What is Preparation For Chaos?
Preparation For Chaos is a wellness program designed with firefighters for firefighters. The program prepares firefighters for the unique short- and long-term stresses of their job.

How does Preparation For Chaos work?
It uses the three concepts of Neuromuscular Restoration, Biomechanical Restoration, and Strategic Variation to decrease the number and severity of orthopedic injuries firefighters sustain and to provide firefighters with the tools they need to safely and independently reach personal fitness goals.

What is Neuromuscular Restoration?
Neuromuscular Restoration emphasizes muscle control, stability, and balance in order to enhance the functional relationships of all the joints of the body. In other words, it clarifies and optimizes how your nerves, muscles, and other systems need to work together.

What is Biomechanical Restoration?
Biomechanical Restorationé takes the clarity of Neuromuscular Restoration and, through exercise, increases your strength, endurance, and efficiency of motion.

What is Strategic Variation?
Strategic Variation is a way of introducing certain Training Variables into your exercise, allowing you to manage your fitness program so you can maximize results and avoid repetition-related injuries.

Is there a simpler way to explain Neuromuscular Restoration, Biomechanical Restoration, and Strategic Variation?
Neuromuscular Restoration is like booting up your muscles and nerves. It brings them all online – especially the ones that haven’t been doing their share.

Biomechanical Restoration works your body equally in a given area because everything is online. Ordinarily, some parts would be overworking to compensate for those that are inactive.

Strategic Variation changes your exercise enough, at the right time, to always keep your body guessing about what will come next. This state of flux creates a situation where nothing goes offline.

What is BioConstructs?
BioConstructs is a California-based company that developed and initially launched the Preparation For Chaos program. The company was founded in the late 1990s by two established Los Angeles fitness experts with several decades of experience between them.

When was Preparation For Chaos launched?
Preparation For Chaos was initially created in 2001 and is continuously updated to ensure both that it includes the most up-to-date scientific findings and that it responds to the particular needs of each of our clients.

Who is using Preparation For Chaos?
The Santa Monica Fire Department and the City of Downey Fire Department (both in California) are currently using the Preparation For Chaos program.

How does Preparation For Chaos compare with other available programs?
Preparation For Chaos is unlike anything else on the market. Its creators worked closely with firefighters to develop a program uniquely suited to the daily demands of the profession.

For example, the program takes into account that firefighters often carry imbalanced weight loads (perhaps a ladder on one side and an axe on the other) or that situations don’t always allow for proper lifting technique. Because we recognize firefighters often encounter these sorts of challenges, we prepare them for that kind of chaos.

Part of that preparation deals with traditional exercise options. But an even more important part of our instruction deals with teaching an individual how to customize his or her program to address physical vulnerabilities and minimize the likelihood of injuries.

The fire service is a management/labor type of industry so we work hard to build trust with both groups and to help each reach its goals. One of the ways we do this is by speaking the same language as our clients.

What kind of results has Preparation For Chaos gotten?
We’ve received tremendous reviews from firefighters. In Santa Monica, for example, we received a 95 percent approval rating. Even more importantly, our clients have seen injury numbers drop with workers’ comp claims. (In Santa Monica’s case sprain and strain injuries were reduced by 33 percent.) Our clients not only see the value of the program for themselves by renewing their contracts, but also recommend us to others through referrals.

Who are your competitors?
Since there is nothing so explicitly focused on providing an individualized and flexible program for firefighters, we don’t see any other program as direct competition.

What else is available for firefighters?
For the most part, firefighters have the same options available to most people (personal trainers, etc.). But the feedback we’ve gotten from our clients is that traditional fitness providers don’t understand firefighters the way we do.

The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) provides a program for firefighters. But, when comparing it to our program, our clients feel Preparation For Chaos provides greater customization, added personalized attention, and more sustainable results.

What are the qualifications for Preparation For Chaos instructors?
Instructors must be certified by some of the most rigorous fitness accreditation authorities in the country. All of our instructors have RTSM certifications, which is the most advanced certification provided by Resistance Training Specialists, a highly respected group with links to the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

Our instructors also have extensive training in Muscle Activation Technique™ (MAT). MAT, developed by Greg Roskopf, is a process for correcting muscular imbalances in the body through bio-mechanically based therapy. All our instructors have completed the MAT Jump Start program. Jump Start is a MAT introductory course consisting of three, two-day weekend sessions covering the lower body, upper body, and trunk and spine.

MAT training qualifies instructors to work with individual firefighters and develop customized programs to address any identified biomechanical or neuromuscular imbalances or vulnerabilities.

How does the Preparation For Chaos program work?
The program is generally performed over a year with four on-site visits to each client – one visit per quarter. In the first visit, we provide a program overview and meet with each firefighter individually to assess his or her fitness needs. In the second visit, we begin to go into much greater depth, introducing the key variables firefighters need to know in order to maximize the safety and effectiveness of their workouts. During visits three and four, we go into even further depth – providing very detailed instruction regarding how to self-manage a workout and ensure that it is appropriate to the person doing the working out.

In our experience, customers who purchase the entire program enjoy the best results. However, within certain standards, the program can be modified and adapted to a client’s needs.

How much does Preparation For Chaos cost?
The program’s price depends on the particulars of the fire department (department size, scheduling, number of firefighters, number of shifts, etc.). We generally gather all that information and then prepare a detailed estimate.

Do clients get any extras beyond the Preparation For Chaos program?
In addition to the standard program, we offer an emailed, monthly newsletter that reviews our core teachings and provides new fitness tips. And firefighters can email our trainers with questions at any time. That way clients can get personalized assistance even on days when our trainers aren’t working directly with them.

Interested in this program? Call Jacques Henri Taylor at 323-578-5263 or email us here