Strengthening Body and Mind: Fitness as a Tool for First Responders Recovery

Jerry Dean Lund: 0:15

Welcome to today's episode of Enduring the Badge Podcast. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund and if you haven't already done so, please take out your phone and hit that subscribe button. I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. And hey, while your phone's out, please give us a rating and review. On whichever platform you listen to this podcast on, such as iTunes, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. It helps this podcast grow and the reason why, when this gets positive ratings and reviews, platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify show this to other people that never listened to this podcast before, and that allows our podcast to grow and make a more of an impact on other people's lives. So if you would do that, I would appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. My very special guest today is the creator and owner of Resilience Through Fitness. Deven is a law enforcement officer who is injured on duty and he's going to talk about that traumatic incident, and he's going to also talk about how fast after that traumatic incident, he started having some emotional and physical effects from it. It's a great story. It's a great journey that Devin tells, and he's also going to tell you how you can prepare yourself if something like that were to happen. Now, let's jump right into this very special podcast with Deven. Hey Jerry, how are you doing, bud? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for asking.

Ad: 1:36

Yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 1:39

Devin, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Deven Kennedy: 1:42

Yeah, so I'm a 10-year member with a small police service here in Nova Scotia really tight-knit group. There's a small police department so everybody knows everything about everyone. And I grew up in a police and family in rural Prince Edward Island. So my father was a RCMP and my mom was a nurse turned doctor of acupuncture in natural medicine Wow. So I kind of grew up around the policing world. Every choice I made was to get to be a police officer someday. I remember Dad coming in uniformed time, my skates, and whenever I was a little kid. So I really grew up looking up to him and that light, the camaraderie that they all had. And I think I started the academy when I was 23. I'm 33 now, so a lot has changed. When I first started I had a little peach fuzz on the chin and that was about it.

Jerry Dean Lund: 2:38

So yeah, lots changed over the years and yeah here we are, yeah, yeah, well, it's awesome that you have a family that's well your dad that served and your mom that took some path in medicine too, so that probably gave you some well-roundedness to your life. And what you're doing with the resilience through fitness yeah, yeah, exactly. So the audience a little bit about resilience through fitness, and then we'll get into some of your stories.

Deven Kennedy: 3:06

Yeah for sure. So what happened Kind of what started resilience through fitness was an incident back June 12, 2022. So I responded to an open basically it was an open liquor call at a local coffee shop. Somebody was drinking at the back of their vehicle Famous. Last words. I said to my partner I let's just go deal with this and we'll get to the other call, right. So I said I don't want to take a second. He was a cadet with two week service, so I was like you drive, that'll be a quick one.

Ad: 3:37

Okay.

Deven Kennedy: 3:38

So anyways, buddy, seeing us and started to drive away, ended up going down a dead end, dirt, dead end road and I knew right away I was like oh yeah, he's going on foot, like he's not from here, took a wrong turn Like I got you now, so jumped out to chase after him on foot. Seen that he had thrown it in reverse so I was like I'll jump back in the car. Then I seen him come across the bow of our SUV. Lights, ron sirens, everything, right, I'm calling it out to my sergeant. There's only four of us working and one of the guys was tied up at a sudden death for continuity. So my partner or my sergeant was trying to come across town and we two bridges to get across town. So we just trying to bail to get one of the bridges to get over to help me, and so we're calling everything out. And I thought he got hung up on a curb. So I was like, perfect, I'm going to drag him out the window because I see he went right by the nose of the SUV, right. And I thought he got stuck and I was like, well, his window is half down, so I'll take him out half of the window and ran around and just as I was cresting the back of the SUV I could hear the engine roaring and it was getting closer and I was like, well, and I was the on stop police, all the usual stuff. And I just looked up and I seen a Ford emblem and the tires were pointed right at me. I was like, yeah, here we go, like I had nowhere to go. So I just kind of jumped, got hit, barrel rolled and he took off down the road and whenever I got up to run after him my foot was broke. So I could hear the crunching noise whenever it was broken. So I was like that's toast. So, long story short, next morning he turned himself in. They tracked him and did some stuff trying to get a kind of find him, but he ended up turned himself in across the province the next day. He knew the jig was up, so yeah. So what happened was I had the broken foot and you know walking boot and all this stuff, but it was the psychological injury that was the hardest part. I really noticed within a couple of days I was just spiraling, I just I couldn't sleep, just was down and out, and I'm normally a super happy, go lucky guy, kind of chirping and carrying on with everyone you know, and I just was like a I always say like a career in my longtime girlfriend. He said I was like you or I legit, I was, just nothing would make me happy. I was just a pot in the long and then it started getting into the depression side and the anxiety was through the roof. I hear a siren. I'd be at the gym and I hear a siren. I just shut down so I asked for help. I had to wait about seven weeks to get into a psychologist just due to the backlog and stuff, and in that time it was really tough, right, like the only thing I credit the gym as a math and you know family support and you know I got three pugs here. They're half snoring but so they got me out. They got me outside and stuff. But you know, going to the gym every day and seeing the positive community that the local CrossFit gym here in 902 athletics they were amazing. Every time I come in, right, somebody be like hey, how's it going, man? Like, what do you need? Do you want some help with this or that? Like, or even just being like, hey, man, if you need anything, let me know. Just that was huge and it got me to get over the social anxiety that I was having, where I didn't want to go anywhere. So I didn't want to go outside. It'd be plus 30 degrees out. I'd be like I'm staying inside, I'm going downstairs. So I really seen that there was that. The fitness, though, was helping me, and it was helping me burn off the stress and it was helping me work through and retrain my body to be used to going into an elevated state, because what would happen is central nervous system was all out of whack. So I'd go into a workout and everything would be seated I'd be doing a ski or exceeded on a box right, because I couldn't stand or had one leg stand at once. I got up to that point, and I noticed that the fitness side of it was, you know, something to keep me going, something that whenever my central nervous system, like I said it couldn't regulate itself, so I'd start crushing it like really send it in on a workout, and I'd have a full blown panic attack. I didn't, I couldn't breathe. Well, that was tight, shaking like a leaf right, and I'm like, what the fuck right? So then I started looking into it and I'm like, okay, what's happened is my body's not regulating, it's going into that fight or flight mode and it's just going through the roof and it can't bring itself back down. So, through through, kind of, you know, going through with the psychologist and the family doctor, and I kind of realized what was going on and I just really started just learning as much as I could about it, cause I was like I say it all the time, I don't want anybody to have to deal with what I had to deal with, right, kind of like what's going on, right? So that's where resilience through fitness really took off, like took a hold was. I was like I got to use fitness as a way to help first responders build your tolerance up right. I mean, other than that one, I haven't lost a foot chase, and even that one, if I could have ran I might have got them. So I I'm building the body's tolerance up to that stress right, being able to go into that elevated state and bring yourself right back down or calm down, because it's like any foot chase, right, you get buddy and pretty wound up. Being able to calm yourself back down, right. And even in that situation I noticed I was able to like because I had been training for years. So I noticed like okay, shit, my heart rates getting elevated and I keep it down. This is the street we're on, yeah, this is where we're turning, and I kept it pretty chill. But at the same time I said, I was on the wrong street whenever I was, so your body's always going to have that fight or flight response right. So being able to control it, manage it and then build your you know lots of people want to fight with police and not everybody wants to get in the back of the police car whenever you ask them to, so being able to have the body's strength and the endurance to be able to come home safe.

Jerry Dean Lund: 9:50

Yeah, yeah. So it only took like a couple days after your injury to start feeling, I Guess, down and out, right, yeah.

Deven Kennedy: 10:01

I, I knew it didn't really set in right away. I mean, like I was my usual, like I was. I remember whenever I was on my back and I was looking up and I Heard the sirens and everything's still going and the lights, you know, in the sky were red and blues and I remember seeing like well, that didn't go as planned, like what the hell was that? Right, like it just happened so quick like. And whenever I seen the tires were pointed at me, I knew like I was like, oh fuck, he's really he's gonna hit me, like I'm trying to hit me. So it didn't really set in right away. For the first, like you know, probably Day like the next, I didn't sleep a wink the first couple nights. Um, wasn't happening, I was just mean. I closed my eyes. I remember that scene and I was right back awake, right, which is normal, and your body trying to process what's going on. Not to mention, I had the Broken foot, so that was a constant reminder of the incident, right. But I knew right away that I needed some help. I knew right away that my body wasn't Like. It just was like, yeah, I just start shaking or I just start. I'd be going to the Memory, or even just going to get the walking boot at the Pharmacy and I just I heard you hear a siren and you start shaking right, and so I knew something was going on and I was like I gotta catch this quick, so but then I had to wait seven weeks because of the way the backlog is in the system, right. So, um, thankfully, like I said, family friends were there and kept me kind of plug them through, but it was uh, it was really scary in a way, right where you're like you feel like a burden and you feel like you know, you see how it's affecting your partner and you know, you see the your parents are worried about you and stuff and it takes a toll on you, right. So, yeah, but I did, I caught it pretty quick. I was like now that's, you'll not getting right here, I gotta fix something. So that's awesome to have that self-awareness.

Jerry Dean Lund: 12:04

Um, yeah, I was. My injury was nothing like like your injury. I sustained on duty, but I was out for 500 days and it does like wow, it takes a toll on you and I think it's interesting for just me just thinking about you going through this being a Really active person and I was too and then you're like now I can't be active. And so I'm like yeah, I think there's another like something going on in your subconscious that now you're like, wow, like I'm can't be active. Now I was super active. This was kind of like you go into the gym is like is a good release and Help burn off the stress and everything like that. And then you're like now I can't do that like it used to. And then like what if something doesn't go right with, like you know, the surgery or the healing process or whatever?

Deven Kennedy: 12:55

So and that's huge. Yeah, true man, that was so deflating like I laugh because my coach, he's the owner of the gym and we were half chocolate. Because he's like man, you hit all PR's because we've been training together for a while. He's like you hit all your PR's and then you hit by a truck, like what? Like it because we were like training good, and he's like what the hell man like two years ago. You get your all your PR's right, so and so deflating. Right, and that loss of purpose, right, like, yeah, I'm gonna do now what happens if I can't police, and right, right, so it's really deflating.

Jerry Dean Lund: 13:30

Yeah, I think it's. It hits people harder than I think and maybe other people realize. I think when even going out online to duty, like injury or being out for extended time is very deflating and I think Often maybe we kind of dismiss that as, yeah, as it would be deflating. First a person or something that I think. My guess, my point is, those people still need to be checked on. You know, whether they go out for, you know, like a serious injury like yours, or Officer involved shooting or something you know this people still need to be checked up with because it is Changing their life, their life right, pretty routine and structured people and then something like this happens and that's all out the window.

Deven Kennedy: 14:17

Yeah, a hundred percent agree. And like having those EAP programs and those like peer support things, having the people in there that want to do it is huge, and not just it's a course to show somebody on, like making sure that the people that are doing it are gonna be checking in. And you know I had a lot of colleagues that you know that didn't have the courses, that were, hey man, whatever you need, like we're stopping out, right, and just just reaching out was huge, right. But even just going to the office, right, like I, I tried it was a while before I could even just go to the office and then I'd go to the office and I'd hear the phone ring and I just go through the roof because what happened was that's how we, of course, that's how we get our calls for dispatch, so, and we can hear the phones from our bullpen. So, man, anytime I hear a phone ring, I just know the heart rate would just jump right. Or you'd hear available card over the air, yeah, which is the start of every call. So, because we we having current Systems but they just put it over the air, it's we're not the massive area. So, yeah, just having those little triggers and stuff, but Having the people check in on you, man, that was huge. And yeah, I remember in that there's there's ones I've checked in whenever I was off, you know, and they always had my back.

Jerry Dean Lund: 15:38

So yeah, I mean peer support is, is is huge. I mean it's the. The first step in getting right, in getting help or being helped, is the peer supporters that are out of your departments. I mean they're. They're massive, like Is in, like massive, like helping people when they're reaching out and like and you get the right people in the right positions truly helps to because You're a peer supporter, then don't be one because you know what we want.

Deven Kennedy: 16:05

Very good job. You want to help in people?

Jerry Dean Lund: 16:08

like you wanted to be.

Deven Kennedy: 16:10

Yeah, yeah no one, and that was it. I was like you know what, like I think, like the stigma, like I know, it's, it has changed a little bit for the better. You guys got a fight back there. Relax the three years. Yeah, bugs are fighting. So, yeah, I think, like you said, having that peer supports huge and having the right systems in place and also like members to Be prepared for what happened, like we're really all just one call away from having a career, james, yeah, and every. It's like they said at the academy every Stopped a surprise bag. You don't know what you're getting, so you get to the window. Basically, and even my situation there is only about two minutes from the time the phone call came in to the time I was over the hood Because and dispatch is still running the checks, because it was so quick, it was so fluid. So we're not, we're only one call away from career, ending injury, right, so being prepared and kind of making sure you continue an education and you know you hear guys all the time right, like I got 27 years left to retirement, yeah, yeah, I mean, there's some pretty wise advice there.

Jerry Dean Lund: 17:25

When you're, you know you're getting into the first responder world is have an excellent strategy like start at day one, start making some plans. I mean, yeah, you don't want to be at the door on day one, but you want to know making some plans for a change of life.

Deven Kennedy: 17:40

Yeah, to that point you yeah, and then at that point I think it's good for the department, because then you're there because you want to be, not because you have to be. You're there because you still want to do it. You're not there because you've got a mortgage that you're pulling on to right. So I think, and then you give the department the best right. But then having those fitness, having a fitness at the department. I know departments that struggle to fighting with management just to be allowed to work out one hour on shift and it's not allowed. And some guys commute a long distance so they're driving two hours a day to get to work, so then they're not getting any training in. So having officers that are trained and have a fitness level that's high, that's just going to help everybody. Because if buddy says I ain't going in cuffs and you're like, well, here we go, I got to go hands on, and the other guy can't run up a flight of stairs, Well, it's going to be a go right. So you need to have that just for everybody's safety, and that peace of mind that like, yeah, buddy next to me here, he's training, so we're good to go, right, We'll make it out.

Jerry Dean Lund: 18:52

So yeah, I mean those opportunities. When you do go hands on or have to go hands on when you're not in shape or not physically prepared to do that or trained to do that, your risk of injury to you or to whoever you're trying to arrest is a lot greater.

Deven Kennedy: 19:12

Yeah, exactly, and that's the big thing. Right, and even as part of Resilience to Fitness, we have an academy prep thing and basically it's like a three stage process. Depending on how you do the evaluation and stuff. I kind of decide whether you're in the beginner or the advanced and I monitor as it goes with the worth three month process. But that's all based around like, all right, do you have the back strength to have all the gear on your shoulders and then you're on your vest and do you have the hip mobility and all this stuff while building your strength. And you know, we got the Cooper's test in there, we got the pair test, which is like the standard RCMP style test here for the National Police. It's all kind of based around that so that you're going into the academy ready and you're not going into the academy puking at the end of your run you know?

Jerry Dean Lund: 20:04

Yeah, I remember our first run at the academy. There's a guy who went to the hospital.

Deven Kennedy: 20:10

Yeah, yeah for sure, and it's. I remember we were whenever I went through I think it's only 10 years ago, but I remember they had the paddy wagon in behind us and they had the sirens going and they were just picking up people in the back and getting the back. You're done right. So having people trained and ready to go there for that, they can get even more trained once they're at the academy and they're not just trying to get through the stuff, they're trying to ace it.

Jerry Dean Lund: 20:36

Yeah, I mean, it's difficult enough to go through the academy with all the law and all the other stuff that you're learning and the different skills, let alone to worry about your fitness on top of that, because, right, if I was talking to you earlier before we jumped on here is like my back-saking from my workout yesterday and it's just like but it right, I'm still, it's there, it's still like, I'm the like. A piece of my mind is still focusing on that. So how can I like be 100% present, you know, when I have something that's nagging me and bothering me?

Deven Kennedy: 21:13

Yeah, your learning ability goes down. Yeah, 100%, totally. And then you know, like now I'm working on my nutrition certification because that's also the factor right. So, like man, I, I, I always drove my first six years probably wouldn't man wouldn't order doughnut in the place.

Jerry Dean Lund: 21:32

I'm like not doing it not happening.

Deven Kennedy: 21:35

But you know, every now and then you break, and like I would, man, it was like I remember reading a laugh from one night. One of the guys showed up with a pack of good old Tim Horton's Timbits, crushed them. And I was like because I had three AM right. So my body, the, the Grendel and the and the uh left in. You know your body's regulation. If you're in the middle of the night shift on your second night, your body's like I'm, it's in a stress mode because it's not getting the sleep that it needs from its regular circadian rhythm, which is our natural sleep cycles, and that's huge. With stress, um, uh, with the first responders, um, with shift work, is those late nighttime munchies, right, you go by the gas station and you're like man, that looks good. So understanding, right, like I started understanding, yeah, that's going to happen. So I'm going to pack something that's, you know, sweet and a little tasty but it's got the protein in it too right, like, um, and trying to like at least have an effort of something healthy too right, so that I had that healthy choice. So I think that's the knowledge that I gained through that I'm trying to put out there to first responders Like there's ways that we can have a successful career, not have the burnout, um, and not have like as a stressful job, let alone the office stress of the, the office dramas and the small town stuff and or big city stuff. Right, like, um, it's we got to minimize the stress because the job is stressful as hell. So we have to minimize our um, our outside stresses, so that we can train good, we can go to work good and we're not coming home crusty as hell because we ate like crap. Then we got rolling around with people all day and then our sergeancy on us because we didn't do this and you're like, well, what's going on?

Jerry Dean Lund: 23:26

Yeah, I mean you bring up a valid point, um, about nutrition and sleep. Is that you know that it is super stressful on your body to first one work nights and everything like that, but it's it was. What I was picking up on is, like you know, if you could eat a little better, do a little better and come home a little better, right, Because if we could come home a little bit better, wouldn't that make our life less stressful and the people around us like even more happy to be around us? Maybe, or well, that's it.

Deven Kennedy: 24:01

And I had a huge eye opener, right Like my partner's been extremely supportive. She's been a sweetheart and like man, I was not fun to be around Like I was, and I know that right, and you know. But at the same time she's not a first responder, but she has to deal with all this shit of being a spouse of a first responder and whenever she met me, right, I was like in a plain clothes position so I was working. After two years I got promoted to like a daytime organized crime unit. So it was really good, right, and you'd be traveling and the format was. I loved it the best five years. But you know it was a lot less stress because you were doing surveillance and this and that, but for the most part I wasn't going to domestics and going to suicidal males with knives and all this. You know they're joyful stuff, right, so I wasn't having that over repetitive burnout every day and then, after this incident and just everything all came to a head man. I was probably not a lot of fun to be around, even the first one. To tell you I wasn't fun to be around, right. And I lost a lot of that. You know that happiness go luckiness that I had before. So then it was a huge eye opener, right, like you know, she's stuck with me. But there was conversations like you know, I'm not dealing with this forever, so figure your shit out right so there was definitely a lot of eye open and I was like, ooh, like I'm gonna get my shit squared away here and you work, dance around forever, yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 25:36

I think maybe we know this but maybe don't really like take it fully in is that sleep, nutrition right, and fitness, and I'm you know there's other pillars of life that I'm leaving out, but those contribute to how happy we are and how we react to the stressors of life. Like we talked about, you eat poorly, your reactions to stress are gonna be poor. You don't work out, you're another stressor. You know it's just compounds. And then you add in, of course you know the sleep, which is the number one, right, like stressor, I feel like of all things, you're not getting that either, and so it's just a compounding effect. So if we could just chip away at some of these things, our lives would be better and other people's lives around us would be better 100%, and that was in the I'm just gonna say right here you might as well say hi Henry, yeah, yeah, dog on camera.

Deven Kennedy: 26:39

Yeah, it's not the first one. It's awesome there's three of them here. So, yeah, that 100% agree. And I always like, call, like, of course. I took this through precision nutrition and they talk a lot about deep health and they talk a lot about how if one thing's out of whack then all the other ones are gonna suffer. So it's okay to have a little bit out of here and there, but you gotta keep it in check, right. And understanding that, like my work, stress is gonna be high because I'm a first responder. So, okay, if I go to the gym and train and I'm burnt out as hell because I haven't been working six days in a row, well, I probably shouldn't do a one rep max deadlift, right. So I should probably just get in, get a little sweat on and just keep the cogs. I always say keep the cogs tearing in, just keep the train going, but don't blow the doors and all the fun. Your SI joint locks up and then you have a hard time getting into the PC all night, right. And if you're stressed at home, well, fair enough, right, work through that and just pull back a little bit at the gym or go in the gym and burn out your stress. It just depends, right. So I think, having somebody, my goals are being able to help clients kind of manage all that and I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a, I don't have any big degrees in any of that, but I have 10 years of experience of kind of how the job can affect you. I've seen it affect me, I've seen it affect my home life. But I know that fitness can be a huge help and like a stress release and to train your body to deal with that Like. I remember one instance whenever I was still kind of recovering and I'm still in recovery, I still deal with stuff every day, right, but I'll never lose that went mentality again. I'll never lose that. I got this, I'll never kind of slide that far. So but yeah, I remember one workout. It was I had to push it, it was a send it workout. You really had to go into that place and full blown panic attack just buckled me. I just couldn't breathe. I had to grab onto the rig, took a knee and I was like I'm done. And my coach we were training him, they're gonna be partners in a competition coming up and he's like what do you mean? You're done, like you keep going. I'm like I'm done. And he could just see him at face. He's like, oh shit, like he is having a panic attack, couldn't breathe for the life of me. Eventually got settled out and but then you're deflated, right, you're like fuck, like really I can't do a box face and burpee like come on right. So, but training the body like I was like all right, cool, I know that that's gonna happen, so now let's pace it. So then I got through the workout, pacing it, and I'm like, okay, let's push the pace a little bit more and build it back up. Competition kind of time game. And he's like what the hell happened to you? And I was like man, we got this, like I was fine, right, so it's just a matter of kind of you hit that wall and then you're like fair enough, all right, now let's come back here and try to build back up to there again. Um, yeah, so it was a, it's been a road. Yeah, it's been quite a year.

Jerry Dean Lund: 29:49

Yeah, I mean, and it's, it's important to have you know coaches to, to help you with different things, to see a different perspective of things or how to navigate a situation a little bit different than maybe you know or we generally do. Right, some kind of like hope there to to bounce things off of, to to overcome those things. That's why coaching is so, so important in mentoring.

Deven Kennedy: 30:12

Yeah, it is, it's so important. And you know, somebody might say like, oh, I can't do a deadlift, my, you know, it hurts my lower back or whatever. I'm like, okay, cool, let's try trap art that lift, because it's more your quads. Then they tried to like, yeah, that was no pain. I'm like, awesome, trap art is right, so we can still do the movements or scale them. That's a big thing with CrossFit. Right, you can scale everything, everything can be kind of changed around so that we can make it, make it work right. Right, I got into doing Spartan races. Oh my, just just a blast. Right, you really got to go to that place. But yeah, man, oh man, just love it. Right, being able to train the body to kind of push and then just keep at it. Right, keep that that tempo high, but just keep moving right, Like we did Montrombon this year. Drove up with the rooftop tent and the mountain bikes on the back and it was a riot, right, like, yeah, like, just keep jogging out the hill, right, so it was, it was awesome. Right, but just a just fell in love with that kind of pushing it mentality. And you know my sergeant that night, he was, he was, he always says the win mentality. You know we can't lose a fight and or an altercation in policing If we lose and we might not come home or more people might be injured. So having that win mentality, like we have to win, is kind of like a good mindset. And a good training thing is make sure that you have that mentality to always push through and understand what your body's saying too.

Jerry Dean Lund: 31:54

So I mean, for those who maybe feel like they don't have it or would like to build more of that win mentality, what's your recommendations for that?

Deven Kennedy: 32:06

I think that the biggest thing is like kind of so my sergeant that night, best friends. He was through a very traumatic. He got stabbed on the neck at a domestic call, very close to not making it but Newfoundlander, and he, he don't give up. So he made it and back to work and we're best buddies. But he was, like I said, big mentality of wing mentality, like we'd finish a workout, I'd be just folded on the floor and he's like get up. And I'm like man, I can't breathe. And he's like now I get up, right, so maybe hobbling around the floor like he was a very one of like don't give up. So I really kind of looked up to him and I think that having somebody that, whether it's a training buddy or whether it's a coworker, that you just kind of helps you out with, kind of building, that I always say building the resilience, building the body up, is huge and like not everybody likes the gym but to me it, like I said, I come from a small town. All I ever seen in town was the bad stuff. That was it Right. I started at this gym and I seen, you know, the doctors, the local guys, the girls and just people that I never ran into at work because I wasn't getting calls for service at their place, Right and just such a community and I love it and I think that that was huge to kind of like an eye opener that. And they didn't treat me any different. That was police officer, If you know. If anything, a lot of them didn't know for the longest time that I was, because I was playing clothes for whenever I first started there. So yeah, so I think for training that weight mentality, it's pushing yourself right, it's you know, where you be signed up for to do an ultra race next summer. I haven't ran anything more than a 10k, but we're doing an ultra, right. So now we're doing like now I built a training plan of you know, build 10% of your distance or 10% of your time per week, See how it goes, Keep building. If you hit a wall, bring it back, get good at that at that time and then go forward. So just kind of like stealing out your body and knowing where your, where your limits are, and then, once you hit your limit, all right, let's push that limit a little bit. You know so, because it's a big thing too right, your body doesn't know that you ran a 5k, it just knows that you ran for 30 minutes and you're huffing for air, right. So the big you know. Understanding that, like, if you're going for time, you know 5k for time and stuff, fair, fair, fair enough. But just your body doesn't understand the difference between good stress and bad stress, Just knows it's stress. So understanding that. You know, if I'm really stressed out and I'm burnt out and I've been doing a ton over time, I probably shouldn't go in and try to do Murph, right, yeah, yeah, At the gym and just like a real you know, balls out per coat like good luck, right, and you're going to just cause more stress for your body. Your body needs time to recover and you need to be cognizant of that and trained properly. And that's kind of what I've been developing with RTF is just kind of building out programs and helping clients kind of train smartly so that they can train longer, have longer careers.

Jerry Dean Lund: 35:32

So, yeah, I mean, a lot of people jump into things and then they go a little too hard, too fast and then you're like then you get defeated and your body's defeated, and so then you're like we want to give up and not continue. So I think it's good to build out a workout program, especially if you're not familiar with, like you know, working out. If this is something new for you or something you're going to push yourself a little bit harder in, is building that plan yeah.

Deven Kennedy: 36:05

And it's funny too, right, like whenever I started, I told the story of clients down. They're like, ah, like I didn't sign up to do CrossFit, I was dead against it. No, it wasn't happening. So my partner in Intel, he was like yeah, you're going to CrossFit because he did CrossFit. And he said you're going to CrossFit in October. I was like no, not, he's like no, yeah, and I'm like no, not. So he said no, the owner's going to reach out to you because I signed you up and I'm like I'm going to punch you right. So I was like, whatever, I'll do it. Fine, I'll do it right. You hold me a beer, so I'm like, whatever, I'll do it. And then you're buying me my day in beer. So we went and I loved it. I don't love with it, right. So, and I still remember, one day the coach said so many double lenders, which is every time you jump this rope skips under your feet twice. I was like, okay. I said so what's the scale for double lenders? He said single lenders and I'm like so I got to skip in the rope, guns on the ones. And he goes, yeah, and I was like what's the scale for that? And he goes you can't skip. I'm like no, I was like no, no idea. So that's where I started, right, and now I can do heavy double lenders for, you know, for long periods. So your body, like it's a journey, right, and just kind of building up your tolerance. And you know, if you don't have that mentality, you can get it. You just got to kind of find your, your need for what you like. If you hate going to the gym but you love running, we got you, let's go running. If you like doing bodywork stuff or body weight stuff and you hate barbells, well, we don't need to do barbells, let's just do some body weight, right, like as long as you're doing something, you're going to get there.

Jerry Dean Lund: 37:48

Yeah, that's and that's the trick is getting started and, yes, you are a lot less likely, a lot less likely to succeed without a plan, right?

Ad: 38:00

Yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 38:01

Just wing, wing in. It is not going to get you nearly as far and nearly as as fast right as having a plan.

Deven Kennedy: 38:07

Yeah, and that was the thing I found too right, like I know, I don't know what your guys's rotations are like, but ours are four on, four off. Two days, two nights, four off. Brutal on the body Cause you're doing 12s, 12s, and then you're off for four, but half of that you're sleeping with the pugs. So, it's not. It's not great, but I had. The last thing I wanted to think about was periodization and accumulation phase and intensification phase. I'm like I don't care, what do I got to do today at the gym, right? So before I started getting the trainer and it worked amazing. I was seeing head over heels results. It was just going great. I took that thought process out, like he's like okay, you have poor shoulder mobility, let's work at that. And I'm like, right on, how do we do that? Right? So having somebody to do that thought process for you so that you just get you just got to get in there and get the reps in and get the consistency, I find that helps a lot. It takes a lot of that mind work out of it.

Jerry Dean Lund: 39:06

Yeah yeah, I know a lot of people that don't work out and they're like how do I get started Like I don't even? And so intimidating to them to like even get started Like they don't right, they walk into the gym and like I don't know how to use any of this stuff, and so they they don't do it.

Deven Kennedy: 39:26

Unfortunately, yeah, yeah, they walk in and five finger death punches cracked and people are doing you know snatches and dropping the barbell and they're like, yeah, I'm good, right, but having that you know personal trainer or somebody doing online programming and that's, you know, that's the, that's the bonuses. Where I can go virtual with people is I can reach out or they can reach out to me and I get them set up. If they don't know what the workout is, that's totally okay, because everything. I think there's like 1800 different demo videos of the different movements. So if they don't know what it is, click, play on that demo video. It shows what it is. And if it's not in one of the 1800, which I haven't ran into yet then I'll have a video uploaded of what I want. So sometimes that I run into that with like first responders, like you might be doing like a Cossack squash and then like with a dumbbell or a kettlebell row, so you're kind of rolling, you're getting your upper body, you're like posterior your chain activated in a compromised position, because I don't know about you, jerry, but anytime I had to wrestle with anybody- it wasn't with a perfect squat stance your hands back right yeah, it's in a compromised position right, where you do like a curtsy squat, where you're off-angled and you're you look like a dang pretzel doing a squat and then adding weight to that so that whenever you're wrestling around with you know somebody that doesn't want to come with you You're able to have those little fine twitch muscles and those Compromised positions that you're comfortable there. Yeah, yeah, that's gonna. That would help with a lot of the injuries, right right, right, devon, like.

Jerry Dean Lund: 41:09

so Maybe for somebody like what's a couple like tips that you would like to see first responders implement in their lives?

Deven Kennedy: 41:15

I Think that the biggest thing Is focusing. It's hard to do because we're shift workers but you're sleep, getting your sleep down. I suggest anybody get the book Matthew Walker. He's like the genius of sleep and it's called why we sleep. I remember one of my first coaches that's what he got. He was like man. You gotta read this book and it was so eye-opening how hard if work is on your body. But it made me understand, right like it made me understand why I was having, you know, issues getting back to sleep or your circadian rhythms, and why I wanted to eat like crap at 3 am and you know whenever, if on whenever I was on vacation, I was eating great. So, understanding that, I think that the things fitness it's gonna. It's gonna bring you home safe at the end of the day. If you're out of shape and you're not fit and you go to a call alone, better have good verbal judo skills because do you're not, you're gonna be able to overpower somebody, right that? And and in today's world, like my god, but all the different narcotics and stuff, like they're strong. So you know it's it can be very intimidating and if you go into it knowing you have that Muscle capacity or that endurance, to be able to hold on until backup gets there. I remember one time this guy overpowered me, but I held on to him like a lemur. I wrapped him up and he was bouncing me around. I was like I can go until backup came right and they did get there, which was great and but I was like yeah he's, he's gonna take you know like he's a strong boy and I have to wrap him up here and hold on for a second. So but I knew I could hold on, as opposed to being like, oh shit, here we go right. So, yeah, yeah, I think that is huge having the fitness, having that and building up that mentality to be able to push into that place, so that you know, if shit hits a fan in your wrestling at work and stuff outside of the office, that you're able to Hold on and be able to come home safe at the end of the night.

Jerry Dean Lund: 43:20

Yeah, yeah that and clean up your nutrition a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Deven Kennedy: 43:25

Yeah, and and to like understanding, like, for me, I still have SI joining issues and it's because of the gun belt. So, knowing that right, and being like, okay, I'm gonna have, like my shoulders they're better mobility now, but man, I used to have shoulders like a brook trout, like those things were tiny and and Knowing that, like, okay, I got all this weight up on my upper body, it's gonna round my chest boards, really working on my upper back to bring my chest back or bring my back out and have that chest out. That's huge For that longevity. So you don't have those little muscle planks and Tight hamstrings and all the joys of gun belts right, yeah, I mean, in the end you simply have to do the work to get those old.

Jerry Dean Lund: 44:12

Yeah, and I, I know it's difficult to do, but just start taking one, you know, the whole 1% better each day, just just getting after that, you know, because accumulation of that is yeah.

Deven Kennedy: 44:26

It's gonna be that. Consistency is. Consistency is what you need, and I think you don't need to make a big. I'm gonna run an ultra and in a year you don't need a big kind of like, here we go, it can just be something like every day at the start of the day I'm gonna get you know, my first day off After my crush, my first night, my first nap, you don't get that natural light in. So, okay, I'm gonna go for a little walk and you're gonna get that natural light in. You're gonna reset your body so your circadian rhythm can start to work again properly, maybe just starting with that. I know whenever I was struggling, I didn't want to get out or go to. You know I would go to the gym, but even then my headphones in I have, you know, fly from your death punch and a bunch of punk rock on, and that wasn't really Mr Social there a few times, right. So, yeah, so, but was good for me was to just kind of get out and go for a hike with the pugs and you know, thankfully they weren't greyhounds so they weren't exactly sprinting away, but we were just going out right and being like, okay, I'll go for 20 minutes, I'll listen to a podcast, then 30 minutes, listen to another podcast, right, and then just kind of building up on that and then I almost missed it if I didn't go for that height. So yeah, kind of really figuring out what works for you, right? Not everybody wants to go to the gym totally cool but some people like to hike here we go right.

Jerry Dean Lund: 45:50

Yeah, yeah, find the find the way. Find a way to get the results you want.

Deven Kennedy: 45:54

Yeah, big time. Yeah, it'll help everybody right, helps your partners and yeah, I think that's the biggest thing for people to I would convey to people is, you know I credit fitness big time in my recovery but also having the, the muscle and the. You know I basically did a box jump onto the hood whenever I seen the truck because I was like he's either gonna fire me in front of the truck or I'm gonna kind of jump and turn and he's gonna fire me out to the left and Option to happen.

Jerry Dean Lund: 46:26

So you know that's a credit fitness a lot for helping me out with yeah, yeah, definitely, devon, working people find you on social media and reach out to you.

Deven Kennedy: 46:36

Yeah, so I'm on. You can find me on the website. It's resilience through fitnesscom. I'm on Instagram and Facebook, mostly Instagram a lot and the website. I'm always on there and I feel like listening to some good tunes. You can find me on Spotify.

Jerry Dean Lund: 46:55

You have your own work out playlist on Spotify to be booked in. This I got.

Deven Kennedy: 46:59

I got to playlist on building. So I got the regular like go in and crush a workout or go for a run, that's the resilience through fitness one. And then I got Resilience through fitness on patrol and that's for. That's the good patrol jam. So whenever you want to take a lean back and roll around town, all right, I'm gonna have to check those out.

Jerry Dean Lund: 47:16

That you're the first guest. I've had a hundred and forty guests on Devon. You're the first one that has a playlist at least. Excited to check that out All right.

Deven Kennedy: 47:30

Yeah, I know it's, and if anybody even just wants to and they can email me to it's Devon at resilience through fitnesscom. You have any questions like what the hell is this or anything I like? Always free for a for a email and chat.

Jerry Dean Lund: 47:45

So yeah, good, thank you.

Deven Kennedy: 47:48

Devon for being nice.

Jerry Dean Lund: 47:49

I appreciate it Always buddy appreciate it.

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