Physical Fitness, Firearms, and Prepping

The old joke “What do you call a fat, out of shape prepper? A resupply point!” hits home for a lot of us. The rebuttal of “Don’t mess with old people; they're too tired to fight and too broke to run. They’ll just shoot you!” also hits home. A firearm can make up for a lack of physical prowess as long as the operator is capable, but the truth remains that having stuff isn’t the same as being prepared. We must also have situational competence to get through the interruption of normalcy in order to be prepared, which means both physical fitness and firearms skills are important to maximizing your chances for a successful return to normal.

So how fit is fit enough? How well-trained is well-trained enough? These are serious questions without hard answers. I hope that this article can frame this situation as one of risk management, allowing readers to apply some context to their prepping goals to come up with a personal answer. What follows is purely my opinion, based on the assumption that you won't need to "escape and evade" through fifty miles of enemy infested territory, but might need to deliver some food or medicine to some people just on the far edge of handheld radio range. 

Fitness

There are two ways to be athletic: the first is to move objects, the second is to move your body. I believe that the second type is the most applicable type of athleticism to a prepping lifestyle. You should be able to:

• run two miles without stopping to walk;
• do 20 push-ups without going to your knees;
• do 40 sit-ups with your hands crossed over your chest. 

If you can’t run for medical reasons, an eight mile bicycle ride without stopping is about the same level of endurance fitness, as is a three mile brisk walk. Even if you go the “power lifter” fitness route, a brisk three mile walk is a good thing to do on the regular.

There are no time limits for any of these, but this level of fitness means that should you need to “get out, on foot, right now” you have the endurance to go several miles, and the upper body strength to negotiate moderate obstacles. Anything beyond this level of fitness is absolutely great. 

One benefit for running as exercise is that other than shoe costs, it is very, very cheap. Running shoes can get expensive, so learn what type of runner you are and what type of shoes work best for you. There are a lot of online articles on how to do a wet footprint test, or how to analyze your running stride, but to get started just head to a shoe store that you can afford and purchase a dedicated set of running shoes that give you enough room to wiggle your toes and feel good throughout the entire range of motion. Once you wear out those shoes, you should have a better idea of what you want in the replacement pair.

An additional benefit of fitness is that eventually you don’t look like a victim. In the victim selection process, human predators look for the ones very unlikely to offer resistance, and physically fit people, whether they be skinny endurance runners or big fit power lifters, don’t look like easy prey. Ironically, being fit means you are less likely to encounter one of the scenarios where being fit is a benefit to your survival outcome! However, even if you cannot achieve that outward appearance of fitness, a level of confidence and awareness can make up for that in dissuading predators from selecting you as prey.

Firearms

I believe that for most people, “well-trained enough” is when you can draw your pistol from concealment and engage three different six-inch round targets at three, five, and seven yards with first shot hits in under five seconds. Once you can do that, it is less about attending “gun school” and more about dry fire practice and live range repetitions to hone the skills you have (tighter groups, faster split times, etc.). This is definitely a minimum, but it is a challenging minimum for many, many gun owners. I won’t go into rifle and shotgun skills here, but I do encourage every rifle owner to attend a Project Appleseed class if they haven’t.

The obvious benefit for firearm training is that you are confident in your ability to accurately place fire under stress. This doesn’t necessarily mean you are emotionally ready to deal with the aftermath of using a firearm, no matter how justified; it just means that you have an increased probability of survival. Even if you’re completely out of shape, I believe it’s worth it to find a firearms instructor who can help you hone your skills under relevant scenarios (such as drawing and firing from concealment). Don’t “wait to get in shape” to get to training; participate to the maximum extent you can, because the body you have is the one you have to operate.

Final Thoughts

I practice what I preach, and since 2015 I’ve lost 20 lbs, started running half marathons (one or two a year), and joined a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school where I train two to five times a week. I’m objectively in better physical shape now, and am likely a better shot with a pistol (probably about the same with a rifle).

I hope this article give you food for thought and inspiration to action. Remember: we don’t rise to the occasion, we sink to our lowest level of competence. Raising that baseline of competence for fitness and firearms training is well worth the time and energy.