"Pulling" Your Own Dead Weight: Deadlifting for Firefighting

The dead lift has long been the staple of any strength building program. As one of the big 3 in power lifting (Bench and squat as well), Dead lifting has been proven to activate over 260 muscles in your body and boost testosterone in the process. This is nothing new to strength coaches and people who lift. And it shouldn't be for firefighters either.

The Dead lift is a ridiculously easy movement to learn, and with proper instruction on neutral spine position, can yield great strength gains. As Mark Bell (powerlifter and strength coach) would say: "Strength is never a weakness" and he's right. Lower back injuries happen every year to the fire service members. Most of those injuries occur because of improper form when lifting and lack of Posterior Chain development.

Your Posterior Chain consists of: The biceps femoris, gluteus maximus, erector spinae muscle group, trapezius, and posterior deltoids. Basically, The Posterior Chain is all of the muscles that assist with a "Pulling" motion. Now, think for a minute on how that effects Fire-ground functions... Pulling hose, lifting victims, carrying ladders and tools, Everything.

Now I'm not going to get into the other added benefits of Dead Lifting as it pertains to muscle recruitment. You can find that here.

I am neither a personal trainer or kinesiologist. However, over the past few months, I have seen significant improvement of my Fire-ground performance correlate Directly with increases I've made on my lifts. 

Let's be honest, the stronger you are, the better you will perform, so long as you condition yourself as well.  Compound, long kinetic chain movements like this will go a long way to making you a stronger, better equipped Firefighter. So the next time you hit the gym, find a barbell and a shit-ton of weights. Start light (seriously), work on proper form, and increase until you hit that sweet-spot that is your current Max. 

For more information on the Dead lift and other Basic barbell exercises that can get you into "Fighting" shape, look into "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe. I can't stress enough how simple and thorough his book is.

 Check out this great video by Mark himself:

As always, Remember that Firefighting, at its heart, is just hard dirty work, and our training should reflect that.

Yours in Brotherhood,

R.B.