Episode 22: Unlocking Wellness: Finding the Right Pro for your FD with AZ

In episode 20, I riffed on why I don't think in-house, on-duty, DIY is the best way to serve our firefighters.  In this episode I break down the qualities and credentials to look for in an outside professional.

A nearly 20-year fire service veteran, Zapp holds the rank of Lieutenant and owns Fire Rescue Wellness, a coaching business dedicated to elevating the mental and physical wellness of firefighters worldwide. She earned a master’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of South Dakota School of Medicine and is a National Strength and Conditioning Association CSCS *D and TSAC-F *D. She’s also certified by the International Society of Sports Nutrition and the Society for Neurosports.

In 2020, she served on an Illinois Senate task force focused on mitigating first responder suicide. Zapp is a former adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver in the graduate program for Sport Coaching, a recognized industry leader in the firefighter health and wellness field, a co-author of the recently published ISSN Position Stand on Tactical Athlete Fueling, a proud member of the newly formed Associated Firefighters of Illinois Resiliency Committee.

So what, now what?

Instead of asking for a DIY option, ask for what you really need:  the most capable professionals you can find.

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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. Hey gang, it's AZ back for another solo episode of the Fire Rescue wellness podcast. This is episode 22. And today, I'm talking about how to find an outside professional to help you with your Fire Department Health and Wellness Program. Now in Episode 20, I talked about why I believe that do it yourself in house on duty, pure fitness trainer only programs don't tend to work very well. And so if you didn't get a chance to listen to that episode, hop back to last Friday, and listen to listen to episode 20. But let's get started with the information for today. I have five basic types of professionals that I believe are excellent outside resources for a fire department. So first of all, I'm just going to run down the list: athletic trainer, Strength and Conditioning Specialist, sports dietitian, physical therapist and mental health professional. Now, if you can get one of those professionals that has experience in more than one area, ie a sports dietitian, who also happens to be a TSAC facilitator, or an athletic trainer that happens to be a strength and conditioning specialist as well. Or even a mental health professional who has experience with disordered eating. If you can get professionals that have more than one skill set that's going to multiply your bang for your buck. But let me give you my opinion. And keep in mind, I'm a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a sports nutrition certification. This is my opinion, an athletic trainer is going to give you your best bang for your buck, your greatest return on investment and the most immediate results. If you have not listened to Mo Shea in episode nine, make sure you go back and listen. She talks a lot about return on investment for athletic trainers and scope of practice. But real briefly, an athletic trainer can help keep your firefighters in the game. Imagine this, you're on a call, you lift a heavy patient, you feel a twinge in your back. And you're just not sure. Is it an injury? Is it just a twinge, is what I call an ouchie. What is it? Well, the beauty is an athletic trainer can help you sort that out. They can go through step by step process to help you determine is it an injury or is it an ouchie? And then they can help you decide? Do I stay on the truck today? Or do I need to go be seen by a doctor. And so that's one of the great benefits of an athletic trainer, they can help you determine, again, injury versus ouchie. They can also help you in a let's call it pre habilitative manner. If the athletic trainer takes a look at your squat pattern, your gait, the way you carry the ladder and finds movement deficiencies, they can go ahead and help you work on those deficiencies before they turn into an injury. So really briefly return on investment for all health and wellness interventions is somewhere around three to one. San Antonio Fire Department embedded an athletic trainer a few years ago, and they got six to one return on investment the first year, and then several years later, they got almost 10 to one. So my opinion bang for the buck, go for an athletic trainer. Let's just talk about these other professionals briefly so you can understand a little bit about what they do. A Strength and Conditioning Specialist differs from a personal trainer in a couple of ways. Generally a strength and conditioning specialist has experience working with teams. So we could really say firefighters are technically teams. They also have a performance mindset. So as opposed to a personal trainer, who generally has an aesthetic mindset, how can I make my clients look better? Strength Conditioning specialists are looking at how can I make this team perform better. T he next classification will be a sports dietitian. And I say sports dietitian, specifically, because a clinical dietitian that deals primarily with diabetes and cardiovascular disease isn't probably going to be the most helpful for your firefighters. Do they have diabetes and cardiovascular disease? They sure do. But a sports dietitian can help them with fueling and eating for performance, and also improving their health outcomes. A physical therapist differs in scope a little bit from an athletic trainer. But a physical therapist is actually able to, again help with diagnosing is it an injury versus an ouchie, and then putting together programs of treatment for the fire department. So for most departments, unless you're a big department, embedding a physical therapist may not be their first step. And then finally, a mental health professional can go a very long way in helping with both mental and physical health of the firefighters. The key is, if you are going to employ one of these people or contract with one of these people, you want to look for some key green flags. So I have a list of them. Let's see if we can get through it. First off, you want them to be experienced, and also have credentials. And so can you be a great coach without any certifications? You sure can? Can you be a terrible coach with a lot of certifications? absolutely can. But the balance of having a good amount of experience and relevant certifications, I think is a great place to start. How much experience? Absolutely no less than five years. And I would love to see coaches have at least 10 years of experience, working with people before that we turn them loose on our fire department. Really, really important is a lack of ego. If these people are coming into your department saying I know exactly what you need, before they've asked you any questions, huge red flag. I was at a conference not too long ago, a gentleman came up to talk to me who was a former police officer. And he was interested in working with police agencies, which I think is great. I don't think he's ever going to get a job. Because he told me flat out I know exactly what they need. And I said, you probably have a good idea of what they need. But in order to know exactly what they need, you need to do a needs analysis and you need to ask questions. And he said no, I don't. I know exactly what they need. And so when my head red flags went off, that's ego. And we want to make sure that these people that are coming in to help are firefighters aren't egomaniacs. If you can get someone who will come in and say, I don't know your job. However, I would love for you to teach me because what I know really well, is dietetics. Or what I know really well is mental health and performance. What I don't know really well is the job of firefighting. So you teach me your job. And I'll teach you about your body. Another green flag, big green flag, I would say is asking good questions. I talk about this all the time. In order to get better answers, you have to ask better questions. So if these individuals are asking good questions, without ego, for me, that's a green flag. Let's revisit a couple of qualities that I think would be super helpful. And these are as follows. If you can find someone with a combination of skill sets, like I mentioned earlier, that is very helpful. And athletic trainer who also has strength and conditioning background. A dietitian who also is a tactical Strength and Conditioning Specialist, a mental health professional, who also was a yoga instructor. Those things can be very helpful. You're helping to fill multiple needs. At the same time. If this person comes to you and says, I have worked with teams before, I'm not saying professional teams, ain't nobody coming from a professional team to then come work with the fire department, it would be very unlikely. But if they say you know what, I worked with collegiate teams, I've worked with high school teams. To me, that is a plus. When you're looking for someone, you want to make sure that they are not a run of the mill, meaning you're not looking for the lowest common denominator, you're not looking for the lowest bid you are looking for the best fit for your agency might not be the lowest bid. It certainly could. But please don't base your decision on lowest bids. The last thing I'd like to leave you with is two thoughts on a couple of different things. I have absolutely nothing against personal trainers. I love what they do. But for the most part, the mentality and mindset of a personal trainer isn't necessarily well suited to the fire department. So that's number one. Number two, I didn't mention in my list of professionals, group exercise instructors, or single skill yoga instructors. Can group exercise be helpful? Sure can. Can yoga be helpful? It absolutely can. But if that's the only thing that you're bringing in and offering to your people, I think you're missing the mark. And then I'll leave you with just one last thought. If you are hoping to use peer fitness trainers as force multipliers, you need to realize that the person that you're bringing in from the outside needs to also be able to manage those people. And so experience in managing groups or supervising can be super helpful. All right, no specific call to actions to you for you today except if you enjoyed the podcast, I would love it if you would give me a rating or share it with a friend. With that AZ is out