For the past four years Provena St. Mary’s Fitness Center, located in Bourbonnais, have invited the fire cadet class from the Kankakee Area Career Center to utilize the Fitness Center’s equipment with guidance from Provena’s trained staff. The students attend once a week during the school year for supervised exercise with no charge to the students or the school. They are given a fitness assessment prior to beginning the program, which consists of height, weight, body fat, 12 minute run, and physical strength tests, and then they are led through group orientation for the equipment. They do a minimum of thirty minutes of cardio as well as use the free weights and weight machines. The students use this time to train for the Illinois State Firefighting Championship in Springfield.

This year twenty-five students from the state of Illinois were taken to the Illinois Skills USA competition and of those twenty-five, nine were from the Kankakee Area Career Center. Austyn Bruno, one of the students from KACC placed first at the Illinois competition which allowed him to participate at the Nationals where he placed third. He was one of over 1250 students competing at the national level in the Fire/Rescue division. Kelly Hull, the Wellness Coordinator at Provena St. Mary’s Fitness Center, said “we are thrilled with Austyn’s achievements. He really took the initiative in training the group and began bringing in fire hoses, wearing the heavy gear, etc., to exercise with to simulate the physical demands that would be required in an actual emergency.”

Fire/rescue is a physically challenging career and Austyn stated, “The fitness center has helped train hundreds of young firefighters begin the type of lifestyle training that will not only shape their lives, but, save them.”

“Most Fire Stations require the firefighters to work out everyday because of the importance of being physically fit, said Kankakee County Career Center instructor Garfield Heid. With heart attacks being the number one killer of firefighters, it is imperative to learn to live a healthy lifestyle. Working out at the fitness center really showed the class how to reach that goal.”

For more information please contact Provena St. Mary’s Fitness Center at (815) 936-3232 or visit us on the web at http://www.provena.org/stmarys/wellness.

 KACC Firefighter Team pictured L to R: Erich Lindemann, Katelyn Lowman, Austyn Bruno, Chris Vahl, Billy Zielinski, Mitch Nettleingham and Nick Brault (not pictured)