In the West Jordan Fire-EMS Department we began a thirteen week Recruit Academy training in 1998 for the first time in our Department. The Training Captain Chris Evans assigned me to design a strength and fitness training program for the Recruits in this course. After many hours of research and several years of training in the gym and participating in various team and individual sports, I came up with the following workout.
I had some limitations to deal with and I think that I overcame them in making an effective program. The first limitation that I ran into was time. The Training Captain had to limit me to one hour of exercise per day. We held class four days a week, so this meant four hours of physical fitness training per week. Budget was a definite limitation. I did not have a budget to work with and had only existing equipment to work with. This was two half racks (one was homemade), one homemade flat bench, an adjustable bench, a homemade incline bench, a homemade decline bench, three chrome Olympic bars, about 1,000 Lbs. of Olympic weights, a pull-up bar, and a Lat pull-down machine. We had a 14'x14' room and Ten recruits to train. It seemed almost impossible at first, but this is how I did it.
Each day started with weight training that was scheduled to last 40 to 45 minutes. I divided the group into two groups of 5. They started each day with a Core lift. This was a multi-joint power lift (Squat, bench press, or Dead lift). The Core lift would be preceeded by some warm up and stretching. The Core lift would consist of three sets of a rotating schedule of repetition numbers. For example: The first week was 3,3,and 3. The second was 5,5,and 5. The third was 5,3, and 1. And the fourth was 10,8,and 6. After four weeks the cycle would repeat and week one became week five. The Recruits also kept a log of "bests" which entailed recording records that they would accomplish in the Core lifts in weight and/or repetitions. For example a recruit may do 200 lbs. on a lift for three repetitions on week one and record it as a "best". On week three he may have done 205 lbs. on his set for three and now have a new record for reps of three. But if he squeezed out four reps with 200 on week three, that would be just as great, because he beat his previous 200 for 3. So the goal is more weight or more reps or a combination to beat a past "best". All other weight training exercises were done two sets of eight to ten reps. If more than ten could be done, then more weight was added; but not so as to make the lifter unable to do less than eight.
You may have noticed that if the three power lifts are used, and we have four training days, we have one day that would have no Core lift. I decided to use some basic assistance exercises as psuedo-core lifts on day three of each week and keep the core lift rep/set plan. These lifts were: The standing military press, J.M. Blakley presses (close grip bench press going only half way down to the chest and back up to lock out), and the standing barbell press. Then other exercises were done for two sets of eight to ten reps as on the other days. I had them do the dead lift on the first day of the week, the bench press on the second day, the psuedo-core lifts on day three, and the squat on the last day.
Each day after the weight training portion of the program, the recruits went out to the semetary that was next to the Station and ran for 15 to 20 minutes before being excused. After being excused, they had 30 minutes to get ready for class. My program started at 0700 hours and their next class was at 0830. The Recruits were allowed to eat during the class as long as it didn't disrupt it.
Below is a link to a table of the progress that was made over the thirteen weeks by each Recruit. There are only eight listed because two Recruits left the Academy before it was over. I have also included a link to the four day workout log that shows the training split and our way of documenting each weeks performance.