Walking Program Promotes Fitness In Salt Lake City
There’s no doubt that fire fighters must be in good physical condition not just for effectiveness during operations, but also to stay alive. An IAFF study showed that of 101 fire fighters who died on the job during a 15-month period, 45 were killed not by smoke inhalation or building collapse, or burns, but by heart failure.
Realizing the need for physical fitness, Chief Evan L. Baker of the Salt Lake City Fire Department, decided to find an exercise program to augment the program then in operation. It had to be one that wouldn’t take too much time and yet would benefit the fire fighters. After extensive research into the health problems peculiar to fire fighters and after numerous consultations with Dr. Harry Gibbons, director of the Salt Lake County-City Board of Health, the decision was made to implement an aerobics program based on Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper’s “The New Aerobics.”
Cooper states categorically that one’s heart rate during and after strenuous exercise is directly related to one’s condition. There are several physiological factors that affect the heart function: blood sugar, HDL:LDL cholesterol ratio (a greater ratio of HDL to LDL is healthier and exercise increases the HDL level), body weight, percent body fat, and blood pressure.
In measuring fitness,the slower the resting heart rate, the better (ideal for men is 50 to 60 beats per minute). The heart, as with all muscles, must be exercised, not just used, for it to be strong. Strengthening of the heart causes a greater stroke volume. That is, more blood and concomitantly more oxygen, is pumped with each beat.
Cooper maintains that a healthy heart and a healthy body are inseparable— there’s no such combination as a healthy heart in an unfit body. Those of us who smoke cigarettes might look healthy and those of us whose exercise is primarily weight-lifting may have fine-looking bodies. But unless the heart is exercised, which smoking cigarettes negates and which lifting weights doesn’t do, we are not in good physical condition, Cooper asserts.
With the new aerobics as a guide, and with a new, more thorough physical examination which would cost over $200 in the private sector made available to fire department members through’the efforts of Baker and Gibbons, the physical fitness program was initiated in March 1976 with Cooper’s recommended conditioning walking program.
Monthly test given
To overcome any initial apathy, the officers of each platoon at each station were required to give Cooper’s 12-minute test each month to their fire fighters and record the results on a special form printed on the reverse of the monthly training report. The training section tests the fire fighters two or more times annually to double-check physical fitness maintenance.
To date, the program seems to be successful. Although participation is mandatory, there is no ulterior or punitive motive such as weeding out “undesirables.” The program’s only reason for existence is to upgrade the health of Salt Lake City fire fighters. Cooper’s 16-week program has been lengthened to 52 weeks, and the fire fighters must reach and maintain only the fitness category “good” to satisfy the fire department.
The acid test for any such program is the opinion of the fire fighters. They like it. Cooper’s age-structured categories of fitness enable older men to compete more equally with younger men. Many fire fighters report feeling better generally. They have better wind and some have trimmed their waistlines. The program takes only 15 to 20 minutes five days a week.
It’s a cheap price to pay for better health.
