Hunting is a favorite hobby for some preppers out there. For those who want to learn more about it, know that you should go through hunting training first. Your success and survival may just rely on your training.
Hunting Training Tips for Preppers
When it comes to prepping, it’s easy to focus on your stockpile and your tools. For many, the next step is research and honing your skills.
Taking camping, hunting, and fishing trips are all enjoyable and productive ways to get out and work with your gear while testing your self-reliance in short spurts. But one thing that is not as often addressed in the Prepping community, is your level of fitness and overall health.
It’s true that a lot of the canned goods you’re stockpiling are inherently healthy, full of proteins, vegetables, and fruits. The garden that you’re growing certainly doesn’t sprout up boxes of Lucky Charms. But how serious are you about your physical fitness?
The concept of survival of the fittest is especially true for preppers. When SHTF, you need to have the endurance and the conditioning to keep up with all of the hunting and outdoor maintenance tasks that a homestead or bug out lifestyle requires.
If you’ve ever hiked out in search of a bear or worked on a farm, you know that neither is a small feat. In addition to maintaining your lifestyle, you’ll want to keep your health at an all-time high to avoid needing medical attention. Unless you are also highly educated in medicine, you may be lacking access to a doctor.
Maintain a High Level of Fitness
Physically demanding jobs like chopping down trees, tilling fields, and hunting for food could at some point become daily tasks for you.
Being able to walk two miles or do a few squats each day will not be enough to condition you for this lifestyle. Especially as you adjust to the new normal of a SHTF scenario, you don’t want to reach exhaustion by midday.
A great resource and way to set goals are to look at the fitness requirements of Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets. Both are expected to perform at an extremely high level so that when they are pushed, their limits far surpass their adversaries.
Navy SEAL Requirements
- Swimming: 500 yards in 12:30 minutes
- Pushups: 50 in 2 minutes
- Situps: 50 in 2 minutes
- Pullups: 10 in 2 minutes
- Running: 1.5 miles in 10:30 minutes
Keep in mind that these are the minimum requirements to be considered for the SEALs, and recruits are encouraged to exceed these standards.
Green Beret Requirements
- Swim: 50 meter fully geared, Pass or Fail
- Pushups: 63+
- Situps: 68+
- Pullups: 6+
- Run: 2 miles in 13:42 minutes
- 5 mile Ruck run w/65 lbs: 75 minutes
To be considered Gold standard, the requirements are:
- Swim: 50 meter fully geared, Pass or Fail
- Pushups: 77+
- Situps: 82+
- Pullups: 17+
- Run: 2 miles in 13 minutes
- 5 mile Ruck run w/65 lbs: 50 minutes
Are You Fit Enough to Save Your Own Life?
As you prepare for the unknown, you have to prepare your body for all possible scenarios. Not only do you have to be able to lift and cart yourself and your gear to different locations, but you have to be able to defend yourself and run to safety.
With this in mind, you should be training consistently in a variety of disciplines:
- Running
- Swimming
- Jumping (high, long, and weighted)
- Climbing
- Strength
- Carrying
Fitness should be part of your daily routine, and you should strive for a level of fitness that allows you to cross streams, climb fences, move obstacles, and travel long distances. These are all pretty realistic tasks that may come your way in a survival situation.
If you're a seasoned pro hunter, care to share some additional hunting training tips in the comments section? They'll be very helpful to our readers!
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