Ultimate Sandbag Fitness for Firefighters, Police, and Military

This past weekend I was signing up to be a speaker again at the annual National Strength & Conditioning Association Tactical Conference. A mouthful but one of the few programs directed as how to properly train and prepare military, fire, and police operatives to be strong, healthy, and perform their best. Of course, it is always an honor to work with such communities and we have been so fortunate to work with so man different divisions of these tactical athletes.

Why should you care? I wanted to write this post because the lessons we teach these brave men and women are concepts you should use as well! In sports, we typically see the most gifted individuals make it to the top and that is great, but when it comes to the tactical athlete, these often are just real people who decide to serve something greater than themselves. Sure, some are great athletes, but statistically speaking, they are people like you and me. So, the lessons I have learned working with these different departments and branches, are very relevant to you as well!

I’m so proud that our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag fitness programs have been able to help so many of our brave men and women! Some of our greatest honors have been working with all these different departments.

Many times tactical athletes get thrown into almost a worse situation than professional athletes. When it comes to athletic based training, most times coaches are very thoughtful about building a good foundation, making sure we are teaching proper movement skills, developing both functional strength and injury resilience. However, when people often look at the challenge of the jobs of the tactical athlete they think, think, “man, we gotta go SOOOO extreme and “hardcore” in their training”.

We have a bad habit in both tactical training and even general fitness training, the more extreme and brutal the workout the more effective it must be. I can tell you having worked with these populations for well over a decade, that isn’t the case. The first thing we have to do is approach training just by training people and human bodies, not abusing them. Yes, this means understanding how our bodies function, hence why we believe DVRT Ultimate Sandbag fitness workouts represent true intent of functional training so well!

At first glance such a philosophy may not seem as “sexy” or as marketable as making people throw on their tactical gear, pick up a heavy barbell, and run through a circle of fire (okay, the last part is an exaggeration). When I speak to administration and leadership of these groups, they look at the  success of their fitness programs in very specific measures. Guess what their number one concern is? No, not how “bad ass” you look or how much you throw up during your workout, but how many injuries can you reduce! If people are hurt, they can’t serve, they can’t do the jobs that mean so much to them, does that sound familiar?

I know what we do works because we have seen the success of people going through the US Army special forces selection process to helping be a part of a program that helped that city of Milwaukee’s fire department save over $1 million in injury claims. That is not just great from a financial perspective, but powerful in that means people were healthier and able to be a part of a job they are greatly passionate about. So, what can we share that would benefit you if you are a tactical athlete or if you are just wanting to maximize your every day fitness and performance?

One big concept is something that firefighter peer fitness instructor, Jordan Ponder has shared with me. That his whole idea in using DVRT Ultimate Sandbag fitness to teach firefighters to be “adaptive” is one his primary goals. In fact, it makes so much sense to anyone that wants to be as strong in life as they look in the gym!

These DVRT Ultimate Sandbag fitness workouts teach how to move better, be stronger in more directions/patterns, how to connect the body to function at a higher level, be more stabile/mobile at once, all leading to both better resilience and performance.e

We can still train hard, that isn’t something we aren’t doing! The difference is we use DVRT Ultimate Sandbag fitness programs to train smart as we train hard. Thinking about all the different aspects of real world strength, resilience, and performance we actually need. The DVRT workout we share below is a great example.

The point of posts like this is to help people understand that no matter if you are an athlete, or you are looking to get stronger, move better, or any goal really, you have to train the body in the way it is designed to perform. We can’t do that if we don’t understand how the body functions, nor how we should use exercises to match what the body is designed to do. I hope such posts like these open your mind and get you excited to a smarter way of training. DVRT Ultimate Sandbag fitness programs are a tool, the intent and purpose we give them is what gives them power. Hope you enjoy a good tbt video below as well!

Don’t miss saving 25% on great DVRT Workouts like our Body Armor programs HERE with Captain Ponder, as well as save 25% on our Ultimate Sandbags and getting our DVRT Foundations program (with free workouts in it) for FREE HERE with code “25off” this is the last week!