If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

You can also support my work by purchasing Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century

For daily programming, join me at We Go Home LLC, where I serve as Director of Human Performance. Start your free trial here.

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Our last article touched on how you would train if you knew the most demanding call of your career was in 24 hours. The obvious answer is that you’d be well-rested, well-fed, hydrated, and recovered to the best of your ability. You’d know what tomorrow brought, whether you were responding to an active shooter, fighting for your life on the side of the road with a wanted subject, or carrying people out of a burning building.

Obviously, you don’t know when any of this might happen. With that said, there is room to apply the seasonal training models commonly used in collegiate football. They generally include:

Summer/preseason: A longer training block consisting of strength, conditioning, power, agility, and skill practice.

In-season: Weight-room and dedicated conditioning sessions are limited, especially for athletes seeing the field. Practice and game readiness become the priorities.

Spring ball: A shorter training block that combines lifting, conditioning, and skill practice in preparation for the upcoming season.

This article will focus on the “off-season” model. The irony is that first responders and tactical professionals do not have an off-season. You have the enduring task of being available at a moment’s notice to protect the community, respond to a structure fire, or handle whatever unknown event comes next.

I will still argue that there is a time and place to push the envelope—responsibly—without blaming your workout and sore legs for getting dusted on a foot pursuit.

Real Programming vs. Theatricality

If your program requires certain exercises regardless of context, constantly takes lifts to failure or forced reps, or designs every conditioning session to create fatigue rather than achieve a specific purpose, you’re not following a program. You’re following marketing and chasing the emotional satisfaction of feeling like you worked hard.

Let time-tested data and results dictate how you train.

Summer or Preseason Training

Preseason training for collegiate football players is a time to build strength, muscle, and conditioning without the demands of games eating into recovery. This is when we start putting the armor together.

Compared with in-season training, this usually means greater volume and harder training. The metrics we focused on were straightforward: lifts increased and run times decreased.

Even though first responders and tactical professionals never have a true off-season, there can still be periods when you increase your training demands. You can do that by adjusting:

• Volume

• Intensity

• Proximity to failure

• Frequency

• Training modalities

This doesn’t mean being so reckless that it takes days to recover from every session. It also doesn’t mean stacking high-intensity days throughout the week. It means adding a little more when life allows.

Volume

You can add volume by increasing sets, reps, or time. Let’s say you work up to a 400-pound set of five on the trap-bar deadlift. You know you had one or two reps in the tank, but you weren’t sure whether your form would hold up, so you ended the set.

You’re still feeling good, and your other workouts have been going well. Instead of adding weight, take 90% of 400—or 360 pounds—and perform two more sets of five. You could also perform five sets of two while focusing on perfect reps and greater speed.

You’ve added more work for your body to adapt to without making it difficult to walk up the stairs the next day.

For conditioning, this could mean adding 10–15 minutes to your Zone 2 days or rucks. It could also mean adding a few sprint intervals while maintaining the same recovery periods. Start with roughly 10–20% more than you originally planned.

Intensity

Intensity is usually the first thing people increase. I would argue that it shouldn’t be your first stop most of the time, particularly if you have some gray in your beard.

Add a little volume first. When it’s time to increase intensity, maybe you hit 400 for five on the trap-bar deadlift. It was heavy, but you’re feeling good, so you add 10 pounds and perform another set of five—or a heavy triple.

For conditioning, this could mean spending more time near your threshold or including some high-intensity intervals with incomplete recovery. It depends on your training phase. You don’t want to spend too much time on high-intensity work if you’re also trying to increase your lifts. For our population, adding time to aerobic or threshold work is usually the best place to start.

Proximity to Failure

I do not believe first responders and tactical professionals should routinely take lifts to total failure. That doesn’t mean you don’t push yourself. Once rep speed slows substantially, I would usually end the set.

Excessive soreness does not equal a superior workout. Soreness may tell you that a session was novel or demanding, but it is not a reliable measure of training quality or better results. Again, check your emotions.

More importantly, you don’t want to be excessively sore when you have to chase someone, fight someone, or carry gear up several flights of stairs while people need your help.

When you’re feeling good, you can push closer to failure, particularly on accessory or assistance lifts. When you’re run-down, there is nothing wrong with getting quality work in while staying farther from failure.

Frequency

Frequency is simply how often you train, and it is often abused. One way to add more is to include a short, extra workout somewhere in the week. This does not mean repeating a full session.

Use that time for a few drills on the heavy bag, 10–20 minutes of light sled dragging, additional Zone 2 work, or some bodyweight exercises throughout the day. The latter can be an effective way to practice movements that appear on your PT test.

If these small workouts are not abused, they can increase work capacity over time. A truly aerobic session may also enhance recovery. If it turns into a gut-wrenching sprint workout or your third sparring session of the week, you have defeated the purpose—and may end up injured.

Chosen Modalities

This is highly individual. It could mean adding traditional sprint work instead of relying on the bike for conditioning. It could also mean emphasizing heavy compound lifts rather than using sled work or single-leg exercises as your primary lower-body movement.

Your modality should reflect where you are in your training cycle, what you need to improve, and what your body can currently tolerate.

Closing

First responders and tactical professionals do not have a traditional off-season, but there is still plenty to learn from the way collegiate football programs structure their training. You can add more without derailing your recovery, assuming you do it responsibly and remember that you may need to perform at a moment’s notice.

Even if you’re preparing for SWAT or another selection, you can monitor your training based on your daily demands and stress levels. Adding stress on top of stress does nothing for you, no matter how mentally tough you believe you are or what self-help book you’re reading.

Eventually, it catches up with you. At best, your strength and conditioning stop improving, and your body composition may suffer. Then your sleep deteriorates, you feel wired and exhausted, your lifts regress, or you get injured.

Add more when you’re recovered, but not so much that you can’t recover. Monitor your performance, sleep, resting heart rate relative to your normal baseline, and subjective readiness.

If your lifts aren’t improving, you can’t cover more ground in less time, and your readiness markers are moving in the wrong direction, ask whether you should still be training like it’s your “off-season.”

If your hardest call were tomorrow, could you perform when everything was on the line?

If you’re not sure because you decided your emotions and your workout were more important than your actual mission, reevaluate your priorities.

In the next article, we’ll discuss why spring-ball and in-season training concepts are usually closer to where you need to be when working in these professions.

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Long Term Training LLC

info@longtermtraining.com

https://www.instagram.com/longtermtraining/

If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

You can also support my work by purchasing Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century

For daily programming, join me at We Go Home LLC, where I serve as Director of Human Performance. Start your free trial here.

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Real Preparedness

If you knew, as a cop, firefighter, SWAT officer, or other tactical professional, that the hardest and most demanding call of your life was tomorrow, what would your workout be today?

I would tell you that if you’re already motivated, have trained your entire life, and have built a solid foundation of fitness, your workout should, at best, be active recovery. Complement that session with clean food, hydration, and a good night’s sleep. If you knew farther out, you would structure your week accordingly for recovery and performance.

This is common sense. You wouldn’t crush yourself the day before an event like this any more than an NFL player would before game day.

When I think back to the brief period when I was a graduate assistant strength coach, I remember seeing the yearly plan repeated for Division I football players.

Summer preseason

Longer training block: a full week of strength, conditioning, power, agility, and more, with skill practice in the afternoon.

In season

Weight-room and dedicated conditioning sessions are limited—especially for athletes seeing the field. Practice and game readiness are the priority. Players who do not play continue training hard.

Spring ball

A shorter training block: lifting three times per week, conditioning on other days, and skill practice. This serves as a buildup to spring training and an opportunity for players to prove where they could fit the following season.

Notice something here: the athletes’ training complements where they are in the competitive season.

For some reason, in the tactical and first-responder realm, we tend to have people who do nothing and are in poor shape—or people who think every session is supposed to be a puke-inducing beating comparable to being thrown down a flight of stairs… for time.

This article series will explore what firefighters, cops, and everyone in between can learn from this training process.

Yearly Training Process: What Is Your “Season?”

When you look at Division I football players, overwhelmingly, you’re looking at some of the best genetic potential in the U.S. I never forgot my first day of summer training, when I watched a half-asleep football player perform a backflip on a whim at 7:00 a.m., with no warm-up.

Humbling, to say the least.

I bring up that story because, despite this being such a gifted population, they still had only roughly four structured training days in the offseason. Yes, they did a lot, but that was their job. Maybe they took summer classes, but their main focus was getting sleep, eating the food they were provided, and showing up to train.

Compare that with the average shift-work cop on nights: sleeping when the sun is up, dealing with various stressors, preparing their own food, ideally training in some form of combat sport, and facing physical requirements they are responsible for building and maintaining.

The Irony: When More Work Produces Less Progress

And yet, we still seem to fall into two camps in these professions. We either have people who do nothing and live sedentary lifestyles—and it is a miracle they survive every shift—or we have people who are so motivated that they constantly crush themselves in the gym without tracking long-term progress.

To be honest, I often fell into the latter category. I trained a ton when I had free time and felt guilty if I didn’t, but I ignored where I was by the end of a training cycle. My lifts did not budge, or I tweaked a hamstring—but at least I worked hard.

Ironically, I usually made the best progress when I was too busy at work to add more training—training that was really about satisfying my emotions rather than producing real results.

Main Takeaway

If the best athletes in the country—many barely 20 years old—must manage training stress so they can perform in a structured contact-sport environment, shouldn’t you?

If you want to get stronger, better conditioned, improve your grappling, boxing, or other skills, and still perform on the street when called upon, you must measure results, recover from training, and repeat that process for your entire career.

Your methods, tools, volume, frequency, and everything in between will change as you mature. But one of the biggest mistakes you can make is judging training solely by how tired you feel after each session.

Fatigue is often a byproduct of productive training. It is not, however, the goal.

Different phases should include periods of higher volume or intensity and emphasize particular goals while maintaining others. The point is to manage stress deliberately so your training improves performance rather than competes with it.

That is real training.

Future articles will break down this process further and show how principles used with some of the country’s most gifted athletes can apply to SWAT, SOF, cops, firefighters, and other tactical professionals.

Buy Now

Daily programming with We Go Home LLC on the TrainHeroic App!

Long Term Training LLC

info@longtermtraining.com

https://www.instagram.com/longtermtraining/

If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

You can also support my work by purchasing Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century

For daily programming, join me at We Go Home LLC, where I serve as Director of Human Performance. Start your free trial here.

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Don’t Be Afraid to Be a Novice Again

Throughout my career and training, I have had to start over multiple times: strength coach intern, graduate assistant, new cop, Army enlistee, and eventually the new guy at Ranger Regiment.

Looking back, during all of those transitional periods, I wanted to rush to the end and become “qualified” in whatever that new role was.

The reality is that everything takes time and experience. Everyone may start from a different point, but we can all benefit from taking a breath and becoming the “new guy” again.

The same applies to training.

In this article, I’ll discuss higher-intensity conditioning methods. If you jump into these methods without first building the appropriate foundation, you’ll shortchange your long-term adaptations.

Even if you are already fit, there is nothing wrong with scaling back for a while and using earlier phases to address gaps.

Energy System Development: “Into the Frontier” Phase

Reference Training Week 1 below. In this article, we will focus on Days 2, 4, and 6. The strength work was covered in the last article.

Day 2: Threshold Intervals

We are going to continue with the threshold work from the last phase, but reduce the volume slightly. I prefer mixed-modality work, like what you see in the schedule above.

Week 1 prescription:

• 1 minute of work

• 1 minute of active recovery

• 5 total rounds

• 1:1 work-to-rest ratio

• Threshold effort throughout each work interval

Build to an effort that brings your heart rate to approximately 160–170 beats per minute, depending on the individual. Use effort and pace as your primary guides, since heart rate can lag during short intervals and will vary between athletes.

The goal is to maintain a consistent effort across all five rounds—not sprint the first interval and survive the rest.

Day 4: Tempo Intervals

This should be viewed as another aerobic training day that helps support recovery before the harder workouts later in the week.

Modality:

• Choose one modality for the session.

• Good options include the bike, sled, medicine-ball throws, or another activity that is not primarily dependent on eccentric muscle contractions.

• The goal is to create a repeatable training stimulus without causing excessive soreness or muscle damage.

Prescription:

• Begin with 5–10 minutes of steady-state work.

• Perform 10–15 seconds of work at approximately 70% effort.

• Recover fully before beginning the next repetition.

• Week 1: 10–12 repetitions

Recovery:

Full recovery should fall within the following range:

• Heart rate returns to approximately 130–140 bpm

• You can breathe exclusively through your nose

If you are using a heart-rate monitor, begin the next repetition once your heart rate has returned to the prescribed range. If you do not have a monitor, use nasal breathing as your guide.

Athletes with a high level of fitness may be able to perform these intervals every minute on the minute, but only if they can meet the recovery standards above.

Day 6: Cardiac Power / VO₂ Max Intervals

Due to your discipline and effort over the past two months, you now get to push yourself into the frontier of your aerobic system.

The goal of VO₂ max, or cardiac power, intervals is to push your cardiovascular system toward its upper limits and sustain a high level of effort for a prescribed period of time.

Modality:

Use a total-body conditioning method or a combination of several modalities. Possible options include:

• Sprints

• Long, steep incline efforts

• Echo Bike

• Assault Bike

• Kettlebell complexes

• Sled pushes or pulls

• Heavy bag or pad work

• Grappling

If you are like me and require most of your conditioning to be lower impact, I suggest using the Echo Bike, Assault Bike, kettlebell complexes, or the sled if you have enough space to push or pull it.

Hitting the heavy bag or pads can work here as well. Just understand that this is a highly fatiguing conditioning tool. As you become tired, your technique may suffer, which can reinforce poor movement habits.

Recovery:

• Complete the prescribed work interval.

• Rest until your heart rate returns to approximately 130–140 bpm.

• If you do not have a heart-rate monitor, recover until you can comfortably breathe through your nose.

• Repeat once you have met one of those recovery standards.

I strongly recommend using a heart-rate monitor for this session.

The volume will look low, but each work interval is intended to be a maximal or near-maximal effort. This is not a session to rush through.

Example combinations:

• Kettlebell swings: 15–25 repetitions
  Immediately followed by a 400–800-meter track repeat, or whatever distance allows you to work for 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

• Kettlebell cleans: 10–12 repetitions
  Immediately followed by a sled push or pull for 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

• Goblet squats or double-kettlebell front squats: 10–12 repetitions
  Immediately followed by the Assault Bike or Echo Bike for 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

• Kettlebell thrusters: 10–12 repetitions
  Immediately followed by heavy bag work for 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

• Single-arm kettlebell clean and press: 5 right and 5 left
  Immediately followed by max-effort grappling for 90-second to 2-minute rounds. Your partner should be relentless.

These are just examples. You can use variations of these combinations or choose a different combination for each set.

Choose your own adventure.

Operational considerations:

• Schedule this session with plenty of time between training and your shift.

• Do not complete this workout and immediately change into your uniform to go protect the public and save lives.

• Perform it on a day when your schedule allows enough time to determine how much recovery you need before your duties begin.

Progression for this block:

• Week 1: 4 repetitions

• Work interval: 90 seconds per repetition

• Recovery: Rest until your heart rate returns to 130–140 bpm, or until you can comfortably breathe through your nose.

The volume will progress throughout the month. By the end of the block, you will work up to 8 repetitions of 2 minutes each, with recovery between intervals dictated by your heart rate and breathing.

Closing

As you can see, there is a reason we only have two strength-training days each week. This conditioning work is no joke. It is designed to push you after you have spent the previous phases building a substantial strength and aerobic base.

This is where you really push your limits so that, if things go south on the street, you have a significant fitness reserve to handle the situation.

Of course, you cannot train this way forever. Despite what certain programs may tell you, this level of intensity will eventually catch up with you and lead to burnout.

The goal is to push for four weeks, improve your VO₂ max, increase your threshold capacity, and potentially nudge your strength forward as well.

To do that, you need to follow a program—not just apply random intensity.

Questions? Reach out.

Phase I- The Foundation

Phase II- On The Brink

Phase III- Into the Frontier

Buy Now

Daily programming with We Go Home LLC on the TrainHeroic App!

Long Term Training LLC

info@longtermtraining.com

https://www.instagram.com/longtermtraining/

If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

You can also support my work by purchasing Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century

For daily programming, join me at We Go Home LLC, where I serve as Director of Human Performance. Start your free trial here.

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Direction

I remember that in my first or second week as a brand-new cop, I was driving around with my Field Training Officer (FTO). He instructed me, in a relatively busy area, to pull over on the side of the road and stop the vehicle. I thought I had done something wrong, but then he simply asked me something to the effect of:

“Where are we?”

Silence.

“What street are we on?”

I saw where he was going with this.

“What are the cross streets?”

“I have no idea.”

“Always know where you are. What if something happened right now? Could you tell anybody where you were?”

Point taken.

This is somewhat of a cliché story that any decent FTO will use with a new recruit. Considering this was almost 20 years ago and I still remember it, it obviously had an impact on me.

Always know your location.

This concept should also extend to your training, particularly your strength and conditioning to support your performance as a first responder or tactical professional. All too often, I talk with these extremely motivated individuals who are looking for guidance with their programming. They list off a bunch of goals, but then follow programs—or just do random workouts—that don’t actually lead to their stated outcomes. They’re working hard, but they don’t necessarily know where they’re going or if they’re even covering ground.

Nothing is truly measured other than perceived effort. As somebody who trained this way for years, I understand the drive. You want to feel like you worked hard, and you almost feel guilty if you’re not exhausted or taking every set to failure during your exercise session.

The problem is that, if you’re honest, you usually look back a few weeks later and realize your lifts haven’t moved much, if at all. You’re not running faster or doing more work in a shorter amount of time, and you’re probably trying to figure out why you developed tendinitis somewhere.

But for some reason, you did it again and again.

Once you start measuring where you’re at and where you’re going—if you know where you are—everything changes.

The past few articles in this series have covered eight weeks of programming with targeted goals that, if you’re tracking your training, you should absolutely see improvement in. Now, because of the time you put in building your strength, aerobic base, and threshold conditioning, we finally make it to this final phase. This phase is designed to push your conditioning while maintaining your strength and aerobic base.

Like in our last series, we will go through each training goal in each of these articles.

Strength Training During the “Into the Frontier” Phase

Please reference Training Week 1 below. Days 1 and 5 will be true strength-training days during this phase. Yes, just two strength days.

For the people who are already thinking that two strength-training days are not enough, you need to look at the big picture of the program. This program is designed with the idea that police officers and other first responders not only work demanding schedules, but should also be doing other forms of training, like BJJ and boxing (in the conditioning article we will talk where this work can fit).

Our goals for this phase are to slightly increase or maintain strength while pushing the envelope on our conditioning. These two days—when completed with intent and proper intensity—are more than enough to accomplish that.

This also leaves room in the tank for recovery, performance on the job, and the other training I just discussed.

Day 1- Total Body Strength

These weights will get heavier as the month progresses, but the idea here is that, regardless of the load, you need to move that weight with intent. This is crucial.

Sixty-five percent is a relatively light load. Depending on your experience, the exercise, and how strong you are, you could probably perform significantly more than six reps with this weight. That is not the point of these sets. The goal is to perform six high-quality reps with speed and control while avoiding unnecessary fatigue.

Get your abs tight, squeeze the bar or implement, and lift it powerfully, with some speed, on every rep. This isn’t bodybuilding. Think of it as training for power or speed-strength. The intent should be explosive.

If the bar speed or quality of movement noticeably slows, the load is too heavy for the goal of the set, or you need more rest.

You would perform your trap-bar deadlifts or other compound lower-body lift, rest for about 60 to 90 seconds depending on your fitness level, and then do the same with your press variation. Perform four sets of six for each movement.

This is more challenging than it sounds when it is done correctly. If you need additional rest to maintain bar speed, force production, or technique, take it. The goal is high-quality work, not short rest periods for the sake of feeling tired. You’ll certainly feel some fatigue, but you shouldn’t be totally destroyed. If you’re fit enough to keep the density high, and the bar speed is still fast, feel free to move through this work quick. But just remember the main goal- power.

After that, you move to the accessory work, which can be completed in circuits depending on how much time you have. Usually, doing the first three exercises as a circuit works, and then doing the last two exercises as a superset is time-efficient as well.

I wouldn’t rush through it too quickly, but if you rest about a minute between movements, you’ll be giving yourself two to three minutes of active rest between each separate exercise.

If you’re really starting to grind and your form is suffering, stop for a minute to ensure your movement quality remains high, but it is certainly OK as we get towards the end of the session to get a bit more “traditionally” fatigued.

Day 5: Strength Ladders

Strength ladders are an awesome way to get in high-quality reps with heavier weight. You can perform the main compound movements like you did on Day 1, or you can do these as more traditional ladders, where you stick with the main movements until the ladder is complete.

The way this can look is that you warm up to a load of approximately 75% of your one-rep max. Again, this depends on your strength level and experience on how many reps you can get with 75% of your max. Regardless, in week one this should be a challenging but manageable weight that is right around a 6-8 rep maximum. Since the most reps you’ll do in a ladder is 3 reps, the load should allow you to perform every rep with solid technique and consistent speed.

Perform one rep on the deadlift.

Take a good breath, walk over to the bench or whatever press variation you’re doing, get tight, and perform:

One rep on the press.

Take a breath and walk back over to the deadlift.

Two reps. Take two breaths.

Walk over to the press and perform two reps. Take two breaths.

Do the same for three reps.

You have now completed one wave. Rest for two minutes, then repeat the entire ladder for a total of three waves.

The exact loading and rest may need to be adjusted slightly based on the athlete and the exercises being used. If the third wave turns into a grind or technique begins to break down, reduce the load or stop the ladder rather than forcing low-quality reps.

What you’re going to find as you do these, in the second and third waves, the singles and doubles are going to feel almost lighter. Repeated exposure to the movements can improve coordination, technical efficiency, and force production without requiring repeated near-maximal efforts.

What you’re doing is building volume with moderate-to-heavy loads while allowing your nervous system and movement patterns to become more efficient. As you get better at the movement and really put some drive into it, you can produce high-quality work without causing excessive fatigue.

Then you follow up with accessory work. On this day, it is a little heavier with lower volume, but it can also be performed as a circuit.

This is more of a dedicated heavy-strength day. The weights will get heavier later in the cycle, and this is how we are going to get stronger while we hit those other conditioning days hard.

Closing

Much like the importance of knowing where you are on the street, your programming is no different. Yes, for this phase, you’re doing true, heavy—or at least heavier—strength training a couple of times per week. Hearing that alone doesn’t sound right to a lot of hard chargers. But when you zoom out and look at the totality of the program, it actually makes a ton of sense.

The amazing thing is that we leave the option open at the end of these four weeks to build to a heavy triple. Some people may hit personal records—or rep records—on their lifts during this phase despite the heavy conditioning- because we plan the training month out in a manner that allows for hard work and recovery.

The past 8 weeks and then leading into this training month will not only build strength, but also technique, work capacity, fatigue management, and the ability to produce force without wasting energy. We not only trained hard; we trained smart.

In the next article, we’ll discuss the conditioning in this program. You’ll learn how it complements your strength work while still leaving room for self-defense training.

Questions? Reach out.

Phase I- The Foundation

Phase II- On The Brink

Phase III- Into the Frontier

Buy Now

Daily programming with We Go Home LLC on the TrainHeroic App!

Long Term Training LLC

info@longtermtraining.com

https://www.instagram.com/longtermtraining/

If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

You can also support my work by purchasing Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century

For daily programming, join me at We Go Home LLC, where I serve as Director of Human Performance. Start your free trial here.

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Build Real Strength and Capacity

The program we will discuss below is part of a 12-week cycle of programming we have used in the past. That cycle is divided into three four-week phases and is now available for individual, à la carte purchase.

While it is not the current Training Team cycle, it follows the same principles that guide all of our programming: sustainable training designed to build on itself over time. This approach is superior for overall performance in the tactical and first responder realm compared to the equivalent of a “crash diet” program that creates the illusion of progress by crushing you in every workout.

Our programming builds capacities—not just arbitrary numbers on specific exercises or times for certain run distances. The question is: What can you do when you’re not at your best, during that unknown event at that unknown time?

The testimonial below is from a user who is currently subscribed to current We Go Home live programming that runs year-round.

As you can read from the user above:

“GM tested my PRT and scored overall 0H, with only this training. Surprised because I was able to max out push-ups and planks without directly training them.”

Maxing out events without directly training them is always our goal. Of course, if you’re attending a selection course of some kind, we will train some of the events specifically to maximize performance.

However, in an ideal world, if you’re following a good program outside of your train-up, you shouldn’t have to specifically train those events for long—maybe just a few weeks of becoming familiar with the test movements.

The goal is not to assume that event-specific practice is unnecessary. The goal is to build such a broad base of strength, power, muscular endurance, and aerobic capacity that you are already prepared for the demands of the test before beginning a short period of specific preparation.

In this case, the user did not even have to do that.

The user also mentioned:

“My main hurdle through training would always be somehow getting hurt and being set back and starting over when I recover.”

I have gone through this myself, and it is a story I have heard too many times. You can’t train hard when you’re always healing. You’re not training hard if you’re always hurt.

This is where our programming system is different. I am often told by users that they found us after following programs that repeatedly left them injured.

The user continued:

“But with this program, I’ve been able to learn how to auto-regulate and learn different ways to target certain muscle groups with lower risk (e.g., your rack pulls and trap-bar deadlifts).”

We naturally rotate movements in our training to avoid the pitfall of overuse injuries, but we also advocate for choosing movements that fit you and where you are currently at.

If you can’t safely get into a good deadlift position from the floor, why would I want you to load that position? This is why I not only build multiple options into the program, but I am also just a message away if you need help selecting a substitution.

I am truly honored that people trust us with their strength and conditioning in the first responder, tactical, and private security fields. It is professionally satisfying to pass on lessons learned through more than 15 years of experience in this professional domain.

Below, we continue with our series by going over the last phase of our 12-week program.

Pushing the Limit

When heading to the police academy—or even when simply following sensible long-term programming—there can be a time and place to push ourselves with more intense methods.

In the last four weeks of our 12-week series, we do just that with our program: Aerobic Power—Into the Frontier.

Week 1 schedule below:

Yes, we push it during this phase. But the key is that we do so in a sensible manner that allows for recovery between sessions and ample room for performance on the job.

The only day of the week I recommend planning to complete well outside your shift—or even on an off day from work—is the Cardiac Power interval session on Day 6.

Goals of This Phase

• Maintain or slightly build strength: Days 1 and 5

• Increase threshold performance: Day 2

• Increase aerobic power: Day 6

• Maintain the aerobic base: Days 3 and 4

This means taking the eight weeks of hard training you just completed and putting on the afterburners.

Because you, as a disciplined professional, took the time to work within the somewhat stringent parameters of keeping most of your work in the aerobic base-building zones, you now get to reward yourself with some legitimate gut-check workouts.

The intent is not to turn every session into a test of willpower. The intent is to introduce higher-intensity work at the appropriate time, after a sufficient base has been established, while still maintaining enough structure and recovery to support performance on the job.

Closing

As I did with the other two phases, which are linked below, we will spend the next few weeks talking about the training days in detail and discussing the goals we are trying to achieve.

Again, I am honored that people who work in these fields trust me with their physical training.

Remember, physical training is only the base. You first need to root yourself in a deeper reason for why you’re in these professions. Ensure your “why” is legal, moral, and ethical.

Once your “why” is established, you will need to train—and train hard. Nobody is forcing you to do this. You need the skill sets to do these jobs properly. To develop those skill sets and perform, you need fitness. This is nonnegotiable.

Aimless, theatrically intense workouts will not achieve this over a 20-year career. Real performance is developed through relentless and tenacious consistency repeated for life.

If that doesn’t sound appealing, you may want to consider other fields.

Questions? Reach out.

Phase I- The Foundation

Phase II- On The Brink

Phase III- Into the Frontier

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If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

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True Functional Strength

If you’re thinking about becoming a police officer or firefighter, go on YouTube and search for “police officer saves individual from burning vehicle” or any hand-to-hand grappling fight that often happens when police officers deal with a resisting suspect. Firefighters can be seen dragging and carrying individuals to safety, often in awkward positions and tight spaces.

These are real-world examples of where a first responder may need to display strength under load. In those moments, it might not matter if you’re a devoted marathon runner who smoked everyone in the academy on the PT test. If you fold under load, that giant aerobic engine you’ve built won’t matter much for the job you signed up to do.

As I’ve said throughout these articles, performance in the first responder realm requires balance. This article explains how we continue developing strength in this program even as we raise the bar in conditioning, as discussed in our previous articles about one of our training blocks, On the Brink.

What Strength Training Is Not

Many training systems use the term “functional fitness” to describe their programming. Usually, this means lots of barbell complexes and endless circuits that will certainly fatigue you, but often don’t offer much long-term progression once you’re past a very novice level. That assumes you aren’t injured before you get there, as these circuits are often packed with high-rep Olympic lifts and other poor exercise selections.

What is truly functional is increasing strength and conditioning in a safe manner with long-term progression. Although there can be some overlap, endurance and strength adaptations can compete with one another if training volume, intensity, and recovery are not managed well.

This is where real training matters, as opposed to loading up a bar and just smoking someone. Just because you’re holding weights in your hand doesn’t mean you’re building strength any more than picking an arbitrary distance and running will build endurance. If your goal is to improve top-end speed, you’ll need to sprint. If your goal is to get stronger, you’ll generally need to lift heavier weights over time.

Rep Ranges

There are many ways to get stronger depending on your experience, and there are also many ways to explain it. I like how the late Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell would explain it, usually while referencing Supertraining and other Soviet sports science.

In application, I usually keep the rep range for strength work in our programming at around 4–7 reps. For this population and this phase of training, that tends to be a practical sweet spot for neurological adaptation while also building some muscle. It also gives older trainees more room for good and bad days, plus some wiggle room to fit in more conditioning. Remember, you’re not powerlifters. We have to train a lot of qualities, and particularly in this phase, where we are working in more threshold training, we don’t want to overload you with too much intensity.

For our accessory work, we use the repetition method to build muscle and volume where it is needed to support the big lifts. This not only brings up weaknesses, but also raises your overall work capacity so you can handle harder training sessions later.

We also use a form of dynamic effort training on our HICT circuit day. HICT here refers to a higher-intensity continuous circuit: moving lighter weights as fast as possible while building some systemic fatigue and keeping the heart rate in an aerobic range for a programmed period of time. This borrows the intent of speed work, but applies it in a way that better fits the needs of first responders and tactical populations.

Below is the schedule we have been referencing from our Program On The Brink in this series:

Day 1- Total Strength

We warm up, do a few jumps to wake up the nervous system, and then hit some big lifts. You can do these as a slow strength circuit or build to a heavy set of five on each movement. That means you would load a light weight, do 5 reps, rest, add some weight, rest, and continue until you find a weight that allows you to lift 4–7 hard reps for your work set. As you get closer to that weight, rest 2–3 minutes between sets. But it shouldn’t take you all day.

Follow that with carries, higher-repetition accessory work, and a complex.

Why: This is the day where we train in the heavier rep range that drives absolute strength gains. We are training the nervous system, muscle, and connective tissues to handle heavier loads.

Day 3: HICT

This is a variation on Westside-style speed work. I like to program this for first responders and tactical populations because it also works in a form of higher-end aerobic training while focusing on maintaining explosive power as fatigue builds. Think of it as being able to display power while tired.

You’ll base the 65% off Day 1’s final heavy set for each movement. If you trap-bar deadlifted 405 x 5, you would use about 260–265 for this session. Move it as fast as possible for 3 reps at a time during this circuit for a total of 10 minutes. Slow down if rep speed drops substantially or you really start to redline your heart rate.

Why: Strength displayed quickly is where performance lives. Although developing strength certainly helps you move lighter loads fast, getting trainees to learn how to brace and then move explosively is another skill. Adding fatigue management and learning how to recover efficiently between efforts is another skill that helps performance on the street.

Day 4: Volume

This is a classic repetition, or bodybuilding, rep range. The twist here is that we focus on unilateral movements.

Why: This gives your nervous system a break from the heavier weights in the previous two sessions and hopefully irons out any serious imbalances between each side of the body. Some people are surprised to see how much discrepancy can exist between limbs, which can often be improved just through practicing the movements and letting the body figure it out. This should also help with injury prevention.

Closing

Strength, like an aerobic foundation, is crucial for performance. This is simply how we develop it in this phase of the program. Of course, this doesn’t address proper training in takedowns, boxing, BJJ, tactics, and so on. However, strength supports all of these things. The stronger you are, the easier it becomes to move under load. Almost all of these jobs require body armor, full kit, oxygen tanks, or other equipment. Combined with the conditioning of this phase, this approach helps cover the major physical demands you’re likely to face.

The next article will go into the third and final phase of our 12-week programming cycle. This is where we really push things, but we do it responsibly so you can still perform when it counts.

Questions? Reach out.

Buy Now

Daily programming with We Go Home LLC on the TrainHeroic App!

Long Term Training LLC

info@longtermtraining.com

https://www.instagram.com/longtermtraining/

If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

You can also support my work by purchasing Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century

For daily programming, join me at We Go Home LLC, where I serve as Director of Human Performance. Start your free trial here.

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Events Start Fast, but the Pace Needs to Be Maintained

In our last article, we discussed how, in On the Brink, we maintain and elevate our aerobic capacity. The area I did not get into was anaerobic-threshold training.

Anaerobic-threshold training is performed near the point where the contribution of the anaerobic system begins to increase substantially. It should be noted that both systems are always working; it is simply a matter of which one is more dominant. This is a hard but sustainable pace.

The foot pursuit, the structure fire, the active shooter, the fight—anything that goes longer than a couple of minutes and is beyond a conversational pace—should be performed near your threshold.

Those who do not train this quality will tip right over into their anaerobic system. They redline. They panic. They gas out. You have all heard their voices on the radio.

The good news is that, combined with solid field training and experience, this quality is trainable.

Chart below. It is not all-inclusive; it is intended only to provide a visual reference for the reader. These time frames are not set in stone, as no individual is the same:

The Basics

Our aerobic system relies on oxygen and can provide energy for much longer periods of time. Our anaerobic system derives energy through pathways that do not rely primarily on oxygen.

In the simplest terms, although both systems are working simultaneously, the longer you can rely on your aerobic system for physical performance, the longer you can maintain performance and display strength. You are also less likely to panic and gas out.

Raise Your Threshold

Anaerobic threshold, as stated before, is the point at which you are working near the upper limit of what you can sustain aerobically. This point is usually tied to a heart rate and the point at which your body is no longer clearing lactate as effectively. The most accurate way to determine it is in a lab.

A practical way to estimate it is to pick a distance on a track or complete a timed trial lasting anywhere from 10–15 minutes, or even as long as 30 minutes. Push yourself at a hard but sustainable pace for that time while wearing a heart-rate monitor, and record your average heart rate. This will get you reasonably close for training this quality.

You can also do this with complexes, sled work, a bike, or even a combination of modalities. To track progress, I recommend either using the same method or modality for a few weeks, or keeping multiple records from different activities in which you maintain your threshold. This allows you to go back and see whether you can complete more work in the same period or cover more ground.

Training to raise our anaerobic threshold requires using that average heart rate as a rough reference. When this is the training goal, try to keep yourself within approximately ±5 beats per minute of that number.

Let’s say you ran for 15 minutes and your heart rate averaged around 170 bpm. That means that when you train this quality, you should get yourself to around 165 bpm and avoid letting it rise above 175 bpm.

I want to be clear that this is an estimate. On certain days, this range could be a little higher or lower depending on your fatigue and various other factors. You will need to use this heart-rate range in combination with your pace, how you are moving, and whether you are able to maintain your output for a prescribed time or rep range.

Day 6 From On the Brink

We are going to reference Day 6 of the program below:

Day 6: Threshold

We are going to use old-school strength coach Dan John’s Human Burpee as the modality for training this quality. The idea is to move at a pace that gets your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold.

Complete five rounds:

• Kettlebell swings × 15

• Kettlebell goblet squats × 5

• Push-ups or hand-release push-ups × 5

Each round, keep the swings the same, but reduce the other movements by one rep. The second round is 15 swings, four squats, and four push-ups. Continue until the final round, which is 15 swings, one squat, and one push-up.

Record your time.

Then complete 2–3 minutes of active rest. Walk around, pedal a bike—whatever works. Just do something easy.

We follow the threshold work with a medley of carries. Keep moving for five minutes, and let your heart rate get up to approximately 150–155 bpm. This is higher-end aerobic work, and you will still be somewhat fatigued. If your heart rate starts climbing, slow down or stop for a bit.

This provides a little more loaded aerobic work while also teaching you how to calm down and manage fatigue.

Over the following weeks, we will increase the reps on the push-ups and squats while keeping the swings at 15. We will also increase the duration of the carry medley to a total of 15 minutes.

Although I keep saying this is not a true redline, this is certainly a challenging session.

Why

For all the reasons described above, but also because this is loaded conditioning. The nature of your job requires you to carry loads and move while under load. Loaded complexes and carries are a great way to train this without beating yourself up with a lot of mileage or other modalities, assuming your form solid on all of the movements.

There is nothing wrong with running, and we will work more of it into our next phase. For this month, however, I like to focus on these tools. I also think most people will end up doing some form of long, slow-distance running on their off days, so the average trainee will still get some mileage in if they chose to.

Closing

This is a challenging session. When many people hear or read “slow down if your heart rate gets above a certain zone,” they interpret it as taking it easy on themselves. Anyone who has done a session like this knows that is not the case.

Could you move at an even harder pace, to the point where you can barely keep functioning? Sure. But I would argue that is actually easier conceptually.

Instead, I want you to find the hardest pace you can manage for a given time period or rep range. Maintain the appropriate force, speed, power, or other relevant quality, and keep moving while staying below the point at which your physiology will eventually cut you off- because it will.

When you do this training, you will learn the pace at which you can move and still function. You will learn where you may have limits and where you can improve.

More importantly, once you learn what that feels like, you will eventually raise that point—your threshold—through proper training. You will also be better able to apply that understanding when you are actually on the street.

Next week, we’ll discuss the strength component of this program and how we are able to nest it into the overall program.

Questions?

Reach out.

Buy Now

Daily programming with We Go Home LLC on the TrainHeroic App!

Long Term Training LLC

info@longtermtraining.com

https://www.instagram.com/longtermtraining/

If you find these posts useful, please share them with someone who may benefit. This work takes substantial time to research and produce, and your support helps me keep the newsletter free.

Suggested support: $5/month or $50/year

You can also support my work by purchasing Answering the Call: Proper Physical Training for Police and Military in the in the 21st Century

For daily programming, join me at We Go Home LLC, where I serve as Director of Human Performance. Start your free trial here.

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Split-Second, Rapidly Evolving Decision-Making

Police use-of-force encounters and street-level critical incidents can vary in duration from just a few seconds to several minutes. To maintain performance and composure responsibly, officers need to be prepared for extended timeframes. I’m sure firefighters experience similar physical demands in their profession.

Anecdotally, based on my own professional experience, I would say most foot pursuits last anywhere from one to two minutes, followed by what usually becomes a brief grappling match. All in all, my general searches and use of AI to investigate this timeframe appear to support what researchers have found, as well as my own experience as someone who has done the job.

Maintain the Base

If we are trying to prepare first responders for these types of demands, they need a broad base of both strength and aerobic conditioning. You need an engine to get you to the point where strength is required, but you also need the work capacity to keep expressing that strength once fatigue sets in.

In the previous article, we discussed the importance of building an aerobic base through higher-volume work—often 30–60 minutes, lower-impact activities performed at a pace that allows you to hold a slightly labored conversation. In the Foundation program, we developed this through loaded movements and resisted conditioning. We also worked within this intensity range through some of our kettlebell and tempo work.

As we increase the intensity in Phase II, it is important to understand that we do not simply abandon this kind of work. Maintaining it is crucial, not only from a performance standpoint but also for general health and recovery. To accomplish this, we change things up a bit, use different modalities to avoid overuse injuries and boredom, and work at slightly higher intensities while remaining within the confines of training the aerobic system.

Notes

As a current or future cop or firefighter, I understand that you have only a finite amount of time in your schedule. Your life is hectic, and as I have said in the past, your job is not the weight room. Even if you enjoy training—which I hope you do—the weight room and track should be viewed from the perspective of a football player.

Like a football player, the weight room should enhance performance on the field, not take away from it. Football players also have to train their skills and techniques. They cannot become so beat up from a weight-room session that they can’t move.

This means we work, but we follow an optimally designed program to achieve the desired effects. We do not simply add superfluous volume or theatrical intensity. Do what matters.

4-Day Schedule

We are still going to use Week 1 of 4 from On the Brink, which is the phase that follows The Foundation.

See below:

Day 1: Strength Plus Complex

Heavy sets of five followed by loaded carries and abdominal work.

For the complex, we use Dan John’s Armour Building Complex:

• 2 double-kettlebell cleans

• 1 double-kettlebell press

• 3 double-kettlebell front squats

Repeat for seven rounds. In Week 1, perform the rounds every minute on the minute (EMOM).

Why

This day is obviously strength-focused: big lifts and heavier sets of five. Without interfering with that main focus, and to add a little extra work to help maintain our aerobic conditioning, we add the complex at the end.

By performing it EMOM, the complex should take approximately seven minutes. Your heart rate should remain in an aerobic zone for the majority of the time, and you’ll perform almost all of the basic human movements. After four weeks of the foundational program, this intensity should be manageable.

Just don’t go too heavy.

Day 3: High-Intensity Continuous Training Circuit + Ruck