FITNESS

Fitness is integral to successful operations in wildland fire. Missoula Helitack utilizes fitness standards to ensure that all crewmembers can contribute, stay safe and be effective on the fireline. The following minimums are intended to serve as a baseline to ensure we are all sufficiently prepared for the season. Fitness standards are as follows:

-          1.5 mile run, to be completed in 11:00 or less

-          25 pushups

-          5 pull-ups or 15 second flexed arm hang

-          45 sit-ups or 2 minute plank

-          65 pound packout over varying terrain

-          Crew hike up Mt Sentinel with line gear, roughly 2000 feet of gain over 2 miles, to be completed in 60 minutes or less.

None of these standards are exceptional, and are considered a baseline for participating in crew operations. They exist to give new and returning employees a metric for assessing their off-season fitness. Crewmembers regularly exceed most or all standards by a significant margin, and all employees are given the time and tools to continually improve their fitness throughout the year.

Training Plan

Attached below is a 12-week training plan intended to be started 3 months prior to critical to help you prepare for the fire season. Please adapt it to your needs and fitness level, and try to avoid injury above all else. Missing a workout or two is better than sustaining an overuse injury. 

There are several types of workouts listed, each can be tailored to your specific situation.

LSS (Long Steady State)

This is long, steady cardio. Running and hiking are the most specific, but these workouts can be accomplished with whatever form of cardio you prefer. Biking, rowing, swimming, or a stair-climber are all great low impact options.

- This type of cardio is the foundation of aerobic endurance. Most of your cardiovascular workouts should be long and easy. Keep in mind that we will do extensive hiking and running throughout the season, so it is highly recommended to prioritize these skills.

-  It is easy to work TOO HARD during these workouts. They are intended to be easy.

 - A good way to determine if you are working at the correct effort level is to pay attention to how hard you are breathing, you should be able to breathe through your nose the entire time, or speak in full sentences throughout the entire workout. If you find yourself unable to do those things, you are probably working too hard.

 - A training partner makes this even easier; you should be able to hold a conversation throughout your run or hike.

-  For those who are so inclined, a heart rate monitor (while not necessary) is very helpful.

     - 220 minus your age = your estimated max heart rate

     - Aim to keep your heart rate between 65% and 75% of your max heart rate during these workouts.

     -Example: If Max HR = 195, aim keep HR between 125-145 bpm

     -Training this way may result in your running times seeming exceptionally slow. That’s ok. The time to run fast will come, these workouts SHOULD BE EASY. Your pace will improve over time.

- Hiking is the most important form of fitness we have, obviously it is difficult to hike a lot when the mountains are covered in feet of snow. As spring approaches and the weather warms up, start to swap some of your LSS for hikes.

Resistance Training (RT)

These are strength and muscle building workouts. We are not bodybuilders or powerlifters, but the stronger we are the less likely we are to be injured, and a solid foundation of strength can only help in other fitness endeavors.

Build a Cluster: Pick 3 to 5 movements that you enjoy and think you can make progress with over several months. These can be weighted or body weight. Your movement cluster should include a lower body exercise, a pushing movement, and a pulling movement, and a hinge.

  Examples: squats, lunges, pushups, dips, overhead press, pull-ups, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, etc.

Aim for 5 sets (not including warmups) of 5-10 reps on weighted exercises, 10-20 on body weight exercises

A good way to choose your weights or total reps is to imagine your Reps in Reserve (RIR). After your set you should have a feeling for how many reps you had left in the tank. Aim to have 2-3 RIR. If you feel you could’ve done 10 more reps, you likely are lifting too light a weight, or are not doing enough reps. If you feel you only had 1 or 0 reps left in the tank, you are lifting too much weight or doing an unnecessarily high number of reps.

Week by week you should see your total reps increase, once you have increased your maximum repetitions at a given weight by 3-5, increase the weight by a small amount (5-10 pounds). Small consistent improvements are better than sudden large ones.

If you are not seeing improvement week to week or month to month, several things could be hindering your progress.

     - You could be training too light, or too hard (See RIR above)

     - You are not allowing enough time between RT workouts to recover

     - Your diet may need some work (not a dietician, just try to get some more protein and total calories in)

     - If you have seen several weeks or months of improvement but are suddenly regressing, you may be overtraining and are due for a deload week.

High Intensity Training (HIT)

HIT is the opposite of long steady cardio. This is the time to run fast, these workouts should be hard.  These training sessions are intended to build top end power and speed. There are tons of options here, any interval workout applies, as well as the running workouts listed below.

- Hill Ladder: run uphill HARD for time, jog downhill EASY for the same amount of time.

- 1 minute up, 1 minute down, 2 up 2 down, 3,4,5,4,3,2,1

- Tempo Run: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles at near max sustainable pace (think “comfortably hard”) 1 mile cool down

-  Mile Repeats: 1 mile warmup, run 1 mile fast, then walk or jog for half as long as the mile took. Repeat 3-5x

Example: rest for 4 minutes after an 8-minute mile

-  4x4 VO2 Max: 4 minutes at highest sustainable pace, 4 minutes recovery jog. Repeat 4-6x.

Rest Days and Deload Weeks:

Rest and recovery are just as important as the training itself. These workouts will not matter if you do not give your body time to recover and adapt to the strain you have put on it. Most training weeks have 2 rest days scheduled. Move these around within the week as needed based on your schedule and how you are feeling. It’s ok to miss a workout or two if you are feeling overly beat up, so long as week to week you are completing most of the programmed training.

Deload Weeks: Every 4th week is a deload week, during which overall mileage and time spent training are greatly reduced to allow your body to recover more fully than it can over a one or two day period. It is important to remain active during these weeks though, being completely sedentary is not productive. A few easy jogs and some stretching is plenty.

Below is a calendar for the 12 weeks of training. The acronym denotes which type of workout to do, the numbers after LSS show how long each workout should last. (LSS 30-60 means easy jog for 30-60 minutes)