Episode 23: Pflugerville Fire Health and Wellness with Vanessa Frost-Piedrahita, MSEd CSCS*D RSCC
Episode 23 features my girl Vanessa Frost Piedrahita. We talked about her 6-year tenure at the Pflugerville Fire Department and the changes she's seen over that time. We hit on her department's fitness assessments and their amAZing commitment to health and wellness. Check it out!
Disclaimer: Vanessa's views and opinions do not necessarily reflect her employer's.
Vanessa Frost-Piedrahita has been a strength & conditioning coach for over a decade. She has done everything from group fitness to head a division I strength & conditioning program but has worked almost exclusively with firefighters since 2016. She is currently the Health & Fitness Coordinator for the Travis County Emergency Services District #2. Vanessa owns and operates VFP Training, which offers training and nutrition coaching, and Forging Strength, dedicated to the health and performance of firefighters through education.
So what, now what?
Pflugerville has a fantastic program, but what works there might not be the best bet for your department. Health and wellness isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. Conduct a needs assessment in your own department to determine best practices.
Email Vanessa to get access to the manifesto: vfrost@pflugervillefire.org
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Vanessa F-P: 0:00
Hey everyone, its AZ. Welcome back to episode number 23. I sat down with my friend, Vanessa frost Piedrahita from the Pflugerville Fire Department in Travis County, Texas, and talked to her about the program at her department. She has been the health and fitness coordinator there for about the last six and a half years, and she is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. I hope you enjoy the episode. Please subscribe to the podcast and share with someone you know. Thank you.
Annette Zapp: 0:39
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, everyone, welcome back to the Fire Rescue wellness podcast. I'm your host AZ and today I am here with my friend, Vanessa frost. Oh my gosh, I practiced the...no, I'm not saying it right.
Vanessa F-P: 1:12
You can do it. Yes. Piedrahita. Okay, I rolled my "r". So I'm very excited. And I'm really thrilled to have Vanessa here today because she has potentially the coolest job of anyone I know. But as always, we're gonna get started with the rapid fire questions. Actually, you know what? We'll do the disclaimer first. Let's mix it up. Vanessa works for a fire department in Travis County, Texas. Is that right? Right? Pflugerville. It is the Pflugerville Fire Department. That's kind of what we're known as our official name is the Travis County Emergency Services District to so you can understand why we go by Pflugerville fire instead. Pflugerville seems easier. But because she is an employee of the fire department, we just want to make it really clear that the views that she's expressing today, the views and opinions are her own and do not represent her employer. So let's get into those rapid fire questions. Are you ready? I'm ready.
Annette Zapp: 2:16
All right. Who is Vanessa Frost Piedrahita?
Vanessa F-P: 2:22
I am a strength and conditioning coach. I am a wife, mother. A person who loves coffee but tries not to drink too much of it. And a lifter of kinda heavy things. Kinda heavy things, girl?I've seen your social media videos! They used to be heavy. Since becoming pregnant, they're only kind of heavy. I'm impressed. So you go girl. All right. What sets your soul on fire? My soul is set on fire by seeing people do shit they love and let me tell you why. I have a firm believer that when people do more of what they love, they're better people. Like they're kinder to you. They're not assholes at the grocery store. Right? If we're talking about our firefighters, they're nicer to each other. They're nicer to their patients. Still assholes, but like friendly assholes. And so like when people do more of what they love, I think the world becomes a better place...not to get to Kumbaya, but that makes me really happy.
Annette Zapp: 3:26
Oh, no, I love that. I just had this discussion with my friend Shanté on episode 19. Like do more shit you love and outsource the rest. Oh, I love that. All right, girl. How are you changing the world?
Vanessa F-P: 3:40
I like to think I'm changing the world by changing people's relationships with movement and nutrition and their thoughts on what health performance and wellness needs to be. So good. I can't wait to dig in with you. All right. Well, first thing I want to do is tell me about your position in Pflugerville. How long have you been there? What exactly do you do? Like what does your date look like? So I am the Health and Fitness coordinator which is my official title I essentially tell people that I am strength conditioning coach slash corporate wellness slash all hat wearer of health and performance at the department. My day to day changes daily. But the the major just is I usually start the day with our cadet PT. And then moving from there. It's pretty much a crapshoot. But some of the things that are thrown into my mix are either station rotations, which unfortunately don't happen nearly often enough. Program Management, our benchmark management, So like we do different physical benchmarks every three months or so. And so I conduct those and then all of the report writing data entry of things that come from that, and then helping our training division in any way and shape possible.
Annette Zapp: 5:19
That's a lot of hats, girlfriend!
Vanessa F-P: 5:20
It is a lot of hats. And you know, somebody actually reached out to me on LinkedIn, maybe like a week ago or so and was like, was pretty much asking that same question like, hey, what what is your position look like? What is it because they had been speaking to some of my friends over at the Austin Fire Department, which is compared to us, just so there's some context here. Pflugerville is adjacent to Austin, but we are much smaller. We have I guess, right now we have about 160 firefighters on the front line. And then another 50 sitting in like a cadet class. Austin has like 1500. And so when this person was talking to me about like, hey, what they do is exercise physiologist and Austin is like, literally, you know, train cadets do station rotations, and like kind of one on one consult as they can. And there's a couple of them for that entire department, which person for person and they still have to deal with way more people than I do. But because pretty much I am the entire health and wellness team like all things nutrition and all things sleep. I'm part of the peer support group. I am now we're working with a physical therapist to come in with our department. I work with other like contractors in our area like a rostie, and so on so forth. Anything health and wellness gets thrown onto my plate. So it is it's a lot of hats to balance off of which is really fun. Because nothing is like No day is the same. So that's really enjoyable. But it can also be a juggling act where you feel like
Annette Zapp: 6:57
Because there's so much on your plate. I dropped a you're not making progress. plate. Oh no, all the plates are spinning...they're flying on the ground.
Vanessa F-P: 7:04
My chief likes to say like, Hey, we're juggling a lot of balls. Just don't drop the glass ones.
Annette Zapp: 7:09
Like, Oh, that's great. Well, it occurs to me, I actually don't know how long have you? How long have you been there?
Vanessa F-P: 7:19
I have been here six and a half ish years. Now. So I've been here for a while when we started, there were 75 firefighters in our department when I started. So my my position has changed a lot since then. I've gained more hats, the longer I've been here. Right? Well, and so are you the first or did you get hired to fill a position that someone vacated. So I am the first actual internal position that they created and filled. Prior to me there was a contractor that they hired from a local gym who worked with him for about a year and honestly left a little bit of a bad taste in their mouth based on the work that he did. And then it kind of sat vacant, like there was nobody kind of helping with health and wellness for a year while they created the position got approval for funding so on so forth. Prior to that contractor, they tried the DIY model of PFTs and hate as I listened to your podcast actually on the way to work today, your mini Friday one so I know your thoughts on the DIY method. And yeah, that didn't work out at our department either. I wanted to i i want it to work out because I want everyone to have easy access. But I just haven't seen it work out anywhere. Yeah, I, I would love for it to work out. But I think and for reasons you've expressed before, and that I think the people that would work out for the people who don't really need it. And so if like, Hey, I'm somebody who's into working out, and I know my buddy likes working out too, I'm going to ask for his opinion, so on so forth, and I'm gonna get them, right. I love working with people who already love their health and performance, like it makes my heart so happy. But I tell people like my job is to reach the people who otherwise would not have looked for me. Like, if I didn't exist at this department, they wouldn't have gone out to find a strength and conditioning coach. Those are the people that I need to reach. And let's say that they're a lieutenant, they're not going to go necessarily ask a firefighter on a different shift that that they don't know who happens to be a PFT or some kind of coach trainer. Their opinion on XYZ potentially right what I think the power of my position in any department in mind to is that like, I am not part of your rank structure. I'm a completely neutral party. Like, hey, come to me with all your things. And it's amazing thinking the things that they will come to you with? Oh, yeah. Because you are an independent. It's amazing. I think I, I definitely it's funny that whenever I make my rotations decisions, I was actually out at a station yesterday. And we sit down and one of the guys goes, Okay, so what's the gossip of the department? I know, you know, like, everyone tells you all the things. I'm like, Yeah, but not not things that you need to know.
Annette Zapp: 10:27
Yeah, that's the beauty. I'm never telling you any of the things. So they keep telling me.
Vanessa F-P: 10:28
that's the whole point, I need people to tell me the things.
Annette Zapp: 10:37
oh boy, well, okay. My listeners get ready to have like your socks rolled up and down, because you're not going to believe what we're going to talk about next. About, maybe six months ago, it was over the summer, Vanessa sent me a document. And it's like, I just call it the manifesto now, because it is such a comprehensive, unbelievably informative document with a whole bunch of links to Google Docs within. But, and we'll talk about some of the resources in that document. But one of the things that was in that document that literally no one can believe, is the fact that your department has invested in paying their employees during their time off. Is it two hours a week? Is that right?
Vanessa F-P: 11:30
Yeah, it comes out to technically four hours of pay period. So which our pay periods are kind of wonky, but it generally comes out to two hours a week where they are paid to work out as overtime, if they so choose.
Annette Zapp: 11:48
Did you just hear what she said? They get paid to work out as overtime if they so choose. So not just the privilege of working out on duty, because we know that that's a great perk. This is coming in off duty. Now. There are some, you know, rules and regulations, of course. So tell us about that. How does it work?
Vanessa F-P: 12:07
Yeah, so they do have to work out on Department property essentially. So usually what happens is we go from seven to seven or 24/48. And so usually when people get off shift in the morning, they'll stay for an hour get a workout in, in their station gym, or sometimes even people meet up across different stations and go and work out at one gym or another. And then they record it on their timesheet, make a note of it. So that way, they're, you know, when their timesheet goes up the chain of command, they know they inform me via email just telling me, Hey, I did a workout. I don't always ask what sometimes we talk about what they did. But just so that way I can appropriately record training hours, but it's very much a have some integrity type system. And, you know, like, people talk to me a lot about this. And that like that is awesome. That is amazing. And I agree. It's totally amazing. If you were to do it, one of the firefighters and I did the math. And if you were to do it after each shift, which essentially, you're allowed to do, except on like, if you were to do it and not work out on the weekends, which most people don't stay on the weekends anyways. Right. But if you were to do it, do it on the weekdays, when you get off shift do an hour workout, it's an extra paycheck for the entire year, like if you were to consistently do it. But I probably only have about 20 Total overtime hours per month. In terms of really, that I think it's a combination of things. I think one sometimes people just like to get away from work and go work out on their own. And then I think to also we have a lot of people who work overtime right now helping with our academy. And so whenever the academy dies down in terms of like they graduate, and we have a resting period before our next one, then I usually see overtime workouts start to ramp up again. And then whenever overtime is low in general, that's when our overtime workouts go up. And then whenever overtime is like through the roof, that that's when my overtime workouts generally go down.
Annette Zapp: 14:08
People are tired.
Vanessa F-P: 14:09
Yes, very much. And I tell them I'm like if you were tired, you need sleep. That's what you need more than an overtime workout anyways. Absolutely. And so, this concept, I think most people are going What, what, how is this even possible? But your chief evidently really feels that health and wellness is important to your department. And so was this something that is an extended kind of a recent thing that you guys have started or has it been going on for a long time? I wish that I could take credit for this but it is completely not my doing when I showed up. When I first did back in 2016 I sat down with my immediate supervisor who was the chief in training at the time, and was like Hey, tell me all the things I need to know like to start out out and he was like, Okay, well, you know, we have x amount of shifts on so forth kind of taught me about the fire service. And then he also said, I will pay our firefighters to work out overtime, four times a pay period. And I said, Okay, I will make sure they know that. So this is, this was imposed when I got here, but it wasn't by no means my idea. And whenever people asked like, Well, how did you do it? How did you get it approved, I'm like, I don't have any, like, big bits of advice here. Because I didn't have to fight that battle. Thankfully, I've been so fortunate that my chief, my my department, and all of our executive staff is very data driven. And so really, they pull the ROI studies on in terms of like, Hey, if you have a back injury, how much does it cost the department? Okay, how much does it cost you to work out? What's your likelihood of getting it back or injury, if it worked out? Well, very low, or at least lower than it would be otherwise? Great, we're gonna pay for that instead. And so other than health and wellness, just in general for you, is great as a firefighter, right to keep you well, for your entire career, which is a good thing, I think, just to invest in your people. But to budget wise, it makes sense. If you run the long game. Now, I'm sure if you were just a pool singular year, some departments would be like, Oh, my gosh, this, this budgets insane, why would you pay for that? But we do, I think, a good job of playing the long game. That's really, really smart. And I want to talk about return on investment. But I'm gonna press pause on that for a second. And I want to talk more about your document. So tell me or tell the listeners tell the listeners what other items are in that document, because you put that together? That was you right? It was, it has been added by me. I think when it started, it was like a five page document. I don't know, maybe it's up to 50. Now or something, it was a very, it's a lot, a lot of pages. There's a lot of stuff in there. But it started as essentially what is the forward looking plan of the department when I showed up. And since then, it has kind of become our as you say, manifesto. But it's kind of our guidebook in terms of all the things that fall under me. So our quarterly benchmark fitness assessments are in there. So we do a fitness assessment every three ish months, depending on the schedule that comes sooner or later, but one a quarter, what those standards are, what research developed those fitness assessments because they're not just like ones that I threw together. But what the research is behind that. And essentially, what they mean, as well as what else is in there, everything that is included in our academy, what kind of classes they get well in their academy, as well as my methodology and the department's methodology behind low back injuries. Soft tissue work, it is honestly built off of NFPA 1583 is kind of where all of the subcategories I guess, kind of come from. And then I threw in there, all of the resources available based on what I thought and what you know, my background and my education is told me should go in here. And then I also have like data in there from the last seven years to see what that looks like for people and all the forms. So honestly, you could take that entire thing. And you have everything you need to know like from A to Z, what not (no pun intended)
Annette Zapp: 18:35
I see what you did there, from A to Z
Vanessa F-P: 18:38
Like how we built our program out now I'm not saying take it and apply it to yours 100%. I do think that, you know, fitness wellness programs have to be department totally individualized, because what works here at Pflugerville might not work up in Illinois, it might not work over on the West Coast, it might not even work and like you know, the next town over from us based on their size based on their resources based on their culture. So like if you went from zero, I would not say start with the kind of program we have our culture of fitness has been was being built a decade before I even showed up. And so start where you are, although I think we have a really good model of maybe what some departments can strive for, and some can adopt, you know, yesterday, but you have to see where your department currently is. And just like where if a coach or a trainer meets with a person one on one, you meet them where they're at. Right? You have to do the same with the department.
Annette Zapp: 19:46
Yes. And my listeners, it's really exciting because I did clear it with Vanessa before we got on but we're gonna put her document a link to it in the show notes because that's Okay,
Vanessa F-P: 20:00
I guess we I don't think we'll be able to put a link, but you can email me, oh, yes, you can totally put my email in your show notes. And then they can email me and I can give that out to them just because on the occasion that we update it, we want everybody to have the the most recent version of what we do. So, Here Comes the Boom, we're gonna put her email in the show notes. And if you would like to get your little eyes on this document, and I'm telling you, you do... email, Vanessa, hopefully, you're not gonna get 500 emails. So yeah, hopefully, I mean, hopefully I do. And hopefully, I don't want to make this if they just take me a bit. I'll just throw you guys all on one big email and shoot it out. Perfect, perfect. Okay, so in addition, I know the answer to this because it's in the document, but let's tell the listeners, what are their interventions? Is your department using, i.e. are you doing comprehensive physicals? Do you have fit for duty Do you have, et cetera, and so on? Tell us all the things. Yes, we're actually in the middle of our physical rotation right now, like in the building next door to me is where all of our medical physicals are, are happening. We do do comprehensive medical physicals on an annual basis. They are based off of NFPA 1582. We work with a contracting company, which I don't know if you've heard of them, but they're starting to make their way into different states. Now. They're called frontline mobile health and they have been awesome in terms of they come to us and do our entire physical over here. It includes kind of your general physical stuff like hearing, eyesight, weight, body fat percentage, depending on age, so we age stratify, we'll do chest X rays, ultrasounds of don't quote me on this, but like thyroid, bladder, testes for males and ovaries for females. I think that's all of ultrasound just so that way we can catch hopefully any lumps should they show up for any abnormalities if they show up and catch them early. And then on an annual basis as of right now, because knock on wood, thankfully, we have the funding for it, we're able to do cardiopulmonary exercise tests every year, which is like if you've ever essentially VO2max tests. So if your listeners have ever seen anybody on a treadmill or on a bike with like a bane mask on, and little tube connect to it, where they're, what they're doing is they're measuring oxygen in and your co2 out and in order to determine your your maximum aerobic capacity. And so that is that physical is the main kicker in terms of our fit for duty stuff, we abide by 1582 for both our new hires and our incumbents for that, and so our third party vendor who does our physicals essentially has a form and that forms in the document of like, hey, this person is fit for duty, Greenlight. This person is fit for duty, but needs to follow up with their doctor within 90 days, based on Chapter whatever, whatever with all the details in terms of what that is, or, or red light, this person is not fit for duty based on again, Chapter XYZ they need to do this, see whatever doctor do whatever thing, whatever intervention to do that and that that very rarely rarely ever happens. Thankfully, we have a good working relationship with our vendor, as well as hopefully a really good understanding within our firefighters that we want to know is we as a department want to know as little as possible about their health other than, hey, they're good. So I think and probably in the nationwide, they're like, Well, I don't want I don't want the department to know that I need to go see a cardiologist for XYZ, right? Which is understandable, right? We work in the world of HIPAA. So so that makes sense. I think the difference falls in that if it is affecting job task five and NFPA 1582, which I couldn't tell you what it was, let's say it their aerobic capacity was really low and like they were throwing PVCs on there see pet in like 30 seconds. Meaning like, Hey, if you were to go fight a fire and like get your heart rate up even just a little bit like you are likely to have a cardiac event. And so we want to make sure you go get checked out by a doctor. That's something that the department would know but we don't want to know like all nitty gritty details of your visible, that's not something that we want. But we want you to have that like as a firefighter, we want you to know all those nitty gritty details so that we you can take care of your health, we just want to make sure you have access to it and have everything you need. So you want to know as much as necessary, but little is possible. Yes, I think that's a perfect way of saying as much as necessary that we know our firefighters are healthy and fit for duty based on whatever the research and the reason medical standards are. And then as little as possible in terms of like, all all the details you need to discuss with your doctor. That's why doctors exist, go discuss them there. As long as you're fit enough to do your job. Boom, love it. Okay, so in terms of fit for duty, it's just the green light, yellow light red light from their medical, physical. And does the medical physical. Did I hear you say that does include the CPAT? So it includes the CPET cardiopulmonary exercise test. I know when I when I throw that around, people like that CPAT which is not part of our medical physical. It's the C-PET exercise, or VO2max test, you could call it that's just the the technical term for the like, the hospitals that that we work with. And then so it is the medical physicals as well as our fitness benchmarks. And I want to talk about those for a little bit. Because I know a lot of people are like, Hey, should I do fitness assessments? If I'm, you know, a strength conditioning coach who's coming in? One? I think the answer is usually yes, I think unless you're working with a department who like is super anti, like, Hey, you just need to go make relationships first, and then start assessing. We do more assessments than than any department I've probably met, which sometimes it can be a bit overkill, but I think it's helpful in the sense that we do one every quarter. And even for those who don't like to train, it stays in their back of their mind of like, oh, I have an assessment coming up, I should do something. And so we have standards for fitness assessment, they are based on whatever the research is. I like to use our consumption drills and example, because I think for most of my firefighters, it's the most liked one. And so it is a combination of a fitness assessment plus our consumption drill where we can measure how much air they're using. And the standard is eight minutes as an it's essentially like an obstacle course that you do in gear not obstacle like climbing over random stuff, but like climbing ladders, pulling hose, so on, so forth, forcible entry prop. And it was a drill that was developed by some researchers in Canada. And then the number of eight minutes was a combination of two things. It it was one that they found people with the appropriate VO2max. So their, if their aerobic capacity was above the recommended 12 mats, then they could do it at least within eight minutes. And then that was like part of the first study and I'm part of the second study was they took a bunch of videos of different people doing these skills at different rates. And so like some people would be doing it at like 630 or eight minutes or 12 minutes, and then got a panel of like actual firefighters ranging from five to 25 years and said, Hey, how fast would you work on the fire ground? How fast would you want your firefighters working on the fire ground? Well, I don't want them like running balls to the wall, right. But I also don't want them looking like they're just going on a Sunday stroll. And that number actually came out to 802. And so eight minutes is the magic number. So let's say they have a firefighter who goes through our consumption drill, they get under eight minutes. Yay, hoo, rah giant green stamp, right? Let's say that they didn't finish within eight minutes. Perfectly fine. Let's say they finished in 930. Let's say they even finished in 15. Okay, that's okay. They finished one. We just wanted them to get through it. And then two, if they didn't finish within that time cap, they have a conversation with their CEO of like, Hey, I'm, I'm getting over being sick. Or you're right. My Fitness is kind of faltered I need to start prioritizing my fitness a little bit about that it it is literally just a conversation that they have with whoever their CEO is on, hey, what's going on? And then on the occasion that they could not finish. So either they were stopped by one of our safety captains because they were they didn't look like they could safely continue the test. They were going to hurt themselves or be they've tapped out. They said hey, I'm done. I can't finish. Then essentially what we do is we retest again in 30 days and I've never had anybody not be able to completed after 30 days?
Annette Zapp: 30:03
Yeah, I think one of the main fears with these fit for duty tests is that you take the test and you miss the mark, and you have no job. And I have never heard that being the case, there's always that remedial training that there's always that second chance, there's always that conversation. And it's very rare that I hear of anyone not being up to snuff on the on the subsequent tries.
Vanessa F-P: 30:31
I think...and I like that's a total valid fear, right. And that, especially if you're coming, I think, coming from a department who doesn't have any kind of like, fitness program, evaluation, whatever you want to call it, like, that is totally understandable. And I think that's also where your culture comes in. Like, I don't say, take this test and take that same standard and throw it on your department. If you haven't been doing PT with your cadets, and instilling your, you know, department fitness level, for years on end, do the test and see where you fall. But don't give them the standard of like, Hey, you have to do this within X amount of time. Or you have to retest. Because, like I will tell you, I think I maybe have five people within my department that don't make that mark. And I think I've had one person ever not finish.
Annette Zapp: 31:25
And so it's a reasonable benchmark
Vanessa F-P: 31:28
That's what I mean. Yeah, it's a total like for our department, it's a total reasonable benchmark for our firefighters here to be able to say, hey, you just have to finish. I'm not saying like, especially we have some people like, Hey, I just came, I just came back from having a baby. Okay, I just need you to finish, right, I don't need you to like, go balls to the wall or anything like that. I just need you to finish. And then we're going to continue to work on your fitness appropriately, as you continue in like the postpartum world. Because I mean, I'm sure in your department departments for your listeners, like, women don't have the shot of like taking all the amount of time needed in order to come back. But like we do what we can and then hey, just do what you can and then we'll continue from there. I love
Annette Zapp: 32:12
This. This is all so good. So I want to switch gears for a second to do you have any idea about your return on investment statistics that you can that you feel comfortable sharing?
Vanessa F-P: 32:26
I laugh because I should it is one of the things on my to dos my department's like specific ROI as I don't have because they've gotten a little difficult in the sense that we've more than doubled in size. And so yes, technically, we're spending more money now than we have before. Just based on that, but yeah, I wish I could I can't, AZ! That's okay. And you know what typical return on investment on even just sort of like a wholehealth and wellness program is three to one. So if you're if you're getting anything above that, you're doing amazing. So you texted me, you don't often text me. But you texted me the other day, you had big, big news to share. Do you remember what it was? I mean, I don't have a doctor. I don't need one. Okay, well, then Yes, it was very exciting. I wanted to share it with you. In that I have recently gotten approval to have a physical therapist come and work with our firefighters. So you know, we've I don't need one. It's fair. I have. I have a female doctor, always had the basic health insurance and I think we have pretty pretty decent health insurance. But there's that barrier of entry for a lot of people have like, I mean, I'm, I'm sure you have a like, you know, general practitioner or like a PCP PCM like, oh my gosh, probably like 85% of my firefighters still don't have like, their doctor that they go to. They're like, Oh, my annual physical is my doctor. that I go to, but I really don't get sick. So that's fair. And I have I have PPO so I just can bring myself to whatever doctor I want to go to. That's fair. That's fair.
Annette Zapp: 34:19
Okay, all right, guys, you gotta get a primary
Vanessa F-P: 34:22
And even if you don't get sick, here's the doctor. reason why is because, at least in our state here, if like you wanted to go see a physical therapist, you have to get a referral even... Oh, we have direct access... That's awesome. That is awesome. To check on your state and to check on your insurance, right? Yeah, check on your insurance and your state. But uh, I would tell people, I'd be like, hey, they have this thing going on. And we'd try like, you know, the basic protocols of okay, let's, let's fix your shoulder positioning, for example, for some shoulder pain, and like, I'm a strength coach. I'm not an athletic trainer. I'm not a physical therapist. They're things outside of my scope of practice. So I'll be like, hey, you need to go see a physical therapist. Here are some that I trust, go see one of those, but you still have to get a referral from your doctor. And like, if you had a doctor, even if you don't see him ever, right, you just message their office and say, Hey, I'd like a physical therapy, referral, and they go, okay, boom, got it. But that's a huge barrier of entry for a lot of people. Yeah. And so, we've been working, it's always been part of the plan, but it's never come to fruition. And so now we're, we're on a short term, trial period, to start soon, with a local physical therapist who is outstanding. And like, oh, like, she's, she's amazing. And she totally gets like the job and what's needed in the fire service versus like, Hey, here's a, you know, an erg bike, I'm going to spend 15 minutes on and then a five pound dumbbell I'm going to live like she is understandable. Many bands, don't forget the yellow minivan. So she's outstanding, we're going to be able to send our people directly to her on essentially like, our dime as a department to cover those injuries. Because here's the thing, like, if you have back pain, for example, super common in the fire department, right? super common kind of in life. If you have like, my back pain, it bothers me a little bothers me occasionally. It's not. It's not too bad, but I can work perfectly fine, right? I got this, I don't need to come off shift. I don't need to come off the truck. I'm good. And so what do they do about it? Typically nothing. Right? Most people, and then even if they see me, hey, Vanessa, I need, you know, XYZ, I'm like, great, here's what we're gonna do. Sometimes they follow it, sometimes they don't, right. But then it starts to get a little bit worse, and then start to get a little bit worse. And then like, Hey, how's that feeling? Wow, it's not great, but I'm good. I'm not gonna be able to track you're not gonna don't take me off the track. We're good. And for the caveat, I have zero power to ever take anybody off of a trip. As a strength conditioning coach, you should never have that power. When I'm like, Okay, you're good. Like, you know, is it interfering with daily life? No, no, I'm okay. And they're, you know, walk walking off money. And then I still don't get anything done. Because that barrier of entry that we talked about, I don't want to go to my normal, you know, doctor to find somebody. And so we have taken that out, I can then be like, Hey, your back's been bothering you a bit. We've tried, you know, the normal stuff that we can do in the gym, let's get you to a physical therapist, here's the number, go call them you are like, go get taken care of, and boom, they can just go straight, you know, make an appointment, so on so forth. But I'm very excited for that. I love it so much. it makes my heart so happy. And that like that's what I can't help people with, like, you know, it's outside of my scope and to give firefighters direct access to it feels awesome. Well, and, and here's the thing, firefighters have this habit, I'll call it a habit. I don't know if it's the right word, but they under explain what they need. Okay, so let's back up. Let me just try to explain this better. I had a guy come to me recently. And he said, I have a really good idea. Our fire department needs to be educated on hydration and back pain. And he had like this little laundry list of things. And he said, so what I'm thinking is that you could train a few of us, and then we could educate everybody. And I said, okay, but right now you're undermining what you need. What you need is a professional tp come in and do it. But you're trying to make your ask small, so that the chief says Yes. Make your ask for what you really want and what you really need, you might not get it. But you have to ask for what you need. And I think not only what you need, but what will give you the biggest return on investment. And I like obviously budget is a huge thing that like your bosses are gonna care about. But I mean, just the return on investment in terms of effort. Like even if I sit here and train the next person, I'm not saying they're not going to be educated, like they are going to learn a thing or two. If I sit here and train them, which is outstanding, how well can they not only just regurgitate information, but apply knowledge that is that is the difference there that I think is so important when we're talking about bringing, you know, external professionals into work with the fire department. Is that Yes, regurgitating information is one thing and it's helpful if I'm if I'm teaching the most, you know, perfectly mobile person how to squat then I can tell you Okay, we're gonna drive our knees out. We're going to drop below, whatever parallel degree and so on so forth. Well, what happens if They have a plate in their ankle. Well, then what also happens if they have zero core stability? What also happens if they have low back pain? If they do anything like even remotely close to 90? How are you now going to load that? Like, that's no longer regurgitation, that is now knowledge application. And that's, that's totally different. Anybody can look up whatever they want in terms of how to do a perfect squat. Well, guess what, 99.9% of people out there aren't perfect. And so you have to adjust to them. And like, you can't regurgitate that you have to have learned that on like an experience based in education based, you know, career in order to do it really, really well. I think I think anything is better than nothing. So even though like, I know, we're sitting here saying the DIY method is not great. I think it's better than nothing, because at least somebody's talking about it. So like, that's one of my main like, I don't know, I guess a mantra, if you want to say like, anything is better than nothing when we're talking about any kind of movement in your life, or we're talking about any kind of program in your department, because then it's at least being talked about. Because if it's not being talked about at all, we don't have anywhere to go from there. That's a valid point. And as you were speaking, I was thinking, you know, Vanessa doesn't earn her salary for the 15 minutes it takes for her to show Tom how to squat properly. She earns her salary for the 10- 12-15 years of experience, she has to be able to do that. Yeah, I think that's the, that's the value of professional. Yeah, I think that's the...thank you for putting it that way. That's a nice little reminder for me to in that, like, that's how that's how you help people is through that application. Ever. One of the firefighters who jokes every year, he's like, Hey, I'm gonna get one more watt on that VO2max test. And I'm like, Oh, yeah. Why is that he goes, because I know you need that bonus. I know. He's like, I'm gonna do all the work. So you can do it. You guys. I don't I don't get any kind of bonus. I work for fire department. Right. Just like, you know, bonuses. Oh, my gosh, well, I know right now, people out there are like my department would never in a million years, go for this. We're smaller. We're whatever. We're whatever objection, objection objection. What would you say to those departments that immediately say, we can't do this? I would tell them. One, you don't have to do this.
Annette Zapp: 42:46
Right. Good one.
Vanessa F-P: 42:47
And, and like I said earlier in that I don't think our program is for everyone. And that is okay. My next question would be, what could you do? And that, like I said, anything is better than nothing. And whether we're talking about like, a department goal, or even just like an individual goal, I As Vanessa have, you know, the fitness goal to run a mile and X amount of time. Like, it doesn't matter what the big dream is, you got to meet yourself where you're at, which is like where we started this conversation, right? And you have to meet your department where it's at, I get it, they won't go for it. There's a lot of departments even around me, that won't go for the program that we have running here at Pflugerville. And that's okay, in the sense that that is life. And so you have to make something work, anything work, even if that's you trying to help people individually, or it's you learning how to communicate with the people who make those decisions in a way that they understand. Yeah, because like, like I said, Our department is super data driven. So like, anything that I want to propose has to be backed by data. Now, here's the reality of how the world works. A lot of it. A lot of decisions aren't made on data, they shouldn't be right. They shouldn't be completely logical decisions. But there are multiple reasons why people don't change. Well, this is the tradition, this is what we've always done. We've never needed it up until now. Why should we change what we've been doing? Or maybe they think, let's say a firefighters bringing this up, you're a firefighter. What do you know about the fire service and the needs of the health and wellness like I've been here for 20 years, so on so forth. And so I think just like you have to meet your department where they're at, you have to meet the decision makers, in your path where they are at and try and bring your ID get to them in a way that they understand and can buy on. And that's different for person, like, if I'm driving trying to can convince you, or at least persuade you in some way, shape or form easy, it'd be different than how I would persuade my mother or how I would try and talk to my boss, right? All of that is going to be different. And so I think that plays a role in like, trying to get your department or your, you know, whoever's in your chain of command and what you have to do to get something approved, you've got to talk to them, so it makes sense to them. I love that perspective. It's so good. Well, I'm gonna ask one, basically, one final question. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about today that I just blew it? And I forgot, or final thoughts for the listeners? I don't think we we missed anything. I think I just want to reiterate that anything is better than nothing, and one for a couple of reasons. The first is a very selfish reason, and that I once went on a podcast. And somebody asked me if it was for firefighters, and kind of like first responders and generals like what are they? What are people getting wrong? A lot. And I went into some, I look back on it now. And I literally cringe some answer about how like I see people benching incredibly wrong often, and then it leads to shoulder issues, and so on so forth, which is fine for the right audience. But I think I missed my mark at that point in telling people that like when we are talking about health and wellness, either as firefighters for an IT department as a whole, or firefighters as individuals, anything, anything is better than nothing. In that on the department level, like we said, at least the conversation of health and wellness is out there. And you just have to keep trying to improve it. Or on the individual level. Like especially in my department right now after physicals you know, some people get their numbers back from their VO2max test. And they're like, Man, I'm I'm in worse shape than I was last year. Like, I'm never gonna get back to there. I'm like, Well, what are you doing right now? Well, I haven't worked we, we do a terrible job of timing, because we always do it right after the holidays, right? They're like, they're like, Oh, I haven't done anything for the last six weeks. And like, I have no motivation to do anything. And I'm like, Okay, well, what can we do? We can walk, that's a low barrier of entry. Like you can plug your headphones in and go listen to your podcast, or even walk on a treadmill and watch a movie. Great. We're gonna start there, because anything is better than nothing. And guess what, once you establish the low level, low hanging fruit of anything, then you can do whatever that you want. Right? Then you can frickin build a skyscraper if you want to, but you got to start somewhere. You got to start on the ground.
Annette Zapp: 48:00
Meet them where they are, and you've got to start somewhere. I love it. Well, I enjoyed this conversation so much. Thank you so much for being my guest today. And listeners, I will put Vanessa's email and her Instagram handle in the show notes and so give her a shout if you have questions or if you want your eyes on that little document. And that big document is not little anymore. And with that Annette and Vanessa are officially officially out!
