This area by far is probably the most neglected aspect of survivalism.  How easy do you think it’ll be to make a shelter if you get winded climbing a flight of stairs?  So you know how to find/purify water, but what if you have to lower yourself down into a ravine to get that water and carry it back up to your camp?  So you know how to hunt and gather food.  How easy do you think it will be to carry/drag that deer you killed or that bag full of foraged edibles back to your shelter?  Knowing you will get weaker the longer you go without food, don’t you think it might be a good idea to have a strong, healthy body that you spend time building up your strength and endurance?  That way you’ll be stronger and more functional for a longer stretch of time than if you’re out of shape?  Another side benefit, irrespective of any training you might have, being in shape allows you to defend yourself much better.

  Before I get too far into this, I’ll start by saying that I was an AFTA certified personal trainer before an injury I sustained took me out of the running for over a year.  For some reason, dropping a truck on your foot (or more accurately, the break rotor on the front left of a Ford Ranger while it was still attached), then trying to pull the aforementioned truck off of said foot really isn’t good for a shoulder.  For at least 3 months, I couldn’t really raise my arm much above shoulder level without a lot of pain and it hurt to move faster than a medium paced walk for almost 6 month..  This type of injury kinda takes the wind out of your sails surprisingly enough.  Unfortunately, I got out of shape because of it.  I had gotten the certification so I could actually start officially being a personal trainer, instead of just giving people pointers.  Since that was about 2 years ago, I’ve since decided I didn’t want to be a personal trainer, especially since I still haven’t fully gotten back into good shape yet.  It seems it’s a lot easier to get out of shape (yes, I know, round is a shape) than to get into shape.

  Now that you know I have a least some type of background knowledge on how to get in shape and/or train, I’ll put forth some tips, tactics, and ideas on how one might get into shape.