For firefighters, cops, corrections officers, nurses, paramedics, the list goes on, organizing a training program around careers that are based around shift work can be challenging. It takes flexibility, various levels of preparation, and an understanding that not all programming styles may be ideal. You don’t have the luxury of a 9-5 schedule sitting at a desk. You’re not training at the exact same time every day with the exact same training partners. You may have to train at odd times, you may have to find a gym that’s open 24 hours, a lot of times you’re training alone, and that’s all perfectly okay.
There are plenty of strength athletes at high levels that don’t work a normal schedule. Its not impossible, if anything I see it as an advantage, who the fuck wants to train at a packed gym at 6:00 every night? I have been powerlifting for as long as I’ve been working in the fire service. A lot of people see my schedule and say, “Wow dude, you only work like two days a week that’s amazing!” While I would agree that more times often than not my schedule can be an advantage, that’s not always the case.
I would preface this by saying that I don’t work in a big city fire department and we’re not going to fires all day long but it does have its challenges. That’s obviously not applicable to everyone in the shift work world. Some people work in very busy departments, some work a ton of mandated overtime, some may not even get a single minute to relax for the duration of a 24 hour tour. However, maybe some strategies I use to balance my training with an unconventional work schedule could help others in the same realm.
The most important thing to remember is that you have to remain flexible. You wont always be able to squat on Mondays, you might not always be at the gym at a time where you have competent spotters, and your one buddy might not always be there to give you the perfect bench hand off. You may have a big training day planned for your first day off but instead you ended up awake all night running to various jobs, had a large patient load with no break, or just had an incredibly stressful shift in general, whatever the case.
My strategy for those types of days consists of a list of questions I’ll internally ask myself when I get home. Is today a high intensity session? Can I move it to another day? If the answer to both those things is yes, then I will push it a day to the right. If the answer is no, then ill either take a nap before training, ensure I eat a couple of good meals, and head to the gym with the expectation I may have to adjust the prescribed intensity.
You can’t remain flexible without proper preparation. Preparation is a massive tenant you have to master in this game of shift work and strength training if you want to have any amount of relative success. Preparation consists of many things like sleep, food, time management, the list can go on.
Sleep is among one of the lowest hanging fruits people in shift work never grab and over time it will absolutely catch up to you. Again, for someone like me working a schedule with more off time than most its not something I entirely struggle with. I make sure I get a great night of sleep before I head into work and I make sure on my off days I’m getting as much as sleep as I possibly can. If you’re in a 4 or 5 day work week schedule and train after work this might mean you have to sacrifice the scoop of pre workout with 600mg of caffeine and switch to a stim free product. You may even have to just simply have your rest days be on the days you work. You cannot make up for 4 or 5 days of bad sleep in one or two nights, catching up on sleep is a myth.
Food is another relatively low hanging fruit that I see so many people fail to prepare. Even someone like me with a full kitchen at my disposal in my firehouse (like any firehouse) I still bring all of my own food to work, majority of it already cooked and packed just in case I don’t have time to cook. This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a freshly cooked meal with the crew but some days you may be so busy that you don’t even have the time to cook something up.
Instead of opting for take out or uber eats you can throw something in the microwave that you prepared yourself knowing its going to fulfill your nutrition requirements. If I’m in a prep for a meet I will never go to work without literally every single meal prepped and ready to go. Whether you’re working in a station, or on the road all day, there’s no excuse as to why you can’t come to work with a fully stocked bag of meals ready to go. Your body will thank you for the cold tupperware of ground beef and rice the next day when you step into the gym.
With all of these things in order it then comes down to the actual training program. Again, this is purely a case-by-case basis but I would argue that most if not all individuals in a shift work schedule would benefit from a simple 4-day RPE based training program. With a consistent changing schedule of workdays where you truly have no idea what you’re going to be exposed to, giving someone the ability to auto regulate daily is going to produce the most success. Additionally, a 4 day training program gives that individual more flexibility in terms of leveraging off days with their shift days.
Programs that are more rigid using percentages, or those including things like lengthy SBD days would cause a lot of undue stress that would ultimately be tough to keep up with. Through my entire 8 years of powerlifting specific training while working as a firefighter I have stuck with a training week consisting of 1 squat day, 2 bench days, and 1 deadlift day. I have had the most success with basing nearly everything off of RPE.
There are plenty of pros and cons to the world of shift work. I would be lying if I told you there were some days I’m jealous of people who know exactly what time they’re going to train every day with the same exact people always knowing they’ll have a crew there to help if necessary. You can absolutely compete at the highest levels while balancing a career and a schedule that may seem wild at times. Again, it just takes a level of flexibility, preparation, and developing a program that aligns with your professional life.
