255: Fire Built: Heat, Cold, and Heavy Swings, with Evan Halquist.

Captain Evan Halquist is back for another round, and he's here to announce a new resource that we have been anxiously awaiting here at The Fire You Carry. Fire Built is a purpose-driven set of training protocols designed for the first responder that will benefit anyone who puts them into practice. Follow the links below to learn more. 

When the tones don’t stop going off, how do you show up for your family the next morning? When you're exhausted from all that life throws at you, how do you keep pushing through when you need to? In this episode, Kevin and Nole sit down with Captain Evan Halquist to dive deep into the physiological "reset button" for first responders.

Evan breaks down the science of recovery, explaining why typical rest isn't enough after a high-cortisol shift. We explore his Bad Night Protocol, the hidden dangers of "forever chemicals" in firefighting gear, and his fascinating experiment in "Anti-Glycolytic" training—proving that strength is the ultimate foundation for endurance. Whether you are a firefighter, a tactical athlete, or a busy parent, Evan’s insights on Fire Built resilience offer a blueprint for thriving in the face of chaos.

Big thank you to My Epic and Facedown Records for the use of their song "Hail" in our podcast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz2RZThURTU&ab_channel=FacedownRecords

The Fire You Carry on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq8gk9sDd1NsBsJrPMY3gtw

Evan on Instagram (see his linktree here for the Fire Built app)

https://www.instagram.com/evan_halquist/

Sign up for a class at The Fire Up Program!
https://www.fireupprogram.com/programs

The Fire Up Progam video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I__ErPW46Ec&t=12s&ab_channel=FireUpProgram

The Fire You Carry Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/thefireyoucarry/

Donate to The Fire Up Program.
https://www.fireupprogram.com/donate

The Fire Up Program Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/fireup_program/

Kevin's Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/kevinpwelsh/?hl=en

MyZone facility code for The Fire You Carry: CALIFUS001

Get $60 off a MZ-Switch Heart Rate Monitor!
https://buy.myzone.org/?lang=enUS&voucher=CALIFUS001-60

Transcript

Kevin (00:01.324)
Hey, welcome back to the fire you carry podcast today. We have the one and only captain Evan Halquist. Welcome back.

Nole (00:08.325)
Wait a minute, I'm gonna derail this whole thing and pause you. I'm gonna make you do it again. Are you ready? Here.

Kevin (00:10.978)
Yeah.

no. Yeah.

Evan (00:14.094)
.

Kevin (00:18.944)
Mm-mm-mm-mm.

Kevin (00:23.51)
Wait, wait, what you're doing this intro right now?

Nole (00:26.0)
right now.

Kevin (00:35.202)
Hey, welcome back to the fire you carry podcast today. We have the one and only captain Evan Halquist back on the show. Welcome back brother.

Evan (00:45.144)
Thanks, brother. It's good to be here.

Kevin (00:47.296)
Yeah, so the storm is coming. We were just talking about this. These two fine savages live up in the mountains of Southern California and I do not. I live in the desert, but people are freaking out right now. The storm is coming.

Evan (01:01.006)
Storm's coming, but it doesn't look like we're gonna get any snow, so we're a little bummed. We were just talking about this. My boy had snowboard practice last weekend and it was obviously a little dry. There's basically just one lane of snow the whole way and then on either side you could have been mountain biking down the trail the whole time. So hopefully we can get some snow in this storm.

Nole (01:17.159)
the

Kevin (01:20.634)
So I'm like a I'm a server. I've dabbled in snowboarding in the past, but you're in local California mountains. You're obviously going to get some rocks on your board like when you ding your surfboard. Is that the same as the snowboard? Like when you run over a rock, what do do?

Evan (01:34.562)
Yeah, it sucks. You take out on conditions like they are right now, you take out your worst board. Yeah, because it's going to be super crowded. There's going to be rocks and there's just no way to avoid that it's going to get dinged up. And then plus I'm snowboarding with a five-year-old, which is always fun. And he usually hits my board quite a few times getting on and off the lift. So you just got to go with the flow.

Kevin (01:40.701)
yes.

Kevin (01:51.51)
Yeah, yeah.

That's super fun. which, when it slopes, are you hitting here?

Nole (01:54.887)
you

Evan (01:58.988)
Mainly Bear Mountain. That's where my boy has a snowboard practice. if it dumps pretty good and there's not a lot of tourists coming up, then we'll hit the local snow valley. I like that.

Kevin (02:09.394)
I love it. So I don't know, go ahead.

Nole (02:10.887)
Do you guys, sorry, sorry, sorry. Do you guys wax your own boards? good. I used to love doing that when I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah. There's something about doing it yourself. Yeah.

Evan (02:16.184)
course. Yeah, I had to teach my son to do that. It's like you got to take care of your tool.

Kevin (02:24.366)
don't know what has happened. I know there's lots of things with inflation and whatnot, but I remember like you could go to Summit or Bear or something when I was, and it was relatively inexpensive. If you had gear, we had stuff like from Play It Again Sports, and it was like hand me down stuff. And you just said like, you could have jeans and a jacket on and you'd be all right. But now like I was pricing out because my girls wanted to go to Mammoth and it's like $2,000 dude.

Nole (02:38.481)
Yes.

Evan (02:50.894)
You

Kevin (02:51.938)
There's like, there's no way we're doing this. when I was trying to look at creative, like we looked up like Brian had Utah and that's probably like they had extremely more affordable lift tickets and different things and it looked awesome. So I think we might hit there, but it just insane to me what if what's a mammoth lift ticket now like $200 and something. I don't know how that's affordable.

Evan (03:11.16)
I have no idea dude. just, get the icon pass, which is obviously expensive, but we go so much with my boy being part of the snowboard team. It's worth it. But yeah, Snow Valley used to have, know, kids were free kind of like June mountains. So I don't know how people afford it anymore. I can barely afford it, especially with two kids growing out of gear, but you do your best.

Kevin (03:29.518)
pretty insane. So, Edmund, if you haven't, we've been on, this is what our third time, Noel, Edmund's had a fourth time.

Nole (03:36.039)
Fourth, fourth, episode 148, 169, and 171.

Kevin (03:43.022)
All right. And one of the most popular episodes that we had is if you guys don't know, I highly encourage you to go back. I feel like you're one of the most knowledgeable men in the health and fitness realm in the first responder one. But we had if you don't know, he has worked at one of the busiest fire stations in the country. Fire Station 33 for LA County Fire Department at all ranks, I believe. And they obviously have very bad nights like constantly. And I don't know if you guys have felt this, but I just got off ship this morning.

We've been having some bad nights. think there's something about the holidays. There's an uptick in chaos and calls. and so I was thinking about you on the way home because we got family in town. I don't really have the, didn't have the time to do my bad night protocol, but I know that this is something that you have come up with and I thought maybe we could review it because it's super helpful to me and to so many others.

Evan (04:34.67)
Yeah, definitely. think it's something that I came up with out of necessity because being at 33 is like you said is a busy place and I wanted to optimize my health because as a father and a husband, as a busy guy all around, sometimes you're just put in circumstances where you're not going to be able to rest going off shifts. So you got to do something to give yourself a little boost and energy. And I always like to preamble this and start with by saying,

best way to affect a bad night is just to be healthy in general. Workout, exercise, eat right, sauna, cold, all those things that we've talked about, manager stress. But in the event that you have those periodic really bad nights where you're getting worked and you have family coming over for Christmas or you're going to Disneyland or whatever it is, I designed this protocol just to give people energy. And just a quick review, it's all about mitochondrial function.

and performance. know, mitochondria are the things that give us energy, that create energy, that use oxygen and allow us to absorb acid and just it's one of those parts of the cell that's so important. So if we look at it from that context, it started taking a dive into all the different information. And what I came up with was number one, the first thing that you do when you wake up is you do hypoxic breath holds. And the reason that you do hypoxic breath holds, which are very simple, it's three seconds in, three seconds out.

Do that for four rounds and on your exhale, you're gonna hold your breath. The reason why you're doing that is you're trying to increase the carbon dioxide in your blood. Because when you increase the carbon dioxide in your blood, your mitochondria start to work better. As a result of them working better, you release more oxygen to your organs and your muscle tissue, which allows you then to recover faster and perform better. So that's like step one. You do a couple rounds of that when you first wake up. I also add,

It's not as sexy as Wim Hof because Wim Hof feels really rad in the moment, right? And so if you want to, you can finish off those two to three rounds of the hypoxic breath holds with a round of Wim Hof just to kind of set yourself on your way. And then after that, I think the best thing to do is to go into the cold and the cold for obvious reasons is beneficial. But in this situation, it's going to wake you up because it's going to stimulate your sympathetic nervous system.

Evan (06:58.102)
and then you're gonna get a hormone dump. So you're get oxytocin, norepinephrine, dopamine, and it's gonna make you feel good. After that, you go straight into your workout. You warm up with some foundation training, which obviously I'm a huge fan of. Five to 10 minutes, you can do their free stuff on YouTube, which is throughout a bad night, you're gonna have bad position. And because of bad posture and position, it's gonna set your body up for feeling like crap. So this just realigns everything and allows you then to access fully through

foundation's style of breathing, your full rib cage and allow you to be in the proper posture and position so you're not gonna overstress your sympathetic nervous system. And I know that sounds super complicated, but what I basically saying is it's gonna make you feel good. It's gonna warm you up well. And then we're go into our workout. You're gonna do 10 kettlebell swings, 10 or five depending on what you wanna do. I would recommend just doing five to begin with, as heavy as possible.

So you're doing two handed swings, for example, I would do something with the 106 pound kettlebell and you do five swings every minute for 10 minutes. And all this is doing again is just stimulating your fast twitch fibers, allowing your mitochondria to work better and it's gonna give you more energy. Now from there, what you're gonna take it into is you got your movement pattern and you got your breath work, you got your cold exposure and into eating. So I would recommend people don't eat during this period because during a bad night you basically become

your insulin blunts its effects with your blood sugar. So it's not going to work as effectively and you become basically a type two diabetic. So what you should do is avoid eating. You can have your caffeine, which obviously helps. And then from there, I recommend this is something that kind of added recently, the ketone IQ, which I think is really important because they've used it a ton with UFC fighters post fights because it's

Kevin (08:41.973)
Mmm.

Evan (08:51.138)
protective against their brain and the inflammation that happens after a fight. And we as firefighters after a bad night or first responders, our brains are inflamed. So you want a protective mechanism and that has to do with the beta hydroxybutyrate that is in the ketone IQ. So you want to take that. And then also recently, I'm sure you guys are aware of Rhonda Patrick has been talking about the benefits of creatine. Everybody's talking about it, the 20 grams. I would recommend people take 20 grams. However, I can't.

Nole (08:53.009)
Mm.

Evan (09:18.798)
stomach to 20 grams. I don't know about you guys, but it gives me disaster pants if I try. I don't know how she does it or other people do it. But if you can, what's that? Same with the ketones. However, the ketone, and I'm not saying it because I'm affiliated with them in any way, but ketone IQ doesn't give me any sort of digestive issues. That product is really good and I have zero problems with it. So I would

Kevin (09:22.013)
No, immediately. Yeah.

Nole (09:27.939)
Doesn't bother me at all.

Kevin (09:28.376)
Same with the ketones. Same with the ketones for

Kevin (09:39.246)
Hmm.

Evan (09:48.258)
Highly recommend getting that. But then the creatine, if you can take it and stomach it, great. If not, just take the five to 10 and you'll be on your way. And then don't eat until noon. And then that should be the emergency trigger pull for energy that you need to get you to last through the day.

Kevin (10:03.958)
I love it. Let me back up. think one of the cool things that, know, when we think of the cold, that's like the last thing you want to do. I love the breath work in the beginning, the hypoxic breathing, but I think you gave me a pass because when we, Nolan and I were always pushing, you know, to do at least two minutes in the ice or something like that. And I think you, you're even doing a much shorter time, like 30 seconds or something like that. And it's just a, it's just a re-wake the system. So

I've been adapting that and like currently Noel houses in the month of December doing cold exposure every day, which I don't like. what it, what tends to happen is, like, Hey, I just, get in there for 30 seconds or so, or I finished with a cold shower for a few minutes. And then, and that's enough for me. I can feel that, that epinephrine or whatever he's coming out and I can feel like a little rejuvenated, but I don't have to like tax the system and get into adrenal fatigue.

Evan (10:38.53)
nice of them.

Evan (10:57.378)
Yeah, to touch on that a little bit more, because with cold with firefighters is a double edged sword, right? It can be something that's really beneficial. It could also be something that's very harmful. Our cortisol levels coming off shift are going to be very high. And sometimes just in general, based on the line of our work, our cortisol levels will be high. So it is something that you have to work into. And what I've adapted with my cold plunge personal protocol,

because the main benefit that I really get out of it is the mental, as far as I get that hormone release and then I also get like that motivation, right? You just overcame something hard. So that's what I use it for. As far as like longevity or health benefits, there's some evidence that it supports some things, but not so much. So what I tell firefighters now is a couple of things. Number one, like bad night protocol is that emergency switch that you gotta pull because you got something important. That's not something that you do every day. I would not recommend that you do it.

in the morning. In fact, I recommend most firefighters now to do it after the sauna and to do it at 50 degrees. So you do 20 minutes in the sauna and you do at 50 degrees cold and you do it for one to two minutes. And the reason why at 50 degrees is because it doesn't shock your system as much going into it. So don't get that as a dramatic of a spike as cortisol and allows you to relax into it a little bit more. And you still get that hormonal benefit, right? That we talked about.

without the huge cortisol spike. So I've been doing that, that's the style that I've been doing. I don't do it every day, I do it every other day and it seems to work with me fine. Plus you gotta look at all the other factors going on in your life. How's your stress level as far as family, as a husband, as a father, as a firefighter and the other things that are going on. If your stress level is super high and you're already feeling like you're overtaxed, it's probably not a good time to do the coldest cold plunge that you can do for as long as you can handle it.

Nole (12:57.216)
So when I decided that I was going to do the long cold December and mentioned it on the podcast, you were one of the first names that I thought of. Cause I was like, Evan would tell me not to do this, but, but, well, for sure, for sure. agree with you, but let me ask you this. So I understand.

Evan (13:07.406)
It's a good challenge though. mean there's benefit to challenge.

Nole (13:20.219)
the cortisol levels, the high stress for somebody like me though, who just self admittedly, I work at an incredibly slow station. at work, apart from the Eaton fire, which happened a year ago, I don't have that. have a stress free day most of the time when I'm at work. So would I be, would you allow me to do a little bit more of the, the, yeah, yeah.

Kevin (13:43.95)
He wants a pass.

Evan (13:44.774)
Are you asking for my permission? I appreciate that.

Nole (13:47.355)
Because I really do, respect you and obviously you've done a lot of research, but for somebody like me who doesn't have, and considering and just assuming that the family life is good and stress is all good there, is it safe enough to do a little bit more frequent cold exposure when you don't have that added stress and that extra cortisol flowing around in your system? Or is it still something that you would say you need to limit?

Evan (14:13.772)
Yeah, to answer your question, yes. Obviously, the level of stress that you have compared to being at a busier station is lower. So you have more wiggle room, right? Stress is a commodity that we only have so much to give. So you have more of a capability to give that. So I would say yes. But again, it just depends on how you're feeling, how you're recovering. Are you getting sick? Are you feeling like you're not recovering?

It's just a 360 picture and that's why I tell everybody to go into it slow and you know your body probably really well. So by this point, if you feel like you're overdoing it, then you got to dial back on it. But if this is something that you truly enjoy and you're getting something out of it and you enjoy the challenge and there are other factors in your life are not getting in the way, I say by all means do it.

Nole (15:03.739)
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't do this every single day for sure. And the purpose of the 30 day challenge is strictly to get that win every day. Like you were talking about to do that hard thing and accomplish it. It's really not about the effects of the cold. It's more about the fact that mentally I don't want to do that every day. And a lot of times in the month of December for me, I find myself, you know, it's holiday time, we're busy. And so a lot of other things you can put on the back burner, but that's

something that really doesn't take a lot of time, but for me is mentally incredibly difficult to do most days.

Evan (15:37.07)
think it's so important to do those things. It's a momentum builder, right? If you can do that, you can start your day with that. And that just goes for everything. Every day in life, you should be doing something that challenges you, that's hard, that you don't want to do. And if it's the cold plunge and you're doing that for the month of December, I think that's great. Just make sure that you just line up the other factors in your life to support that.

Nole (15:56.519)
All I got one more question about the bad night protocol before we move on. For those of us who maybe don't own a kettlebell that heavy, do you have any alternatives? Cause it sounds like you want heavy.

Kevin (16:07.854)
Well, let's say Evan has trained in kettlebells for a decade. like, if you're not him or Teebo, you should probably go like 56 pounds, right?

Evan (16:17.006)
You

Nole (16:17.275)
No, no, I don't want, I don't want the answer just to go lighter, but like if you did have other heavy weights around, maybe a sandbag or something, were there other other movements that would be, do you think close enough to what you're trying to achieve with that swing or?

Kevin (16:19.319)
Ha ha

Evan (16:28.332)
Yeah, you got to look at it from the perspective of power, right? Power generation. So that is what we're trying to accomplish. So there's a bunch of different things you can do. Number one, you could do two kettlebells, two lighter kettlebells, right? Double kettlebell swing, one in each hand. If you had two 35 pounds, you know, that's 70 pounds. So that's fairly heavy. If you had two 53 pounds, then you're getting to the 106. So you could do that. You could place a band on the kettlebell and step into it. So then it increases the resistance.

Nole (16:33.393)
Okay.

Evan (16:57.76)
You could do a sled push with heavier weight. again, we're going for max power. So make sure you warm up before you do that because you're going to be pushing the sled as fast as you can. And the other thing that I love for older guys to be able to do, which I don't think they do enough of, is sprint. And doesn't require any equipment. So every station usually has a treadmill. Put it on an incline. And then, yeah, exactly, a little bit easier on the joints. Just a little bit, right?

Nole (16:58.087)
I've never tried that.

Kevin (17:20.841)
Incline.

Evan (17:25.632)
and then sprint for 10 seconds. And then you're going to rest for 50 seconds. And the ratio that I'm going for to get the biggest bang for your buck with this power generation is you do 10 seconds of work with 50 seconds of rest. So that's a one to five ratio. So you can do that with a lot of things. If I'm sprinting for one minute, I do five minutes of rest. And this is a different protocol. I could talk about it at a different time. But to answer your question, I think the easiest thing to do

without equipment is to sprint, but you gotta make sure you warm up into that and you're not the guy that hasn't sprinted in a decade and then is gonna go pull a hammy, because I've seen that. But I think every guy should be able to sprint for obvious reasons.

Kevin (18:01.24)
This, yes.

Nole (18:05.671)
Mmm.

Kevin (18:06.304)
I incorporate a lot of some sprinting stuff and I always use a hill, but I have a background in that. That's what you know, we did track and soccer and that's what sprinting does. It's amazing to me to watch the Bear Classic where you have some some generally very capable firemen and three softball games. We have three softball games will deplete 60 % of the fire department because they're sprinting to first base or second base and they haven't sprinted ever.

Evan (18:21.535)
I know where you're going, Yep.

Kevin (18:33.1)
and they're reaching with their hamstring to touch that bag. And I've never seen so many pulled hamstrings in my life.

Evan (18:33.315)
Yes.

Evan (18:38.798)
100%. This is why I love kettlebells so much because if you do kettlebells the right way and you do the protocol like I'm talking about and you do heavy enough and you're doing snatches and you're doing two handed swings with really high power and then also you're doing the eccentric portion where you're pulling it back really hard, I truly believe it prepares you for anything and I proved it to myself and just recently I got to prove it because I hadn't been doing any sprinting training, any like running movement at all and I got to play against my

my son's soccer team who was undefeated and they're a bunch of nine year olds. just to give a little context, but I was, you know, I take it serious. I wanted to see that I'm giving my best effort. So I'm sprinting the whole time and it was an hour game and I was giving it everything I had just because I want to show them what, you know, dad can do. And I had zero issues with it. I didn't pull a hamstring. I wasn't overly sore. I wasn't tightening the area. And again, this is what why kettlebells are so effective.

Kevin (19:15.242)
A win's a win, yeah, a win's a win.

Evan (19:36.462)
is because they're able to train you for most things, if not everything in life, if you use them the right way. So again, you got to use that high power movement. If you don't use it, you're going to lose it. And it's something so important for firefighters in general, because a lot of times we don't incorporate that in our training and just for us as guys, as we age to have that in our programming.

Kevin (19:59.918)
Love it. So I'm going to switch gears. talked about the ketone IQ and creatine. so recently we did that four by four by 48, did a whole episode on it. It's four, 48 miles in two days, but there's no sleep in two days. And so I did, I have dabbled with ketone IQ before and I loved it. It definitely gives me a boost in energy and there's a cognitive thing there, but it was like this, it was the first night we hadn't slept. And I had read about Rhonda Patrick's like high dose creatine.

Evan (20:11.342)
You guys are crazy.

Kevin (20:29.944)
for sleep deprivation. And so I threw in ketone IQ, I threw in some element salt and I threw in probably 20, 30 grams of creatine and shook it up. And I started pulling myself for the next three days, dude. And it wouldn't stop, you know? And it was just like one of those things. And it was just like, I don't even know if we're going to make this run. Luckily we're on a Naval base. I think there's plenty of dudes that have pooed themselves on runs there. So it wasn't like out of the thing, but I would just highly suggest maybe you test

Evan (20:31.119)
no.

Evan (20:49.383)
man.

Nole (20:55.665)
That is a thing.

Evan (20:57.016)
Yeah.

Kevin (20:59.246)
these things out before you're in the middle of a 48 mile run.

Evan (21:00.896)
Yes. Build up to it. Yeah. I've learned the hard way as well. Don't change any of your stuff. Don't do something new the night before a big event. Don't be like, this is the time. This is right now. This is where I'm going to really test it out and see if it works. Build up to it.

Nole (21:11.291)
Yes.

Kevin (21:14.36)
This is the dough.

So let's talk about sauna. I am a massive fan and I think you and Dave Thibault helped me tremendously because Nolan and I have been doing ice for eight, nine years and then sauna was a new thing, the heat thing. There's all these studies that were coming out, especially for firefighters on sauna. And then you guys were kind of the catalyst at 33s talking about how amazing this was. And it was even extending guys career there. So I got a sauna at the house. I got a sauna with your help.

And I think there's a lot out there. know that now ice baths and sauna are like commonplace in the fire department, but I thought maybe you can talk about the difference between infrared, which is the cheaper version and everyone thinks to go there. But I think that's kind of been debunked or versus a traditional dry sauna. And maybe we can talk about how are you using heat?

Evan (22:06.03)
Yeah, I love the sauna. think if there's one thing other than exercise that firefighters can do to promote their health and longevity, it's the sauna. And this comes from people that are smarter than me, people like Dr. Eric Goodman who created Foundation Training. He's the one that really pushed it hard to me back in 2013 and 14. And I listened. So with sauna compared to traditional and infrared, basically there's two different styles of how you're heated up.

In the infrared, you're getting heated up from the inside out like a microwave. And the traditional one, you're getting heated up from the outside in. Now, the reason why I like the traditional one more than the infrared is that the huge study that they did that showed that there was a decrease in up to like 50 to 55 % in all-cause mortality specifically in cardiovascular disease was with the traditional sauna. And this was over...

20 years I believe with over like 2000 male participants from all ranges. So it's pretty bulletproof with its research. So that's why I tell guys like don't mess around. This is something that will last your lifetime. had my, I got my sauna in when my boy was two. He's nine now. So I've had it for seven years and it's sitting outside and it's, it's going to be lasting the rest of my life. It's doing fine out there. And I live in, you know, a pretty dramatic environment where it gets windy, cold, dry. And so it can get beat up quite a bit.

So just spend the extra money to get that sauna, the traditional one, just because it's worth it in the long run. And how I use it is there's a million different ways to use the sauna. But I always go back to what the research shows is that if they do it four days a week at 20 minutes at 175 degrees, that was like the gold standard, the minimum of what people needed to get that benefit. I'm sorry, not the minimum. There was a minimum. This was the amount that people got the maximum benefit.

for reduction in the cardiovascular disease. And in fact, they actually did a follow-up to that study and showed that there was a 65 % decrease in dementia and Alzheimer's, which was huge. That's such a scary thing and everybody deals with it in their family. I dealt with it my grandfather. So it's just the research just keeps showing how positive it is and how beneficial it is.

Kevin (24:15.533)
home.

Evan (24:27.842)
And so I use it at a minimum four days a week. I do 20 minutes in those sessions. Sometimes I bump it up to 30 minutes. I'll talk about a cool heat acclimatization protocol that I think every firefighter should do, especially new firefighters after this. But four times a week, 20 minutes, 175 degrees. Don't go too hot. I say that because Rhonda Patrick recently talked about if you go too hot, you're actually reversing your benefits. Don't go over 195. You're actually starting to decrease.

Kevin (24:52.43)
No, so here's I think that I saw the Huberman's protocol said that optimals 175 to 195 is that Okay, and then so but you know firemen were like dude. It's over 210 right now. Let's go. This is how we do it, right? I mean we cook ribs at this temperature, right? So, I mean it's not I mean like that's what I'm cooking ribs at right so like let's calm it down boys

Evan (24:59.831)
That's exactly right.

Evan (25:05.334)
I know. Every time. Every time.

Nole (25:05.519)
You

Evan (25:13.26)
Yeah, it goes back to stress, right? You're just you're doing it too hard too much, right? It goes back to working out too hard. It goes back to all that stuff. So don't go too hard.

Kevin (25:22.062)
So over 195 is detrimental.

Evan (25:25.544)
is what she was talking about is that you start to reverse the benefits of the cardiovascular disease decrease, all-cause mortality, cognitive decline. So I would just stick with 175 to 195, enjoy the nice relaxing environment and call it good. So yes, love it.

Kevin (25:44.066)
I like the sauna hats. We have these stupid hats we all wear. Mine is a Viking. Others guys have like, you know, it's great. But I do think that that helps protect your brain, your hair, and somehow allows you to stay in a little bit longer.

Evan (25:52.867)
Yes.

Evan (25:57.486)
It does, you don't heat up as fast. It's like a slower cooking, is how I was describing it. And it's important as we age because our hair is not getting any thicker. So we've to keep every little strand that we got. So it does protect your hair.

Nole (26:08.763)
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Does sauna can make you lose hair, kill your hair follicles? man.

Kevin (26:10.605)
You sweet hair.

Evan (26:15.01)
Yeah, dries it out, damages it. So I've been told, I'm not like testing this in real time.

Kevin (26:19.03)
straight ahead

Nole (26:20.623)
Between that and the creatine making you go bald, allegedly. think that's not true, but dude, it's not true.

Kevin (26:22.658)
Yeah, you never know.

Evan (26:24.642)
I've heard that too, I don't think that's true either.

Kevin (26:25.838)
All right, let me ask you this. there's a lot of talk in the first responder world about PFAS or these forever chemicals. They're in every synthetic material that has moisture working properties and they're in everything. They're inside of my currently my to go cup that has a plastic liner and that's all this stuff. So I know guys are using it to try to decrease the amount of PFAS. And I don't know if you know anything about this glutathione, but I've seen some people that are taking glutathione.

30 minutes while it's warming up prior to that supposedly that helps bind to it. don't know if you've heard this.

Evan (26:55.694)
I don't know about that. I haven't heard that. I have heard about plastics everywhere and I do believe that's a problem. And again, to Eric Goodman's credit, he early on was like, look at Evan, the sauna is detoxing you. There's so much that we are exposed to and as firefighters write a lot, right? Whether it's chemicals, the diesel exhaust that's constantly going in and out, depending on how busy, you know, your station is, if the plow vents even working, which half the time it is broken.

your turnouts, if you're keeping them clean, all these things that we are absorbing and the foods we eat as well. And so I'm a firm believer, even though there is not really any major study that shows that saunas detoxify you, I'm a firm believer based on my own experience that it does do that. So I think it does help. But that is cool to hear that you can take something before that can bind to it and help it that much more.

Kevin (27:49.07)
Yeah, and there's a big push. The other big push is that, Hey, you know, I throw on board shorts when I go in. but any of the synthetic materials that have moisture rich in property, which is all board shorts that I've ever worn said that, that you could be those PFAS A's or the PFAS forever chemicals are released during heat. So a lot of these people are recommending now just like straight up organic cotton shorts, or if I'm at home, I'll go in the buck. You know what I mean? Why not? You know, why not? You know what I mean? And so

Evan (28:14.925)
Why not?

Nole (28:14.981)
Whoa, what?

Kevin (28:17.986)
But that's kind of interesting, you know, but, but that's a, there's a big push. And I wanted to ask you this because there's a lot of people, Noel and I included that have trained in gear because there's an acclamation of like, Hey, we're retrained in turnouts and we put on our BAS and we went on air. We were better than some people that didn't train on gear. And now there's a big push. think there's a fire department in Virginia or something that I read that outlawed training and gear because those forever chemicals are released.

Nole (28:18.256)
What?

Evan (28:19.554)
hope you wash your sauna.

Kevin (28:48.02)
with heat when you're training, which sounds insane to us because how do you train for your job if you're not comfortable wearing turnouts? I don't know if your thoughts on this.

Evan (28:55.158)
Yeah, yes. I think like anything, the pendulum can swing in either direction pretty far. I think obviously you shouldn't be wearing your turnouts day in and day out. We've gotten better recently with washing them, not wearing them at night, things of that nature. I think to not train in them at all is putting yourself at risk to not be an effective firefighter and possibly putting yourself at risk to not be prepared. And I'm all about being prepared in dynamic and dangerous environments. So I'd still recommend training because sometimes there's just, you can't avoid.

certain amount of the dangers that comes with being a firefighter. Now you can be smart about it, right? You're not doing it every single day. And then you can also get used to the heat through other means. Like I talked about, or was mentioning before, the heat acclimatization protocol for a sauna. The USC uses this for their fighters. You can do 12 to 14 sessions starting at 10 minutes. Work your way up to 45 minutes over those 12 to 14 sessions.

adding about five minutes each time over a two to three week span, however you want to break it up. And it can prepare you well. And I think every new recruit before they go in the academy should be doing that to prepare themselves because especially if your academy is in the summer and then every firefighter should be periodically testing that, especially into the summer months because that's a healthy way of getting prepared for the heat without exposing yourself to the turnouts. But at the same time,

Kevin (30:05.25)
Yeah.

Nole (30:12.166)
Hmm.

Evan (30:22.528)
I still think training your turnouts occasionally. And occasionally I would say, obviously if you're not running calls in them and using them, I think once a week or once every two weeks. And this has nothing to do with health. This has everything to do with being prepared for your job.

Nole (30:39.941)
Yeah, you're trading off two different things there because there is a reality in our line of work that at any given moment, you may come across a life threatening scenario where you're in your turnouts. And if you don't train for that, that could take your life or take the life of somebody else. So you're basically just, you're taking a little bit of the risk on for the exposure to what the turnouts are made out of so that you can potentially survive the other thing that is guaranteed to kill you while the other one, I don't know, maybe.

Evan (31:08.492)
Yeah, exactly. think you don't know and to put it in context, when I was doing the fire behavior cadre a lot, I was exposing myself to a ton of that stuff, wearing turnouts all the time, burning OSB and all that. But my ability to be effective with my gear was next level. It was way better than it's ever been and it's probably better than it was now just because I was in it every single day.

Nole (31:10.471)
you

Evan (31:38.586)
using my gear, turnouts, BA, radio, mask, all that. And so I was effective with that. And I think what I'm saying is that there is a happy medium there. You should train and you should be proficient in it. But then also at the same time, you shouldn't be wearing your gear all day every day.

Kevin (31:55.17)
Yeah, we have a buddy of mine at our station, Billy McDougall. He's in his late 40s and he likes to throw on his turnouts and go on air and we have a training center there. So he runs the tower and does this whole thing and it's really functional. It's PT for the job. So he does that on the job and he will crush people. He will absolutely crush people who are not, who look maybe like they're fitter than him or whatever, but because he's so acclimated. And so we've been having this debate on how often and I,

I think that's why is I think when Nolan I did it or when I hadn't when I was at 158 we would do it like hey if we were on a Sunday and we had a free day that was our day it was like on a weekend day there's not much going on with drilling or training well we train in gear so I think that's why I think that's a good happy medium to say hey if you were if you're doing that three four times a month you're you're gonna be better than most who don't train on gear or on air and I think you're still gonna acclimate a little bit because there is something to that

Evan (32:35.246)
Yeah, same.

Kevin (32:51.822)
getting used to that suck and knowing that heat and knowing how quick you're going to burn through a bottle. There's a lot of value in that.

Evan (32:58.7)
Yeah, I mean, that's what we signed up for to be great at our jobs. And I also got to say, if you're just, you got to focus on everything as far as health-wise. You know, I'm not sure what the research shows with what we're absorbing with our turnouts and how much of a risk it puts us for cancer or the other issues. But if your other areas of health are not dialed in, if you're not optimizing how you work out, if you're not doing the sauna,

if you're not eating right, you're not minimizing your alcohol, if you're not managing your stress, if you're not optimizing your sleep on your days off. And if you're not doing all of that, but then you're worried about your turnouts, I think it's reverse. You know, got to do those other things first. Those are big levers to pull and the other one might be a small lever. So just kind of put it in perspective.

Nole (33:35.847)
You

Kevin (33:36.002)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good point.

Kevin (33:43.672)
Good point. Well, we should jump into it because for years and even including myself after I had neck surgery, you helped me create like personal protocols on things that I can do, especially foundation training, which were extremely helpful. And I know we've referred a number of guys to you and you've helped like privately just out of the goodness of your heart. And probably now because there's so many people that have come to you and are coming to you. We got a resource now.

We got an app.

Evan (34:14.67)
Yes sir, we do. Finally, after a long time, I listened to you guys. I listened to, especially my wife. She's telling me you've got to stop doing this for free. It's taking time away from the family. So I got to listen to her. yeah, the reality is I built an app out with a department called The Bear a while ago, years ago. And that was like version 1.0. That was just the ability to get some of the information out there so people can access it. But it wasn't to the level that I wanted. So...

I worked at company called Playbook. I built out an app. I've been working my butt off for the last six to eight months getting it started and finally it is released and ready to go. And it is everything that I've worked on for the last 10 years. All the information, all the lessons that I've learned into all the programs. It's got six programs that'll last you about eight months. It's got extra

supplements, PDF supplements. So that includes like the bad night protocol, sleep hygiene, supplements, how to eat, stress management. And I will continually be releasing protocols and programs on there every quarter. And it's something that is very user friendly. It's got videos of all the exercises of me doing it. It's got a description and you can access me immediately by just messaging me and I'll answer fairly quickly. So I'm very excited.

It is a very good program and I'm not just saying it because it's the one that I created, but I'm very proud of it and I'm excited for people to use it. It's something where I can now reach more people and help people and that's kind of what I got into this for. I'm very excited to put it out there.

Nole (35:56.485)
What's it called? How do we find it?

Evan (35:58.126)
All right, it's called Fire Built, which is the name of my company. And you can find it by going to my Instagram. This is the easiest way, evan underscore halqwist. Go to my link tree and the first thing that will pop up will be the link to the app. And you can trial it for seven days. If you don't like it or if you don't like me, cool. You can ditch it or you can hop on for 99 a year and then go on the ride with me.

Kevin (36:21.676)
I love it. Their logo is rad. It's like this skull in an accident says comfort kills. I love it. Noel's got to love this too.

Evan (36:27.766)
It means things.

Nole (36:29.627)
I do love it. Garrett, Garrett Barker was just up at the fire program and he had all the gear on and I was jealous because I didn't have any of the gear. So, well, I got to sign up.

Kevin (36:33.048)
GB.

Evan (36:37.774)
I gotta get you guys gear. Yeah, well, I'll get you guys some gear. But yeah, I love the logo too. It means things to me.

Kevin (36:45.006)
Well, here's a thing that I like though. There's a lot of fitness influencers and things out there. But when I'm looking at a 25 year old kid who's on PEDs, I'm like, get the hell out of here. You know what I mean? But I know you're a working fire captain. You're a full-time dad and husband. want to think, Sinki, you talked about you've recovered your own horrendous back injury.

and we're able to continue your job as a fireman. And maybe you can talk about that. I have way more respect and I will listen to somebody like you who is doing the stuff currently and has recovered rather than the 25 year old who's flawless and bulletproof.

Evan (37:25.846)
Well, I appreciate that, but I couldn't agree more. You know, the people I look to for information are people that have actually gone through things and come out the other end better. And that is what my app is about. It's every single program, every single exercise in there, I've tested myself and I've put myself through the trial and error to see if it works. And I wouldn't put it in there. I wouldn't put anybody through anything that I haven't done myself. So yeah, I suffered.

What I was told by a doctor was a career ending back injury. This is now about 15 years ago when I was 28, which is not something you typically hear. And it was a herniation L5S1, multiple levels of degeneration. He was just telling me I need surgery, I need to stop being a firefighter. Luckily, I didn't listen to him and I started researching what I thought at the time was fringe information.

Kevin (38:16.809)
Hmm.

Evan (38:22.722)
which is becoming a lot more mainstream now. And I found the program Foundation Training. And through talking to people like Eric Goodman, Jesse Salas, who was also a firefighter Orlando about this program, I realized that I had the capacity to fix my own back. And I'm not saying that as in a cocky way, and I'm not saying that's gonna work for everybody, but foundation and the theory behind foundation and how we look at the body in the back.

from my experience works nine out of 10 times. Doesn't work for everybody. Some people do need surgery. That is the reality. Some people are in serious situations, but a majority of people that I come across who have been told by doctors that they have no hope, they need surgery, they're on pain medications the rest of their life. I've been fortunate enough to get them out of pain. And there is quite a few people in the department that we've been able to get out of pain and they're still working. And that is what I'm the most proud of is giving people their life.

and their freedom back with movement because being in pain and being told that you have no option other than to be in pain is a horrible diagnosis. So I was able to overcome it and as a result of that, now I'm able to, like I said, put all the information into this app and then hopefully help people on a bigger scale.

Nole (39:41.447)
A minute ago, you were about to start talking about your logo and what it meant to you.

Evan (39:45.007)
thank you for the reminding. Yeah, Fire Built. So the name Fire Built means a couple things. For obvious reasons, the fire service is like a second upbringing to us. At least I look at it that way. You know, had my first upbringing with my parents, became what I thought was a man. But going into the fire service, you really become a man, right? Especially if you accept it with all the things that go along with it. So.

all the challenges and tribulations and the things that we face and the things that we see, you can either look at it as something positive or something negative. And if you look at it as something positive, it is something that builds you up, that is being fire built. And this can also mean any challenge in life, right? Any difficult situation, you can look at it as something that can build you up. Kind of like the Phoenix story, the challenging thing, out of the ashes you become better. So that is what fire built represents and means. The skull itself represents the

dark times, the challenges that we have, the difficulties, and then the axe, specifically the flathead axe, I put that in there. It's a more versatile tool. It represents us and our ability to overcome and adapt and become better as a result of it. And comfort kills, like the slogan is an obvious thing, like do things that are difficult. It's more like complacency kills. Don't get lazy in life. Do things that are challenging. Push yourself and then keep getting better.

as a result of that. And that's really what I found out through my injury with my back is it made me better ultimately when I accepted it and I took ownership of it.

Nole (41:19.535)
I love it. I love all that. Let me, let me touch on something real quick. Cause I know there's guys listening to this that are, that are having this question. People have asked me as you know, because I've been trying to coerce you to come on the show and do this for a while, but you were working on it. You were building it. You were doing it properly, but people have asked for a written or a PDF version of the bad night protocol, which you said is part of the app you created. What about.

Kevin (41:20.45)
Yeah, and this is awesome.

Nole (41:48.187)
the legendary fire built 33 workout because people have also asked me for that over and over and over again. Is this a way they can get access to that type of content as

Evan (41:57.784)
Yeah, so I put that on there. I renamed it Fire Built Essentials and it is basically the same program without the getup. And the reason why I did that is just to keep it a little bit more simple. So that is on the app itself. And yeah, as soon as you sign up, you get access to that.

Nole (42:16.411)
People love that workout. I love that workout.

Evan (42:18.102)
I like it, it's simple.

Kevin (42:20.098)
That was one of my favorite, most memorable things was when it was, you guys came up 33C and it was dumping snow on us and we're on the patio and we did that workout shirtless in the snow. It's one of those things I, know, you don't remember good weather stuff and it's like, there's a reason for bad weather, comfort kills. It was not comfortable in it, but yet it was one of the most memorable, enjoyable things.

Evan (42:44.514)
Yeah, I think we all remember those things. Probably your four by four by 48. Like what was the feeling that you had after doing that race?

Kevin (42:51.308)
Yeah, it was incredible. Right. was on a... Yeah.

Evan (42:53.536)
Exactly. It's like anytime we do challenging things, it's just so amazing after it. so that Logan, know, logo, Comfort Kills is just so important that I just play that in my head as often as possible, right? If it's something that scares me, I should do it. If it's something that's challenging, I should do it.

Kevin (43:13.39)
All right. My one pushback on you. I nothing but respect. I know you compete in jujitsu. You get the boys to do the Spartan race at 33 is this iron marathon. When you tell us, I think it was the last time he was like, I'm going to run a marathon with no running. My initial, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Like you can't go swim without trying to swim. You can't go do gymnastics without doing gymnastics. can't

Evan (43:16.27)
I love it.

Evan (43:28.225)
so dumb.

Kevin (43:39.502)
do a marathon without running. So I wanted to hear about this because it made no sense. It made no sense.

Evan (43:42.222)
I know, I know. I'm so dumb. I like dumb challenges, obviously. Yeah, I've always wanted to run a marathon and I've always wanted to show that using a kettlebell, you can prepare yourself to run a marathon. And I'm not the first person to do it. I've heard other people do it, but I wanted to do it myself and I wanted to challenge myself and I wanted to program myself to do it. So I brought that idea up one day at lineup and then everybody's like, yeah.

Let's do it. Everybody was on board, right? It was like eight months out. We lost some people though along the way. But yeah, it was, I wanted to show that using the kettlebell, and I'll explain how it works, can train you for a marathon. And so I started to theorize a few things. Number one, that strength training, as I talked about, is so important. And through getting stronger, your ability to apply force.

Kevin (44:13.086)
Everybody's at that's the that's 33s. Yeah

Evan (44:37.122)
gets more effective. So that means that every single step that you take in the marathon is easier because you're stronger. So a powerlifter, excuse me, a marathon runner that increases their powerlifts would be better at their marathon. In fact, they've done that before. Sometimes they haven't changed anything else and they've just gotten stronger in the deadlift and their marathon time decreases. So that's theory number one that through strength training and application of force that you're going to get better and more efficient at running.

And so my number one goal was, or not number one goal, one of the goals was to be able to also deadlift two times my body weight during the week of the marathon. So that was goal number one and test number one or theory number one. Number two was that for cardiovascular system, I'm looking at like I talk about before all the time with mitochondrial adaptation. If I can make my fast twitch fibers more durable, then I can have the best of both worlds. And so by

making your fast-twitch fibers more durable, what you're doing is you're building a Ferrari with the horsepower of Ferrari with the mileage or the gas mileage of a Prius is what I was trying to do with my mitochondria and my fast-twitch fibers. And so with that, you have greater endurance and greater power endurance. And like I said before, application of force is better. So every single step you take is more efficient. Your mitochondrial adaptation is more efficient.

and you have this high mileage with this high power engine. So that was kind of theory number two. And to test that, there's obviously the marathon, but I also wanted to do a thousand kettlebell swings in one session the week of the marathon. And then the last theory was that through strength training, I truly believe it makes us anti-fragile. It makes us strong. It makes us resilient. And I wanted to see how that stood up to a marathon. And so I'm talking about connective tissue, ligaments, tendons, bones, injuries and stuff like that.

So I programmed for six months out. I did three days a week of conditioning work. One day was pure kettlebells. It's five swings every 30 seconds. And I started with a 62 pound bell and I did it for 20 minutes. And I actually wrote an article about this for Strong First. So this is also in my link tree if you want to look at it and it talks about it in a lot more depth and it gives an example of it so you can see it in a graph.

Evan (47:01.4)
But I five swings every 20, excuse me, every 30 seconds for 20 minutes with a 62 pound. Over the six months, I built up to doing an hour and 40 of that. And that was a thousand swings. So on the week of the marathon was a thousand swings. Mind numbing. It was the worst workout.

Kevin (47:13.006)
Ooooo

What a mental grind, yeah, because 20 minutes every, that's insane.

Evan (47:19.66)
It's the worst workout ever. And it was, yeah, I could have actually been tougher and not listen to music, but I listened to music. Yeah, I did. Well, the problem with it is, is like you're in a five by five space. And when you swing the kettlebell, it's about 10 seconds of work. So you have about 20 seconds, maybe 15 seconds to regain your composure and then go back to it. And so you're just, your mental focus is the biggest challenge because when you run, you can just kind of go off and

Nole (47:21.383)
do you listen to music when you do that kind of training

No, I don't think it's... I think you would have lost your mind. You probably would have gone crazy.

Kevin (47:26.474)
No, that's horrendous! That's a brutal workout.

Evan (47:49.4)
get lost in thoughts. You can't do that with the kettlebell because it'll hurt you. So you got to focus, pay attention to how you're swinging, proper technique every single time. So was just a mental grind. But I truly believe that mental grind that I learned in that protocol, doing it for an hour and 40 minutes, prepared me better than anything else for the marathon because it just taught me that grit attitude and just made me so much better at it. So I did that. That was one day a week and there was different variations of it. But basically I built up to that hour and 40 minutes.

Then there was sled work, which was in the same protocol. It's about five to 10 seconds of work and it was every 30 seconds. Same timeframe building up to that hour and 40 minutes. And then one day a week, I would do an acid bath, which like everyone's calling, the cool kids are calling VO2 max training these days, which is just preparing you for the ability to handle a large amount of acid and stress. And it does build up your capacity.

So I wanted that too. And that was quite a bit different. So instead of five swings every 30 seconds, I would just do 20 swings every minute for 10 minutes with the same size bell, rest for 10 minutes, repeat that three times. It's actually a pretty brutal workout and it's very challenging. It's a great one to do if you're preparing for a higher intensity sport like jujitsu or something that is in the range of five minutes. It's actually a very good protocol. And you can do the same thing with a sled. You can push it for about 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds for 10 minutes.

Rest for 10 minutes, repeat that three times, do it with two 45 pound plates. It's brutal, but great.

Nole (49:23.995)
Now are you dragging others along with you on this journey? Are the guys that said they were gonna do it doing this protocol with you?

Kevin (49:27.041)
Yes.

Evan (49:27.118)
Yeah.

Evan (49:30.572)
Yes, I was able to convince four people total to actually do it with me. My wife, who was an absolute savage and stud to do it with me, which was awesome. And then three fellow firefighters at Gorman, Dan Thompson and Drew Waite, which Drew is an absolute stud and I'll get to my favorite part of the marathon later. just know that this guy needs bilateral knee replacements. And he was like, yeah, I'll run a marathon with you.

Kevin (49:47.247)
we know these guys. Yes.

Kevin (49:57.965)
Yes.

Evan (49:59.426)
Sure, why not?

Kevin (50:01.038)
That's true dub, dude, yeah.

Evan (50:02.668)
Yeah, that's him. He's tough, tough as nails.

Kevin (50:04.748)
Yeah. And so is Gorman was former pro baseball player and Danny T is a stud too. Yeah. mean,

Evan (50:07.992)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. They're all studs. And so, yeah, they were doing along with me. And then we had two days a week of strength aerobics, which is basically you do things like squat, dips, and then barbell back squat. And you would do reps of two, three, five in a circuit style. So you do two squats, two bent rows, and then two dips. And then you would do three of each and you just kind of go in this circuit format.

It's the best of both worlds. It builds some strength, but you're also getting an aerobic capacity with it too. And then lastly, there was one day a week of pure strength training that I did where it was just one to threes. I was getting my deadlift and my standing press up and I used a specific protocol. And again, I did this for six months and I did progressive overload, step progression. So I would add for every two weeks, I would put a certain amount of timeframe where I'd increase, let's say from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. I'd do that for two weeks.

in the next two weeks, I would do 40 minutes. And I keep going up. I would also take two steps forward, one step back, which is the best way to do it so you don't overdo it and you have built in deload weeks. So I did that for six months, the week of the marathon, I dead lifted easy two times my body weight. I was doing so much volume, I lost some weight. So I was a little bit skinnier than I normally am. I was probably like at 185, 188. I said at 195. So I was able to knock that out no problem, which is

really cool when you only deadlifted one day a week. This just kind of puts in perspective that especially the older we get, I'm a huge fan of strength training, but I think people overdo it and overtax it. You can gain a lot of strength by just using singles the right way. And I've really taken a deep dive into that and I like that a lot. And it doesn't leave you sore or fatigued. I was also, then I did my thousand swings, which was miserable.

Kevin (51:36.888)
Yeah.

Evan (51:58.318)
But the cool part about that too is the way that I did it, it didn't leave me sore at all. And I know most people will not believe you do a thousand swings an hour, 40 minutes, but you do it the right way. You're not building up lactic acid and you built up over six months. My body was totally prepared. So going into the marathon was frightening, was scary. I had a shoe issue the night before. I had to switch shoes the last minute. You know how you talked about don't switch things up the night before?

Nole (52:13.383)
Hmm.

Kevin (52:25.996)
No, no, no.

Nole (52:26.161)
don't do that. You can't do that. I heard somebody say that recently. Yeah.

Evan (52:27.5)
You don't do that. Why would you do that? I did that. I was stupid. I had a shoe. It was giving me arch pain and I'm like, I can't wear their shoe. It's giving me arch pain. So I went back to these, go-ruck shoes that I had were like a cross trainer shoe. Essentially they were rough runners. They're designed for five to seven miles. I should have had that dialed in. It was my mistake. So I remember driving up, they put you on buses in St. George in the middle of downtown at four 30 in the morning and they ship you up to where you're going to.

start the race and you're driving along the route. It's completely dark. You're sitting there with a bunch of strangers other than the people that you're there with. And I was just thinking to myself, like, I just took myself out before I even began. I'm not going to be able to run. These shoes are going to screw me over. Everyone's going to make fun of me at the fire station. Of course, like any firefighter, I was worried about what guys thought. Yeah. Yeah. So race began at 7 a.m. and

Kevin (53:11.598)
There's this self-talk.

Nole (53:18.673)
important.

Kevin (53:19.413)
It is important.

Evan (53:26.574)
Going across that start line was one of the weirdest feelings knowing like I haven't ran. Let's see how this goes. I want to say it was about 55,000, 6,000. I might be totally off, but it was around that range because you're up in the mountains.

Kevin (53:34.232)
Yeah.

Nole (53:34.597)
What's the elevation out there?

Kevin (53:44.45)
So it's high. And did you guys have a pace that you were gonna shoot for or to say, hey, we haven't run so we really don't know pace or are you gonna try to do like a zone two thing or you're just gonna go?

Evan (53:57.262)
My plan was to be able to breathe through my nose most of the time, right? Maintain an anti-glycolytic type mindset, just the aerobic capacity. I didn't want to be pushing my heart rate past 180 minus my age. So all those stop signs I had in the play, right? So, and then we all had our own plan. Everybody was like, I'm just going to see what I can do. And, you know, so we kind of all started out all excited and fun and...

You know, everyone's laughing and this and that. then, you know, reality quickly took hold. But for the first, I would say, for the first half marathon, 13, 14 miles, I felt phenomenal. No issues, zero issues, right? Running the whole entire time. And that's so to me, I'm like, that is a win right there. I just ran a half marathon and never ran. Awesome. Then there was like an uphill grade for like two miles that were just going up. And I had

Nole (54:30.853)
you

Kevin (54:33.212)
not this year.

Kevin (54:51.874)
Heartbreak Hill.

Nole (54:51.975)
Hmm.

Evan (54:55.502)
the fuel plan that I was gonna take those little gel packets with the fruit in them, fructose. Turns out long distance stuff, those are really bad because I found this out later. Your muscles don't process fructose well for energy. They process glycogen. So dextrose powders are way better to do that. So what ended up happening is like I'm doing it, I'm cruising along, I'm going up and then all of a sudden I felt like somebody sniped me. I get hit with like the cramps.

Kevin (55:12.078)
Mmm.

Evan (55:25.526)
in my bilateral quad, hips, this and that. So then I just started doing the walk run thing for a little bit. And by that point, just going down the hill, I hit the wall around mile 16, pushed through it and then continued pushing through. Yeah, it was painful. Thing that probably hurt the most was my feet. No duh, because I didn't run, right? Tissue adaptation. And I went to the finish line and I couldn't believe that I made it.

Nole (55:25.703)
Mmm.

Kevin (55:25.814)
no.

Kevin (55:47.415)
Right.

Nole (55:47.847)
Yeah.

Evan (55:53.858)
and I was pushing through, I saw my boys last minute up in the stands, I didn't know they were gonna be there, I was so overcome with emotion seeing them there, because you're just like so overcome with it and cross the finish line and you know, I was amazed. then I got, Dan actually Thompson beat me too. He was 15 seconds ahead of me and I was so bummed I didn't know that he was there, I would have tried to sprint to beat him. But then everybody else finished, one of my favorite moments was watching Drew, you know, and he's in.

Kevin (56:00.31)
Awesome.

Nole (56:00.359)
That's cool.

Kevin (56:12.61)
Yeah.

Nole (56:13.237)
yeah.

Evan (56:21.972)
Obvious pain. His knees, like I said, he needs a double knee replacement. Obvious pain. And he is running or hobbling, running across the end and he's got three boys and there's two on one side, one on another side, you know, on either side of them, you know, bringing them into the finish line. And it was like a tearjerker. You know, I lost it at that point. It was just so emotional and it's so powerful. And like we talk about doing difficult things. Like to me, that is what it's about because after that,

Kevin (56:41.518)
that's so cool.

Evan (56:51.246)
That feeling that we all had other than being in pain was like being on top of the world. I mean, it's just such an amazing feeling. And so I truly believe, you know, I went out with a theory of those three things, strength, you know, making your fast switch to fiber is more durable and making yourself resilient. And I truly believe I was successful with it, especially the resiliency thing. That was what impressed me the most. A week later, had zero pain.

No joint issues, no breakdown of anything. Actually during the race, other than the cramps and the musculoskeletal stuff, or the muscle stuff, I had zero joint pain. No Achilles, no knee pain, no hip pain, no low back pain, which is huge for me, right? That compression that you get with running. And so I think that was just a huge win. And I think ultimately it proved that you can run a marathon and just use a kettlebell. I recommend not doing it, but you can.

Nole (57:30.279)
Hmm.

Kevin (57:46.094)
That's so cool. And there's something about an actual competition or a sport or a sanctioned event like that, because you could have done that at the station. You could have done a marathon with the boys around the neighborhood, around the station. But there's something about the actual sanctioning of it, showing up to the start line with the people around and doing it on the day and having the anticipation of that event coming forward. We've long felt like there's something

very powerful in that when we were competing in Highland games or we were doing anything just to have that calendar date that you're that's looming ahead. I think it does. It pushes you and there's a mental thing and like and like you said, I can imagine Steph and Drew and the boys and like your family and all there's something amazing. You can't really do that at home and I love that and so I don't know. I mean we're knowing I are talking about what like last year with the defining thing for us for me was the 4 by 4 by 48, but I'm looking ahead to 2026.

saying there's going to be something in November or December that we're going to do because I really like that feeling of having something on the calendar to not only train for but to look forward to and then have a moment.

Evan (58:57.036)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. just recently competed in my first two Jiu-Jitsu competitions, which I've always done team sports growing up and doing an individual sport where you're fighting. was just, and I suck. It's just like another level of intensity where, you know, I first competed at the police and fire games and I just remember the ref being like, ready to fight. And I'm like, really? We're going do this? You know, and the guy was like, wow, that's serious.

Kevin (59:20.878)
Fight! Finish him!

Nole (59:21.211)
Ha

Evan (59:24.706)
Yeah, mean, it's like Mortal Kombat, right? but like win or lose, you put yourself out there, you're winning either way because the feeling that you get after and I hate to lose like anybody else, but you know, the feeling that you get after is just so amazing. And especially when you got two young boys like I do and having them watch you do these difficult things. That's what really, really gets me to do these challenging things, not only for my own benefit, but for to show them.

how you should live life, how you live a rewarding life.

Kevin (59:58.613)
This is the way.

Evan (01:00:00.622)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (01:00:02.296)
Well, brother, we are pumped. This is gonna, I think we could go on forever, but I think what we should do is now that we have a microphone, we're gonna discontinue to do this. This is our fourth episode of many. And this is exciting though, because we have a lot of people that'll come to the show and then they'll say, hey, I heard this thing, where do I get it? Now we got it. Now we can go to the Instagram, you can hit that link tree, you can go straight to your stuff.

And that's a resource. know, it's wild. The reach of this thing sometimes is wild because we've had guys hit us up from fire departments all over the country and saying, Hey, we have bad nights too. What do I do? You know, and it's really cool to share that and, and, and other things with you. And I think you're going to help so many guys in the future. I think it's awesome. And maybe just do a little running next time. So

Evan (01:00:49.102)
Agreed. When I did the Spartan race and we prepared for it, ran. So I learned my lesson. Yeah, well, I appreciate you guys. You guys are amazing and the things that you're doing, the message that you're putting out there is great. Just affecting the first responder and the fire service community as a whole is great to see what you guys do.

Kevin (01:00:53.865)
there it is. that's great.

Kevin (01:01:08.086)
Now, we had, I just, my last question, if we had somebody like the natural Dave Thiebaud who said, I want to be the 60th dude to do Simple and Sinister. So we had, you know, we talked about this, but Dave Thiebaud is an unbelievable human being, but he had like a shoulder problem and he asked you to help with the shoulder problem. You gave him Simple and Sinister and within like a six to eight month period, he finished the Sinister program from Pavel, which is, think it was one of the...

one of only 60 people in the world who have ever complete this. 69th person. So if there's a person that has to say, I have a goal of this, like something specific, is that something that you would do as well or is it more of a follow the program that's on?

Evan (01:01:38.35)
Yeah, he was 69th in the world.

Evan (01:01:52.428)
You're saying is it something that I would do for them?

Kevin (01:01:55.008)
No, yeah, like if somebody said, hey, I want to run a 100 mile race or I want to do an Ironman or I want to. Yeah.

Evan (01:01:59.31)
I see. Yeah, I have actually had to not take on as many personal clients. this is, I strictly just do people that are in my immediate circle right now. So unfortunately I wish I could, but I can't. And that is where the app comes in. It's got everything that I have in there. It's second best to having me in person, but I guarantee if you use the six programs, Mobility Muscles, number one.

Lowback Fortified, Fire Built Prep, Fire Built Signature Series, Fire Built Mentalist, and then BDE, which was named by your friend, Garrett Barker, for Big Dad Energy. Don't confuse it with the other BDE. I guarantee you if you use those programs, it's going to put you in phenomenal shape, and it's going to manage your stress well. It's going to keep you job ready. Job ready is not just about being a fireman, it's about being ready for whatever life throws at you, father, husband.

Kevin (01:02:39.338)
Yeah, GB, let's go.

Evan (01:02:57.698)
whatever it is and I can't guarantee you being pain free because I'm not there with you but it's going to bring you as close to possible as you can be and that is what my programming is about.

Kevin (01:03:09.838)
You can ask no more.

Evan (01:03:11.822)
That's right, my best.

Kevin (01:03:13.868)
Yeah, thanks for all you do brother and to all you guys out there. Happy Merry Christmas. Hope you guys have a great Christmas with your loved ones and we'll see you next time. This has been the fire you carry podcast.

Nole (01:03:27.815)
Thanks, Evan.

Evan (01:03:28.59)
Thank you guys.

Kevin (01:03:40.802)
This is amazing. don't know. You're doing this like live. I don't know what to do.

Nole (01:03:45.576)
I mean, we just gotta let it.

Evan (01:03:45.646)
Is this you playing the drums? Is this you Kevin? Did you actually do this for it? You should. You gotta be authentic,

Kevin (01:03:47.18)
We're just play. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Nole (01:03:49.009)
We should re-record it.

Kevin (01:03:51.99)
No, I can't do it that kid. Yeah. It's not a bad idea though. We just have to pay royalties.

Evan (01:03:58.254)
Yeah, we cool. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Kevin (01:04:01.784)
Great stuff, man.