S02|E223 S&C Within the Fire Department with Alex Redshaw
On the latest edition of the Samson Strength Coach Collective, we speak with Alex Redshaw, O2X Human Performance Program Manager for Arlington County Fire Department. Alex discusses his career journey, the importance of strength and conditioning in firefighting, and the unique health challenges firefighters face. From injury prevention and cardiovascular risks to sleep education and nutrition, Alex highlights strategies to improve firefighter wellness and extend career longevity.
Key Takeaways
- Strength & conditioning is essential to prepare firefighters for high-stress demands.
- Firefighters face elevated risks of cardiovascular disease and obesity.
- Education on sleep and nutrition is critical for long-term health.
- Wellness programs can help firefighters prioritize themselves in a culture that often demands self-sacrifice.
- A supportive environment drives successful lifestyle changes.
- The ultimate goal is to help firefighters retire strong and healthy.
Quote
“But then, so outside of the musculoskeletal side of things, we have cardiovascular events. So the acute impact of firefighting… your blood gets thicker, which turns harder to pump around the body. So any underlying or pre-existing heart issues that you may have are exacerbated or brought to the front during those events.” – Alex Redshaw
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Connor Agnew :
to go and it’s like all right five second countdown by the way. All right what’s going on Sampson Strength Coach collective listeners on today’s episode we have Alex Redshaw O2X human performance program manager for Arlington County Fire. Alex thank you so much for coming on man.
Alex Redshaw :
Alright, I was born ready baby, let’s do it.
It’s an absolute pleasure to be with you this afternoon.
Connor Agnew :
Well, I’m so stoked for this episode, you know, for a couple of reasons. One, you’re Australian and everybody I’ve ever met who’s Australian is just super fun to be around and have a conversation with. So I’m hype about that. ⁓ The second piece would obviously be that I’ve obviously spoken with a lot of tactical coaches before, but never somebody who works within the fire sector or the fire department. So I’m really excited to kind of dive into that. I think those are two very cool things we’ve got to touch on when we initially introduce you.
Alex Redshaw :
Absolutely, I hope my Australian accent doesn’t put anyone off.
Connor Agnew :
I’m sure people got more excited for it. They’re so sick of hearing my half southern half northern American accent. They’re excited for something new.
Alex Redshaw :
That is great. I’m happy to play Pop.
Connor Agnew :
Well, can you just give us a breakdown of your career and then what’s led you to your current job?
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, I’m the O2X Human Performance Program Manager for the Arlington County Fire Department over in Virginia. So just across the water from DC. ⁓ We serve, we have around 355 firefighters at the department. I’m full-time embedded running the strength and conditioning program, human performance at the department. So my day-to-day includes strength and conditioning work and human performance with the recruits in the mornings and then individual ⁓ clients, usually in the mid mornings and afternoons, then station visits.
lot of my work is ⁓ health education based predominantly. I have a big philosophy of teach a person how to fish ⁓ and then hopefully they’ll be able to take care of themselves for the rest of their lives. ⁓ With that one as well, I do a lot of work with sort of like policy development as well. So I try and help out the department in that sort of space with a lot of the health and safety side of things. But I guess my background as you sort of can pick up is I’m from Australia. I spent the first 25 years of my life over there. ⁓
I worked at a fire department in Australia for three years prior to moving over here, which is actually where I did my masters by research in. So I investigated the effect of aging on movement quality in Australian firefighters and essentially found that at 50 years of age, all the components of movement quality, like strength, coordination, balance, that sort of stuff falls off a cliff at 50. ⁓ From there, I was fortunate enough to present my findings to the chief of the department at the time and he offered me a job.
on the spot and was like, Hey, we’d love to have you on board and sort of implement some of the findings that you’ve found. And then spend a wonderful three years there. And then my wife now she’s from America originally and half Australian. So she did college in Australia. So I spoke to her and we were both pretty eager to like make a move to America and try it out. And since we’ve been here, we’ve just absolutely loved it. ⁓ So yeah, it was this wonderful opportunity.
Connor Agnew :
That’s incredible. You know, it’s very rare that research gets recognized well, right? You know, people actually use it a lot. I feel like a lot of research can come down to other academics acknowledging it. And then I see like when somebody I just was looking at a post from Dr. Harry, who was a big force plate researcher, break down one of the studies that we’re doing right now. And like all the comments are other professors, right? But then to not only have such high quality research that somebody liked it, but they immediately offered you a job on the spot. That’s pretty awesome.
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, it was great. I was very, very thankful and very lucky to sort of be in that position. I had a wonderful colleague for my masters by research and Joel Dunston, who investigated the ⁓ injury rates of the workforce over the last decade. So we did a masters together. So he investigated the injury rates and I investigated the current sort of health of the workforce. And we both just got offered positions of the fitness coordinators for the department. So yeah, it was perfect timing. were, I think we had two weeks left on our scholarship and he was like, Hey,
Wednesday scholarship finish and we were like, two weeks. Okay, you can start then. So it was perfect. Yeah. Yeah, it was so good. And then I, I was over in America just like randomly at a conference in 2022. And I got introduced to a bunch of guys from O2X human performance who I’m actually contracted through. And I thought nothing really of it. And then about six months later, they sent me a message and said, Hey, I remember you saying that your wife’s like,
Connor Agnew :
That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m ready to go. ready. I’ll cut out the last two weeks. Who cares?
Alex Redshaw :
from Virginia, the job’s just opened up in Virginia, would you like it? And I was like, oh, well, is the world’s just, it’s just amazing. So pretty hard to say no, but yeah, O2X, I probably should talk a little bit about our guys. So O2X Human Performance, if no one’s heard of it before, or if you haven’t heard of it before, we’re a human performance company that embeds specialists in strength and conditioning, athletic training, dietetics, mental performance in tactical and military agencies across the nation.
Connor Agnew :
It’s meant to be. That’s awesome.
Please.
Alex Redshaw :
So most notably fire departments, police, sheriffs, military, air force, and then some three-letter agencies as well, which we have plenty of in the national capital region. So I’ve been here since 2023, June of 2023, and just had a wonderful time.
Connor Agnew :
And so when you, I mean, essentially started on this journey, right? You were researching the effects of aging on firefighters. Was your goal always to work within this side of the tactical field? Were you ever interested in the sports side? Has anything kind of developed over your career? Obviously it worked out very well for you and you’re happy with what you do, but what was that thought process going into this?
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, it’s so funny, hey, like my initial goal, like a lot of people who I imagine listen to this podcast, wanna work in elite sport. Like that’s what everyone’s thinking of. You’re in high school, you’re in the first couple of years of college. It’s like, yeah, I work in elite sport. And if people aren’t familiar with what Australia’s sporting world is like, it’s pretty challenging to get a spot in elite sport. We don’t have the college ranks, so it’s pretty hard to work your way up. You kind of have to get, again, pretty lucky. So I was getting to the end of my undergrad.
and a professor of mine who I became quite friendly with just in conversations through our lectures and whatnot. And ⁓ he suggested that I should look at doing a master’s by research. And I was like, okay, cool. Let’s try and figure that one out. And then all of a sudden the scholarship opportunity opened up with the State Fire Department. And he said, I think you’d be a really good candidate for this. I think you should apply. And I applied and fortunately enough got it, which was great. And that sort of set me off. I didn’t even think.
I didn’t even know, I’m sure like a lot of people listening to this didn’t even know that strength conditioning coaches were even in fire departments. ⁓ And especially not in Australia, we have like seven state fire departments for the most part. So not many, ⁓ whereas over here it’s more county driven. So there’s a fair few more opportunities.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, I was surprised myself honestly when I first met you. I mean, obviously we’re all aware of kind of the H2F movement and a lot of the military space being filled with training conditioning coaches. And then I’ve heard of a couple of people who have gone into the technical side working with the police force, but fire itself, I haven’t really heard of too many opportunities. Can you just speak to the importance of a strength and conditioning coach within the fire side?
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I work with firefighters all the way from before they even enter as a recruit. So during our hiring process, I work with them through the initial PT evaluation, all the way through to retirement and also through the return to work pathway. So my main touch points within the department is with the recruits. So every morning, 5.30, I roll in, we start PT at 6 a.m. and we have a class of somewhere between 20 to 25 recruits.
work with them for around an hour and a half. The program is pretty much, I treat it very similar to like a college training conditioning program where we try and get like, what is it, two days of lifts, two days of conditioning, and then like one flex day where I’ll either do like a mobility, a makeup session in case there’s been a conflict that’s messed us up earlier in the week, ⁓ or health education where I do a lot of educating. So a lot of teaching on like the impact of shift work, sleep.
⁓ Also recovery practices. There’s also a high prevalence of obesity, cardiovascular disease and cancer in the fire department too. So again, I try and teach the people how to fish. So that’s with the recruits. And then from there, my further points of contact for the most part, roll out to do station visits. We have nine stations in Arlington across three shifts. ⁓ So with that one, I try and get
⁓ as many stations as I possibly can every sort of month or so try and get full coverage every sort of like two months is the dream and with that because It’s an emergency service environment people can’t usually go out of service. So I appear at the stations I have a presentation set for around 20 to 30 minutes or so I try and keep it relatively short because the bills drop and People have to go just like that. So there’s no point having an hour long two hour long session programmed
because you’ll never get through it all. So try and keep it really short. So a lot of the times it’s morning mobility sessions. They’re super duper popular at the start, like shift change over time in the morning. ⁓ But then also the health education side of things. And then from there, like the third part of my contact is around the return to workspace. So if someone hurts themselves, hurts their knee, I’ll like compliment their rehab. By no means am I an athletic trainer or anything like that, but.
I try and compliment their rehab with the strength conditioning side of things, which again, most people would be familiar with.
Connor Agnew :
Did you have to learn the presentation length ⁓ lesson through practical experience? you, did that happen to you before and you had to shorten it?
Alex Redshaw :
Oh yeah, I think the first time
back in Australia, I had like a presentation set for like an hour and I was like dead sales. Like we’re going to touch on sleep. Like this is big shift work. Let’s go crazy. And I think it was probably like the first six presentations I did, we didn’t get through like the first three slides and I was like, all right, I have to pivot because the last 12 slides have not been seen once. So most of my presentations are like seven slides or less. Keep it really condensed.
I usually started off with providing people the scary stuff, so they get people engaged pretty early. It’s like, here’s why sleep is bad. And then really quickly tell you how to fix it right now. O2X, we have big proponents of the 1 % changes. We don’t try and make overwhelming changes to your lifestyle. It’s more like, let’s grab the low-hanging fruit and just compound those 1 % changes. If you can keep stacking those little things on top of each other, usually it will work in a pretty positive and effective way.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, well, that’s just the best way that you can actually see change is not by overwhelming somebody and expecting them to go from sleeping two hours a night to all of a sudden, you know, eight every single night consistently. It’s just not going to happen that way. So I love that approach, especially with people who are going to be in an older population. I feel like sometimes working with collegiate athletes or high school athletes, it’s easier to make an impression. Whereas you obviously work with the whole plethora, like you said, from recruit to retirement age. So you’ve got to be more considerate of their ability to change.
Alex Redshaw :
And that’s, you mentioned it there, like it’s funny, like the age demographics are far different compared to most sporting environments people would work in. As you said, like you work with college athletes, they’re from like 17 to 25, that sort of range with all these like extra senior redshirt years that they’re giving out these days. But then in the fire department, like my previous department, I did the research and I think I did like 300 movement screens of people. And the average age of that was I think 48. And then the average age of the department was 49.
So quite interesting, think my previous department had two or three times the amount of people over the age of 60 than under the age of 30. So you’re like really scaling up to a lot of the older sort of demographics and like creating buy-in within that community as well is super important. like where great coaches and great educators sort of try and get to know the person first. So that’s like, regardless on who you’re working with, get to know the person. And once they sort of feel valued by you,
typically I found success in that space where they’ll then take what I have to say on board. So like with the older populations, it’s like, hey, what’s your goal? You’re 65, you’ve got two years left maybe. What do you want to do? It’s like, I actually just want to like play with my grandchildren and be able to pick them up, like kneel on the ground, pick them up. It’s like, all right, we’re not worried about occupational performance at this stage. We’re worried about like quality of life and making sure that you’re not another statistic of someone that once they retire, they’re
dead within five to 10 years. want to like try because that’s what the fire department is and a lot of military in the Moose surface spaces. It’s like once you retire, you see very often, people don’t live for too much longer. So we’re trying to change that. And again, I’ve said it three or four times now, it’s the teacher man to fish or teach a person to fish. And hopefully they’ll establish some really long term, safe and effective health behaviors.
Connor Agnew :
You know, and I’ll turn it back on you with the old idiom, you know, can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but I feel like that’s incorrect in this situation,
Alex Redshaw :
Ha!
Absolutely,
absolutely. People are willing to take things on board and I’ve found like I love working in the fire department like I I’ve worked a little bit in sport previously ⁓ and like these people like really like feel very appreciative of the service you provide. ⁓ I know I’ve got friends who work in sport and like it’s sort of your role is expected like I’m going to a Division 1 school, I’m gonna have a dietitian, I’m gonna have a strength coach like all of this is there they’re gonna serve me. If it’s not there that’s crazy.
Whereas in fire departments, it’s crazy when you’re there and it’s like, my God, like you’re here to actually serve me. I spend my whole life serving the community, but now like the department’s actually invested into my health and wellbeing. So more often than not, people are super eager to like hear what I have to say and take on board the feedback that I provide them because it’s nice to be appreciated.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, that’s actually a really interesting perspective because I, you know, when we do recruiting visits, like you said, it’s expected to have it. And then we’ve got to go crazy and explain all these not so things that we do. And what’s going to set us apart from other athletic departments from a strength and conditioning standpoint, trying to, you know, I mean, mean, it’s like, I always compare it to like, you know, a high school dance where you’re trying to peacock and, know, be the biggest guy out there and try to court any of the other girls you’re trying to dance with, right? Like in strength and conditioning, you try to just
show off a ton. ⁓ Whereas what you’re saying with your department, they haven’t had it. They haven’t really experienced that throughout their careers. Then to actually have that asset now, it makes a big difference.
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve found in the two departments I’ve worked in over the last six years or seven years or whatever, ⁓ that that’s been the overwhelming sentiment is just like, wow, this is such like a valuable resource, especially from like, the leadership that I’ve had chances to engage with. It’s just like, this is such a great thing. Like, why have we not had this sooner? So yeah, I’m always out here trying to spread the word about the impact that strength and conditioning coaches, human performance specialists in all streams, like even
athletic trainers, dieticians, mental performance as well as a big one. Like working in these military and emergency services is like, there’s such a gap in the market really. It’s such a green field and you can make it whatever you want. Like I came into Arlington and it was like, choose your own adventure. There was no like previous coach or anything that I had to like pick up where they left off and there were no expectations set. So it was like, hey, like this is what I think I’m good at.
And this is what I think you guys need. And then I like, obviously check that and made sure that my like assumptions were correct. And then sort of drove it from that way. ⁓ We do great work. O2X, we have a big program of about five on-site specialists with athletic trainers and strength conditioning coaches across the road at DC fire. And like same sort of thing there. Like they essentially internalize a lot of their rehabilitation to like streamline ⁓ all their return to work care and also preventative stuff. Like they set up.
athletic trainer tables in stations and go around and do their station visits, they do manual manipulation on those people. yeah, you can, it’s a green field. You can choose your own adventure and make it what you want, which is I find quite liberating.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, I think that’s awesome. It’s just it’s very nice and refreshing for me to hear about our profession being applied to other areas and people who really help serve us and help keep the country running because you know my favorite thing that I always say and I have a question for you on this later so I don’t want to jump the gun too much right but is ultimately like the games don’t really matter you know like we lose a game like it sucks you know and I’m upset about it but at the end of the day it’s not a live or die type situation.
So again, I’m not going to go jump too early on that one because I want to spend a little bit more time on that. You know, but I do just want to start from the beginning and I appreciate you giving me the perspective of why it’s important. You know, what are the considerations that you make when analyzing your programs for these athletes? And I consider them athletes as well, You touched on it. Sorry, I don’t mean to cut you off, but you touched on it a little bit with.
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, absolutely.
Connor Agnew :
know, what’s your goal for those who are about to retire, but can you kind of work me through the different stages from recruit to other levels, people who have been in it for a few years, then back to the almost retirement age.
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, I mean, there’s a bit to unpack. Whenever I start at a department or when I sit down with anybody, even at an individual basis, ⁓ I sort of try and get to the bottom of like, what sucks and why does it suck? some people will be, I use sleep as like a common example, like everyone’s tired, like it’s a shift working environment. We work 24 hour shifts at the fire department here, then you get a day off and then all of a sudden you’re back. You do that for three days in the tour and then you get like a four day break off.
⁓ so, all right, that’s the job demands in terms of like the fatigue. How can we sort of troubleshoot that back and make you a better employee, but then also a better family member. So with most people, I try and establish like what sort of family life do you have? Like, do you have buy-in from like your spouse, your children, if you’ve got them, ⁓ because at the end of the day, you spend the, firefighters at Arlington, they are meant to spend nine 24 hour shifts at work and then.
the rest of the month they’re at home. So nine days a week they’re at work and then the rest they’re at home in theory. So we can do our best when we’re at work and you can be really good at work but there’s a lot of days unaccounted for. So trying to make sure you have those healthy behaviors and healthy habits when you’re at home as well. So I guess the first thing, ⁓ considerations for firefighters is typically like shift work and fatigue. So we know like sleep education have helped on a lot. That’s like the foundation for everything that we do.
From there, we sort of build it up and I look at the job demands. ⁓ This would be same if you’re moving into the police, military, whatever, like what do you need to be good at from a job level? So with this, we’ve got the gear that firefighters wear, so mechanically restrictive boots. If you’ve ever put on firefighter boots, there’s no flex in that ankle. And when you start messing around with ankle mobility, that impacts your gait, impacts how you move, your load distribution. ⁓
We see like massive rates of shin splints in recruits because most people like us, I assume you as well, walk around with sneakers on most of the time. All of a sudden you’ve now got like two pound boots on that don’t move. That’s like a lot of flexion through the foot. So your tibs just get fried. So talking to them about that. ⁓ So then also with the gear, limited thermoregulation. So that’s like heat.
build up that you get as well when you put on that big firefighting outfit, so the bunker gear, which can weigh anywhere between like 80 to like 100 pounds. So understanding that, ⁓ that kind of goes to the load carriage, the stuff that firefighters carry is pretty heavy. So then establishing some sort of benchmark around like loads that people should comfortably be able to exert. So
With that, we’ve got some standards internally at the department that we like people to achieve. We have like an operational suitability assessment that we put our firefighters through to like use as a barometer. So it’s like a battery of tasks from throwing a ladder to pulling hose, all that sort of stuff. And then we can provide them feedback. And we also build in air consumption. So I mentioned before like the pillar of health, I think like the foundation is like your sleep. In terms of fitness, my belief is aerobic capacity.
So that’s directly related to air consumption. So if you blow through oxygen or like air in your air cylinder and you run out of juice real quick, it’s a 45 minute rated cylinder and you’re getting like 13 minutes out before you need to be pulled out, you’re putting yourself at risk, but then also you’re putting the rest of the crew at risk because you’re running out of juice and you can’t carry your end. So someone’s going to have to pick up the slack. So I try and educate people a lot on that. ⁓ And then from there,
Firefighters, police specifically. think that, yeah, firefighters and police, I don’t want to throw too many other demographics, too many other populations in, but their body composition and general health is very reflective of the general population. You think of a firefighter as some like big, strong, muscly person. Oftentimes they’re pretty similar to anyone else. ⁓ And we know that the general population, the rates of obesity are pretty high.
Like we’re talking for firefighters and that sort of 30 to 40 % of the population is obese. So trying a lot of my work that I do with individual clients is body composition changeover. So when I’ve done, we have a body composition machine at my office where we’re able to break down pretty well muscle mass and fat mass. And when I’ve put the day working civilian staff on and then compare them to like our firefighters,
Typically what we see with the civilian staff who never do any sort of physical activity, pretty low muscle mass. ⁓ Whereas the firefighters, everyone, regardless if they’re like really out of shape or what, they always have a lot of muscle mass. It’s just hidden by the fat. So it’s usually like, let’s hold onto that muscle for dear life and let’s start dropping that fat away and then trying to work out some ways, again, educating, if anything comes back to education, around how we can do that safely and effectively.
So that’s sort of the three things. It’s like understanding the job demands, but then also understanding the population that you work.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, the, ⁓ the old adage I’ve got a six pack has just hit my fridge, you know, trust me. Mine’s not looking great either. I’ve got a double wide fridge right now. So, ⁓ well, I really love the focus on the education aspect because again, this is applies to everybody. ⁓ and you’re making it very global, you know, obviously sleep is a big piece of it. Do you ever touch on nutrition? Do you ever, ⁓ you know, kind of dive into what are the, I guess, actually a better question is
Alex Redshaw :
Absolutely, Mine certainly is.
Connor Agnew :
What are the things that you dive on when, ⁓ my goodness, I can’t even speak. I just get excited about this stuff. So when they’re at home, you mentioned that they’re gonna work for nine days and the rest of the month they’re at home. What are the kind of key points that you focus on for that home education?
Alex Redshaw :
So the home education, it’s a family buy-in. So prioritizing sleep when you’re at home. So there is some conflicting evidence, but I always think it’s pretty solid. General rule of thumb, if you haven’t interrupted night’s sleep, try and get two hours more than what you would typically feel good on. So if you’re someone that feels good on seven hours of sleep, but then you’re at work and you feel terrible and you get like two, try and get nine hours on the days that you’re at home, on that like the day following that.
they do have this four day break built in. it’s 24 hours on, 24 hours off, 24 hours on, 24 hours off, 24 hours on, four days off. So at the start of that four day break, I’d say like that first day should just be like pure recovery. Like decompression is the best thing for you. ⁓ Also with that, if you do nap throughout the day, ⁓ trying to get as much sunlight as you can, the weather’s still pretty good, at least in Virginia at the moment.
So trying to get a lot of like sunlight to reset your circadian rhythm because we know like shift work impacts the circadian rhythm pretty significantly, which can also impact your metabolism, cortisol, melatonin production, all that sort of stuff. So again, telling people like the why, but then also the how, which is that two hours of extra sleep and then some naps. And we know that the short naps are like less than 30 minutes, really good for like cognitive performance reset. And then the longer naps of like three hours and longer are really good for.
excuse me, really good for physical restoration. ⁓ So telling the people the why behind those things. I actually just while I was talking then just brought up my health education curriculum that I roll out to the stations and then also for the recruits. So every second week during our 28 week academy, I do a one hour presentation with the recruits on my like curriculum. So I’ll read a couple out unless I bore you. So yell out at any stage.
Connor Agnew :
No, please, I’d love to hear
it.
Alex Redshaw :
So like the first one is intro to PT and the expectations for the program. So being punctual, that sort of stuff. And then how we sort of roll. ⁓ We do ⁓ morning readiness assessments at the academy. So they get a push notification through our O2X app every morning at 5.30 saying out of five, five being really good, ⁓ how well did you sleep? So how tired are you? How sore are you from the previous day?
And then how stressed are you? So we know like allostatic load. So if you’re like super duper stressed, your physical capacity to do work is diminished. So your tolerance for load is pretty poor. ⁓ Before I came in, I retroactively went back and looked at the last few academies that went through and the injury rates and at what times those injuries occurred. And interestingly, a lot of the injuries occurred during the midpoint of the academy from the transition from EMT. like the emergency medicine school.
to fire. And that middle point was one, their national registry exam, which is super duper stressful for people. And then if you didn’t change your PT loading and all these guys are super duper stressed and not sleeping very well, no wonder they’re getting hurt. But then also you’re transitioning from classroom based predominantly. Now you’re shifting to the next 14 weeks of just like fire school. You’re moving and grooving every day. So completely different dynamic from the first 14 weeks to the second 14 weeks. So
educate them on that, but then also track that for me. So then I can relay that information to the cadre. So the instructors that sort of run the main part of their education. So from there, ⁓ I look at body composition, talk to them about that, injury management, sleep, mental health. We have some behavioral health clinicians and social workers at the county that I bring in to deliver a presentation on exposure to trauma so they can understand that. And then I do nutrition 101.
A lot of these people have pretty poor health literacy, ⁓ like understanding the difference between carbs, fats, proteins, and the uses for each of those. So breaking that down, getting down to the bare bolts, not trying to overwhelm people with like too many intricacies. And then as we move now into fire school, then I start to tell them more about like the cancer risks involved with firefighting, ⁓ heat illness and hydration recommendations.
Connor Agnew :
Mm-hmm.
Alex Redshaw :
⁓ Then I have our mental performance specialist at the police department who’s also contracted throw to ex Wayne Sasso. ⁓ So he’s like a sports psychologist and he works a lot with the police, but I get him to do a shift with us. And he talks about like dealing with high stress jobs. Also like costophobia is a big thing and fear of heights for our recruits. ⁓ So he gives them like troubleshooting strategies to sort of get through that.
And then I talked about load carriage, cardiovascular risk factors, and then my final presentation, which is my favourite, is a transition to the firehouse presentation. So hey, guys, the last 28 weeks, you guys have been working from 5.30 in the morning until four o’clock in the afternoon, five days a week. Guess what? You’re gonna be working some weird, funky hours and you’re gonna see some things. What sort of plans do you have in place to succeed during your probationary period?
eight months to a year. So I give a presentation, we do some goal setting on things that they struggle with, things they’re good at, both from an operations perspective and a PT perspective. And then I sit down and do individual like 15 minute consults with all of them during graduation week to like set the plan up. And then from there, I do a four month check in and eight month check in ⁓ just to track their progress. So I get them to do the body composition scan. A lot of people hear the freshman 15,
pretty accurate. ⁓ We want to try and keep that freshman 15 off. So they get pretty close in the first four months. And then usually after that first check, it’s like, ⁓ okay, yep, I need to actually like refocus. And then people tend to get better in that second four month block, ⁓ which is quite good that they took on some of the feedback and they took that shock. ⁓ They took that shock on board. So yeah, I just overwhelmed with a bunch of information for the listeners, but ⁓ that’s sort of the nuts and bolts of how I sort of run.
the health education side of things from our human performance program at the Arlington County Training Academy.
Connor Agnew :
No, I love it and I appreciate you going into the deep dive on it. know, especially that transition period, like you say, from the Academy to now actually working in a firehouse. Like it would never occur to me that that would really be such a drastic change. But obviously you said you see a lot of people with weight gains, sleep disturbances. So it’s really beneficial that they have somebody with your expertise there to actually help them through that.
Alex Redshaw :
Absolutely, like you go from five days of being good on your best behavior and then two days on the weekend to do whatever you want to then all of a sudden, like you’ve got nine days at work and then the rest of the time you can do whatever you want. So it does shift. ⁓ So yeah, so educating people is like, all right, you probably haven’t had to think about your at home routine for a while for 28 weeks because we’ve taken care of the majority of it. ⁓ So, but now you do. like our, one of our philosophies O2X is like, do the right thing like 80 % of the time.
If you can do the right thing 80 % of the time and then 20 % of the time, yeah, you can have that piece of pizza or whatever, that’s fine. That’s not gonna change things too dramatically for you or for most people. Whereas all of a sudden when you go and you’re unsupervised for lack of better term and then 80 % of the time you’re sort of doing whatever you want and being having that extra slice of pizza, that’s when we can get in trouble.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, and I can imagine too, especially for younger recruits, it’s also the first time you’re making money and it’s the first time that you have all this time. So there’s a lot of problems that come with it, I’m sure. Is there anything that kind of surprised you? You know, you’ve obviously worked with the population for a long time or there anything within, is there anything within the field that has caught you by surprise, maybe challenges you’ve had to deal with or personality consistencies that you may have seen, anything that’s kind of popped up and surprised you a little bit working in the sector?
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. ⁓
I’m trying think of things that surprise me. Like, to be fair, the similarities between the fire department and sporting environments are very similar. Like I said, back home, I played Australian rules football, give it a Google if you’re at home, ⁓ Australian football. Yeah, great, great. That’s what I was born playing. And I always equated fire departments to football clubs, like like minded individuals, everyone’s pretty athletic, pretty eager to give it a go. ⁓ But then they’re all very family based.
Connor Agnew :
I’m familiar. Don’t worry. I love it. ⁓
Alex Redshaw :
It was a pretty easy culture change for me. Like it was a very similar culture, even moving from Australia to America. The fire department is the fire department. The type of people that it attracts are the same types of people, really like generous, caring people. And that’s like one of my favorite things. Like it’s such a unique opportunity to have a really positive impact on people who do amazing things.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I guess when I think about the education piece too, and you talk about that transition, like it just makes more sense to me and especially with the parallels to the collegiate athletic field, like ultimately it’d be beneficial if all departments were able to have a dietitian as well too. And like you said, an athletic trainer to have all these people on staff. I mean, it’s a performance team at the end of the day. So the more we can expand it, the even better it be for everybody who’s helping to serve us.
Alex Redshaw :
Absolutely, and there are some gold standard programs out there like O2X. We’ve got several ⁓ outside of O2X like Fairfax County have a wonderful program out there. Megan Louts is a fantastic dietitian on the fire side. Jake Patton ⁓ runs the strength side of things with a couple of other people out there. ⁓ But yeah, it’s definitely a push of late like in at least our region in Virginia, like this isn’t a novel concept anymore. ⁓
this is more sort of the norm of having someone in this position, at least in my position is like at least a jack of all trades, like I’m mostly like health. My position is mostly strength and conditioning and then broad human performance. So I have like a little bit of an understanding on nutrition and sleep and mental performance or whatever, by no means my specialist in those areas, but I feel comfortable just to like provide a little bit of guidance and a few like 1 % takeaways.
from my meetings in those. So yeah, it’s definitely a really cool space.
Connor Agnew :
That’s awesome. ⁓ You know, and again, we mentioned this earlier and I wanted to save a lot of time to be able to discuss this, but just again, the purpose behind what you do within your field and helping these people who help support our country. then also just, I mean, understanding that this is truly a life or death type situation. This is something where it really matters what your health is like. It really matters. I mean, it was very surprising for me to hear the statistic that a lot of people.
once they leave this industry die within five to 10 years, I wasn’t aware of that. ⁓ Can you just talk to me a little bit about the purpose behind what you do, what you get from a position like this and what drives you on a daily basis to be able to go into work?
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, I mean, it’s like what I said before is like, ⁓ like my why is it’s the opportunity to make a positive impact on people who do stuff that actually matter and like risk their lives for the community. So I’m like playing my part just a little bit in helping those people not only like do their jobs effectively, but safely. So hopefully putting them in a position where they’re not just another statistic. Like the number one cause of firefighter fatalities is cardiovascular events in the line of duty.
⁓ So those are categorized in two components. One is like when you’re at work, like fighting a fire, have a heart attack, die. The other is a lot of times people are found in their bed, just deceased post-event. ⁓ I won’t go into the physiology around that. And then the other side, there’s the other statistic of like the number one cause of firefighter fatalities every year is cancer, but that’s not line of duty.
So it’s again, like trying to like educate people on the risks and then also provide them some like key pointers that they can do to actually put themselves in the position of success and give themselves a really happy, healthy and long retirement. Cause we have this like theory of like, I want to take care of you cradle to grave and grave is literally grave. don’t care. Like when you leave the department,
I want you to have like maximized those years outside of this part.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, I think back to one of my best friends growing up. He was actually ⁓ a guest on the podcast before, ⁓ but his father was a firefighter and a retired firefighter and, you know, has been retired now for, I mean, literally since we’ve been what five, so at least 20 years at this point, right. And more. And he was a very healthy individual. And I think back to
⁓ a conversation I had with him one time where it was just like, you know, have you enjoyed your retirement? Have you appreciated everything? And he’s like, yeah, I love it. You know, I worked really hard. And so to be able to actually enjoy the things like having a pension and all the stuff that I worked for now actually having the time to do that and the health to do that and spend time with my kids has been the most exciting piece. So I think it’s got to be very cool to be able to help people reach that point.
Alex Redshaw :
Absolutely. And lot of my conversations is like, it’s okay to prioritize you. People in this line of work prioritize everyone else. Like that’s just the nature of the people this job attracts. It’s like, want to protect the community, serve the community, that sort of stuff, which is wonderful, but you’re not going to be able to do that if you don’t take care of your own backyard. So you’re going to take care of number one first sometimes.
to be able to be effective in what you do. But then that also looks like taking care of your family and being there for your family and getting to see your children grow up, your grandchildren grow up, nieces and nephews, that sort of stuff. And being able to like enjoy the woodwork that you’re planning on doing when you’re 85 and messing around in the shed. So yeah, it’s great that your family friend was able to maximize his retirement. It sounds like he prioritized his health and wellness. And it’s not a thing that you can start too early.
you should, everyone should be starting now. Like the best time to start was yesterday, but the second best time to start is now. So hopefully we can try and make a change in that space.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And he actually has lupus as well too. So he’s dealt with some serious health challenges and he’s still been able to really enjoy his retirement and still has a killer mustache might I add as well. I was, come on, right before the show, we’re on video here. I can’t believe you did that. ⁓ You know, I’m a big fan of success stories, especially with education based coaching, such as what you do, you know, are there any success stories? Obviously you don’t have to name names or anything or.
Alex Redshaw :
I just shaved mine off.
Connor Agnew :
Is there any people that you’ve worked with that you’ve been really happy and it’s really kind of solidified that this is what you want to do?
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, I mean, there’s always people that jump out. Like you think about, I mean, the easy ones, because we just had a recruit academy go through and just graduate in July. ⁓ You think about like the people who is their first job ever. They’re 18. They know nothing else. They come in looking like a beanstalk and then they leave and they’re walking 10 feet tall. They’ve got a broad chest. They’ve put on 20 pounds of muscle and they look fantastic. And then you have the other side of the equation where you have some people who’ve come in pretty out of shape and it’s just life-changing stuff. Like they’re dropping 30 pounds of fat.
and like putting on 10 pounds of muscle over the course of 28 weeks. And it’s like, this is the biggest loser. Sorry for the 2010s reference or whatever. I didn’t even know that show’s too long. But it’s like really cool to like see that immediate change. And then from people with, the job and not in the recruit based setting, like, yeah, there’s, can think of a number of people who it’s just like, you’re mostly happy to like, you see them walk in on day one.
Connor Agnew :
You
Alex Redshaw :
for whatever reason that they’re in. It’s like, I can think of one guy who had a pretty slight significant lower body injury and he came in limping, hobbling around, pretty deconditioned guy, been out of work for a while and finally got back to light duty and was able to catch up with me. And pretty hesitant to participate in anything, but then over the course of weeks and then into the next couple of months, just was bounding in, just to hang out. And we’re trying to like…
not only changed his mobility and strength measures and stuff, but just him being so positive about being back at work. He was just happy to be back in the workplace where he was hesitant to come in before because he knew that he’d let himself go a little bit as he was out of the workforce. So that was probably like thinking about people on duty. That was my favorite one is just making people enjoy their time that they’re spending at work again.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, and you know, it’s so interesting because I feel like especially within college athletics, we get caught up in this whole performance and outcome based coaching. No matter how much people say they want to talk about the process or people enjoying their time. Like ⁓ I myself, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about how I want everybody to enjoy their four years or whatever it may be with me here. And then obviously get upset when we don’t see the outcomes that we want to see. ⁓
I think it’s just so, I appreciate your perspective on it because it’s about enjoying your life, not only during retirement, but enjoying your job while you’re doing it as well, because that’s going to be a lot of what you do. And so it’s very important that you enjoy what you do and that you appreciate ⁓ what you have the opportunity to do on a daily basis.
Alex Redshaw :
Absolutely. And like, you said, just then, like you’ve got four years with a lot of these athletes in college here, like you’re incentivised to stay forever at a fire department. Like you, the longer you stay, the more pension you get and you you maximise your benefits. So it’s very uncommon for people to have like a pretty short career or a transient career where they sort of hop around. Like if you join the fire department, most people, obviously there’s people that have different, different plans, but for the most, most part, like this is a forever job.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah.
Alex Redshaw :
And it’s like their whole identity. So you can’t only care about a four year window. Like you can’t only care about the training academy and improving their 1.5 mile run times by taking, shaving four minutes off. You’ve got to be able to be like, all right, what are you going to look like when you’re a captain of the department, when you’re a chief of the department? And will you be a force multiplier for what I want to do and like actually prioritize the health and wellness of your peers? ⁓
and your subordinates when you actually maybe get in the position of power in 20 years time.
Connor Agnew :
We actually have a truck as I’m recording this, there’s a truck driving past us right now. So, I mean, look at that, call it serendipity. ⁓ You know, can you talk to me a little bit more about the risks associated that people don’t really understand with firefighting? Like you mentioned risks of cancer, cardiac events, like that has surprised me a little bit. Can you just explain that a little bit more to me? What are the main things that you see?
Alex Redshaw :
Go get them.
Yeah, I guess like if we break it down quickly, it’s like a musculoskeletal level. So again, my colleague Joel Dunstan, back in Australia, he did his master’s thesis on injury rates in the fire department or our fire department for the last decade. And he found musculoskeletal injuries, number one, ⁓ knees, sorry, backs, knees and shoulders were the big three in that order. A couple of stats that just come from the top of my head, like 9 % of all our injuries came from getting in and out.
of the truck. Like it’s a big step and oftentimes you’re responding to calls at two o’clock in the morning, it’s dark, you don’t know where you’ve parked, you might miss the step and you might land in a pothole and you sprain an ankle. We had the fellow fall back and crack his head open. Like there’s a whole bunch of things that you sort of don’t think about. So that’s like the musculoskeletal side. So a lot of my programming goes around, I, self-preservation is the key to success. I say that a lot.
at work is like you got to preserve yourself. again, the sleep, the nutrition, but then also the injury prevention side of things. So we focus a lot on back support, supporting the structures of the core, ⁓ and then also knee and shoulder integrity as well. So they’re like the big three that I focus on and a lot of my programming is trying to like clean up the movement quality around some of those. ⁓ But then also like understanding the psychosocial aspect of back pain, like
when you feel a bit sad or a bit depressed, like that is one of the strongest links to non-specific lower back pain that there is. So getting people to understand their pain ⁓ is also like a really big thing, but I won’t delve too deep into that. ⁓ Dr. McGill, yeah, the McGill big three, if anyone’s heard of that, like he’s, I’m sure there’s a podcast with Andrew Huberman that they talked in depth about that. ⁓
Connor Agnew :
Yeah. Yep.
Alex Redshaw :
But then, so outside of the musculoskeletal side of things, we have cardiovascular events. So a couple of things go into that. So the acute impact of firefighting, your sweat rate goes up significantly because you’re wearing a ⁓ bunker coat and stuff which doesn’t allow thermoregulation to happen. So you sweat more, so your blood gets thicker.
which turns harder to pump around the body. So any underlying or pre-existing heart issues that you may have are exacerbated or brought to the front during those events. Fortunately at Arlington, we are like super duper proactive ⁓ for our health screening. So every year people go and get like full physicals. So like our Academy staff today just got their bloods drawn. So they get the whole array of stuff done. like we get…
like chest x-rays, ultrasounds, echocardiograms, like all the bits and bobs. So we’re in a really good spot. We haven’t had a line of duty fatality due to a cardiac event in God knows how long, maybe ever. I’m not actually familiar with anyone from our department specifically. So we do a great job there. ⁓ But then obviously what’s one of the biggest risk factors of cardiovascular events is obesity. So as I said before, police and fire.
very reflective of the general population and the general population are no superstars for the most part. So with that, the obesity, increase like the fat around the heart, all that sort of stuff, which can obviously lead to increased cardiovascular strain. And then from the cancer side of things, ⁓ if you can smell some like smoke products of incomplete combustion, if that gets on your skin, if you breathe it in, if you eat it, so you ingest it, ⁓ those chemicals, ⁓
will like live in your body for some stay for a long time, some are flushed out really quickly. So if you can smell smoke, general rule of thumb is you’ve been exposed to some sort of carcinogenic material. So we have really high quality decontamination practices at Arlington, like we do a stellar job like Captain Shoop who runs the health and safety side of things at Arlington does a fantastic job in educating, but then also enforcing a lot of our work health and safety practices.
But yeah, like a lot of these chemicals will like sit on your skin and they’ll just start to absorb. So it’s about like getting that stuff off you as quickly as you possibly can. So taking it seriously. But we also know that like if you exercise and you’re a genuinely healthy person, you’re more resilient to a lot of these risk factors, even the carcinogens that you put into your body. Like if you’re pretty fit, you eat really well.
Connor Agnew :
Mm-hmm.
Alex Redshaw :
You sleep really well. We know that sleep is closely linked to like physical repair and restoration. If you are able to do those things, then also exercise, you’re actually setting yourself up for success. So it’s pretty funny, like all the health education presentations I do, regardless on the topic, the final slide is essentially just like sleep good, eat good, exercise good, and you’ll probably be okay.
Connor Agnew :
That’s awesome, but I mean, that’s true, right? And it’s true for the general population. So it’s the same for the population you work with. I guess one thing that I’m curious about, do you see lots of rates of sleep apnea? Because you mentioned obesity and poor quality of sleep. I’m sure that’s got to be a risk factor you deal with.
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ We have many people on CPAP machines, they bring them into the station and they have them hooked up while they’re sleeping at work. ⁓ And it’s becoming more more prominent. So I think part of our insurance is we like fund sleep studies for people. So they just go to their doctor, they say, hey, I’m snoring, my spouse hits me in my sleep and tells me I’m snoring and wakes me up. And that’s usually the sign for most people. ⁓ But then also like a…
Connor Agnew :
Mm-hmm.
Alex Redshaw :
big indicator of like, if you’ve got sleep apnea, you just feel terrible when you wake up, you feel like you haven’t had a restful night’s sleep. So people go get these sleep studies done, which are mostly covered by insurance, I believe. And then they get pretty well approved for the most part. But there was a study, I’m trying to remember where it was done and how long ago it was, but it was something like 30 % of all firefighters have some sort of sleep disorder. So whether it’s restless leg syndrome, whether it’s getting up in the middle of the night ⁓ to go to the bathroom.
or whether it’s sleep apnea itself ⁓ or something else, I think that’s probably under reported. I would say like it’s probably closer to 50%. Just anecdotally going around the stations and talking to people about just like their sleep. ⁓ It’s funny. It seems to be like the tipping point. Again, this is all anecdotal from the stations as I do. It seems to be like after around five years or so is the tipping point where people are like, yeah, my sleep just hasn’t been the same.
since before I came into the academy. It’s just the exposure to shift work. Like you get conditioned to like wake up in the middle of the night. You don’t sleep as deeply. You just start getting messed around. And then all of a sudden, if you don’t get that banking sleep, which I mentioned before around getting prioritizing sleep when you’re at home and you can control the controllables, it starts to compound and you fall out of a routine and then your sleep’s just never the same. So yeah, I don’t know where I was going with that, but yeah.
Connor Agnew :
No, no, no, no, no. But mean, seriously, it all comes back to sleep and it all comes back to the habits of how you take care of yourself and recognizing these issues before they become larger problems. So I really appreciate your education aspect on it. That’s something we talk about with our recruits all the time here. So I love hearing your coaching perspective. And it’s been very fun for me to sit down with you and just hear about your job as a whole. Like I very much appreciate it.
⁓ And I appreciate you helping out the people who help us because you know, it’s always so funny to me like again, my job doesn’t really matter. Nobody’s calling our basketball players in the middle of the night to play a game to save somebody’s life, right? So I appreciate everything that you do and I appreciate everything that you guys do too.
Alex Redshaw :
Absolutely, no, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. As you can probably tell, I’m pretty passionate about the area. ⁓ I love the people I work with ⁓ and yeah, it’s an incredible opportunity that I’ve been blessed with.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah, well, that’s amazing. If anybody wants to reach out or follow you on social media, is there a good way to do that?
Alex Redshaw :
Yeah, we’ll put it in the show notes, I think. don’t know my Instagram or LinkedIn handles off the top of my head. But if anyone would like to email me, my email is alex.redshore at o2x.com.
Connor Agnew :
Yeah.
Awesome. Well, thank you, Alex. I really appreciate you,
Alex Redshaw :
Wonderful, I appreciate it, Connor. Thank you for time.
