 00:37:06.099 --> 00:37:09.219 'cause we're all succumbeded to, uh, temptation. 00:37:09.568 --> 00:37:20.778 But if you're younger under 40 and you're able to cut all sugar, we actually did a mini study one time where we had, one group of athletes, follow those recommendations and another group athletes just cut sugar. 00:37:21.028 --> 00:37:24.429 And the group athletes who just cut sugar, lost as much body fat. 00:37:24.429 --> 00:37:25.208 as group athletes. 00:37:25.219 --> 00:37:33.869 But overall, If you're able to cut all refined sugar and, also cut bad carbs, which are bread, pasta, all the good stuff, right? 00:37:33.978 --> 00:37:34.969 I could eat that all day. 00:37:35.358 --> 00:37:36.889 Um, but that's the worst for you. 00:37:36.889 --> 00:37:40.009 Focus your diet around protein and a few leafy vegetables. 00:37:40.259 --> 00:37:41.369 Don't drink calories. 00:37:41.579 --> 00:37:42.748 You will shed body fat. 00:37:42.989 --> 00:37:43.338 Great. 00:37:43.454 --> 00:37:45.164 Well, I, I wanna be respectful of your time. 00:37:45.164 --> 00:37:45.938 We're coming up on an hour. 00:37:46.188 --> 00:37:50.034 I want to hear your explanation of what you mean when you talk about a quiet professional. 00:37:50.284 --> 00:37:50.574 Yeah. 00:37:50.824 --> 00:37:53.693 This is an idea that, I've thought about for, for many years. 00:37:53.943 --> 00:38:04.998 The idea of a quiet professional is a person who, we know'em, um, a few organizations, identify and celebrate by professionalism. 00:38:05.458 --> 00:38:06.298 The military doesn't. 00:38:06.509 --> 00:38:10.228 The, these are the people who are key to the organizational function. 00:38:10.679 --> 00:38:20.509 Oftentimes, they're not in leadership, uh, because they put the mission first over their own ambition or promotion, and they'll see something that needs to be done on the mission of the fall in those roles. 00:38:20.759 --> 00:38:30.208 They're the craftsmen, they're the people who, um, I, I've done a lot of thinking and work about the craftsmanship ethic, which is really

interesting and liberating. 00:38:30.208 --> 00:38:34.929 If you, if you love your work, um, and that's where you're, you know, continually improved. 00:38:35.108 --> 00:38:36.518 Always chasing excellence. 00:38:36.579 --> 00:38:41.298 No, you'll never get it and are excited when you, when you find out that you've made a mistake. 00:38:41.298 --> 00:38:43.679 'cause you're, you get to learn something, uh, right. 00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:47.429 And, uh, what, what really drives you is just learning more about, about the work. 00:38:47.429 --> 00:38:48.958 So they, they put mission first. 00:38:49.009 --> 00:38:50.268 They're, they're humble. 00:38:50.418 --> 00:38:53.418 They're wise in the sense that, wisdom takes work. 00:38:53.639 --> 00:38:54.898 Everybody has experience. 00:38:54.958 --> 00:38:57.778 Just'cause you're experienced, you know, it doesn't mean you're, you're wise. 00:38:58.119 --> 00:39:02.378 We've all met bitter, 75-year-old, old people, right? 00:39:02.708 --> 00:39:05.838 And if you're bitter and you're 75 years old, I mean, you're not wise. 00:39:06.199 --> 00:39:07.489 You clearly didn't learn something. 00:39:07.858 --> 00:39:09.148 No one likes to be around those people. 00:39:09.148 --> 00:39:10.228 And no one wants to be that person. 00:39:10.278 --> 00:39:12.289 You didn't figure something out, right? 00:39:12.318 --> 00:39:13.159 Wisdom takes work. 00:39:13.159 --> 00:39:14.148 It takes reflection. 00:39:14.608 --> 00:39:15.929 It takes forgiving yourself. 00:39:15.958 --> 00:39:24.088 It takes commitment not to make a better decision in the future, but it's really unpacking the mistake you made or what you did well, humor and humility. 00:39:24.338 --> 00:39:25.119 Those two are brothers. 00:39:25.369 --> 00:39:30.329 Right, seeing humor and stuff and, uh, being humble, embracing the suck. 00:39:30.579 --> 00:39:36.119 Not in a, you know, wear it on your t-shirt way, you know, like a CrossFit athlete or a Spartan competitor. 00:39:36.509 --> 00:39:40.509 Everything's hard and, a quiet professional knows that, adversity is coming. 00:39:40.759 --> 00:39:42.708 Like if things are going easy, I get a little suspicious. 00:39:42.958 --> 00:39:44.639 I'm like, uh oh, I know it's coming. 00:39:44.889 --> 00:39:47.829 Uh, but when it arrive, it's not like you resent it. 00:39:47.829 --> 00:39:49.148 It's like, ah, there you are. 00:39:49.208 --> 00:39:49.958 I knew you're coming. 00:39:50.208 --> 00:39:51.409 You know, this is gonna make me better. 00:39:51.409 --> 00:39:52.188 I'm gonna learn from it. 00:39:52.188 --> 00:39:54.679 Or another thing to, you know, to move, to move through. 00:39:54.679 --> 00:39:56.969 So it's kind of all those different things together. 00:39:57.018 --> 00:40:05.909 The quiet professional in your world, you know, is probably that, one solid nurse that you know, who has turned down promotions because they're really good at what they do and they like what they do right? 00:40:06.219 --> 00:40:07.268 They just like learning there. 00:40:07.268 --> 00:40:17.369 Or they're, they're that one person in the organization who is really key and you don't know until they're gone, all the different stuff that they did because they're not looking for recognition. 00:40:17.728 --> 00:40:20.389 They're doing this stuff that, isn't glamorous often. 00:40:20.389 --> 00:40:20.838 Dirty. 00:40:21.088 --> 00:40:24.809 If you see something wrong, fix it no matter if it's your job or not, right? 00:40:24.809 --> 00:40:25.829 Usually it's not your job. 00:40:26.079 --> 00:40:31.838 What I like to do in the, the er, I don't think I meet the full standards of the quiet professional, just to be clear. 00:40:31.838 --> 00:40:41.458 But, As an example, is getting blankets for patients like that is totally below the level at which my license lets me operate. 00:40:41.458 --> 00:40:45.998 And it's a hundred percent the patients and the nursing staff want to see from a doctor. 00:40:46.248 --> 00:40:49.128 And it's the kind of thing where you could think you're above that and. 00:40:49.378 --> 00:40:51.244 message does that, does that send to people? 00:40:51.494 --> 00:40:51.733 Yeah. 00:40:51.733 --> 00:40:52.664 I think, I think it is. 00:40:52.664 --> 00:40:55.724 I mean, like the only, uh, quiet professional was like Jesus, right? 00:40:55.974 --> 00:41:00.313 The rest of us are, you know, kind of, it's, it's an aspirational goal and you always fall short. 00:41:00.373 --> 00:41:02.503 But it's a, it's a worthy aspirational goal. 00:41:02.753 --> 00:41:04.074 It's not a career advancer. 00:41:04.324 --> 00:41:07.954 In my mind the greatest element to it is the idea of pursuing craftsmanship. 00:41:08.173 --> 00:41:17.193 In whatever, occupation you're working in, because it is so enriching if you can transfer over from resenting the work because you have to do it or whatever. 00:41:17.284 --> 00:41:31.474 Just the idea of craftsmanship and embracing that ethic, it's a very liberating, you end up, being, a happy grinder, you know, before you're like, a grinder can be a happy grinder because you're, you're learning stuff more, you're, you're not as bitter, you know, you like grinding with a, you know, smile. 00:41:31.534 --> 00:41:32.224 It's pretty cool. 00:41:32.474 --> 00:41:34.989 It's'cause you're there for a different reason at that point, right? 00:41:34.989 --> 00:41:36.798 You're not trying to advance yourself. 00:41:36.798 --> 00:41:38.898 You enjoy the process more than the outcome. 00:41:39.148 --> 00:41:40.449 The process, the journey. 00:41:40.699 --> 00:41:42.518 You like it when you, you fuck up. 00:41:42.719 --> 00:41:48.393 'cause you, you know, you need to learn something or you, you see, uh, you know, someone points out a mistake in your work. 00:41:48.643 --> 00:41:51.344 It's just a very liberating way to be, to think about your work. 00:41:51.344 --> 00:41:52.934 And it can be applied to any job. 00:41:53.184 --> 00:41:55.193 You

don't have to be a word worker to be a craftsman. 00:41:55.193 --> 00:42:01.653 It can be, you know, somebody like me who's, you know, pretty much designs strength, condition programming or someone like you so is up. 00:42:01.864 --> 00:42:02.764 So does up hurt people. 00:42:02.764 --> 00:42:03.094 Right. 00:42:03.123 --> 00:42:05.164 You know, every, every stitch could be better. 00:42:05.414 --> 00:42:05.773 Right. 00:42:06.023 --> 00:42:12.293 Like you've seen, I, I'm sure I'm, I'm sure you've seen, uh, you know, another doctor, uh, do a job you do all the time and go, wow. 00:42:12.543 --> 00:42:14.914 You know, that that's a piece of art right there and you can aspire to that. 00:42:14.914 --> 00:42:15.244 Right. 00:42:15.304 --> 00:42:16.204 That's kind of cool, isn't it? 00:42:16.293 --> 00:42:21.454 Or a nurse who has incredible bedside manners or, or, or a doctor who talks down. 00:42:21.704 --> 00:42:22.934 A scared parent, 00:42:23.016 --> 00:42:23.365 Right. 00:42:23.384 --> 00:42:23.623 right? 00:42:23.623 --> 00:42:24.884 They have incredible skills. 00:42:24.943 --> 00:42:26.414 Those are, that's all part of craftsmanship. 00:42:26.505 --> 00:42:26.925 Mm-hmm. 00:42:27.175 --> 00:42:28.166 Well, thank you Rob. 00:42:28.166 --> 00:42:36.545 I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us and get into the nitty gritty about some that maybe you haven't thought about before, like the, the Volunteer SAR member. 00:42:36.936 --> 00:42:40.786 People wanna learn more about Mountain Tactical Institute, where should they find it? 00:42:41.036 --> 00:42:45.536 Mtn tactical.com, I answered dozens of questions every day. 00:42:45.536 --> 00:42:49.195 Just rob@mtntactical.com and, uh, happy to answer questions. 00:42:49.195 --> 00:42:51.385 I always like learning and I learned something today. 00:42:51.385 --> 00:42:54.630 We gotta develop a, volunteer SAR fitness assessment and training plan. 00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:55.300 It's great. 00:42:55.300 --> 00:42:56.411 I love, I love assessments. 00:42:56.411 --> 00:42:59.420 It makes the coach identify what's important, right? 00:42:59.420 --> 00:43:00.561 And you have to make choices. 00:43:01.010 --> 00:43:02.510 You know, we can't, we can't train for everything. 00:43:02.510 --> 00:43:03.985 So it, it'll be a really good exercise for me. 00:43:06.985 --> 00:43:10.106 That's it for this episode of Wilderness Medicine Updates. 00:43:10.106 --> 00:43:13.045 I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Rob. 00:43:13.545 --> 00:43:23.626 I know we got into the weeds on a couple different topics, but I think it's useful information and if it piques your interest, I would really encourage you to try one of his training plans. 00:43:23.655 --> 00:43:26.985 We're talking, uh, 35,$40 investment. 00:43:27.025 --> 00:43:31.556 It's not a lot of money and like we touched on in the show, he uses equipment. 00:43:32.056 --> 00:43:42.275 Minimal plans for a lot of this, so you can get by with having an 18 inch step of some kind of sandbag, a pair of dumbbells and a pull up bar. 00:43:42.606 --> 00:43:50.166 And with that, you can get some full body fitness that is going to make you feel better out in the mountains, make you safer, make you more resistant to injury. 00:43:50.860 --> 00:43:58.990 As I mentioned during the intro, Rob has been really kind in offering a discount to listeners of this show. 00:43:58.990 --> 00:44:05.896 So the first 50 listeners who are search and rescue or patrol professionals or what have you, who reach out to Rob. 00:44:06.396 --> 00:44:11.465 Can get a discount 20% off the purchase of an MTI training plan. 00:44:11.965 --> 00:44:16.166 So reach out to rob@mtntactical.com. 00:44:16.166 --> 00:44:19.255 Again, the email is rob@mtntactical.com. 00:44:19.601 --> 00:44:31.510 Send him a copy of your credentials, be that your search and rescue membership, your professional membership, your NSP, your icar, your county credentials, whatever that may be. 00:44:31.990 --> 00:44:36.280 Rob wants to offer this to people who are getting out there and doing the job. 00:44:36.780 --> 00:44:37.981 The plans are still affordable. 00:44:37.981 --> 00:44:42.340 If you're just a recreationist who can't, take advantage of Rob's generous offer. 00:44:42.840 --> 00:44:47.610 But I will put his email down in the show notes along with everything else that we talked about. 00:44:48.110 --> 00:44:53.331 If you're not familiar with the leg blasters, the Scotty Bobs the the touch jump. 00:44:53.331 --> 00:44:54.351 Touch intervals. 00:44:54.851 --> 00:44:57.101 You can find links to those things down in the show notes. 00:44:57.460 --> 00:45:03.550 Rob has also developed a assessment, fitness assessment and training plan for search and rescue professionals. 00:45:03.550 --> 00:45:06.070 After our conversation, the link is in there. 00:45:06.371 --> 00:45:07.780 The assessment is pretty cool. 00:45:08.001 --> 00:45:11.300 You perform a number of tasks back to back, to back to back. 00:45:11.481 --> 00:45:13.431 Keep track of how well you did on each of those. 00:45:13.431 --> 00:45:16.536 And then there's a scoring system to tell you how you're doing. 00:45:17.036 --> 00:45:22.476 There's targets for both, professional and part-time members, so take a look at that. 00:45:22.476 --> 00:45:26.260 If you're involved in search and rescue, I don't think you'll find anything quite like it anywhere else. 00:45:27.760 --> 00:45:35.860 You'll also find links in the show notes to the eight core attributes of mental fitness, the difference between resilience, perseverance, and discipline. 00:45:36.340 --> 00:45:44.231 Links to other things mentioned in the show like Rob's ideal body weights for different types of mountain athletes and his nutritional recommendations. 00:45:44.731 --> 00:45:47.521 So again, I hope that this was a valuable conversation to you. 00:45:47.521 --> 00:45:49.380 I'm interested in your feedback on the show. 00:45:49.740 --> 00:45:52.471 If you liked it and you want more of this. 00:45:52.971 --> 00:46:01.070 Content that is directed towards the profession of being outside and delivering high quality care in the outdoors, please do let me know. 00:46:01.521 --> 00:46:09.947 As with everything, every episode, I love hearing from you, my email is wilderness medicine updates@gmail.com. 00:46:10.447 --> 00:46:19.882 Whether you just want to pass along feedback, you have ideas for guests, or show topics that you want me to address, reach out to me there and I'll get back to you as listeners of the show. 00:46:19.882 --> 00:46:21.472 I really value your time. 00:46:21.853 --> 00:46:27.213 I want to make sure that I'm bringing you content that is useful to you in the next couple of months. 00:46:27.213 --> 00:46:41.152 You can look forward to a conversation that I had with Laura Mclare from Responder Alliance about psychological trauma sustained by the rescuer and by professionals and how to mitigate that and have a long and happy career in the outdoors. 00:46:41.393 --> 00:46:46.853 But I'm also gonna be getting into the core content like I did last year for. 00:46:47.103 --> 00:46:57.152 Avalanche Resuscitation gonna dig into the core content of cold illness, hypothermia, and resuscitation of that as the beginner of our winter season. 00:46:57.422 --> 00:47:00.757 So I hope that you're gonna look forward to that and that that'll be valuable to you as well. 00:47:01.257 --> 00:47:05.998 If you want to kick back and give some support to the show, this is a passion project. 00:47:06.208 --> 00:47:07.407 I don't make any money on it. 00:47:07.498 --> 00:47:09.057 I just spend a lot of my time on it. 00:47:09.387 --> 00:47:14.847 So if you like it, please share it with someone who you think would benefit from hearing this episode. 00:47:15.268 --> 00:47:17.458 Another member of your search and rescue. 00:47:17.788 --> 00:47:22.527 A friend that you go out into the mountains with who's always one step ahead of you or a little bit stronger. 00:47:22.858 --> 00:47:33.648 Or your partner who's a little slower and could use a little bit of help, a little bit of training share with someone who's gonna like to hear from Rob and will benefit from learning more about chassis integrity. 00:47:35.648 --> 00:47:40.867 That's it for this episode of Wilderness Medicine Updates. 00:47:41.367 --> 00:47:45.657 Until next time stay fit, stay focused, and have fun.