Be fit enough to fight if you have to

(Bugout.news) In recent days, Britain’s Daily Mail Online reported an alarming figure: That the world is growing fatter and fatter, and that within a decade, one-fifth of the world’s population could be obese.

According to the report, China and the U.S. have the most obese citizens, with the U.S. being the leading country for what the newspaper termed “super-obese.”

What’s more, the report noted, there is no end in sight: Experts now predict that nearly 650 million of the world’s 7.1 billion people are obese, and that figure is rising rapidly as we consume more and more food that is simply not conducive to good health.

The report, based on a 40-year study published recently in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet, found the global rate of adult obesity has more than tripled in men, to 11 percent, and more than doubled in women, to 15 percent. The research was led by scientists from Imperial College London and included data supplied by the World Health Organization; it found that the obesity trend is much more pronounced in Western countries, where one-fifth of the world’s adults live in just a half-dozen English-speaking nations: The UK, the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

“This epidemic of severe obesity is too extensive to be tackled with medications such as blood pressure lowering drugs or diabetes treatments alone, or with a few extra bike lanes,” said Prof. Majid Ezzati, from Imperial College London, who led the research. “We need coordinated global initiatives – such as looking at the price of healthy food compared to unhealthy food, or taxing high sugar and highly processed foods.”

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While those global initiatives may work, that’s immaterial for our purposes. The more pressing issue for those of us who have spent time and money preparing for a post-modern collapse, should it happen, we need to be much more concerned about our corner of the world and how we will survive in it.

And that means being fit – fit enough, even, to fight, because it may very likely come to that.

We’ve discussed the importance of fitness in the past, but in terms of being able to move from place to place with your gear. And while the ability to hike a bugout bag several miles is a vital skill that requires a certain level of fitness, being able to fight your way out of a bad situation requires an even higher level. Plus, most of us don’t get into actual fights very often, if at all, so it’s not like we’ve got a lot of practice, either.

With all of this in mind, coupled with a good, honest assessment of yourself and your current physical abilities (and limitations), here are some activities to consider in order to get yourself in better fighting condition:

Aerobic/cardio means better combat readiness. If you’ve ever been in the military, you know how much emphasis is placed on cardio-fitness. That’s because military fitness experts have long known that someone can be the strongest person in the unit and be nearly useless if they can’t carry out their duties during combat, duties that require endurance as well as strength.

So cardio has got to be part of your fitness regimen. During the first few moments of a physical altercation, pure adrenalin will carry you through, but if the fight lasts longer than a minute or so, your adrenaline will expend itself and you’ll have to begin relying on your physical abilities and conditioning if you’re going to come out on top.

Good cardio-fitness workouts include:

* Biking

* Hiking (with a pack – and one that has some weight to it)

* Jogging (distance)

* Sprinting (40 yards for as many reps as you can do – but start out with just a few if you’ve not done any sprinting in a while, and make sure you stretch first and after)

Strength training is also important. You not only want to be able to outlast your opponent, but you want to be able to overpower him/her as well. You don’t need to worry about getting a chiseled physique, just gaining strength, and some rudimentary strength-training exercises include:

* Bench press

* Leg press

* Overhead press

* Curls

* Triceps extensions

* Back

Also, learning some basic fighting skills is essential as well. For this, you can try these workouts:

* Kickboxing (this teaches some basic fighting skills as well as being a great cardio workout)

* Hitting a heavy bag (learn some basic punches first – jab, hook, uppercut, round-house – and then practice them on the heavy bag, which you can usually find at a gym if you don’t have one)

* Practice wrestling moves – get your “ground game” on by learning how to subdue someone and/or get out of being subdued

Nothing comes overnight, of course, but getting started on these and other cardio/combat exercise workouts now will put you far ahead of the game if or when the time comes that you’ll need to rely on your physical attributes to keep you and yours safe. As the Daily Mail Online reported, a great many of our fellow citizens are not going to be prepared when the time comes; don’t you be one of them.

Before starting ANY workout regimen, consult your health care specialist first and make sure you are healthy enough to do so.

See also:

Daily Mail Online

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