Ok, when the disaster your prepared right? You have your bug out bag full of everything you’ll possibly consider, you have a bug out location picked out that’s only ten miles away, you have got picked some completely different routes that you can drive there and a few if you have to walk.
Or let’s say you’ve got no plans to bug out and you’ve got lots of land to plant a garden, your water catchment system is top notch and you have some livestock that may assist you be independent for a long time to come, so you’re prepared for anything right?
A well thought out set up is important to your survival when your life gets turned upside down. However running through situations in your mind burns zero calories, and running for your life with a fifty pound bug out bag on are going to be much more challenging than you think.
If you’re not prepared physically to travel ten miles on foot, otherwise you aren’t prepared for a few hard labor working on your homestead, your well thought out plan won’t work out as well as you thought it would.
We don’t necessarily need to go to the gym twice per week and run on the treadmill with a backpack filled with twenty pound weights, however we do need to ensure our bodies are able to handle the physical labor if it ever comes to that.
If you look at photos of people during to the good depression you don’t see many of us who appeared like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rambo, you see that most folks that weighed between a hundred and one hundred fifty pounds. These folks weren’t specifically healthy because of their situation, however they may probably out work most people these days.
If I needed facilitate chopping firewood or raising a barn i would choose somebody who lived sixty years ago over the modern gym rat any day, somebody who is 250 pounds of pure muscle may be prepared to cut down a tree quicker than a a hundred and fifty pound man, however at the end of the day that a hundred and fifty pound man who is accustomed to manual labor can out work the gym rat.
Why is this? Because the gym rat is employed to a specific exercise routine that sometimes involves working out for an hour each day. The boys and girls who lived through the depression had to work fifteen hours a day just to survive and had endurance.
Basic Training
The military could be a excellent example of this moreover, when somebody chooses to join the military they’re going through hell during basic training. They don’t simply work out each day to get buff and look intimidating, they’re bodies get pushed to their limits so that they will endure what they may need to face in the field.
I’m not saying we need to go through something just like the basic training that our service men have to, however we do need to put ourselves through some type of personal basic training. We’d like to be prepared and ready to push ourselves when the going gets rough, and have the endurance to handle life without all the luxuries we have these days.
How Far Have You Walked With Your Bug Out Bag On?
It’s great to own all the food, water and provides to get you through some kind of disaster situation, however how long are you able to travel with your bug out bag on. Apply walking with your bug out bag on, begin with a 1 mile walk and work your way up. But keep your health in mind, if your health doesn’t physically permit you to do this you may need to have a special set up in mind. You don’t need to jeopardize your health now for one thing which may or may not happen in the future.
I don’t suppose i would feel comfortable walking around town park wearing my molle assault pack, and i think with the manner folks are these days you may get a little more attention than you wanted. Try going somewhere a little more secluded and apply walking with your bug out bag on for an hour at first and increase the time as you are feeling comfortable.
If you have to you can get a daily backpack and load it with one thing that weighs an equivalent as your bug out bag, but keep in mind that it’ll be different because of how the load are distributed in your actual bug out bag.
Be the Mule
There could be times when you need to collect firewood, set traps or you don’t have access to your bug out bag. In these things you’ll need to figure out a way to carry what you need without the luxurious of a back pack. We have all seen the pictures of the child running away from home with a bandanna tied to a stick, but this might seriously be a scenario you’re put into.
Practice carrying something sort of a gallon of water or a log over your shoulder and see how long you can do it. Initially it’ll be no huge deal, however as time goes on a ten pound log or gallon of water will begin to feel like it weighs one hundred pounds.
Put Away the Fancy Toys
Technology is nice, with all the fancy toys we have these days to create life easier we typically lose sight of the fact that there’s over a method to skin a cat. Take for example a hand crank phone charger, these are nice if your electricity goes out, but however long may you crank that before you gave up?
Next time you cut firewood, build one thing or do something round the house, do it without something that needs electricity. i like my cordless drill, however it’s plenty more durable than I ever imagined to drill a hole with the hand drill.
Fire and Water
Another valuable tool to own in your arsenal is the ability to begin a fire and collect water, however this could be more difficult than you expect in certain situations. If it ever came to a scenario wherever rubbing two sticks together in the middle of winter meant your survival would you be ready to do it?
It is not only vital to have the information of a way to create fire, but you also need to understand that it might take a little additional effort than you expected. Try to start a fire with just dry leaves and a flint stick, you’ll see what I mean.
Collecting water could require you to walk long distances to seek out it, and after you discover it you would need to travel that same distance back with the added weight. Would you’ve got the endurance to do this? Or if you have a well, could you utilize a hand pump long enough to get water flowing?
All of those are things we take for granted these days, however just sixty years agone it had been part of lifestyle, people did this every day and didn’t give it a second thought. If any off the grid event lasted long enough i believe we would get familiar with this lifestyle, but we want to make certain we survive long enough to get to that point. If we don’t have the energy or endurance to really carry our bug out bag all the thanks to our bug out location then we might also not have it at all. If we don’t have the endurance to chop enough fire wood for a winter without electricity it may be an extended cold winter.
Just like everything else we do we are preparing ourselves to survive any sort of disaster we could face in the future. And just like everything else, if nothing ever happens we are still better off by being prepared.
Being healthy and physically ready to take on life after the disaster won’t only benefit you then, but will benefit you currently. We are our own insurance policy, and what can be a lot of vital than being prepared and ready to use the provides we have acquired?
