Surviving Collapse: Strength

Picture this: It's 2032. The grid is intermittent, and combustion engine transportation is inaccessible. Sometimes food is available; often, it’s not. Survivors are self-reliant, growing and storing food using every square inch available. Manual labor occupies much of your time.

Your elderly aunt, who cans your perishables, has fallen and fractured her hip. She is now bedridden.

Not only have you lost a pair of helping hands, but you now must also care for someone who can no longer care for herself. Meanwhile, others are depending on you to tend to your crops and carry water from the local river.

Caring for your aunt and farming can’t both be done well. So, what do you do?

If you were the aunt, how would you feel in that situation—especially if it were preventable?

Aging and frailty aren’t synonymous. With some luck and consistent effort, you can maintain resilience—mental and physical—well into old age, avoiding this situation.

The "Secret" to Aging Well

I am a big advocate for strength training. Aesthetics are a bonus, but the real purpose is function and protection. Strength training can help ensure a high quality of life until death.

Strength training fights the natural aging process. As people age, muscle mass is replaced by fat—a process known as sarcopenia—leaving the elderly vulnerable to broken bones. A broken hip is devastating:

One in three adults aged 50 and over dies within 12 months of suffering a hip fracture. Older adults have a five-to-eight times higher risk of dying within the first three months of a hip fracture compared to those without a hip fracture. This increased risk of death remains for almost ten years. (Source: The Conversation)

Strength training is key to injury prevention as we age. Skeletal muscle acts as a shock absorber, protecting bones. Muscularity not only protects against acute injury; a balanced musculature can prevent many repetitive stress injuries and chronic pain. For instance, an underdeveloped back relative to the chest can cause shoulder injuries.

Of course, strength training also makes you stronger, which is useful for obvious reasons. Importantly, if society were to collapse into an agrarian state dependent on labor, your ability to use your body will affect your value to your community.

Less obvious, more musculature and a good diet can help eliminate visceral fat. Unlike subcutaneous fat, which exists beneath the skin, visceral fat encapsulates your vital organs, raising the risk of cardiovascular and neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's.

How to Get Started with Strength Training

There are many reasons to start and continue strength training throughout life. But how?

Many mistakenly equate strength training with bodybuilding. While there are similarities—and greater muscle strength does come with more musculature—strength training aims to support function, whereas bodybuilding is aesthetic.

Many also have the false belief that lifting weights will turn them into the Hulk. In reality, it takes years of hard training, unique genetics, and often a dose of performance-enhancing drugs to get anywhere close to looking like a pro bodybuilder.

Start by Educating Yourself

If functional strength is your objective, spend some time learning about basic routines and proper form. Ego has no place in the weight room so start light.

Before you start, have a simple plan. Some people do a full body routine a couple times a week. Others split body parts during the week. Having a plan helps you start with confidence.

Most importantly, show up. Consistent half-assed workouts beat occasional intense sessions. A gym membership isn’t required. Wherever you workout, show up 3-4 times a week.

Many are understandably intimidated by the strange machines and free-weights at a gym filled with people who fell out of a magazine. It can be a turn off for many people. In reality, most people in a gym respect the effort so you should feel comfortable. Either way, you can achieve a lot at home or the park using light weights, bodyweight and calisthenics.

Bodyweight exercises and calisthenics are a great way to build strength. Start with squats, pushups, and pullups. Creative use of angles and bands can help make these exercises easier or harder. Supplement with a couple of dumbbells or heavy objects. I have two gas canisters filled with sand that I used during COVID. Some people use a backpack filled with books. With some creativity, you never have to step foot in a gym if that’s your preference. Some people in astonishing shape ONLY do calisthenics.

Regardless of where you are today, you will need to be resilient as civilization deteriorates. The future is physical, requiring both mechanical and mental function. We’re all getting older, so don’t neglect this critical part of your post-collapse survival plan.