The following excerpts are taken from "Putting Out Fires", by Lon Kilgore

Honolulu Fire Department, Hawaii
Orange Country Fire Authority, CA
Oakland Fire Department, CA
Woodinville Fire and Life Safety District, WA
Marietta Fire Department, GA
Parker Fire District, CO

What do all of these fire departments have in common?

They use CrossFit, officially or unofficially, to prepare for the rigors of their profession. But there's more. In firefighter competitions around the country, it seems that whenever CrossFit-trained personnel enter, they end up at the top of the field. We might even say that fire companies like those above dominate the competition. Why is that?

The first point to consider is that CrossFit-trained firefighters are more efficient machines than their competitors. They are performing equivalent competition work at a lower metabolic cost compared to their rivals because they are performing less extraneous work. This is an adaptation in neuromuscular efficiency. Traditional physical training used by lots of firefighters is often limited to running and machine strength training. Neither of these modalities is applicable to the multiplanar challenges of a firefighter competition course or the actual job demands of a firefighter. CrossFit training with its hugely variant exercise menu, develops multiple motor and metabolic pathways in every plane of motion and articulates well with real world motor challenges.

CrossFit establishes and develops motor pathways relevant to sport and occupational effort. A well developed motor pathway reduces the amount of external work done by the body and thereby reduces oxygen consumed. Reducing the amount of working muscles reduces metabolic cost. This will result in either the ability to perform an activity for a longer period of time or, in this instance with firefighters, in consuming less oxygen per unit work.

Another factor that contributes to the improvement in efficiency is the increase in strength that results from CrossFit training.

While these results are from competitions that simulate the real world of firefighting, they point strongly to the fact that CrossFit training prepares firefighters for the rigors of the profession better than other training systems.

The relevance of CrossFit to administrators is that their firefighters can do more work in less time, have a higher overall work capacity, are less likely to be injured, and consume fewer purchased resources (oxygen). This means healthier, more effective firefighters at a lower operating cost. EVERYONE WINS.