Episode 16: Firefighter Training Specificity, Burnout, and Brain Injuries with Jorge Carvajal

In Episode 16, I was honored to speak with my friend and mentor, Jorge Carvajal. We spoke about the brain and brain injuries, the specificity of training requirements for both hunting elk and fighting fires, and the real challenge of burnout in both fire and the coaching world.

We also riffed on the magic that is Summer Strong. If you haven't attended, you need to go at least once.

Jorge Carvajal is a performance coach and consultant who has worked with elite athletes in multiple sports and the tactical world for over 29 years. Jorge has trained thousands of athletes at the University of Florida, the University of Nebraska, and the US Olympic training center, along with numerous professional athletes from the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL; World Surf League Big Wave Tour Surfers, and Tactical Athletes in the fire service, law-enforcement SWAT and SRT, and military communities.

So what? Now what?
Take care of your brain! We work in a career field where TBIs are commonplace and often poorly managed. Regarding training, specificity is key, and a one-week cycle isn't the way in the tactical community. Spread your training out into 9-14 days and watch the magic happen!

Summer Strong

Tacticalories

Twitter Burnout Thread

Find Jorge on Twitter

The Comfort Crisis

Three Signs of a Miserable Job

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• Episode Transcript

  Annette Zapp: 0:02

  Thank you for joining me on the fire rescue wellness podcast. I'm your host AZ. I find the research and resources, and then provide the fire service with the so what? Now what? to ensure the health and well being of every member of our profession. Together, let's thrive.

  Jorge Carvajal: 0:19

  I've Got like 10 of these from every phone you've ever had. Hear me now? You know, so I read an article from someone that I really respect with having to do with the brain and stuff. And he said the worst thing in the world was the ear pods, and what they do to the brain.

  Annette Zapp: 0:42

  I just heard that too.

  Jorge Carvajal: 0:44

  And he did a very small, simple experiment with his son holding I think just was a radio and a meter. And they hadn't even started the experiment. The thing was going crazy. And he looked at his dad and he goes, Look, and he filmed it. And he says, shocking because we haven't even started it's going off. And he's five feet away. So as he got closer, that thing was going through the roof. And he said, your brain is absorbing all of that. Think about it. We talk in our car and Bluetooth and things that we've never done before. And I was like, wow, that's mind blowing. Yes, it's convenient. It's pretty cool. But I said, I have enough head injury stuff. I don't need that. And so when I go train at the facility I'm at, people are like, what's up with that?

  Annette Zapp: 1:31

  Look at the nerd with the headphones?

  Jorge Carvajal: 1:33

  Yes. So part of it for me is I'm just not willing to, I'm not willing to risk it, I had this conversation myself about it. I'm just not willing to risk it. I like it, I have it. There are times when it seems like it's more convenient. Like if I'm on a plane watching a movie or something. Even though I can connect to my tablet. It was mind blowing, because I just came across it just accidentally. So I thought you know what, I'm gonna go with these. And of course, it's almost like these are not meant to last forever. Apple made a sort of an endpoint for these. And I don't know if it's three months, six months, but the right one just stops working. It just stopped working. And there's nothing that you can do. I have a friend who manages the Apple store here in Fort Lauderdale. And he says, When you come by next time, come on in. He actually gave me pair just to try and tells me what you think these are like the brand new ones. But he said it's just it's Apple, Apple never designed those to last forever. It's just like a water pump in a car. It only goes 100,000 miles and then that's it doesn't matter how much maintenance you do. It's the piece itself. So all the internal components here are not meant to last forever. It's just it's an apple thing, right? It's meant for you to keep buying and then keep accessorizing because the next level. The ear pods are more expensive. These are 19 bucks. Right?

  Annette Zapp: 2:57

  Airpods are 150, right?

  Jorge Carvajal: 2:59

  Correct. Correct. And they were like 249, when they started, then they came down. So it's not the money thing. I think it's just I want to try and keep all these insults out of my brain if I can, as much as I can. For as long as I can. We'll see maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. But that was pretty telling because you can see in the meters, it's a guy with a radio set not trying to sell you anything. He doesn't dislike Apple or ear pods or anything. He's just hey, this is something I just found out. I'm an engineer. Here's something that we found out. And I think that something's bad here. And the answer is yes, it's something's bad there.

  Annette Zapp: 3:36

  You mentioned it was always the right earphone. And that's the one that has the microphone on that side. So I wonder if it's something to do with the resistance from microphone,

  Jorge Carvajal: 3:44

  correct. That's, that's exactly what it is. It's the right one. It's never the left one. It's always the right one.

  Annette Zapp: 3:50

  Look at solving the problems of the world Jorge.

  Jorge Carvajal: 3:52

  It's interesting. It's interesting, because I had just gone to train this morning in the facility. Everybody there has the latest. They're the ones on the neck and then they're like it is what it is. And now it's our brains. Yeah, no, it's just, if you've had the amount of problems I've had with my head, you just don't want to go there. You don't want to do you don't want to do that again. And so whatever it is that it takes to not do that again, even if it's very micro adjustments. I'm going to make the micro adjustments and we'll see. We'll see. I told somebody about it. And it made so much sense. I saw his kids. At the field. We do our stuff. He was playing soccer, and I said I see. He's got the cable. He goes, Yeah, we're done with air pods. And he's an attorney. He was just made so much sense when I saw it. I looked at my wife. I'm like, What are we doing? We're excess, racing to the next level. We're putting ourselves in harm. And she says, That's why I told you about the Bluetooth in the car. It's a big antenna we're riding under. That doesn't make any sense. No wonder there's brain cancer going all over the place and just cancers in general. We never had this 10-15-20 years ago, maybe 10 years, yeah, but it just, our parents never had this problem. They never had this. That's why it's so telling. And it's so simple, that we're just like, it can't be that. It is that it's really that simple. So you have this resurgence of people going back to living a simpler life because it works, because that's the way that parents didn't have all the answers, but that aspect of it. They just didn't deal with those health maladies that we have now. They just didn't.

  Annette Zapp: 5:29

  Jorge, have you read the book, The Comfort Crisis? By Michael Easter, so good. It's, there's so much change in evolutionarily, the forces that are acting on us and just the last 100, and some years, no wonder we're all messed up.

  Jorge Carvajal: 5:45

  The guys at Summer Strong are very connected to him. Because they're all into bow hunting and stuff. And that's what he was doing. And one of the conversations around the table was the fact that when he did the research for the book, and was taken out on this elk hunting elk hunting is it's very physically demanding, is you're hiking in deep, hard terrain, carrying a pack for seven or eight days. And then you have to carry out the meat. I've done it twice. And it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It really changes you. And he said, preparation to get there. He said, I did my stairs with my backpack and stuff. None of that prepares you for the wind, the rain, the cold that you don't have in the gym doing the Stairmaster with your backpack on. And you just quickly start to realize, wow, like this is brutal. This is really hard. And it does two things. One, it it. It builds you in many ways, or it just breaks you down completely. You're like I'm never going to do this again. And you mentioned that to some people. And they're like, Yeah, I don't even want to try that. But he said just the act of doing that how much it changed him. I want to change his thinking of I'm doing all these things that don't matter in the gym, like none of this stuff, aesthetic wise, is helping me go and hunt an elk. None of that Stairmaster stuff. He goes, if you really want to learn what it's like to go out on the note, you're gonna have to go and content out and do some training and stuff. And then next year, you start to realize, okay, what are the things that I needed was strength endurance, was an aerobic capacity and then start building a little bit that way you get better at elk hunting as you go elk hunting. Right? So the secret is, you look at these guys, and they look, they do look rugged look the way that you think they're supposed to look, if they're gonna hunt elk, that's the best way I can put it to you. They don't look like your supervisor. They're very rugged. But they don't look like Superman by any means. But they are these guys. work capacity is unbelievable. Like they're trekking your stuff out, if you can't do it, and don't carry your pack out. That's part of the agreement. You paid for the money you paid for the trip. But the ability to do that. It's always fascinating, these guys, and that's what he said, these guys were just hardened individuals, humans, and honestly just meant humans like these guys could do things that I could never do. But they never spent very much time in the gym. It was all basically whatever they did transfers to the hunting, which is hunting, he has a hunting show. That's all he does. 24/7 That's what he's known for. But if you look at him, he doesn't look like much, but it's a concept of work capacity. So what Michael Easter does now is his whole thing is rucking like he's built this following of how I changed my life and everything, rucking that's what everybody's now elevated to doing which is okay, this transfers to life and carry things. I think there is a characterization of the physical demands of firefighting, Glenn, I think was 1992. And he talks in there what are the three things that are most needed in the fire ground and it was lifting and carrying, right? And you know that to be true lifting carrying pulling objects and working with objects in front of the body? Sure, you're if you're talking about building work capacity and you're going and doing a muscle head workout, it's not really ticking those boxes. It might help you if you're on a back day that you're pulling objects, but the rest of stuff you have to work specifically in order for it to transfer and that's what he found was rucking his rucking seemed to just make me better at everything because increases work capacity. Right? So when I look at somebody now, it's probably part of the conversation we can revisit. But if I'm going to work with somebody now, I really don't change the variables and strength training, but everybody's in the gym anyway, that's what they do their muscle heads. But I specifically look at increasing work capacity. I specifically look at mobility because nobody does that. And I specifically look at Building aerobic endurance because nobody does that work capacity is just the ability to perform, and then adapt from that performance. To be able to do more work in less time. Rucking, helps that and if you did nothing but that and fought fire, it helps. And it makes me think about that conversation we've had about fit to fight fire, you don't need to be fit to fight fire, these guys have never done a push up can pull that inch and three quarter, go into a warehouse 300 feet deep and put the fire out and come out like nothing. But a lot of these guys were doing their off duty, work with their hands. Right, they may have a job that is about lifting in carry. Most of the stuff that they carry is in front of they don't do a lot of pushing. They do a lot of pulling. And so you start seeing that there's a pattern here, these guys are actually training for the job, not really in the gym, just by virtue of doing life. The guy that won the combat challenge, about 20 years ago, he was just a monster. Brian Spaulding. You know how, Brian Spaulding trained for the combat challenge. He used to run after deer in the woods

  Annette Zapp: 11:09

  I was gonna guess he was a farm boy, but running after deer is even better.

  Jorge Carvajal: 11:14

  And if you look at him, you're like, that's the guy from Wyoming. That's where he was from. He's from Wyoming, the rugged guy, a handlebar mustache, but just look at him and you just this guy can survive the apocalypse. But that's the way he trained. He did some gym stuff. Back to that that's that was him building work capacity wasn't just aerobic stuff. And that was his interval training. When deer went right, he went left and it just worked for him. You and I probably couldn't reproduce that. But it goes back to the concept of whatever you do, hopefully transfers, whether it's police, fire, military, that's what I do is I build work capacity, because they don't have it. We do mobility stuff because everybody needs it. The more I do it, the more I realize, I just feel good. What did I do. And invariably, it was not strength training. It wasn't aerobic stuff, you get some mobility, stuff that you just have to get on the ground. One of the things we don't do is we don't get on the ground. We're adverse to being on the ground. But guess what, you're going to be on the ground. At some point, you have to be able to get up. It's beautiful. It's fascinating.

  Annette Zapp: 12:19

  It's really interesting that you mentioned Summer Strong. And then the Michael Easter connection. About two weeks ago, I was watching some videos on Instagram. And this guy that looked to be very special forces-esque was pontificating on our lifespan is longer than ever, but our health span is shorter. And he just kept going. And I'm like, that's Michael Easter's book. And I was waiting for the punch line.

  Waiting for: 12:44

  I am summarizing the Comfort Crisis but it never came. And he never gave any credit. So me being me. I commented and I said, Hey, is this a summary of the Comfort Crisis? I didn't see the credit. He didn't answer. So then I was like, Oh, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. And so I looked through my list of friends. And I found that my friend Casey, from Tacticalories was friends with Michael Easter. So I reached out to Casey, and then it all circled back. But now that all makes sense. It's the Summer Strong connection.

  Jorge Carvajal: 13:18

  Correct. Correct. And those guys are. They're very hardy. What I like about that group is that you believe in masculinity, maybe to a fault. And you know that because you've been there that's very much oriented in that kind of stuff. But it really what I liked about it was this push to not let masculinity go because it's important. Not that magically means that you're more important than females. But kids need good fathers, right? That's really, these are all good dads like that I saw there. You could see that was an important thing for them. They wanted their kid to learn about all these making knives, because it's almost like this culture of manliness is being poo pooed the new woke society that the idea of what that means for men is a more masculine or effeminate man, not a more masculine men. And so these guys don't want that to go. And they're holding on to it. And they're building this community of like minded men that like those things, they're all it's almost like they all like the same thing. We all do. But I really enjoy the fact that guys over and above it's they want to keep this culture alive for their children, so that their children are hardened. Because who knows that the complex is a complex process that's happening, but we need strong men. Summer Strong. It's fascinating to see it that way. I I like to see it from that angle, maybe it's a little bit myopic versus is these are a bunch of grunting guys that just like to go on? Lift. It's that too. Right so that too, I'm sure

  Annette Zapp: 15:07

  You probably saw my friend Sarah Johnson was there. She did the deadlift competition.

  Jorge Carvajal: 15:11

  Oh my god phenomenal.

  Annette Zapp: 15:13

  She's an amazing woman. I'm gonna have her on the podcast

  Jorge Carvajal: 15:16

  Absolutely phenomenal.

  Annette Zapp: 15:17

  A strong monster. That's the best way to describe her.

  Jorge Carvajal: 15:22

  She did not. She did not disappoint. Let's put it that way.

  Annette Zapp: 15:26

  Now she's a wonderful person Jorge, I'm actually going to leave all of that in. Because all of that was such great conversation. I'm going to intro us and we're gonna keep going. We're gonna keep rolling. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Fire Rescue Wellness podcast, we are finally on episode 16. And if you're listening on the day it releases it's December 13. So about two weeks until Christmas. And I'm here with my friend Jorge Carvajal. Jorge say hi to everybody.

  Jorge Carvajal: 15:52

  Hi, everybody. Glad to be here.

  Annette Zapp: 15:53

  Jorge and I actually recorded a couple of weeks ago. And then we had a couple of technical difficulties. So I'm so grateful for him coming back on the podcast, I met Jorge in 2014, at the tactical annual training when it was being held in San Diego. And I believe Jorge's topic was basically we're working too hard. We're overtraining. We're not recovering hard enough as firefighters. And he introduced me to the concept to me of heart rate variability, which was new to me. So I was really grateful for that. But I felt a connection with Jorge. And he invited anyone and everyone to reach out afterwards. And I did. And I'm really glad it did, because he has been a wonderful mentor to me. And one more fun fact, Jorge was on a podcast, and it was the first podcast I ever listened to so full circle Jorge, here you are on my podcast. Welcome. I like to think of myself as someone who is an explorer, I like exploring, I like to figure things out. That's at the heart of what coaching is, right? Absolutely. So I'm sure your answer for the next one might be similar. But what sets your soul on fire?

  Jorge Carvajal: 17:13

  Helping people? Yeah, it was. So it was a simple one that could have a different look in very many different ways. But at the core of it, I think just helping people. It's just a great feeling to be able to help another human being.

  Annette Zapp: 17:27

  How are you changing the world?

  Jorge Carvajal: 17:29

  hopefully one person at a time. Right? I try to focus if I'm working with somebody to give him my undivided attention and try to make the change that needs to be made. And then let them go out and pay it forward and other ways. And just continue that cycle. I think that cycle is I think it's needed. I think it's beautiful, to be able to continue helping people in very many different ways.

  Annette Zapp: 17:50

  I think that is beautiful. And we're going to come back to your brain, because we're talking about the headphones. And we're talking about all kinds of things with your brain. And we're going to come back to that. But I want to see if you remember a particular conversation that you had with me. After we had the heart rate variability conversation, you invited me to stay in touch, and we periodically would touch base about different training concerns or programs or things like that. But do you remember a day that I reached out and I said, Jorge, I need to talk? We got on a call. And I said Jorge, I don't think I can do this anymore?

  Jorge Carvajal: 18:28

  Yeah, I remember.

  Annette Zapp: 18:29

  And do you remember the advice that you gave me, it was really smart.

  Jorge Carvajal: 18:33

  I think you only had two paths there. Right? Was that the conversation? Sure is Yeah. And it was you can tie a knot and the end of your rope and hold on. And that's not easy to do. And the other ones just got to make a change. And it seems very simple. And it is it's not easy, though. I know. It's always those things are simple, but not easy.

  Annette Zapp: 18:56

  And so the time I think I probably didn't wonder enough about how you knew to give me that advice, or think I know now, but how is it that you knew that was basically the two paths that I had to choose?

  Jorge Carvajal: 19:13

  really simple because I had been there. I think when you're there and you recognize it, and you see it and you taste it, you know right away what it is. And when you recognize it, there's really just it was so simple, because those are the choices that were given to me is I can tie a rope and hang on and that's okay. If that's your choice. If you remember, that's part of what I told you is, whatever your choice you make, that's okay, there's no mistakes. It's just a path and then that path works or it doesn't work. And if you decided to make a change, that's okay too. For me. It was I had done both at different times and they both worked at different times until they didn't work anymore. And then you have to keep choosing right sometimes it's the same impasse. But it's interesting because today someone put out a tweet, it was a thread on why coaches are leaving coaching. And it was a fabulous threads 10 different stories of these high profile coaches who got to a point and burnt out or had whatever problems they had one press conference just kept saying, I'm just done done. He had no other answer, except he knew what he didn't want to do anymore. And that was that's not your Let me tie a knot at the end of the room. That's I got to leave. But it was fascinating. Because after that, I retweeted I put at the end, hey, if you have been here, I know what this is, I have some answers, if you want some help reach out. And I had about 25 Different DMs, I didn't expect that. I expected maybe a person maybe in a couple of days would say something. But within a span of I would say two hours I had 25 Different people message people that coach. And so that's a bit of an N equals one. That's not a large percentage. But it's telling that 25 People said, Hey, like I'm in one of these stories, I don't know what to do. I just know I'm at that point, either have to change something or I'm have to tie this knot at the end of this rope. And again, it's just some really simple solution. I know it is. Because I've been there. It's just not easy. Because both of those demands a choice and a path to take. And it could be a complete lifestyle change. Or it could be changing some variables. But the one common factor there is change. And that's not easy for people.

  Annette Zapp: 21:40

  And so Jorge said he recognized "it" and he had been "there". And what he meant was that he saw that I was burning out because he had been burned out previously. And Jorge, there was a lot wrapped up in burnout, if you don't mind sharing, what did that all look like?

  Jorge Carvajal: 22:01

  And it's funny because you ticked all the boxes, right? I had these boxes in my head, not that I had a running list. But I had a list in my head. And every time you said something, you basically ticked all the boxes. And so I told me that so what it looks like is I go back to Patrick Lencioni is three signs of a miserable job, which is anonymity, irrelevance and the immeasurability. You have no ability to be able to measure what you're doing. You're irrelevant in an organization. And worst of all, which I think is it hurts someone to the core of their being is being an anonymous, when you feel like you're in those three things, those three things lead to burnout, it can lead to stress, it could lead to potentially heart attacks, right? That's how stress kills. But those three things. When I read that book, I realized back then those are all the things that I ticked those boxes for sure, no question about it was irrelevant to the job that I was doing was really immeasurable. And, again, not to anybody else, but who is the most important person you have to convince that it's relevant and measurable, is you. And those two things and led to the third thing that was basically the collapse, which is I just felt anonymous. And you have passion for anything. You can't have goals for anything, when that is central to your being. You're just thinking, I'm drowning, I need to stop drowning. I can't figure out how to swim to the beach. It's not even possible. I just need to stop drowning. That's where you were. And I recognize right away

  Annette Zapp: 23:39

  And I think the thing that was most impactful that you were drowning. for me is that everyone else that I had expressed concern to, can I talk? Will you listen to me, every person that I spoke with, told me I didn't have a choice. You signed on for the fire service, you have to make it 20 years because you get to the pension and 20 years, you can't quit. I don't know if you realized that at the time. But I think I have told you since that you opening my eyes to the fact that I simply had a choice made a huge difference. Huge.

  Jorge Carvajal: 24:17

  I think when you tell somebody that hey, you signed up, it's 20 or 30 years, that is a heavy burden for someone who's already drowning. You're basically pushing them underneath the water. It's not offering a life preserver, not offering that will help them recover from that position is you're actually pushing them down under the water because at that point, you yourself are telling yourself, there's just no way out. There is no choice. The answer is there is a choice. It's not easy, but there is a choice. The choice is to stop drowning.

  Annette Zapp: 24:50

  That just made me feel sick in the pit of my stomach but that is so smart the way you put that. I do remember also during this conversation, you offered me a couple, a lot of techniques, ideas, possible solutions. And one of those solutions came in the form of you relaying a story about a gift you got from your mom for high school graduation, which at the time, you didn't appreciate very much. But can you tell everyone about that gift? Because it's a great story.

  Jorge Carvajal: 25:19

  Yes, we kept driving, we went to shop for food. at Winn Dixie, I remember Winn Dixie, this Camaro that I really wanted, and graduation came and I thought that's what I was going to get andI got a transcendental meditation course instead. And when she gave me the envelope, she said, You're not going to understand this for 25 years, which already blew my mind because I got to wait for 25 years, you're in high school, that's not your thinking. And then she gave it to me. And I'd opened it up. And I was surprised in a way but not because she had always been a meditator. Meditation was the way that she dealing with migraines. She'd in a dark room, close the blinds and meditate, she wouldn't take medication, she wanted to try and overcome it through her own means. And it worked very well, that changed in many ways. And I think that those changes, she saw that were important. As I was starting my life, I went through the course mantra, which is part of TM. And then it took 25 or 30 years for me to understand it.

  Annette Zapp: 26:21

  Your mom hit it out of the park, it just took you a good couple of decades actually, to appreciate it.

  Jorge Carvajal: 26:28

  She prefaced the entire story by saying exactly that. It's going to take for 30 years, I remember she said specifically 25 or 30 years.

  Annette Zapp: 26:40

  And it did. That's amazing. So I remember you telling me a little bit about when you were relating to me and saying I see you I've been here, I've been at burnout. I Remember you also saying that you had one or more traumatic brain injuries, which were really becoming worrisome for you. How did you get on the other side of those TBI? Or do you never get on the other side of them?

  Jorge Carvajal: 27:07

  So it was one traumatic brain injury and four

  Annette Zapp: 27:08

  And what's figuring out look like? Where concussions. Back then there was no concussion protocols. Even there supplementation protocols or just take time and TBI injuries were put out to pasture. There really was no protocol. They didn't understand the brain or recovery of the brain. And so I had a really, really good neurologist, I remember that he's very kind. And sometimes was very sad, perseverance,

  Jorge Carvajal: 27:29

  the more I read about the brain, and people who because he couldn't help me. And he couldn't help the patients. He just, this is what I do. But I'm like, I can't help you anymore. Remember, most of this stuff would have to do with pain medication, because pain was part of it. But nobody really talked about how do you come out of this one, too? Can you come out of this, and the more I suffered more, I realize, until one day I was walking through the threshold of the house I was living in. And it was a there's walking through some French doors divided the kind of office space from the back room where we watch TV. And I thought I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to live like this anymore. I just don't want to live like this anymore. There was no solution, there was no help. But I was in a period where I did not have pain I had the cycles of pain would come and go. And as I was crossing, and I was going into the bedroom, I thought I don't have pain. I don't have pain right now. So it means that pain isn't necessarily pain is part of this process. But it's not all of the process. I'm not that pain. I don't have to suffer. And I think it's a conversation you're right. About suffering, right suffering is you wanting things to be different than what they are. And so I decided to allow the pain while not suffer. And so I allowed myself to have the pain and suffer, I just realized it was coming in, I did the best that I could with it. And then I get up and go back to work or do whatever else I needed to do. And slowly that changed things and I thought I can recover. But it's going to take me to recover. Nobody's going to want me to recover more than me because nobody knows those dark nights in a room with severe crushing head pain. What that's like, nobody cares. Nobody would care. They're doing their own thing. They live their life. And so I have to figure it out. And so I set upon a path to try and figure it out. Because I had no choice. It was add or continue to live with that kind of Buddhist mentality, if you will, of going to have pain but not suffering. How long can I Is that sustainable? How long can I and then little by little I start to figure it out. had very bad brain injuries was number one time. So I had to be very patient, if you know me patience is not my greatest virtue. And so it was almost like I got this injury, that would, could have been not just the worst injury, but the personality and the characteristics that you need to recover from that injury. I did not. I had to learn patience. So a number one on the prescription protocol was Be patient. That's not easy. It's super, super hard for someone who's not patient. But that also taught me that Okay, so that's number one. Number two is I need to sit more. This is when the meditation start to come in. More and more factor is sitting by myself quiet time, so that then I had a choice between stimulus and response. And that's that choice started to elongated, more and more, where I had a stimulus, I didn't respond, or it didn't react, I could mount the response. And that was a conscious choice. That led to less pain and less suffering. And then little by little, I just do a couple of different things. One was, at the time, I still only thing that kind of really brought me I want to say pain relief. But overall, I usually was not in pain when I was out there. Sometimes it was, but it was very minor. But I realized that floating, one of the things I enjoyed is I would fall off the side of the board and put my hands, arms on the board. Let my body stay vertical in the water. And I would just float. And I could float for hours. I had no tomorrow or yesterday or while I was going to eat or people on the beach. I just didn't have any thoughts. I don't know, if you don't if you've never been there if you don't understand that. It's very difficult to understand that. How can you have no thoughts but I didn't think. And so I thought to recreate that I looked for a place that had floatation tank. Because I couldn't be in the water in the ocean. But I could probably float here and there. And if I started floating about 30 minutes a day or every other day at sea, and when I went to 60 a couple times a week, it's almost like the brain started to heal itself. And that's very anecdotal, because I don't have I did have an MRI before and after an EMI was completely different. The areas of the brain that had been damaged, or somewhat healed, not fully. But there was different blood flow, there was new areas of blood flow. And I've done nothing different than except float in the ocean and float in a floatation tank in one place. And actually, I think it was flawed at that time. But it was it was in Boca Raton, and I think it was Florida Atlantic University. And they had this huge thing that looked if you ever see the movie altered states with William Hurt, he is doing an experiment where he floats and they basically regress back into in time. And it's this giant cylindrical thing. And it was exactly like that is very primitive. But it was saltwater to allow you to stay blue into and get the benefit of floating. And the more fluid the more recovered. And so I just became a fan of that float more. And I tried different vitamins and minerals and diet protocol, the meditation, the floating, and then at some point, CBD oil was part of a recovery process. And I came up the other end, not unscathed. To your point Have you ever recover? I think you always have. There's some symptoms that I think I'll probably have the rest of my life, the brain is not supposed to be concussed. The brain is not supposed to undergo a traumatic brain injury. It just isn't. We're very resilient. Right? As human beings, the brain in the body is very resilient. It's just not meant to happen. And I think even when I see someone is riding a bike or something that helmet, I just think that one fall. It's a lifelong. It's a lifelong injury. It's not an injury for a year or two, it's you may never recover. Again, you may never be the same person depending on what kind of treatment and stuff. Obviously, it's more prevalent now to have concussion protocols and concussion therapy and treatment and protocols are night and day compared are there. But at the end of the day, the brain is not supposed to be concussed. It's just not.

  Annette Zapp: 34:43

  In my population in particular, police, fire and military all we have that high incidence of maybe not major traumatic brain injuries, but those minor TBI is that just continue to add up. And the research is telling us that those minor TBIs are we predictive of PTSD, which could be predictive of suicidal ideation? So are my firefighters out there? You got to be careful of your brain. And if you do take a clonk to the head, that's a technical term clonk to the head. If you do take a hit to the head, you do really need to follow those protocols and get it checked out. I know I've had several minor TBIs, which we never followed any protocols.

  Jorge Carvajal: 35:27

  No, and it's, it's a little bit more like the whole concept of mental health. Right? It's, it's okay now to ask for help. It's still I don't think we're those professions, specifically, police fire military, it's not an enrolled thing to do. But I think it's a little bit more accepted. Same with this is you have to follow up, you have to follow up. It makes such a huge difference. If you can start any kind of treatment that you would not have ever thought of most people just take ibuprofen and go to bed with searing headaches for a couple of weeks, and then then they come out of it. But do you really come out of it? And the answer is no, you don't know I don't think you do.

  Annette Zapp: 36:08

  Speaking again, I'll call him my population. I want to get your perspective on this, Jorge, for so we'll go back to me which I am almost a 20 year veteran. And the message that I received was, You can't quit, you have to stick it out to that's one end of the pendulum. And now on the opposite end of the pendulum. We're finding that for a variety of reasons, our younger firefighters are getting into the job, and then jumping from department to department or maybe getting into the job and then not liking it and getting out which I think I respect that very much. But do you have any perspective on maybe comparing this to strength and conditioning? Why these young firefighters may be jumping around from department to department?

  Jorge Carvajal: 36:55

  I think part of it is because when you and I started, right? You see those professions as a calling. Right, you see it as a career, quote, unquote. And what I see and what I hear and what gets brought back to me, I think you know, as to be true, is that this has become police fire military, maybe not so much. But yes, because of GI Bill and all the financial things that are able to be taken advantage of. It's a job. Right? And if it's a job, you're looking for the job that gives you the best benefits, right? And it's not the same candidate that you had 20 years ago that came in and you said this is a calling, those are two completely different mentalities, right. Something that this is my calling, versus this is my job. It could be. And it is for many people wanting the same. It is not for everybody, but you'll have people come in and they see it as this is just the job. And if something else comes up and pays a little bit better, and they don't have to risk their life. They're out the door. They're right out the door said are in it for different reasons. It's, it's a job, it's a calling. And understand that because they can't see themselves doing anything else. They love what they do. That's the word here. I love what I do. But it's a different generations a different mentality. And it's almost like they're looking for the quick buck. They're not willing to stay in sacrifice and do the work. And that's not a blanket statement. That's true. Not everybody, but it's very prevalent. It's there.

  Annette Zapp: 38:40

  I read something. I think it was on Twitter recently. Maybe Instagram, who knows, but it was it just basically said it's 2022 People aren't going to work in places that they don't enjoy their job anymore. And so for me, it's I'm gonna play devil's advocate right now. So I'm the administration of a fire department and I really want to retain quality candidates and I want to treat my employees really well. I think personally, offering them a comprehensive health and wellness program with someone to coach them would be really valuable. And so I do know that you specialize in training of variety of athletes. So you have your surfers, which is pretty cool. And you have your special operations people in the military, and then you also train firefighters. Let's talk about training firefighters from the perspective of a coach. What are we looking for in terms of relating to those individuals training them and getting them out the door as healthy and happy as they possibly can be at the end of their career.

  Jorge Carvajal: 39:49

  To your first point about offering what you need to offers offer comprehensive benefits like another job. That's the problem is there, the better fits are somewhat better somewhere, they jump and the thing that they have that maybe other people did not have, you come out of high school and you're either going into the military, you go into college, or you're going to be a police or firefighter. So you don't have a lot of choices. There's a lot of choices now. So that's that. I think, for those people, even starting now, and you know that there's kind of a, there's the program that you come out of when you recruit training, right. So that's the really young, young buck, if you want to call it that, the veteran has been on for 10 or 15 years, and then you have the individual that's the twilight years about to head out. Those are three different programs. Those are not the same programs. They could be all encompassing, you can downsize, tailor, and change those programs, depending on the individual, you want to make it very individualized. But those are three different programs. And I think one of the things that everybody does when they start for many people is recruiting is brutal. And so you is overtraining under recovery. I'm not a big believer in overtraining, I've never seen anybody, overtraining three years, I just never have. And I'm talking to elite operators and athletes, I've seen 1000s of people under recovered... different. And so they are so under recovered from recruit training that they just, it's almost like they they've seen exercise as punishment, because in most recruit classes, exercise is used as punishment. And then they basically wipe themselves free and clean of the sin of exercise and you lose them. And you can never get them back because you taught them that exercise is punishment is not need exercise, you need a certain capacity, we were talking before, in order to do this job, there are physical demand that you have to meet and qualify it for in order to be able to be a good firefighter, for example. Same with the other two levels, right? The guy has been doing the job for a certain while, needs, that sort of strength needs some a little bit endurance, he needs work capacity, that is the guy that's on the job, and continuously putting out the fire pulling into quarter going in masking up and putting out the fire. And then you have the guy that basically doesn't do that anymore. It could be a battalion chief, or it could be just an older guy and older station that maybe needs a little bit more aerobic endurance and aerobic work, and some mobility work. But all those people need the very same thing at different in varying levels. They need aerobic work and work capacity, they need strength. It's just in varying degrees of intensity and volume depending on where they're at in their career and what's going on, you starting don't want to train, the guys been on for 15 years same as a 22 year old guy who's got to recruit class, they're just two different human beings body wise, right? They have different recovery. And I think when I started to work with firefighters, myself included is one of the biggest mistakes I made was I tried to hit all these variables work capacity strength, right, or anaerobic work, aerobic work. And I tried to fit those all in a week. The problem is that if you work a 24, let's say 48 hour shift, right? You're working about three days a week, out of a seven day, and you're trying to put all those things in, but you haven't slept for two of those shifts. So you always have this residual fatigue that you're dealing with, and you're trying to fit in all these tick all these boxes. And from a standpoint of logistics, it doesn't work. You're making more inroads into your recovery than you're actually recovering from. And so one of the things I found to be really beneficial is to create nine to 14 day training cycles. I like to separate strength and conditioning on separate days, I don't like to do it on the same day, if I have to do it, I'll do it. After strength, strength is the most important variable to me. But when you spread it out now over a course of 9, 10 14 days, if you're doing three strength workouts and three conditioning workouts, now you have time to do that work and you have time to be able to recover from that residual fatigue. If you're residually, fatigued all the time, and you're adding conditioning strength on top of that you will never recover. Because as most people already have, in those professions, sleep problems. It's just very prevalent. So if you're not sleeping and not recovering, you're just basically killing yourself little by little right. You're micro dying, what I call on a daily basis, you're not recovering from the work. You're not making adaptations. Whatever you're doing isn't transferring to your occupation because you're just retired continue to open but when you elongate that period of work, where you allow for fit He so that you can sleep for the day, hey, you know what, I'm just gonna go for a walk today. That is today's workout, recover, do some mobility stuff. Tomorrow, have a good, let's say tonight have a good eight or nine hours of sleep, whatever it is that you normally get, hopefully somewhere between seven and nine. And then you can wake up and have your strength workout, and then you're back to work, there's nothing to say you can't do work on duty. A lot of people don't like it. And that's okay. You can do some conditioning, you can do some strength, whatever it is, but you just elongate the ability to recover from that fatigue. And that seems to have worked really well. I brought in a peer fitness trainer course I brought it up for the first time because I didn't want to share it. Because I didn't know how people would take it because we've all kind of grown up on the seven day workweek. And so this is asking people to expand their mind or to see something different. And to this day, I still get emails, I just got one the other day from people who said that changed my life, like by saying that it was okay. I don't have to build all these things in the seven day cycle. It doesn't work for me. But nobody's told me that I can do something else. So I told him, yes, you can. Here's how you do it. And to this day, I still get to, which is it's fascinating. It's amazing. But it's really satisfying to know, that made a difference. And it really works very well works with military guys, that's what I do is a do block training. But that block is not solely based on a week. It could be I'm using nine and

  Annette Zapp: 46:31

  recovered, I think the best analogy we can maybe 10 day cycles now. And it seems the guys who just recovered and use is it's death by 1000 paper cuts, each individual day how do I know that they're sleeping better than their recovery questionnaires are through the roof. Their HRV is better, everything's better, they're less injured when they get deployed. It seems like it's working very well. doesn't really have that big of an impact. But after day in and day out, it has a huge impact. But I love the nine to 14 day cycle. And it's funny as you were speaking, I was thinking isn't Jorge who told me about that? Or did I hear that somewhere else. So I'm glad you brought that up. So all of you that are listening, really consider that seven days is very arbitrary. And especially if you are on a 24/48 or 48/72 schedule, lengthening out that program is going to make a lot more sense more recovery is better

  Jorge Carvajal: 47:34

  if you think about all of the articles. And I would say not 90%. But 100% of the articles are written out there are written for people that are not doing shift work. And so you're trying to place yourself in this square peg into the round hole and it doesn't fit but you keep trying. The reason is it doesn't fit. All of those articles. All those programs that are written out are based on a seven day cycle. And none of them take into consideration shifts. Not a single one I've never heard of one I've ever read one in 30 years unless it was specifically written for shift workers. It's just not that's not the industry. That is not the the industry supports the initial divorce of the regular nine to 5% are the college student that has some time during the day to train and they sleep at night every single night. That is not shift work.

  Annette Zapp: 48:26

  That's absolutely not shift work. And I the reason that I am such a proponent of sleep as the first intervention, when somebody comes to me and says, Hey, I want to start a program. I think sleep is just the place to start because I say it a lot. But everything gets better when you sleep.

  Jorge Carvajal: 48:46

  Sleep is the numbe rone recovery tool. It's not NormaTec boots, it's not post workout shakes. It's not even mobility stuff. It's sleep, you have to get that right. I have a sleep contract. And I will not work with somebody unless they're willing to sleep a certain amount of time. And then we monitor it through an app. And it's zero tolerance. I can't help you if you're not sleeping. Because if you're not sleeping or not recovering, if you're not recovery, you can't take the program. It just doesn't work.

  Annette Zapp: 49:13

  Like that trying hard line sleep is that important.

  Jorge Carvajal: 49:17

  And that's that is a way that you impress the importance of it is it's really that important. The answer is yes. I'm not really even to train. Somebody is not willing to sleep. It's just doesn't work. I know that I don't have to try and figure it out. I know it doesn't work.

  Annette Zapp: 49:33

  That's really funny. I have a parallel with that, which is for the last 18 years I've been trying to be very inclusive when I talk to people and address departments that refuse to spend money in departments that will spend money and those that will allocate time and those that won't allocate time. I've just come down to this sort of this is my vision, your department will allocate time and they will understand that it does cost money, or I'm sorry, I can't help you. So I guess I've drawn a hard line in the sand too,

  Jorge Carvajal: 50:08

  yeah, the most important resources for departments is their people, it's not the equipment, that's always been their people. And if you're not willing to invest in those people, depending on who it is, and who I'm talking to, you may not want to take that job. Because you're just a cog in the wheel, you'll be replaced very quickly, the standards not going to change and their focus is always going to be the equipment, the equipment doesn't run unless you have good people. So those good departments have invested in wellness, fitness, because they know that last what they have is their people.

  Annette Zapp: 50:42

  And the return on investment is huge. And we both we can all agree everyone listening, even if you don't have any knowledge of the fire service, you can agree that it's really important to maintain those ladder trucks that cost upwards of a million and a half dollars, it is important to have a plan for working on those trucks and replacing the tires understood. But during the course of my career, I'm going to be a several million dollar investment too. So spending a small amount of money on maintaining me is a great investment. How do we convince departments of this Jorge?

  Jorge Carvajal: 51:18

  it's maintenance, there's a certain budget allocated for maintenance of the equipment, there should be a certain budget allocated for the maintenance of the personnel. This is this, we're not talking about rocket science here. But what most departments do is a basically outsource the maintenance of the personnel to the personnel. That's what they do is a while do your own thing, because it's important to be fit, to fight fire. But they don't give you resource or allocate the resources for you to do that. It's incumbent upon you, no disagreement there. You know what you signed up for, but there should be an allocation of resources for you to be able to have the same kind of maintenance that they provide for the trucks, it's, again, it's, you put it beautifully, it's a return on your investment, the return of the investments of people, it's not the trucks, trucks break down, too, and people do too. And so the most important valuable asset there is the trucks you can throw away, you can throw away people, you can hire new people. But then what does that really say about your organization, culture and stuff like that?

  Annette Zapp: 52:24

  Yeah, we don't want people to be disposable. No. Jorge, I want to be super respectful of your time, especially since we recorded more than once. And so we'll start winding down and want you to tell me, is there anything that you would like to share that I didn't ask you about or you think is a great nugget for the people listening today?

  Jorge Carvajal: 52:46

  I think you hit all of the things that you thought was important. And specifically, we hadn't touched on it last time. But the building of that expanded week, I think, is probably the most important message I can put out there is you can do it, right. It all depends on when you work, if you've worked at a station where you you, if we're talking about the fire service, we sleep all night, then that's an easy solution. But that's not the majority of the fire service across the country, right? You have sleepless nights, you have trucks running six, seven calls after midnight, you have to be able to deal with that residual fatigue. And I think being able to tell people that you can elongate that seven day cycle to 9, 10 days or a two week cycle, right? You're not going to lose your muscles, bro, that's not the way works, it gives you actually more of an opportunity to produce better results with performance aesthetics where it is. Because with residual fatigue, if the bodies didn't residual fatigue all the time. There's no stimulus for growth just it's just simple physics and science and chemistry. Right. So I think that was something I really wanted to touch on that we didn't last time. But I thought it was really important because I just got an email someone saying, Hey, man, I don't know if you remember me. And of course I did. It was a firefighter from Orlando. That said, I was in the class and you brought this up. And I think it had to do something with I think maybe something I put on Twitter with respect to that. And he's just changed my life. I get that continuously because now you are allowed to change your program design. It doesn't have to be based on seven days. It's could be whatever you want to. And when you start sleeping more and recovering from that residual fatigue and you're able to lift heavier or run farther, whatever it is that what your KPIs your key performance indicator, it makes a huge difference. And I think that's really important conversation for specific people to do shift work.

  Annette Zapp: 54:44

  Avoid that death by 1000 paper cuts 100%. So I believe Jorge, you are the most active on Twitter. Correct? And you are @Carvperformance on Twitter isn't that right. All right, so I'll put that in the show notes. And I'm just so grateful for you taking your time again.

  Jorge Carvajal: 55:06

  I appreciate it. Thank you.

  Annette Zapp: 55:08

  I appreciate you so much. I periodically send you a text or an email just to remind you how important you've been to me but I just want all the listeners to know this is a great man and I appreciate him so very much. So for Fire Rescue Wellness Podcast. This has been AZ and Jorge Carvajal and we are officially out