What is Preparation For Chaos?
Firefighters face chaos every day — and injury is often the result. Preparation for Chaos, a fitness program designed with firefighters for firefighters, gets you ready to do your job, by focusing on the strength and stability of your joints.

Why focus on joints?
According to the National Fire Protection Association, nearly half of all firefighter injuries are orthopedic. Your muscles control and support that system. When you strengthen and balance those muscles, you reduce your chances of injury. It’s that simple.
 
What do you mean by “orthopedic”?
Orthopedics is the branch of medicine that deals with your skeletal system and its associated muscles, joints, and ligaments. Injuries or disorders of the skeletal system can often be prevented or corrected by maintaining joint health and strong, balanced muscles. That’s why we focus on joint health and design intense workouts that prepare firefighters for the challenges of the job.

How does Preparation For Chaos work?
We protect and strengthen joints and all of the structures that support them with a three-step strategy:

• Each firefighter goes through a Muscle Activation Techniques™ (MAT) session which allows us to identify where the weak links are. (Many professional athletes, like Tiki Barber of the New York Giants and David Dellucci of the Texas Rangers, use MAT to increase flexibility, mobility, and speed up injury recovery.) With the trouble spots identified, we can prescribe specific strengthening exercises. We call this step neuromuscular restoration.
• Next, we design a series of customized workouts to help each individual reach his or her fitness goals. Step two goes by the name of biomechanical restoration.
• The final step, strategic variation, teaches the firefighter how a series of precise adjustments to each workout provides maximum efficiency, safety, effectiveness, and comfort.
   

The combination of these three steps gives a firefighter a way to maintain strength, agility, endurance, and flexibility over a lifetime. Your crew will spend more time saving lives, and less time on the injured list.
 
What is neuromuscular restoration (NR)?
For pain-free motion you need flexible, strong, and stable joints. Using MAT, we pinpoint the mechanical causes of your pain and find a way to stop it. Then we design exercises that strengthen any weak links to prevent the pain from coming back.
 
Professional football teams such as the Denver Broncos, the New York Giants, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Oakland Raiders use MAT. The good news is this process prepares you for intense activity and does not involve stretching!
 
What is biomechanical restoration (BR)?
Once we eliminate the weak links and restore proper flexibility and stability with NR, we can challenge the body. Here’s where we create specific exercises for each firefighter according to his or her professional and personal goals.
 
What is strategic variation?
By intentionally changing key elements in your workout to create variety, you promote long-term health. Strategic variation not only involves changing traditional workout variables (e.g., the number of sets you do or the intensity or duration of your workout), but it also includes a number of specific variables developed for and with firefighters. Such fine-tuning should be applied according to a carefully devised schedule to keep your body as challenged as possible over time.
How does Preparation For Chaos compare with other available programs?
Because we observed firefighters in action and asked them exactly how they work, determined where they hurt, and then developed specific solutions for them, Preparation For Chaos is unlike anything else on the market.
 
For example, PFC takes into account that you often carry imbalanced weight loads (perhaps a ladder on one side and an axe on the other). You regularly find yourself in situations that don’t allow for proper lifting technique. We understand your challenges, we speak your language, and we know how to prepare you for the kind of chaos you deal with every day.
 
Part of that preparation involves what you’re already doing in the gym. But we also teach you how to customize your program — and minimize the likelihood of injury — in light of your physical vulnerabilities.
 
What about results?
In a major fire department in southern California, we received a 95 percent approval rating. Even more importantly, sprain and strain injuries were reduced by 33 percent. Our clients regularly see similar decreases in injury rates.
 
What else is available for firefighters?
For the most part, firefighters have the same options available to most people (personal trainers, etc.). But the feedback we’ve gotten from our clients is that traditional fitness providers don’t understand firefighters the way we do.
 
PFC is the only program that specifically addresses orthopedics, the greatest cause of injury and debilitation among firefighters. The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) and the American Council on Exercise (ACE) also provide programs for firefighters, but our clients want more customization, personalized attention, sustainable results, and a focus on joint health.
 
What are the qualifications for Preparation For Chaos instructors?
Our instructors must be certified by the Resistance Training Specialist Program, the most rigorous fitness accreditation authority in the country. All have Resistance Training Specialist Mastery level certifications, the most advanced certification provided by the highly respected Resistance Training Specialists (RTS) group.
 
Mastery status takes two years to reach and concludes with a four-day oral exam and an eight-hour written exam. Maintaining certification requires writing yearly continuing education papers.
 
Tom Purvis, one of the National Academy of Sports Medicine founders, developed RTS in response to the void in advanced exercise and biomechanics education in the fitness and healthcare industries.
 
Our instructors also receive extensive training in Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT). They have all completed a 10-month internship designed to educate them on the mechanics of every joint and muscle in the body. And each has successfully completed an eight-hour written exam, a one-hour practical exam, and at least 200 hours of practice.
 
Greg Roskopf, a biomechanics consultant for the Denver Broncos, developed MAT to correct muscular imbalances in the body.

How is the Preparation For Chaos program structured?
We visit each client site once a quarter. A visit entails two formats:

• small groups, where we discuss the risks and benefits of particular exercises, and introduce specific strategic variations.
• one-on-one NR, BR, and sweat. 

Do clients get any extras beyond the Preparation For Chaos program?
In addition to the standard program, firefighters can email our trainers with questions any time and we’ll respond within 24 hours. That way, you get timely, personalized assistance even on days when we’re not there.

Interested in this program? Email us at info@preparationforchaos.com