Life Update- Back Into It

Well I have finally kicked that pesky pneumonia thing. Last week I felt pretty decent and was able to do some light exercise like easy cardio and low rep body weight stuff with plenty of rest between sets. This week I have been able to run and am doing an easy week of weight training to get back into it. As my schedule and the weather allow I am trying to get some extra runs in after work.

There is definitely a long way to come back after a month and change of being sick and inactivity. Really the last few months haven't been great for my physically as a lot of stuff like redeployment and leave have broken up my routine. Anyway it is coming into summer which is just a great time to put some miles on running shoes and boots.

I wanted to let you know that I have recovered and an doing well.

SHTF-Oriented Fitness and Martial Arts for a Middle-Aged Couch Potato

I saw this thread 1, 2 over at Survival Blog and have to talk about it.....

Things like this always kind of bother me. It is like folks are framing a question to get an answer they want. "What is the best gun if I do not want to spend a lot of money but want something super reliable and also really cool?" or "What is the best bolt action rifle that costs less than $120 has dirt cheap ammo and was manufactured between about 1898 and 1945 in a country that borders Poland and China?" Maybe even worse folks ask for seriously sub optimal and almost ridiculous advice like "So I won't exercise at all and will continue being a huge slob, also I am not willing to spend any money or time on preparedness, have no extra space in my home and am unwilling to change my current lifestyle in any way but how do I become completely prepared for the Zombie apocalypse in 30 days?"

For folks getting back into fitness the key is to start with something that is reasonably easy (in fancy words training OPTIMALLY not MAXIMALLY) and to slowly but CONSISTENTLY  and methodically progress in difficulty and length of effort based on some reasonably logical plan. Heck, those are the keys to fitness anyway but older folks with some extra pounds and maybe some injuries can't get away with what healthy 22 year olds can.
Tighten up on your diet is so important I just can't talk about it enough. Like a lot of things as you get older the slack goes away. At 20 or 25 most folks can eat just about anything and stay at a healthy weight but that goes away over time. I am not saying that you have to shift to a perfectly healthy diet tomorrrow but just about everybody can do better. Have a bit of discipline to not eat complete junk like fast food, chips and sweets all the time and pay some attention to your portions. A significant amount of the "bad knees/ hips/ backs" of 35-55 year olds would magically be cured by getting to a reasonable body weight.
Assuming a program makes some sense ie: is progressive or scalable, allows enough time to recover, has strength, muscular endurance and running/ rucking type components and generally passes the common sense test it should be just fine. Doing something is probably more important than following the perfect program.
As to specific points that came up in this series with my comments:

"To start with, use only a few primitive techniques (punches, kicks, blocks, movements) and combinations of them. A simple well-practiced technique is far better than several of those which you won’t be able to do in the critical situation. A simple and reliable technique is far more valuable than a complex one."

I agree with this but it kind of misses a simple and valuable point. The basics are what make you a good athlete or fighter. It is honestly a disservice to call them the basics in that it demeans them and implies that there are some more useful and advanced techniques out there. The difference between a total novice and a great fighter or shooter is that a great fighter or shooter can properly apply the basics very quickly at the right time with a high level of consistency while a novice fails at some or maybe even all of those.

For example anyone could learn in an afternoon the exact same skills that Chris Costa of Magpul fame or genuine Tier 1 Bad Mama Jamma Larry Vickers use to draw and fire a handgun. Does this mean that they would be able to put a round downrange from concealed carry in the same sort of time, let alone have the same accuracy? Does it mean that Mr. Couch Commando could defend himself as efficiently as either of those gentlemen could if he was attacked leaving the Bank after cashing a check? I seriously doubt it.
If you can’t do at least 50 push-ups in a single set, your punch will never be any good."

This is just stupid and is really what bothered me enought to write this whole thing in the first place. First of all let us look at where striking "power" comes from, namely proper technique and then sheer strength.

I have been hit by a lot of people in my life. Some of them were professional fighters. A professional welterweight outpunched a few 220+ pound big strong men because he really knew exactly what he was doing. Bringing us back to the first point for a second this is a great example of mastering the basics. Secondly if we factor it out technique by getting fighters of similar skill levels then sheer raw strength (and size but those two usually rhyme) is what matters in terms of striking power. A punch is a quick aggressive movement of near full force. If you are going to exercise to hit hard you lift big heavy things to get stronger, period. Local muscular endurance, which is what max rep pushups measure has absolutely nothing to do with this other than that it may be losely related to strength.A guy who is strong (we would have to define that but I don't feel like tossing out some random arbitrary numbers) can hit hard, a guy who is REALLY STRONG can hit REALLY HARD.  Jim Wendler or Matt Kroc could hypothetically have the fighting technique of an average elementary school kid and still hit REALLY HARD because they are just that strong.
Lastly to utterly refute this concept I bring up Butterbean. I rather doubt he could do 50 good pushups but he sure hits hard.

In a reply to this post a fellow recommends training in some Japanese swordfighting thing called Kendo to get into shape. This sounds like a great plan if you want to learn traditional Japanese swordfighting but is a poor allocation of precious time and money if you want to get into shape or learn an effective modern martial art to defend yourself with. It honestly seems sort of like apprenticing yourself to a buggy whip manufacturer.
Well, those are my thoughts on that.

Winning and Losing: Eating Well, Couch to 5k, Berkey Water Filter and Solar Power

We have been making some changes lately. We have started eating a lot better. More fresh fruit and veggies, lean protien and better carbs. Less eating out, just plain junk and carbtastic blah meals. Most of it is pretty intuitive. If there are not chips in the house you won't eat chips. Having some discipline and not going out to eat every time we feel like it and that sort of thing. The carb thing is kind of a grey area with lots of folks taking different views. We have both tried the super low/ no carb thing before and it doesn't work for us. She just hates it and I am tired and weak all the time. Instead we are trying to eat more reasonable portions of wheat bread or tortillas and brown rice. Just avoiding the huge bowl of white rice or plate of pasta kind of meals. We both feel a lot better and are getting healthier.
Wifey has been doing Couch to 5k. She is midway through week 6 right now. While she, like many people, does not currently and probably never will like running it is working for her. She noticed that dragging the kid up stairs has gotten easier. I would say this is a real good program for lots of people to seriously look at. If you are a fairly healthy person who is of a reasonable (like not morbidly obese) body weight but have not been very physically active this is a great way to get back to it. Toss in some sort of weight training program and you will be good to go. If you are seriously overweight or woefully out of shape it might be wise to do some sort of build up to this program, like eating reasonably and walking 1-2 times a day several days a week for a month or two to build up some conditioning and drop some fat. As always everybody should consult a general practice doctor, a dietitian, a cardiologist and a physical therapist before any sort of change to their diet or beginning any exercise program.

Personally I am cutting back to 2 times at the weight pile a week and upping my conditioning. Still doing the big lifts, just a bit more geared toward holding what I've got while conditioning gets tightened up. The human body only has so much work capacity and most of us only have so much time so there is a sort of push/ pull relationship. If you add or up the intensity in one thing you are going to almost inevitably lose ground in some other. Also inherantly between weight training and running/ cardio/ conditioning there is an inherant trade off. It isn't a bad thing really, especially for someone without many sport specific goals. Unless you plan to be a competitive marathoner or powerlifter it really isn't an issue.

On the downside our Berkey water filter is currently deadlined. I couldn't get it to seal and pass the dye test then (maybe while slightly frusterated;) I broke one of the white plastic nut/ bolt combo's that seal up the holes without an element in it while putting it back on. So I am not sure what exactly was wrong but now there is a new problem to deal with. Talk about not moving in the right direction!

This happened about three weeks ago and I put it away in frustration. I am going to get a replacement nut/ bolt and some more elements (either to replace the faulty ones or as spares) then go from there. On the bright side the good folks at Directive 21 have been great in helping me trouble shoot things and have just been a huge help with this. If I weren't such a slacking procrastinator this problem would likely already be fixed. Had I bought our Berkey from some no name fly by night folks who knows where I would be.  There are no problems that money (hopefully not very much, I really want it to be just the washer, not the element(s)!) and time can't fix. It hasn't been a huge concern because we have another water filter. Maybe there is a lesson there.

On a nice sunny day recently I busted out my little solar charger. I fiddled with it until I had a decent idea how it was supposed to work and then plugged in my kindle. After several hours in direct sunlight nothing happened and my dead kindle was still dead. This lead to a good amount of not very nice language.

 I realised a few things from this. First of all I do not know anywhere near enough about electricity. Second since we have added all sort of stuff, some pure entertainment and some useful since picking this charger up we may have already outgrown it. Third I need to test it at it's primary purpose which will be charging AA and AAA sized batteries. I am waiting for a sunny day when I have time to mess with it. Another more substantial (probably 15-26 watts) portable solar charger and maybe some sort of battery bank could be in order. However I have to do some more testing and become a more educated consumer before putting something else onto the wish list. If anybody has good resources to check out on this front I would be interested. Specifically good primers on electricity in general and a good breakdown of what watt/ size pannels can charge what sort of stuff and in how long would be great.

These two events were pretty frusterating for me. Nothing like having to go back to the drawing board or adding something else to the shopping list in an area where you thought things were good. Then again testing stuff is a good thing, even if you don't get the answers that you would like. Far better to have issues now, with the worst case being spending a little bit of money (water filter) or adjusting my expectations and maybe searching for a new piece of gear (solar charger), then some time down the road during an emergency when I need this stuff to work.

I guess the closing point is to look at eating healthier, getting into better shape plus alsp really start testing and retesting your equipment. Odds are something that should work might not.

Fitness resources and Entertainment

Couch to 5k is a great proven resource for folks to get into running for the first time or after a long break. That means to get off the couch and start running!

If you do not want to be weak and pathetic I recommend lifting heavy things on a regular basis. Personally I am having a good time and plenty of success with Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program. Here is a short write up on it. Other folks like other programs and that is fine. As long as a program is based around big core lifts like the squat, deadlift, bench press (or power clean, clean and jerk, push press, whatever) and uses some sort of a logical programing method it should be fine.

[Begin tangent/ rant. I see two things that almost inevitably come up. First is the folks who do no leg work what so ever. That is fine if your only goal is to look jacked while fist pumping at the club. You can do chest and biceps one day, biceps, back and chest another and on the last day hit your biceps, chest and tri's. You will look good in an Ed Hardy or Affliction T shirt at the club.

However if you want some go in addition to the show you must work your legs.

The next thing that comes up is "I leg press instead of squatting". That is fine if you have some injury that prevents you from actually lifting weights at the risk of debilitating injury or death, you want to be weak and not awesome or are a 75 year old woman. Unless you fit into one of those groups I recommend that you squat and deadlift.

End tangent]

Lastly if you are looking for something to read check out The Advisor. It is a novel about economic collapse and one man's attempt to protect those he loves. Much about this book is true - however, many of the names are changed to protect the guilty. I do have fibromyalgia, I do live in constant and never ending pain, and I have been blessed to have a child with Down Syndrome and several mastiffs.

But I Dowanna

Today I am going to talk about two very foolish things that a lot of otherwise well prepared people do. The first is not implementing a vigorous exercise program that involves some form of heavy resistance/ weight training as well as jogging/ running/ ruck marching. The second is failing to carry a decent fighting handgun with a reload.

There are a lot of reasons people fail to implement a quality exercise program. Laziness is the first reason that comes to mind. Either they don’t do anything or they do 20 minutes at a lethargic pace on a cardio machine. In both cases the results are pretty bad. Due to having an exercise program that pretty average elderly people can follow these folks are either fat bodies or they are “skinny fat” which is a curious blend most often found in women and metro sexual men where they are of a reasonable body weight but lack any semblance of strength, speed or endurance.

There are a lot of ways to skin the exercise cat so to speak and I am trying to be more tolerant of different methods and techniques. However if your goal is functional fitness you need to include jogging/ running/ ruck marching and lifting heavy things.

Why do you need to include these components? If you can’t figure out how running or walking fast carrying a load could be useful I don’t know how much more I can help you. As for strength it is a more complex but equally fundamental answer. All things being equal a stronger person will fair better in everything. I sort of hate that saying because all things being equal the prettier person will fair better but it is really the only way to isolate individual traits or characteristics. Strength helps in a lot of ways. It builds and hardens your bones and ligaments. Also muscles truly make the best pads. Furthermore it helps in so called endurance activities of a muscular nature. Let us say we have two weight lifters. Both can bench (or squat or whatever) 135 pounds. Jimmy Powerlifter progressively builds up so he can lift 200 pounds. Bobby keeps lifting 135 and trying to do more reps. Jimmy will be able to lift 135 as many or likely many more times than Bobby because it is a far lower percentage of his total capability. Also Jimmy can lift 185 pounds or 200 pounds and Bobby can’t.

Now don’t get me wrong I love body weight exercises but they do not replace weights any more than weights can replace them. (Yes I have heard of and read convict conditioning. I have a post on it in the que) This is particularly true for the lower body. All the air squats in the world won’t build the muscles in your legs like getting under the bar and squatting.

The second reason is that folks mistakenly think that because they do something or another slightly physical they don’t need to actually exercise. I walk around at work or I do work on the “farm”. There is a big difference between moving around a few hay bales a day and doing the kind of brutal work that occurred in an 19th century working farm. With the exception of people like park rangers who walk 10+ miles a day carrying a load or carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, etc who do heavy physical labor on a regular basis (multiple times a week) you won’t get the kind of exercise you need incidentally. Even then the ranger needs to hit the weights and the carpenter needs to do some cardio.

Look at it this way. If you had a to choose a partner for a physical challenge would you want one that ran and lifted weights or one who walked or used an elliptical and the ab roller? What about if you had to fight a random person? I would fight the weakling who malingers on cardio machines or whatever other pseudo workout junk because there is a decent chance I could break him in half because I regularly lift heavy things.

Now we will transition to the topic of carrying a handgun. (Yes there are places where you can not legally carry a handgun. Most of the regions of the US where you can’t carry a gun suck and I would not recommend living there. However if you work or frequent places where a handgun is not legal then there are some decisions to make. In particular if we are talking about a place with actively enforced (searches, metal detectors) laws like government buildings versus a place with passive laws or regulations, like a parking lot, there are not great options. Other times it is just not practical to carry a gun like for example if you are swimming. However it is prudent to carry whenever it is legal and practical.) I wonder a lot about people who are really into preparedness and tactical stuff but don’t carry. Odds are high that violence will come when you least expect it and are not at home. All the sweet rifles and custom 1911’s in the world won’t help you if they are locked in a gun safe at home. However I guess they just aren’t worried. Folks living quiet lives in sleepy little towns might just not feel the need. I have heard “I carry when I go into the city” before. I won’t say I agree with that idea but I can kind of see where they are coming from.

An animal that interests me more is the person who carries but chooses a totally impractical weapon. These folks carry guns that are very difficult to shoot well and hold a small number of weak bullets. Yes technically a 5 shot .22 caliber revolver the size of a zippo lighter is a gun. However if you can shoot a gun with a ¼ inch barrel and no sights well you are a better person than I am. If you are confident that a .22 round out of a ¼ inch barrel will stop an attacker from harming you then I would call you an optimist.

To complicate matters these folks often carry their undersized, difficult to shoot pistol in places that are not easy to get at in a hurry. Pistols are on ankles, in pockets and purses or otherwise buried under clothing that can’t readily be moved. One system for women basically requires ripping ones shirt off to access their handgun. It is important to consider that you will need to access your concealed weapon in a hurry, quite possibly while fending off an attacker.

I once heard “every time somebody says they carry a full sized 1911 I ask them to show it to me, right now and inevitably get some excuse that boils down to the gun being in their truck or nightstand or safe” and that saying bears a lot of truth. I am a practical person and have observed that most people will not carry a full sized handgun. However fortunately these days we have a lot of good options.

There have been huge strides in the last few years in compact pistols that not much bigger in size than snubby .38’s or Walther PPK’s. Pretty much every full sized modern handgun has a compact sized equivalent. These guns hold 10+ rounds and shoot like their full sized big brothers. You can get a compact Glock, a Sig, HK, XD or Beretta and more 1911’s that you can shake a stick at. Pick one and carry it with you.

Since you asked personally I carry a compact Glock 19 because I can conceal it with minimal changes to my wardrobe.

Also bring a reload. You might run out of bullets or the stupid thing might jam. A spare mag or speed loader (though you would need 5 of them to equal the round count of 2 mags for most double stack pistols) isn’t that inconvenient.

So in conclusion do the right thing. Run and lift weights. Carry a decent fighting handgun and a reload. In short be awesome and hard to kill.

No Secrets

This one has been brewing in my head for awhile. Every once in awhile there is a post I really wish I would have written and this is one of those times. I am going to take a few selections from John Mosby's original post (italicized for clarity). I suggest reading it if you somehow missed it awhile back.

"Many people believe that only “super-secret-squirrel” elite units of the military and law enforcement have access to the most effective secret techniques of interpersonal violence. They want to believe the ridiculous advertising of companies that claim you can learn their “super-secret-above-top-secret-Delta-SEAL-SWAT-Ninja fighting methods” for only $79.95 plus shipping and handling. The truth is far more simple…and demanding. Every single method, technique, and concept used by elite military units is available to the general public through non-classified, open-source, public venues.



They are available to “Joe Citizen” just like they are available to “Danny Delta” and “Sammy the SEAL.” The difference is that the legitimate Delta/SEAL/SWAT/Ninja is willing to sacrifice the effort to “do the work.” He is willing to practice any specific skill 100,000 times, or more, in every possible environment, until that skill becomes part of his neural programming.


There it is in plain and simple English. There are no secrets. No matter what some idiot tells you a $49.95 dvd will not turn you into a super Spetznas prison cage fighter. Regular training in a functional martial art coupled with regular weight training will make you a scary person to fight, not 6 easy moves you can learn in an afternoon.

You can get really good, like scary good with pistols and rifles if you choose. It will take some academic work, quality training, a lot of dry fire and some rounds downrange in a determined training fashion on a regular basis. The exact same could be said about wilderness survival skills, battle drills, fieldcraft, fitness or comunications or medical skills. It is all readily available if you will take the time, energy and expense to learn and internalize it.

I want to leave you off with another quote (from earlier in the post but it served my purposes better here) from the post that inspired this one. The professional, motivated war-fighter trains like the classic Type-A alpha male of his tribe. He seeks out the best training available and practices the skills he learns until he has mastered them…then he practices them some more. He lifts heavy weights and he runs fast. He boxes and wrestles in training to ensure that he can continue to bring the fight to the enemy, even if he loses his weapons. He attends training courses from companies like Magpul, CSAT, or VTAC, to ensure that he is learning combat shooting methods from experienced war-fighters. Then, he spends hours each week dry-firing his weapons so that he masters the physical skills he will need. Like some fabled Tier One JSOC Jedi, he trains to perfection…and then he trains some more.



It is all available to you if you are willing to do the work.

The Long View and Goals

In the areas of finances, physical fitness and all around preparedness taking a long view is essential. These are not things you can accomplish in a day or a week or even months. These are truly multi year journeys. Looking at them as anything less and either you have low standards or unrealistic expectations.

The biggest single thing with long view type improvements or journeys is consistence. You will do far better to make consistent, even modest efforts, than to start and stop and take a break over the summer and hunting season and then fizzle out for the winter. Over time consistent efforts really pay off. Think crock pot not microwave or industrial fryer.

I find having goals to be essential to keep myself accountable and measure progress. If you are not defining and measuring progress how will you even know what you are trying to do, let alone if you are doing it? An aimless country drive is nice but that is no way to go through life, at least if you want to accomplish anything.

So we need goals.
Goals are sort of like budgets in that they get a bad rap unjustly. It is important to remember that you, your spouse and your family set your own goals, not me and the other talking heads or experts or famous people or whatever.

Sometimes you decide a path is important and it leads to goals. Example you want to become a better runner so you decide that x, y and z are your goals. Other times you start with a goal and work backwards. Whichever works for you is fine.

Different people set goals differently. Some folks make low goals and regularly exceed them; other folks shoot for the moon and often come short but still accomplish a lot. I am in the middle towards the ambitious goal side. I choose goals that are realistically attainable given hard work and things working out well. I often fall a little short. Part of the reason I do this is that in terms of personal goal setting I often lose motivation when I get real close, it is good enough for me due to my lazy nature. So if I set the goal to work out 3 times a week for 30 minutes it could easily turn into 2 30 minute workouts or 3 20 minute workouts. However if I set the goal to work out for 4 times for 30 minutes I will probably average 3.3 a week for 25-30 minutes each. This is about knowing yourself and whatever mental tricks work for you.

Goals need to be specific enough to be measurable. Being “strong and in shape” is a good goal if you have defined what you mean by strong and what you mean by in shape. Ditto for “become a good shot” or “have storage food” or whatever. You need to be able to easily know if a goal is being met.

As one of my favorite bloggers said “the difference between a goal and a wish is a timeline.” The time component of goals is important because it is always easier to start tomorrow and it helps hold you accountable for progress toward your goal.

Here are a few common issues people have with goal setting and long term planning in general:
Goals and your training or plan to meet them need to be aligned. This should be common sense but in some areas, particularly fitness it is a common mistake. If your goals are to gain strength and explosive speed then doing calisthenics and long distance running exclusively your goal and training are not aligned. If you want to become a good defensive shooter going to the range 3x a year with your buddies to screw around isn’t going to get it done.

For goals which build on or are affected by something else you need to know where you are. It could be amounts of given items, weight, strength, conditioning or whatever. Without a recent accurate benchmark you are just guessing in terms of starting points. This is significant because it will let you know what end point you can get to with realistic progress. Dead lifting 400 next year is probably realistic if you did 365 last month. However if you did 365 a year ago and had an injury and a significant lapse in training so you now would actually max out closer to 315 it would probably not be realistic. In those situations you should reestablish a good max or inventory and go from there.

Look at a goal from a big picture perspective considering your other goals and obligations. Often you want to accomplish A-H and could do any of them in isolation but can only do 3 of them together given the other demands on your time and energy. Total amounts of money and time matter as a measure of how much stuff you can realistically do. Of the common issues we are discussing this is the one that I have the biggest problem with.

Resetting or adjusting goals is also worth discussion. Sometimes on the way to a goal we decide it is not important or that something else is more important. Other times life in the form of work or injuries or financial woes or other obligations gets in the way. This is part of life and not a particularly bad thing.

I would caution people, particularly for mid and long (let us say between next month and 2 years from now) term goals, against constantly changing things. If a goal or two drop off your list over the course of a year that is fine, of your list rewrites itself 4 times in the first quarter of a year something is not working. Either you are not putting sufficient thought into goals to choose ones that are important and meaningful to you or are not being realistic about what you can and will really do. In terms of my personal and preparedness goals I am getting better over the years it seems.

Fitness is the biggest area where this is a problem. Folks jump from program to program with different methodologies and goals always having unrealistically high expectations (every muscle magazine has the ‘”Get a 6 pack this week with 3 easy moves” or “add 40 pounds to your bench press this month”) and thinking the program sucks when it falls short. By constantly switching gears and programs these folks aren’t really getting anywhere and will be in the same place in a year. They would be better off finding any reasonably sane program that meshes with their goals and just doing it than always looking for the perfect one. To counter this I recommend a brief trial period and then sticking with it for a predetermined amount of time. Trying something for a week or two to see if you hate it and sticking with it for 3-6 months to see if you get results is probably a good plan. Obviously if you have a significant life change or injury things change but you aren’t going to move on to the next big new workout until the end of the time frame.

Taking A Break

Sometimes the best thing you can do in pursuit of a goal is nothing. Lots of folks don’t like this. We want everything to happen overnight and the idea of taking a break means it won’t (hint, it won’t anyway) and thus we don’t do it. The thing is that you are taking a step back in order to take 5 steps forward. I think in Western, and particularly American thinking this concept has been somewhat lost in recent years. Maybe it is TV shortening our attention spans or that we are just so sure we can do anything overnight that we are really impatient. I don’t know, maybe it has always been this way.

In terms of fitness the benefits of taking a break are definitely quantifiable. In terms of strength, cardio, etc recovery is so underrated. Often the best thing to do is to take a couple days off in a row and just recover. Heck, a week now and then is probably a sound idea. In terms of weight loss/ composition the benefits of breaking a strict diet are documented.  Having a day now and then (weekly or bi weekly) where you eat more to avoid having your metabolism go into starvation mode are reasonably documented.

In terms of preps and finances the benefits are more human and thus inherently less quantifiable. The benefits come from renewing your spirit and continuing the effort. Since both of these are long term projects you are simply not going to finish this week or month or even year. By taking a little break now and then you are relaxing and keeping your spirits up so you can continue and avoid the dreaded burnout. Better to take a break for a week or a month then to get tired and just quit.

It is a good idea to have a plan and use some common sense and moderation. Unless you have a serious injury like say a broken back taking 6 months off of all exercise is a bad idea. Take a week and then start hitting it again. Have a few Christmas cookies, not the whole batch. Spend some of your disposable income on something non preparedness oriented that you have been wanting for awhile but don’t borrow 25k to buy a boat.

Think about what applies to your situation. If you have been hitting something hard for awhile, be it weights, the track, preps or finances maybe it is a good time to stop and take a breather. Remember, sometimes the best thing you can do is to take a break.

Best Is The Enemy Of Good Enough

This post is sort of a progression of my recent post “The Economy of Everything” where I talk about making choices about how to use time and money. Most of us have probably heard the phrase I used as the title to this post ‘best is the enemy of good enough.’ What it means is that we can, in our search for the perfect answer or solution get a sort of paralysis and miss out on an answer that is completely sufficient. Another way to say it is, better a good answer right now than a perfect one in the future.

Like most things this is a trade off. The trick is to know if you are making a good trade or not. That is what I want to talk about today.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what best is. Best would be the perfect plan or gadget or completely mastering a skill or craft. Now figuring out what good enough is can be more problematic.  This is going to make the bulk of today’s post.

To me good enough would typically have most of the traits of best but be significantly easier to execute or obtain. Meaning it takes less time, money or effort to execute than the best solution but has most of its characteristics. Typically I would move towards the best solution incrementally until I was close to it in characteristics then go until I hit a noticeable point of diminished returns. At some point the increased payout stops being worth the return.  Example, one might decide that a Daniels Defense rifle is the best solution out there but a Bushmaster will do most of what the DD rifle does for much less money.

I think the combination of characteristics and cost which is used to informally figure when that point of diminished returns is hit can vary by individual. Mostly the cost, characteristics are more objective. The time and energy one person needs to acquire or maintain a capability may vary significantly from another. Some folks can work out 3 times a week and be in good shape and others can’t.

 Also the relative cost is different. One of my single co workers might be able to spend 2 hours every evening at the gym learning boxing or just getting into stupidly good shape. I have a wife and kid so I plan three 45 minute gym sessions and try to do them at lunch. Would I be in better shape if I worked out for 2 hours every evening, sure (overtraining and efficiency are another post) but the cost is too high for me so I make do with less time.

I do think it is worth remembering that characteristics are a significant part of this trade off and not just cost. Otherwise it can get silly and you miss the point. This has been used to justify definitely sub optimal equipment, bad training plans, lack of physical fitness and probably some other stuff. A Mosin Nagant is a good rifle for what it (not a good rifle 80 years ago) is but it is not a semi automatic rifle with detachable magazines. Even though it is cheap there is a definite limit to what dinking around with your buddies at the public range will do for your skill development. Doing a few pushups and sit-ups now and then will not give you the strength that lifting free weights will and walking is at best a sub optimal substitute for running or rucking. When cost is your only consideration the answers usually suck.  I think common sense needs to be present to keep these tradeoffs realistic.

Thoughts?

Happy Thanksgiving

Well it is Turkey Day. This is the second time I have spent Thanksgiving in a war zone. The first was a lot easier, maybe in part because of the rose colored glasses of time but mostly because missing my wife and kid is very different from the rents, siblings, extended family and friends.It was as good of a day as it could be. The dining hall did a bang up job. They had everything I wanted and it was all great. Things were pretty quiet and I got to do some reading which was nice.

I have been thinking about what I am thankful for. I am thankful that we aren't worried about keeping a roof over our heads, buying groceries and other basic things. I am thankful that we are able to have Wifey stay at home with Walker. I am also thankful that they are home with family. She gets a bit of help with kiddo when she needs it and if anything happens I know they are in the best place they can be. That is a huge thing off my mind while I am over here. I am also thankful for preparedness books in kindle format, gymnastics rings, bumper plates, crocks, lightweight boots that you can run in, one point adjustable slings, pmag's and my snuggie. Yes, you heard that right I have a snuggie in Afghanistan and it is great.

Well I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Enjoy great food and drink and time with family. Who knows what can happen by this time next year.

PT Questions

1- Are you happy with your current level of physical fitness?
2- A-What is your current PT plan and B- are you happy with it?
3- If you are unhappy with your current plan what are you going to change to fix it?

Quote of the Day and Discussion- Diverging Fitness Goals

"Serving two masters isn’t going to get you where you need to be. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t be in shape and be strong. But the trouble with wanting both is this:

What is strong? What is “in shape”?

I have very clear notions of what both of these mean to me. I know exactly what I think it means to be strong. I know exactly what it means to me to be in shape. But that’s just me. What is strong to you? What is in shape to you? And more important, what does being “strong AND in shape” mean to you?

Define each of these with CLEAR numbers and performances. The more specific, the better, none of this “I wanna be strong and look jacked” crap. I know I’ve started to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but you always have to know what you want and dedicate yourself to the task. Otherwise, you’re wasting your most valuable commodity: your time.

And last but not least, you better be willing to give blood to get what you want."

-Jim Wendler

Also here is another jem from him "I no longer believe in training to lose weight, gain weight or whatever. I only believe in Training to be Awesome. This means you get strong and in shape and the chips will ALWAYS fall in your favor."


I have been meaning to do a big post on fitness and seem to be nipping around the edges of the topic. Today when I was catching up on Jim Wendler's interesting and hilarious blog I saw this quote and just had to use it. Since I used it I had to do some talking.

I think it is essential to come up with tangible and quantifiable goals for fitness. These goals will do a few things for you. First the process of making them lets you think about what is really important to you. I hesitate to say exactly what should be important for you. Personally I want to be able to lift heavy, control my body weight, be fast at short to mid distance runs and have the underlying cardio to do long runs and rucks. While we might differ in some minor points I would submit to you that these goals, tapered to age and individual sitation are a darn good starting point.

The broad themes I have laid out will feed specific and quantifiable goals.
Some example goals would be:

Strength:
Bench/Squat/ Press/ Deadlift (or clean or whatever) specific amounts

Body Control:
X amount of pullups
X amount of muscle ups
X amount of handstand pushups
X amount of pistons

Running/ Endurance: Specific times
1/4 mi
1 mi
3 mi
12 mile ruck with 40lbs pack and kit.

I've got to think it over but I suspect these will be my goals (yeah I still have a bit of thinking on the pounds/reps/times). There are a few more than I would like in terms of numbers but since so many of them are single lift/ exercise benchmarks it is not such a big deal. Also the running goals overlap pretty heavily too.

As noted above you need to decide what is important to you and the goals which stem from it. Once you set goals go forth and pursue them. This means picking and choosing and not doing some thing. Picking and choosing is part of fitness for a few reasons. First you have limited time. It could be 5 hours a week or 30 but an hour spent at the weightpile is not an hour spent at the track. Next is something it has taken me years to really figure out. We don't get into better shape because we work out like a beast, we get into better shape because we work out like a beast, REST AND RECOVER. (we will revisit this topic again shortly) If you are lifting 5x a week, crossfitting 4 times, running every day and doing some other junk you are notgoing to recover enough.  Also many goals are somewhat divergent. Going in 2-3 directions is not a bad thing and will lead to a well rounded physically fit you. Going in 6-7 directions is bad. This is a big killer. We either split our limited time in so many directions that we really don't get anywhere (example, what if I took the goals above, added all sort of crossfit wod goals and physical appearance goals and sport specific goals I would either be working out 5 hours a day (and not progressing and probably end up hurting myself) or not doing anything enough to make progress.)

Figure out your goals and find/ come up with (not a good plan if you are a beginner) a plan to get there. Ignore other stupid stuff. Exercise.

Functional Fitness

What is functional fitness? First to me it has an emphasis on completing
some sort of task or increasing a capability over aesthetics. That task
should be something you do and wish to do better, increasing general
health and wellness or acquiring a capability you desire. For example
you enjoy cross country skiing and want to be able to ski further,
faster and be less tired or you want to do better when you go rock
climbing with your friends. Maybe you realized that you aren't 18
anymore and to stay healthy and fit you need to keep in shape. Lastly
maybe you want to do something like be able to run (maybe a marathon or
maybe a couple miles in kit) that you have not been able to do for a
long time.

I have a couple of phrases I live by when it comes to fitness:
1) There is no such thing as too strong, only too slow.
2) I don't want to be the biggest guy, or the strongest guy or the
fastest guy but I want to be big, strong and fast.
3) Muscles make the best pads.

Right or wrong (we can discuss but I don't feel like debating) I have
some core beliefs when it comes to exercise:
1) I believe in balance. No point in being able to life like Hercules if
you get tired walking from your car to the gym. Ditto for being able to
run a marathon but not help a friend move their couch. You've got to be
able to run, do body control (pushups, pull-ups, etc) stuff AND lift.
2) When it comes to lifting I am a firm believer in big compound lifts.
Power cleans, dead lift, bench press, jerks, squats, military press,
etc. These lifts build real functional strength. I don't care much about
aesthetics so working my inner lower bicep with 12 sets of special curls
has no appeal. I work out almost exclusively with barbells using
dumbbells only to change up the same exercises I could do with a barbell
(dumbbell press or press versus barbell). I do see a role for dumbbells
in specialty exercises needed to help with a personal weak point or past
injury.
3) People make a lot of excuses. Most of us, myself included are never
going to be competitive Collegiate athletes. We just don't have the
genetics. However that does not mean you can't be in darn good shape.
Almost everyone is capable (with reasonable progression and scaling) of
running and lifting weights. If you say "I have a bad knee so I walk
instead..." I would submit to you that if you are under 50 (ish) and or
are not at an honestly healthy weight the answer lies in having some
discipline and getting to a healthy weight. It is amazing how your knees
and back feel better after losing 20 (let alone 50) pounds of bad
weight.
4) You should practice with tasks that are harder than you see yourself
actually doing. Life has a way of making things harder when you need to
do them and your nerves pumping makes it harder to do things you
otherwise could do.
5) If you work out like you should and don't sabotage yourself at the
dinner table looks will come. Show me a guy who can do Diane (225lbs
deadlifts and pull-ups: sets of 21,15,9) to standard without a time
limit and I will show you a guy who probably looks like he is in shape.
Show me a guy who can do it in 5 minutes and I will show you a guy who
probably looks like the beast he is.

Using this type of program I can say I am getting close to the best
shape of my life. I am definitely not as strong as I have been nor can I
run as fast/ far. However I able to do a lot of things reasonably well
which is far more useful than either extreme. I am excited about where
this fitness is going.

I am not saying that my way is the only way. I think exercise is a lot
like everyday carry. There is what is ideal (for carry a full sized
handgun with a couple reloads) and for exercise an aggressive program
that blends running, weights and varied cardio/ circuit type stuff and
then there is what you will actually do. I can chart out a plan to make
you (or myself) a total beast but it does no good if you won't follow
it. Pick the most aggressive program you can live with. Remember that
while your brain is your primary weapon your body is how that weapon
acts.

Fitness Update

Crossfit and I are officially exclusive. We have always had a thing for eachother and were off and on for a long time. Now we are making some changes and giving it a solid go. Nothing is for certain yet but it is going well. The 3 on 1 off is the best schedule I have found yet. Also it is fast so it fits into my busy schedule.

One of the biggest things I have realized is that as with any exercise program you have to have some ownership. Sure well rounded fitness is a great goal but you know your situation, strengths and weaknesses best. If you need to work on strength do a bit more lifting and less running. If you are a bit too heavy do more running and callestenics/ gymnastics stuff. I also came to a realization that deals with one of my biggest reservations about crossfit. Simply if mismannaged it can be too random to the point where you fail to gain in measurable areas. For example if you only run or squat (or any other discrete exercise group) once a month you simply are not going to gain. It doesn't matter how hard the workout is the frequency is just not sufficient. I have taken to tracking when I do certain things in order to ensure things stay on track.

Anyway so far so good.