12-week training program
York Firefighter Fitness Assessment 12-Week Program
Know the test
Who uses this test
The York assessment, run by the Fitness York unit at York University in Toronto and often called the York test, appears across the country: Saskatoon requires it current within 6 months of the start date, Regina requires it current within 6 months and administers it through the University of Regina's Centre for Health, Wellness and Performance with vision testing incorporated, Mississauga sends candidates to York University during its assessment phase, Richmond BC accepts the York assessment outright or a CPAT paired with a VO2 max of at least 45 mL/kg/min under the York protocol, London ON accepts York or OFAI testing, and St. John's lists York University among its accredited facilities. Departments change tests between intakes, so the posting always governs.
The shape of the day
Plan for roughly four hours including rest periods. The assessment has two parts: an aerobic fitness test on a treadmill where speed and incline rise until you reach maximal intensity, with your expired air analyzed throughout, and eight job-related performance stations that simulate climbing, hoisting, carrying, dragging, and forcing entry. After the second station you put on a 13.5 kg vest plus 2.3 kg ankle weights on each leg, about 18 kg of added load that approximates turnout gear and an SCBA, and you wear it for everything that follows. Every station except the ladder lift and the enclosed-area search is timed.
The treadmill test: the event you cannot pace
Every other Canadian fire test lets a smart candidate manage effort: hit the minimum pace, survive the circuit, pass. The York aerobic test does not, because the treadmill keeps getting faster and steeper until you reach your maximum, and the number that comes out is your actual VO2 max. The research behind the test recommends an aerobic standard of 45 mL/kg/min for structural firefighting, Richmond BC publishes exactly that number as its minimum, and other departments keep their cut-offs internal or rank candidates by result. You cannot strategize past a maximal test; you can only raise your maximum. That is why this program, unlike our programs for walk-based tests, trains actual running: incline intervals, tempo runs, and a progressively bigger aerobic base.
Stations 1 to 4: climb, search, carry, hoist
Station 1 is a ladder climb: wearing a 9.1 kg SCBA cylinder, you climb a 12.2 metre extension ladder, uncouple and re-couple a wall-mounted hose connection at the top, and climb down; it screens comfort at height and manual dexterity. Station 2 is an enclosed-area search: wearing a blacked-out face piece you are shut in a confined space and must reach up, count the washers on a bolt by feel, and call out the number; it is pass or fail, untimed, and screens comfort in confined spaces. Station 3 is the hose carry: lift a 38.5 kg hose bundle to your shoulder and carry it up and down five flights of stairs, roughly three times the load of a CPAT high-rise pack. Station 4 is the rope pull: hoist a 22.5 kg weight up 20 metres hand over hand, then lower it back down under control, and the lowering half is where unprepared grips fail.
Stations 5 to 8: drag, lift, rescue, breach
Station 5 is the hose advance: pull a 70 kg load 15 metres, simulating a charged hose line. Station 6 is the ladder lift: remove a 25.5 kg ladder from brackets mounted 1.93 metres up, then replace it, the one station done untimed, testing controlled strength at and above shoulder height. Station 7 is the victim drag: drag a 91 kg mannequin 15 metres while weaving through cones placed every 3 metres, so it is agility under load, not just a straight-line pull. Station 8 is forced entry: strike a heavily weighted tire with a 4.5 kg sledgehammer on a table at door-handle height until the tire travels 30.5 centimetres to the wall, with both your hit count and your time recorded, and the hammer rebounds, so you grip it through the whole arc.
The vest and the ankle weights
The 13.5 kg vest reads like a familiar training tool, but the 2.3 kg on each ankle is the detail that surprises candidates: ankle load multiplies the cost of every step several times over, because the weight swings at the end of the longest lever in your body. Stairs, the cone weave, and any quick footwork tax the hip flexors, tibialis, and calves far harder than the same work in a vest alone. This program treats that as a trainable specific: direct lower-leg work from week one, then stair and drag work with light ankle weights introduced deliberately in the Build phase so test day is a rehearsal rather than a shock.
Timed means ranked
The York document states plainly that you are timed on every station except the ladder lift and the search. What departments do with those times varies: some set internal cut-offs, some rank candidates against each other, and none publish a universal standard. The honest preparation is to treat every timed station as a race, and that changes how you train: transitions rehearsed, loads moved fast rather than merely moved, and repeat efforts practiced on short rest so the sixth hard effort of the day looks like the first. Candidates who train each event in isolation, fresh, at a comfortable pace, meet a very different test than the one they prepared for.
Heights and confined spaces are screened, not assumed
Two stations exist mostly to find out whether height and confinement rattle you: the 12.2 metre ladder climb with a task at the top, and the blacked-out search. Neither is trained by strength work; both are trained by exposure. This program schedules short, safe comfort drills: ladder time where you have legal access to one, controlled breathing practice, and blindfolded search patterns done on the floor of a room with a partner present, never at height, never in an actual enclosure, and never alone. The goal is that on test day your hands do the counting while your breathing stays boring.
Booking, validity, and cost
Fitness York runs the assessment at York University in Toronto and releases testing dates by request: registration is by email at fityork@yorku.ca or by phone at 416 736 5794. Budget in the range of 200 to 300 dollars and confirm the current fee when you book, since it changes and is not published on a public page. Regina candidates book through the University of Regina instead, and Richmond BC candidates should read their posting closely since it accepts more than one pathway. Where departments state a validity window it is typically 6 months, which is half of what most other Canadian tests allow, so time your booking against the posting deadline rather than testing at your earliest convenience.
Equipment, honestly
Every session is written for a full gym and carries substitutions for two leaner setups: minimal equipment, meaning a loadable backpack or duffel, a rope or towel, and household objects, and a stairwell-and-vest setup, meaning stairs plus a weighted vest or pack. The York-specific implements are improvised the same way our other programs do it: a duffel built up toward the 91 kg mannequin, a tire or loaded sled for the 70 kg hose advance, a rope over a bar for the 20 metre hoist and lower, a sledgehammer on a tire where you have one and diagonal chops where you do not. Ankle weights are the one purchase worth making for this test; a pair costs less than the retest fee.
The 12 weeks
Benchmarks
Test yourself every four weeks so peak week holds no surprises.
- Week 4: Engine and grip baseline. Two numbers on one day, fresh. First: a 12-minute run test on a treadmill at 1 percent grade or a flat course, covering as much distance as you can hold with an even effort; record the metres. The 45 mL/kg/min aerobic standard the York research recommends sits near 2,500 m on this test, so the gap between your number and that line is your Build-phase assignment. Rest 15 minutes. Second: a single max-duration towel hang; record the seconds. The rope hoist and lower, the hose carry, and the drags all draw on that account.
- Week 8: Five-station vest circuit. In a 13 kg vest, five stations with exactly 3 minutes of standing rest between each, every one timed: a five-flight stair climb carrying 30 kg on one shoulder (swap shoulders at the turnaround), 6 hand-over-hand rope hoists and lowers at your heaviest smooth load, a 15 m heavy drag out and back, 20 hard sledgehammer strikes or diagonal chops, and a 15 m backwards drag weaving three cones. Record every time and note which station degraded most, because that station owns your Peak phase. If you have ankle weights, wear them for the stair climb only.
- Week 12: Taper rehearsal. A confidence pass at about 85 percent intensity: the same five-station circuit in the vest, plus one 10-minute treadmill effort that touches your hard-but-sustainable incline pace for 2 minutes in the middle. Then close the logistics: booking confirmed with Fitness York or your department's testing centre, the fee arranged, clothing and footwear chosen and worn in training at least once, and the four-hour day planned with food and water. Nothing new on test day.
Companion training app
Train and track it in Semparo Strength
Reading the plan is one thing; running it is another. Semparo Strength is our training app, and every fitness program we build lives inside it. The full A/B five-by-five strength program, custom interval and rest timers, and readiness, sleep, and nutrition logging are free for everyone. Every 12-week test program we publish, Fire Test Foundation, Fire Test Foundation + Swim, CPAT, OFAI FPAT, WFX-FIT, University of Alberta Evaluation, York Firefighter Fitness Assessment, Red Deer Polytechnic FPAT, CFFM FPFE, Gledhill Protocol (Halifax), F.A.R.E., and VO2 Max Builder, unlocks with the Fitness unlock or Semparo Pro, with workout-by-workout tracking and the readiness ring. It runs in the browser and installs to a phone home screen in two taps.
