Week 1: Day 4

0700: PT  

After our normal stretches and calisthenics, we went to the weight room for some circuit training.  16 stations for 1 minute each, between each station we did pushups, crunches, starbursts, smurf-jacks, or hello-dollies.  The stations varied, but had a functional application as some of them mimicked skills we would apply on the job, as well as some for strength and balance: (including but not limited to)

DB Bench Press

DB Incline Press

DB Military Press

One-legged DB Press

Crunches

Ceiling Breach

Forcible Entry

Hose Pull

Jump Rope

Leg Press

One-legged Squats

Side Step (wearing resistance bands)

Chest Flys

Squats (with weight)

Balanced Knee Raises

Rows

After that, we went into lecture.  We had a Chief and Captain present on Safety and Awareness on the job.  They presented videos, while we spoke and critiqued what they did wrong.  I thought it was wild that in one scene they showed a Firefighter without a helmet on, smoking a cigarette, while holding the hose to fight the fire (granted these films were dated circa 1998).  This took the better part of the day.......

Regulation 4.2.3 states that we are not allowed to have cell phones during the hours of 0700-1700 (during the day while in the academy, except at lunch), and no phones are allowed in the classroom.

At about 1700, when we were getting ready to leave, an instructor noticed a phone clipped onto the bag of a recruit......so we had to do push-ups.  Well....SUPER push-ups actually.  It is similar to a normal pushup except you hold yourself in the up and/or down position for as long as the instructor wants.  When the say UP, you raise...when they say DOWN, you lower yourself to where you are about a fist above the ground.

That was the conclusion of the day...