What do you guys think about exercise after the sh** goes down? on one hand, being in physical condition can do wonders for your ability to function in a long term survival situation, but on the other hand, exercise obviously burns calories, meaning you'll need more food to sustain yourself.
exercise post shtf
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Your absolutely right. You have to maintain your endurance levels in case something does go to S***.
At my BOL we have some second hand exercise equipment. Believe it or not I actually have a bowflex up there that I found in a dumpster. Just missing a few parts, that were easily ordered off the net. Anyways back on subject.
You should have patrols going in your area that will keep you burning calories, but just remember the more calories you burn the more you will have to replace. Not an issue if you have a decent food stock.
We use wood to heat (mostly) so chopping wood is a great way to stay in shape. Is noise a concern? Then your firewood has to be cut by handsaw instead of chainsaw, and or chopped my axe. Tending to the garden also keeps you lean, depending on the chore. Are you know digging fighting positions in case things really go bad? That's a big calorie burner right there when your digging a hole five foot deep, five feet long, and three foot wide, through dirt, rocks, and or clay.
Do you have to haul in water form a nearby stream if the grid goes down? Two five gallon buckets of water, hauled over 50-100yards especially up hill can be a real a** kicker.
What I am saying is there is allot of chores you will have to accomplish if S really does hit the F. I think your cardio is going to suffer some. Its not like running three four five miles is going to be very feasible if you have to be armed most of the time. Not to mention if you have to be fighting ready. If you have to be fighting ready at all times then you don't want to totally exhaust yourself right before a firefight.
Hope this helps.
At my BOL we have some second hand exercise equipment. Believe it or not I actually have a bowflex up there that I found in a dumpster. Just missing a few parts, that were easily ordered off the net. Anyways back on subject.
You should have patrols going in your area that will keep you burning calories, but just remember the more calories you burn the more you will have to replace. Not an issue if you have a decent food stock.
We use wood to heat (mostly) so chopping wood is a great way to stay in shape. Is noise a concern? Then your firewood has to be cut by handsaw instead of chainsaw, and or chopped my axe. Tending to the garden also keeps you lean, depending on the chore. Are you know digging fighting positions in case things really go bad? That's a big calorie burner right there when your digging a hole five foot deep, five feet long, and three foot wide, through dirt, rocks, and or clay.
Do you have to haul in water form a nearby stream if the grid goes down? Two five gallon buckets of water, hauled over 50-100yards especially up hill can be a real a** kicker.
What I am saying is there is allot of chores you will have to accomplish if S really does hit the F. I think your cardio is going to suffer some. Its not like running three four five miles is going to be very feasible if you have to be armed most of the time. Not to mention if you have to be fighting ready. If you have to be fighting ready at all times then you don't want to totally exhaust yourself right before a firefight.
Hope this helps.
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For many of us, sedentary jobs and lifestyle make it a necessity for us to exercise intentionally, always looking for ways to squeak a work out into our day. When the demands of the new lifestyle require everyone to engage in physical activity all day for some of even our most basic needs, then that will be more than a daily work out. If we weren't already in shape, we will get shaped up pretty quick!
However, depending on individual needs, additional training would be beneficial- whether to be able to perform a task better, or to balance out by performing exercises that aren't worked in the day to day tasks. As mentioned, food might be scarce. If it is, then choices need to be made based on that. In summation, if there is enough recovery water and nutrients to warrant it, then proceed with exercise.
However, depending on individual needs, additional training would be beneficial- whether to be able to perform a task better, or to balance out by performing exercises that aren't worked in the day to day tasks. As mentioned, food might be scarce. If it is, then choices need to be made based on that. In summation, if there is enough recovery water and nutrients to warrant it, then proceed with exercise.
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If SHTF ever did happen your lifestyle would becone a lot more physical. Exercise wouldn't be a problem.
Main reason people need to exercise now is because society has afforded us the leisure time to do so. Take that away, actual life becomes the exercise.
It's like with food. Modern life has given us the ability to choose what to eat. Some won't eat meat, some won't eat carbs, some won't eat the crust of bread. That won't be the case post-SHTF.
It's like with food. Modern life has given us the ability to choose what to eat. Some won't eat meat, some won't eat carbs, some won't eat the crust of bread. That won't be the case post-SHTF.
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LOL after packing water, fire wood, doing laundry by hand. You will be laughing about the idea of exercising at the end of one of those days.
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Well, speaking as someone who lives a rustic life, you get plenty of exercise chopping wood, carrying water, hauling animal feed, tossing hay bales, digging holes, and so on. Plus I have two young children. 
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Having grew up on a farm where we still used a wood burning stove to heat the house and cook on, with a garden and live stock to be tended too its a lot of work. Two a Days during high school foot ball were a joke to me!
Chopping up several cords of wood with a Ax and Saw aint no joke and quiet a work out. Tilling a Garden is a back breaking task that will make you feel like an old man quick and help you discover muscles you didnt know you had! Digging fence post holes aint fun either. When we got a tractor and a auger I thought I died and went to heaven. Humping bales of hay a couple of times a year was a back killer too. Pulling a couple out of the barn a week during the winter wasnt a whole lot easier either. I probably did more work in the hour before breakfast than most other teens in high school did all week. By the time summer got here I was busy picking through bushel baskets of Green Beans and shelling Peas after sun down while watching TV before bed. Spent the better part of the day in the kitchen with Mom canning forever begin...I still have nightmares when I see a canning jar!
Now once the SHTF, and you cant go to the grocery store and buy your food, and you cant just write a check for the electricity and gas, hump your water further than across the store parking lot to your vehicle, I think your going to find that you get enough activity in during the day that not only will you not really have any time to work out, you will be too wore out and beat down to work out.
There is a reason for the saying..."A cowboys work is just never done". Once the SHTF, I suspect you will be able to relate a lot more to that than you do now.
Chopping up several cords of wood with a Ax and Saw aint no joke and quiet a work out. Tilling a Garden is a back breaking task that will make you feel like an old man quick and help you discover muscles you didnt know you had! Digging fence post holes aint fun either. When we got a tractor and a auger I thought I died and went to heaven. Humping bales of hay a couple of times a year was a back killer too. Pulling a couple out of the barn a week during the winter wasnt a whole lot easier either. I probably did more work in the hour before breakfast than most other teens in high school did all week. By the time summer got here I was busy picking through bushel baskets of Green Beans and shelling Peas after sun down while watching TV before bed. Spent the better part of the day in the kitchen with Mom canning forever begin...I still have nightmares when I see a canning jar!
Now once the SHTF, and you cant go to the grocery store and buy your food, and you cant just write a check for the electricity and gas, hump your water further than across the store parking lot to your vehicle, I think your going to find that you get enough activity in during the day that not only will you not really have any time to work out, you will be too wore out and beat down to work out.
There is a reason for the saying..."A cowboys work is just never done". Once the SHTF, I suspect you will be able to relate a lot more to that than you do now.
9 sets of 3 count WOOD CHOPPERS
8 sets of 2 count WOOD STACKERS
7 sets of WATER BUCKETS
6 sets of long range DEER DRAGS
5 sets of CABIN BUILDING
4 sets......
Yeah, you'll get your excercise postSHTF... If you dont, you will die. Not from heart disease or diabetes, but from exposure and starvation
8 sets of 2 count WOOD STACKERS
7 sets of WATER BUCKETS
6 sets of long range DEER DRAGS
5 sets of CABIN BUILDING
4 sets......
Yeah, you'll get your excercise postSHTF... If you dont, you will die. Not from heart disease or diabetes, but from exposure and starvation
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I don't think exercise (as in going for a run or going to the gym) will be necessary. Physical activity on the other hand, it will be inevitable. It all depends on why you mean by the **** going down and how bad you think things will get.
I think it will deepend on what type of exercise you do. Post shtf you will be doing a good deal of manual labor. You should be a leaner version of your curent self, however will you be stronger or have better indurance? Exerting your self and moving will keep you thin, but running for several miles to get help in an emergency or having the power to pick something or some one up that has to be is a matter of training. Thought should still be given to calculated exercise.
In a bunker type scenario I was thinking you could kill two birds with one stone by using a pedal bike generator. It would help solve problems with exercise and power. You could of course do it above ground but I think you would probably want to get your exercise from more productive things like scouting, hunting, building, etc... Gonna have to do a lot of that post-shtf.
I plan to work smarter not harder I think many will find they won't lose weight as fast as those who little to no food and so I think planning to continue to work out and at first staying low and out of sight will be smart.
I can see injuries that may occur that could mean you may have to exercise afterward so having books on physical therapy and such certainly can't hurt.
Get fit now but don't but consider if things start to look bad you may want to appear a little heavier then you actually are so when things make a final turn you can look like your losing as others who have nothing.
It's easier to bigger then you are but hard to look thinner then you actually are.
I can see injuries that may occur that could mean you may have to exercise afterward so having books on physical therapy and such certainly can't hurt.
Get fit now but don't but consider if things start to look bad you may want to appear a little heavier then you actually are so when things make a final turn you can look like your losing as others who have nothing.
It's easier to bigger then you are but hard to look thinner then you actually are.
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I don't understand your idea that manual labor will make you leaner but not make you stronger. That manual labor will be about 10-12 hours a day in a survival situation. You will be using muscles, strengthening them, awakening muscle groups that a gym workout only plays with, getting back to the type of fitness that ensures survival because it strengthens the muscles needed to do the tasks at hand.
And not for 20 minutes but for the number of hours each day that you have to cut trees, section and split the wood, carry it, stack it. Remember you aren't just getting wood for cooking and heating that day. You need to be stockpiling for the coming winter. Add to that just getting the water to irrigate your crop, or just your 1/2 acre garden. Which needs weeding and inspecting every day. And much more. You'll have the strength to pick someone up. Whether you'll have the speed for running, I don't know. But, you'll have the stamina.
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