Training with Weighted Dummies

Davey Do · Apr 28, 2021

I found that daily workouts using a universal, a free weight, and an elliptical every day, and a short workout before leaving for my job helped to keep my strength up and avoid injuries. At 63 years of age before retiring, I could handle about any situation. I also bicycled quite a bit after work and on my days off.

19 minutes ago, ChristopherGllardoJr. said:

I would like to not be assigned to crazy patients as much as possible as I like to earn normal patients' trust over time which is almost impossible with mental illness

With all due respect, Christopher, it's not appropriate to refer to those with a diagnosis of mental illness as crazy.

And yes, it is possible to gain trust with patients diagnosed with a mental illness. I spent the majority of my 36 years as a nurse working psych, and was able to gain the trust of the majority of psych patients. Individuals with mental illnesses usually merely have a nonconsensual perspective on reality and react accordingly.

You might want to check out the psychiatric nursing forum here on allnurses to gain some insight.

Good luck to you, Christopher!

FlameHeart, CNA · Apr 29, 2021

16 minutes ago, Davey Do said:

I found that daily workouts using a universal, a free weight, and an elliptical every day, and a short workout before leaving for my job helped to keep my strength up and avoid injuries. At 63 years of age before retiring, I could handle about any situation. I also bicycled quite a bit after work and on my days off.

With all due respect, Christopher, it's not appropriate to refer to those with a diagnosis of mental illness as crazy.

And yes, it is possible to gain trust with patients diagnosed with a mental illness. I spent the majority of my 36 years as a nurse working psych, and was able to gain the trust of the majority of psych patients. Individuals with mental illnesses usually merely have a nonconsensual perspective on reality and react accordingly.

You might want to check out the psychiatric nursing forum here on allnurses to gain some insight.

Good luck to you, Christopher!

I can't stand using machines like eliptacles or treadmills, I need to be outside running or biking and climbing around.

I am sorry for using the term "crazy" that was insensitive of me. I edited my post to "mentally ill".

I like to earn normal patients' trust over time which is very difficult with mental illness especially for me as it causes me to be afraid of people like them, but over the years of dealing with this kind of thing with non-patient friends I am learning more about dealing with them.

Davey Do · Apr 29, 2021

1 minute ago, ChristopherGllardoJr. said:

I like to earn normal patients' trust over time which is very difficult with mental illness especially for me as it causes me to be afraid of them (but over the years of dealing with this kind of thing with non-patient friends I am learning more about dealing with them

I apologize for being such a stickler, Christopher, but referring to patients with no signs, symptoms, or diagnosis of mental illness as normal is rather condescending.

There continues to be a stigma behind mental illness that has improved greatly in the past several decades. Those patients diagnosed with a mental illness have the potential, and can be, as highly functioning as any other member of the population. I have worked with psych patients who were more intelligent, talented, and humorous than I will ever be.

As a physical illness affects the body, a mental illness affects the brain. For example, as diabetes affects the body (e.g. pancreas, Islands of Langerhans) to utilize sugar normally, schizophrenia affects the brain (e.g. dopamine) to act & react emotionally or cognitively appropriate.

Identifying our fear is the first step in overcoming it. We tend to fear that which we do not understand. If we gain understanding, we can lessen our fear.

Good luck on your journey of understanding, Christopher!

FlameHeart, CNA · Apr 29, 2021

Perhaps "those without mental illness" is a better reference?

I suppose going into every new relationship (with patients or not patients) without assumptions would be better than to expect the worst from them, however in my time as a Home Health Aide I did decide not to take care of those whom I learned had a history of violent, verbally abusive, or hostile attitude or those who did not want me around.

If a patient doesn't want me around or is likely to attack me physically or verbally, I respect their personal wishes and will not take care of them.

I understand it takes special people to work for people who hate them, physically attack them, verbally abuse them, etc. whether the patients forget or don't understand what they do doesn't take away any harm they cause.

I appreciate and pray for those amazing workers, but I am not one of them.

Maybe God will change my mind later on or maybe not.

Thank you for all the amazing work you did.

One of my previous patients as a Home Health Aide is now living in Hospital and is now mentally declining and I am saddened by this because when I called he didn't remember me, but I am so grateful to the staff that cares for him, like you might have done something similar.

Anyways, can we please get back to the main topic of this subject and talk about Training with Weighted Dummies?

amoLucia · Apr 30, 2021

OK - getting back to the mannequins. I don't see any useful purpose.

What do you expect to happen after you reach your weight lifting training goal? No HC employee is expected to do a dead weight body lift of some pt. Even for one who has fallen, you should have ancillary assistance for a safe & efficient move. Not to injure the pt nor you during the move.

For a confrontational pt, you would not be doing a take-down!! In fact, for these situations, a 'HANDS OFF' is usually the recommended & expected approach.

So for all intents & purposes, other than your own personal desire to exercise, there is NO reason to purchase that mannequin (at least or work-related purposes)!

Every facility I've ever worked, always had body mechanics training for staff incl how to 'assist' a pt to the floor. And for the aggressive pts, there's usually training for staff to recognize & respond with CRPI (Crisis Recognition , Prevention, & Intervention).

Your concerns seem as unrealistic as your UNREALISTIC germ-fearing need to shower at you job.

nursej22, MSN, RN · May 4, 2021

I would not advocate for a mannequin for strength training as there are few if any situations where you would be responsible for lifting a patient alone. Sure there is the occasional unexpected occurrence, but good core strength and lifting techniques should suffice. And many patients could be injured, or already have an injury that could be exacerbated.

I am not in gyms lately due to COVID, but I use my own body weight plus resistance bands to maintain strength. And I run.

FlameHeart, CNA · May 15, 2021

I appreciate the responses.

amoLucia:

As I have already stated before in my previous posts, if you had read them you would already know I expect to use the proper equipment and procedures for patients in every kind of situation.

I don't plan on training with weights or in Martial Arts to daily get into situations where I would need to dead-lift an unconscience patient or disable an aggressive one who's having a PTSD episode.

I train and prepare so I am capable in as many situations as possible to be the most help and yes, I agree diplomacy is the best option and the one I use to settle almost all real-world confrontations. Pride and dignity are worthless to me. I see violence, physical or otherwise, as a loss for everyone involved.

I don't like that you are going off-topic and accusing me of having unrealistic expectations based off of my previous replies in a completely different topic.

Your opinion on many subjects is well noted though.

FlameHeart, CNA · May 15, 2021

On 5/4/2021 at 9:17 AM, nursej22 said:

I would not advocate for a mannequin for strength training as there are few if any situations where you would be responsible for lifting a patient alone. Sure there is the occasional unexpected occurrence, but good core strength and lifting techniques should suffice. And many patients could be injured, or already have an injury that could be exacerbated.

I am not in gyms lately due to COVID, but I use my own body weight plus resistance bands to maintain strength. And I run.

I appreciate your reply.

I wonder what responses I would get from more Male Nurses on their perspective on this topic?

As I have heard a few times from Male Nurses on Youtube that it is inevitable that I will be chosen because I am a Man in the Nursing field, even if you are overweight, to lift heavy things, deal with physically violent patients, and basically be the "intimidating serious muscle".

That won't always work with me, I prefer to avoid confrontation and although I do follow a sort of "code of Honor" as Man to protect everyone, especially those more vulnerable than me, I would not like getting singled out for these tasks every time as I am sure there are those more experienced than me in dealing with these situations of difficult patients, regardless of Nursing Gender.

I did not sign up to go into Nursing to become a security guard or a Human forklift, but to heal people with my hands and through compassion.

I prefer the idea of using a heavy training dummy over lifting free-style gym weights that don't look like anything I would ever actually lift outside of strength training.

I despise the gym and am very practical orientated: if I want to get stronger at lifting heavy bags, then I lift heavy bags; boxes then boxes, etc.

Although I do see value in body weight training as being faster, more agile, flexible, and stronger will help in all areas. My goal is to be able to do things like "The Human Flag Pole", walk on my hands for long periods of time, and feel like my body is almost weightless. I want to be good at practical things like swimming, climbing, running, jumping, etc. in urban and natural environments.

Is Running still useful when you spend most of the week on your feet?

I enjoy running long-distance, but would hardly ever have the time once I start a 30 or 40 hour work week.

allnurses Guide · Dec 3, 2021

On 4/28/2021 at 8:01 PM, FlameHeart said:

Perhaps "those without mental illness" is a better reference?

I suppose going into every new relationship (with patients or not patients) without assumptions would be better than to expect the worst from them, however in my time as a Home Health Aide I did decide not to take care of those whom I learned had a history of violent, verbally abusive, or hostile attitude or those who did not want me around.

If a patient doesn't want me around or is likely to attack me physically or verbally, I respect their personal wishes and will not take care of them.

I understand it takes special people to work for people who hate them, physically attack them, verbally abuse them, etc. whether the patients forget or don't understand what they do doesn't take away any harm they cause.

I appreciate and pray for those amazing workers, but I am not one of them.

Maybe God will change my mind later on or maybe not.

Thank you for all the amazing work you did.

One of my previous patients as a Home Health Aide is now living in Hospital and is now mentally declining and I am saddened by this because when I called he didn't remember me, but I am so grateful to the staff that cares for him, like you might have done something similar.

Anyways, can we please get back to the main topic of this subject and talk about Training with Weighted Dummies?

While I will talk about weight training in a moment I do have to support @Davey Do wand challange your assumptions because without doing so it will be difficult for you to be an effective and compassionate nurse. It is estimated that 1 in 5 people will face a mental health crisis in their lifetime. This happens more often in person's with health problems more than in the well population. So as a nurse you will take care of significantly more people with mental illness than those without. Mental illness does not equal violence. Like @Daveydo I have spent the majority of my career working with persons affected by mental health conditions. Most are not violent or hateful. In fact I have found the majority of violent and hateful people do not suffer from diagnosed mental illness. Most are just mean people. If yu think you canwalk intoa job interview and say "I don't want to work with people with mental illness." You may find that you have picked the wrong career. As a person who suffers from chronic depression and anxiety I knowonly too well how it feels to be marginalized by people who claim to be caring people.

At the facility where I work I am known as a patient whisperer. One of my collegues is convinced I can talk birds out of the sky, but it's simply meeting a person where they are rather than where I want them to be.

Now to the weighted dummy issue.

I grew up on a subsistance farm and performed a lot of hard labor growing up. That resulted in a body that was naturally strong. I could lift bales of hay all day long, I also trained horses and worked with a variety of livestock that would be happy to hurt you if you got in their way,

It's been over 40 years since I left that farm and at age 58 (soon to be 59) I have lost some of that strength. Like you I don't work out on machines because I find it boring but I did like taking spin classes in the early 2000's when they were the rage. I walk a lot, go rock climbing(Thus lifting my own weight) cycling and spar with my son who is a black belt in MMA. Aside from a set of hand weight that I bought at the Good Will Store and a nice bicycle I have never purchased a fancy piece of equipment. In fact a training dummy sounds abit odd to me as moving a dead weight isn't really that difficult. I have seen positively tiny nurses lift, shift a move patients using team work and body mechanics. The MMA keeps me agile which is important in the very rare instance that one of my patients in the psych unit gets aggressive.

Hppy

FlameHeart, CNA · Dec 27, 2021

On 12/3/2021 at 1:22 AM, hppygr8ful said:

While I will talk about weight training in a moment I do have to support @Davey Do wand challange your assumptions because without doing so it will be difficult for you to be an effective and compassionate nurse. It is estimated that 1 in 5 people will face a mental health crisis in their lifetime. This happens more often in person's with health problems more than in the well population. So as a nurse you will take care of significantly more people with mental illness than those without. Mental illness does not equal violence. Like @Daveydo I have spent the majority of my career working with persons affected by mental health conditions. Most are not violent or hateful. In fact I have found the majority of violent and hateful people do not suffer from diagnosed mental illness. Most are just mean people. If yu think you canwalk intoa job interview and say "I don't want to work with people with mental illness." You may find that you have picked the wrong career. As a person who suffers from chronic depression and anxiety I knowonly too well how it feels to be marginalized by people who claim to be caring people.

At the facility where I work I am known as a patient whisperer. One of my collegues is convinced I can talk birds out of the sky, but it's simply meeting a person where they are rather than where I want them to be.

Now to the weighted dummy issue.

I grew up on a subsistance farm and performed a lot of hard labor growing up. That resulted in a body that was naturally strong. I could lift bales of hay all day long, I also trained horses and worked with a variety of livestock that would be happy to hurt you if you got in their way,

It's been over 40 years since I left that farm and at age 58 (soon to be 59) I have lost some of that strength. Like you I don't work out on machines because I find it boring but I did like taking spin classes in the early 2000's when they were the rage. I walk a lot, go rock climbing(Thus lifting my own weight) cycling and spar with my son who is a black belt in MMA. Aside from a set of hand weight that I bought at the Good Will Store and a nice bicycle I have never purchased a fancy piece of equipment. In fact a training dummy sounds abit odd to me as moving a dead weight isn't really that difficult. I have seen positively tiny nurses lift, shift a move patients using team work and body mechanics. The MMA keeps me agile which is important in the very rare instance that one of my patients in the psych unit gets aggressive.

Hppy

Just because I prefer not to take care of certain types of difficult patients does not make me any less compassionate.

Compassion is not the same as capability.

I have met people in my life I was unable to take care of because I simply was not qualified to take care of them no matter how much I wanted to and tried.

There is a reason Patients with diagnosed Mental Illnesses are supposed to be in a separate unit in the hospital. You can't treat them like any other patient and not everyone can handle regular interaction with these kinds of patients.

You reply seems to deny these facts.

allnurses Guide · Dec 28, 2021

4 hours ago, FlameHeart said:

There is a reason Patients with diagnosed Mental Illnesses are supposed to be in a separate unit in the hospital. You can't treat them like any other patient and not everyone can handle regular interaction with these kinds of patients.

You reply seems to deny these facts.

Patients with diagnosed mental illness actually get sick and often need treatment in the acute medical setting as most psych facilities are not equipped or licensed to do invasive care like IV therapy or even access to stat labs or x-rays. Are we just supposed to let them die because some (not all) acute care nurses are uncomfortable caring for them?

mental illness is just that an illness and 99.9% are neither unpleasant or aggressive so please be more tactful in you assumptions with regard to this population.