What's typically lacking with "preppers?"  

Physical fitness. How do I know this? Well I've interacted with tens of thousands of like minded people over the 38 years I've personally been preparing as well as the 32 years I've been interacting with like minded folks in business.

Why is this lacking? Are people not taking it seriously enough because they really think "adrenaline will get me through" (commonly heard excuse).

I do it largely as a stress relief. My time running, at the gym doing combatives and at the range shooting are stress relievers for me. Hard to get too worked up about the normal BS of the day when your going over that hill again on the 2nd mile, or when someone is trying to choke you or punch you in the face.

Fitness helps your health, which means less down time at doctors, less MEDS to stock, etc. I'm over that proverbial "hill" now and when I do infrequently go to a med exam, the nurse often doesn't believe me when I say all I take daily is vitamins. "No sir, I mean stuff like diabetic medicine, something for your heart.."   Yes ma'am I know what you mean. A couple times a year I get a sinus infection, take some doxy at home and perhaps a quarter of a prednisone for a day or two."

"But you see Lowdown3 I don't plan to have to (insert any survival situation involving effort- BO, fighting, etc.)"

Well that's good that you will have total control over what situation happens, when it happens, where you will be and what you will have to do in that situation, that's a pretty awesome super power!

I carried around a lot of extra weight for a lotta damn years. I was able to go farther than a lot of dudes 50 or 70 lbs. lighter than me. But that wasn't good for my body and my structure either. Back in 09 I started cutting weight for fights/competition, going from over 220 down to a low of 172. I normally reside around 185 now and that seems to be a comfortable weight for me.

Around Memorial Day a lot of people do a "Murph" challenge. It consists of 2 mile run with plate carrier and plates, 300 squats, 200 pushups and 100 pull ups. Often the pull ups are substituted with a mix of burpees or people use the assistance bands.

Consider doing this or a half Murph. You got a couple weeks to practice for it. Good luck and post about your PT!

Did a full Murph again yesterday with the family. Particularly sucked because I worked all day at our range doing framing on a FOF house we are building there.

We don't have a pull up bar at the house so we sub'ed burpees for the pull ups. I didn't check the temp, but this was about 5pm so had to be pushing 90 or better.

Skipped wearing a shirt under my plate carrier. This allowed more air in but seemed to work against me with the sweat. No shirt to soak it up and it ended up soaking my shorts. Shorts made that noise like swim trunks do after you get out of the water, and felt like I had been swimming in them. Maybe a small shirt like a wife beater style would work to allow more air flow but catch sweat a bit- I live in the woods but I don't have one of those shirts LOL.

Just over a month out of a foot injury where I dropped a board on my foot from about 5 foot up. Taking calcium citrate and D3 daily seemed to have helped if I did have a minor fracture there. Other foot has plantar  fibromatosis (slightly different than plantar fasciatis). I got a steroid shot in that foot about two months ago and it seemed to help a bit, but I can still feel the discomfort. Getting old sucks, don't do it!

Definitely another one on the list.

Unfortunately the (piss poor) idea of being able to live amongst tens of thousands of unprepared and system dependent people (cities and suburbs) in a true bad situation has become common place BS amongst newer "preppers." Fiction stories written have pushed this be the "savior of the subdivision" mentality where the one lone prepper becomes the savior of the area. Magically no one shanks him in the middle of the night for his stuff, but everyone bows to his great ideas and "bands together" and all quietly starve together while "Joe prepper" somehow doesn't.

It's easier to read BS like that and try to justify your location, versus making real lifestyle changes.



Family can be your biggest asset or your biggest liability. If you have the standard Amerikan family structure (Mom running it, kids second tier and then the Homer Simpson dunskie Dad) then it's likely towards the liability side of the equation. If the family has real leadership, knows how to physically work together towards a common goal, the kids are behaved, listen the first time without stupid counting exercises (weak parenting) and the family has some experience living with a little hardship, then it's probably more towards the asset side of the equation.

You need families, but the caveat being squared away ones, not the typical upside down BS ones.

I've seen soooo many males that could have been great leaders of their families that relegated themselves to being whiny little B's either because of a overpowering wife (Jezebel spirit) or (more likely) they were not willing to deal with the RESPONSIBILITY of leadership in the family. These "males" unfortunately are the ones that you can spend years trying to develop, train, etc. only to have the wife no longer "let them" (key word to look for=nutless) continue to train/prepare, etc.

This sort of thing, like the PT in the OP, are the serious issues most "preppers" are avoiding, while wasting time wargaming "lists" of things they will never acquire or never do.

Did a full Murph yesterday again, late afternoon. For some reason this year the pushups are dogging me near the end....

We split it up with 5 sets of the calisthenics then 1 mile run, then 5 more sets, then 1 mile run again then 5 more sets. End up doing about 25 more pushups than necessary but with that and some extra burpees thrown in for lack of a pull up bar at home.

Nice!!!



If it's what I'm thinking about you can do similar with 25 lb. and higher kettlebells. Gripping the handles with your wrists either straight with the body or turned sideways. Or change them as you are doing pushups- one direction the other a different direction, etc.

Tough one today!!! It said the "real feel" temperature was 97 degrees. Wife did it with us today and used my plate carrier and I wore one with heavier plates. Can't tell if it was the slight weight difference, the heat or that we didn't have any lunch but darn if it kicked my arse today. Got it done, but did walk about 50 yards up a hill on the 2nd mile.

All these and more.

I used to give talks at conventions, etc. The main one was regarding all of these types of things that are basically the problems with preppers.

Family "not on board", out of shape, too many "plans" and "lists" with too little action/initiative, thinking they can be 1/4 mile outside a large metropolis and do fine, gear they have never really used, training and skills they are  lacking in, etc. etc.

Preparedness is NOT an extended shopping trip and OCD fest. You need gear, sure, but there is a helluva lot more to it than that.

I don't really think it's any "better" doing this kind of workout in the morning. Hell if anything it felt more humid.

Yesterday, 11am'ish.  I think our running spot, a good portion of which is down a paved road, is more open to the sun then it is normally in the later afternoon when we normally run or Murph.



Soaked.

A little tougher yesterday mid morning. Walked about 50 yards up the hill on the 2nd mile. Found my heart rate seemed a little higher than normal at the end during the last round of pushups and squats.
The rest of the family all felt like it was worse in the mid morning also.

Doesn't really matter, matters more when it's convenient time for you, as you will do it more when the time is convenient versus making excuses.

Been averaging 43-45 minutes doing this at home. Did it today with the whole crew and included the pull ups/assistance bands. It was a little over 45 minutes today. Family finished around 50 minutes.

The folks we did it with today break it up a little different, doing a mile run then doing all the exercises in 10 sets, then the 2nd mile run. This seemed to beat the hell out of my legs more and the 2nd mile was considerably harder than it is at home. This despite not having any hills!

Correct. I should have added the standard physical disclaimer=

"check with your doctor first. If you've been just sitting around on your arse for years, jumping into something like this wouldn't be a good idea."

Seriously though.  For some a "challenge" may be walking that first mile, etc. And it's important to look at things like this as way points or goals as far as PT goes, definitely not starting points.

Basically it's the Nike slogan-  "just do it" only "it" means SOMETHING!! If you do "something" regularly your body will open up to doing more.

LOL.

If you have to "justify" physical fitness you don't get any of this (survivalism) at all.



I realize most newer "preppers" were raised on the Doomsday Dunskies show, which of course featured people that were heavily tilted to one side of a spectrum or towards a specific scenario. I realize that stupid frickin show helped ruin part of the survival movement.

However, having actually dealt with tens of thousands of like minded people over damn near 40 years now, including tons in person, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that only a very small percentage are JUST doing this one thing or concerned with JUST one scenario.

Most SERIOUS like minded people are pretty well rounded, and I don't mean in the mid section. What I mean is they have the "food, water and housing figured out" while also working on their physical fitness. It's just like this current thread about nuke preparation- the "Cuban missile crisis 2" thread. It's absolutely stupid to assume someone who has gone to the trouble of moving away from target areas, perhaps building a fallout shelter, etc.  People that have gone to that extent to protect their FAMILY, do you really think their preps aren't well rounded, i.e, several years of food, homesteads, weapons and Skill at Arms (another thing sorely lacking with most "preppers") as well as skill sets, physical fitness, AE energy, an actual survival group, the list goes on and on.

Are people really that stupid to think that there are individuals that solely only 100% put their eggs into one basket/scenario in planning? It was a TV show people, nothing more! No one is actually preparing for the attack of the mutant zombie polar bears!

The problem is so many haven't actually MET and interacted with many other like  minded people, i.e, TRAINED and sweated with them. Sitting around some BS "prepper" meeting at a conference center is not what I'm talking about here.

And who do you think is going to


Seriously? Your family can't exercise with you?

As far as the "lone wolf" thing- so your saying if you are actually a part of a functioning group then physical fitness goes out the window? Get in the group and then let yourself go to hell physically? Not be able to pull your share? Even in the BS prepper fiction "savior of the subdivision" fantasy there is going to be WORK. Why? Cause survival=WORK.

Hell to the yeah!!

One of the reasons we did the Murph again this year was because my wife really enjoyed us all doing it together as a family. Since my boy was about 6 we used to run/walk a couple miles together as a family quite regularly. We still do, but altogether is a lot less often due to jobs, work, school, etc. The boy and I do combatives together but the wife does a different exercise/workout class. So she really enjoys it when we all do stuff together.

The pullups are the only thing I/anyone I know have to substitute on.

If you can do 100 pull ups inside of an hour along with the other stuff, your a helluva stud and I'll go on record right now with that.