FIREpower by Nautilus®

By REGINA WEST

Med-Fit Systems, THE manufacturer of the Nautilus® commercial fitness equipment, offers a major advancement in firefighter conditioning with the FIREpower by Nautilus® programming for firefighters.

In an era of tight budgets and space constraints, FIREpower by Nautilus® offers a unique program that matches fitness training technology, new fitness equipment technologies and strength, functionality, and cardiovascular requirements for frequently performed job tasks that are demanded from firefighters.

In 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cited that overexertion and bodily reaction accounts for 45 percent of nonfatal firefighter injuries and illness. Some common causes of overuse injury are a lack of stretching, warming up, and cooling down; improper exercise techniques; being overweight; and an imbalance in muscle strength (between opposing muscles-i.e., abs and lower back).

The conditioning challenge for firefighters is exacerbated because firefighters are required to move quickly from a relatively sedentary situation to a physically and mentally demanding high-stress emergency without the benefit of warming up. The innovative FIREpower by Nautilus® program moves far beyond firefighter conditioning programs of the past.

The program’s developers used preexisting and brand new technologies of Nautilus® equipment to construct a program that mimics activities with demands for high heart rate and fine motor skills. The strength demands and postures are not repetitive; they vary each time in accordance with firefighter activities. The program’s muscular and cardio exercise demands vary. The protocol stresses flexibility, balance, and core strength improvement. Aggressive cardio challenges are required for all, regardless of age/heart rate guidelines. A specific stretching program is indicated to augment strength and cardio conditioning. The FIREpower™ protocol mimics daily activities performed by firefighters in the line of duty.

(1) Photo courtesy of Med-Fit Systems, Inc. Click to view video

FIREpower™ prescribes specific Nautilus® equipment (proven in numerous scientific studies to be the safest, most effective, and most time efficient of fitness brands) to correspond with each firefighter exercise in the protocol. Nautilus® equipment is engineered for safe, effective execution.

The new technology of the XPLOAD Zone® equipment speaks to the conditioning needs of firefighters and to the limited space and resources of firehouses. This equipment is included in both the basic “Fire Captain” and advanced “Fire Chief” FIREpower™ circuits.

The XPLOAD Zone™ is the first piece of body weight resistance equipment to add cable stations with pulleys that can work multiple areas of the body and that provide weight increments of 2½ pounds per handle. The Nautilus® cable stations shrink the footprint by nearly 33 percent vs. other body weight resistance models, combining form and function. The equipment additionally provides the functional training features that users love such as attachment points for body weight resistance straps and heavy bag, integrated monkey bars, and pull-up and dip bars.

In addition to improving cardiovascular efficiency, FIREpower’s unique conditioning program helps reduce and prevent injuries to the other two most common problem areas: lower back and shoulders.

Following are just a few of the exercises that were developed for FIREpower by Nautilus® Task Neuron Training, specific to firefighter job demands:

• XPLOAD Zone™ exercises mimicking the activity of pulling a hose from upper/lower positions; other exercises improve mobility on uneven surfaces.
• Nautilus® Smith Machine exercises mimic fighting a fire with a charged hoseline and carrying a stretcher and lifting it onto an ambulance/emergency vehicle.
• Use the equipment’s built-in heart monitors and perform high-intensity interval cardio training in dosed and repeated intervals at maximum effort on the Nautilus® T916 Treadmill, K2 Vertical Climber, or Nautilus® E10 Elliptical, followed by a nearly full recovery. The purpose of this exercise is to simulate the heart rate variability extremes that firefighters experience.

Departments that wish to purchase a FIREpower™ equipment circuit may be eligible to receive a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant for the equipment. Complete the FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant program application and attach an outline showing how the FIREpower™ purchase will be used to conduct fitness assessments for firefighters. Fitness assessments can be done with FIREpower™ by Nautilus® firefighter-specific protocol and through the K2 Vertical Climber Candidate Physical Ability Test.

Some Facts We Know

• Heart attacks are the #1 killer of firefighters, accounting for 50 percent of all line-of-duty deaths.

• Firefighters have a 300-percent greater risk of heart attack than any other population segment (FEMA 2009).

• The cost of addressing injuries and efforts to prevent heart attacks is estimated to be up to $7.8 billion per year (Tridata Corp. for U.S. Department of Commerce, NIST 2005).

• There has been no substantial improvement in firefighter health over the past 25 years (University of Indiana, 2010).

REGINA WEST is the marketing manager for Med-Fit Systems, Inc.