On thursday some of my female athletes and I were asked to run through a fire fighter testing course that was being held in Shroyer Gym. Now they asked us to go through this because they wanted to know if trained females could finish the course and pass the test. They had 3 days of testing and over 260 people took it. Of all the woman who took the it only 50% past it. As competitive women we all said we would do it. Now if you all know me, I looked at the test and asked what the best time for a woman was and I set my goal to beat that time, it was about 1 min and 30 sec.
Now the test was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, I under estimated how tired I would be. I dont do cardio, all I do is lift and throw, so my lungs are what really got to me during the test.
The test consists of 8 stations and it must be completed with in a time of 10 min and 20 sec. Through out the whole test you have to wear a 55 lb weighted vest (to simulate all the gear they wear), a helmet and gloves.
1)The first station was a 3 min and 20 second walk on a stair stepper. Now you had the weighted vest on, but also an extra 20 lbs on your shoulders, so a total of 75 lbs walking on the stair stepper. This was the hardest for me, my legs were fine, but about a minute in I was breathing heavy.
2) After the long 3 min climb,I had to walk, not run, to the next station. This station consisted of a hose carry. I had to grab a hose, throw it over my shoulder run with it around a barrel get to a designated area, kneel and pull the hose in to a curtain point.
3) Next was a tool carry. Which was the easiest, we had to grab 2 saws off a shelf @ 30 lbs a piece, set them down, pick them up and walk a distance of 70 feet and put them back on the shelf. The whole time you have a proctor following you telling you what to do and where to go, but if you did something out of order or wrong you failed. So it is not just physical, but mental as well.
4) The latter was next, I had to lift a latter hand over hand from the ground up so it is resting on the wall. Then right to the next ladder which I had to raise up and lower hand over hand with a rope.
5) This one is a pressure plate which I had to use a 10 lb sledge hammer to hit it in about 5 inches and a buzzer goes off. This would not have been so bad, but my arms we so tired from all the other stuff I had just done.
6) After that I had to go into a "U" shaped box that was pitch black. I had to crawl on my hand and knees and find my way out while going under and over things I could not see. I was not fond of the part where I had to crawl on my belly to fit through. It was a little tight.
7) The second to last station was a dummy carry. I had to drag a 170lb dummy with shoulder straps 35 feet, around a barrel and then back 35 feet to the finish line. By this point I was just hanging on and leaning backwards to get it done. I was breathing so hard.
8) The last station was one to simulate ripping down a sealing. You had to use a hook and push up on a pad for 3 reps making sure it hit each rep, then move the hook on to a lever and pull down for 5 reps, I had to repeat this 4 times. Then I was done.
I was exhausted and I was breathing so hard. I had no idea what I had gotten my self into. My time was one of the best time for the women at 1 min and 5 seconds left. I was proud of my self and my athletes. None of them finished in time (under the aloted time), but they all finish and were really close to the time (about 20-40 seconds over). If you want to know what it all entails with some videos and more pictures you should look on this web site.
http://uwfitness.uwaterloo.ca/firefighter/cpat_orient.html
This was a great experience to see what fire fighters have to go through.
This is a picture of some of the first women volunteers fire fighters. Pretty cool.
