Train Clean, Fight Dirty | Ryan Conley of Carna Bunker Gear
Visit: Carna Bunker Gear
https://www.carnabunkergear.com/
This week, we’re joined by Ryan Conley from Carna Bunker Gear for a conversation about firefighter training, cancer prevention, fitness, and why we may need to rethink how often we train in our frontline turnout gear.
Ryan shares how his background as a firefighter, strength athlete, coach, and exercise physiology nerd eventually led to the creation of Carna Bunker Gear — training gear designed to give firefighters the weight and thermal challenges of bunker gear without unnecessarily training in contaminated frontline PPE.
We get into PFAS, PAHs, dirty gear, SCBAs, apparatus contamination, decon, thermal adaptation, firefighter fitness, and the cumulative exposures firefighters face throughout a 20–30 year career.
But the conversation goes beyond cancer.
How hard should you actually work out while you're on duty? Could crushing yourself during a workout make you a liability if the tones drop five minutes later? And has the fire service gone too far with “safety culture”… or are we finally getting smarter about risks we can actually control?
Adam also asks one of the biggest questions of the episode:
Was it worth it?
Despite the risks, injuries, sleepless nights, cancer concerns, and everything this career asks of us — for the families we showed up for on the worst days of their lives, the answer is still YES.
We also close this episode by recognizing the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, remembering the 343 firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice and those we have continued to lose in the years since.
Never Forget. 🇺🇸
Follow The Cool Fireman Podcast and join us as we continue the firehouse conversation.
Support the show
