We designed a study to measure the functional capacity requirements of firefighters to aid in the development of an occupation-specific training program in cardiac rehabilitation; 23 healthy male ...firefighters with no history of heart disease completed a fire and rescue obstacle course that simulated 7 common firefighting tasks. They wore complete personal protective equipment and portable metabolic instruments that included a data collection mask. We monitored each subject's oxygen consumption (VO2 ) and working heart rate, then calculated age-predicted maximum heart rates (220 − age) and training target heart rates (85% of age-predicted maximum heart rate). During performance of the obstacle course, the subjects' mean working heart rates and peak heart rates were higher than the calculated training target heart rates ( t22 = 5.69 working vs target, p <0.001 and t22 = 15.14 peak vs target, p <0.001). These findings, with mean results for peak VO2 (3,447 ml/min) and metabolic equivalents (11.9 METs), show that our subjects' functional capacity greatly exceeded that typically attained by patients in traditional cardiac rehabilitation programs (5 to 8 METs). In conclusion, our results indicate the need for intense, occupation-specific cardiac rehabilitation training that will help firefighters safely return to work after a cardiac event.
