“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.”
In a previous post I discussed what I consider the most important survival item; a significant savings account. My justification for choosing a savings account is the virtual certainty that it will be needed. You can be sure that life will come at you with an economic challenge. Savings accounts turn disasters into inconveniences. However right behind this, and perhaps even exceeding it in frequency of use, is personal strength. In a recent Starting Strength article, Mark Rippetoe pointed out that personal strength is very much like an emergency savings account: when you really need it, you can never have too much.
Further, physical strength isn’t something that you can quickly pick up in the wilds or at the hardware store. It takes a very long time to build. I have been lifting for almost three years and while I am much stronger I’m nowhere near as strong as I will be after I lift more weight.
Upon graduating High School I was in very poor physical shape; overweight and weak. To a degree this was changed by the US Army. They took off the baby fat. During those two years I dropped about 30 lbs. and grew over an inch taller! With full gear marches and daily runs the Army also improved my aerobic conditioning. However, they didn’t do much to improve my strength; I was still very weak. Truth be told, I didn’t care, at 6’ 1” 160 lbs. I was enjoying my new slim self.
In my struggle to find my place in the world I switched my study major from Biology to Physics and changed colleges to San Jose State. A few unsatisfying stints working for NPS and regional parks proved they mixed the worst aspects of the Army with the worst of the civilian world. I decided to take advantage of the rise of Silicon Valley, and Physics was interesting. However, inside I was still in hoping to live a life in the wilds. To get my wilderness fix in the midst of the too big city I prowled the surrounding hills. Rippetoe’s article brought to mind a time when I was tracking mountain lions in the hills to the east of San Jose, CA.
One of my favorite wild places are the hills overlooking Sunol Regional Wilderness. They were a reasonable driving distance from my apartment ad I knew of a dirt side road without a gate along which I could park my truck out of sight of the main road. From this location it was only a mile or so to the park. The hot fields blanketing the hills provided a wonderful canvas for recording tracks from the many wild pigs and the cats that ate them.
On one particular trip I had discovered a cat track while following a family of pigs up a draw. It took me some time to work out the cat’s trail but I followed it along a dry creek bed through the low brush and grass. In the late afternoon I came to a spot where the cat had leaped up to a ledge at least 10 feet of sheer drop above the creek bed. Try as I might I could not hoist myself up to the ledge. I was simply not strong enough.
After several futile attempts I gave up and backtracked to a place where the sides of the draw allowed me to scramble up to the higher level. This necessitated returning down the draw about a half mile, scrambling up a steep slope, returning to the trail, finding the tracks and continuing on. By the time I had completed this the sun was setting. I followed the trail with the rest of the daylight, marked my spot, and returned down the hill.
I really wanted to find that cat. But my strength was insufficient to follow the track up the steep slope. If there was some reason that I had to climb that slope, such as a flash flood, I would not have survived. No matter what you purchase, you will meet situations where nothing will stand-in for strength.
None of us are invincible. There will always come a time when life throws rocks into your path. Having that emergency fund of cash will help, but it may be that the challenge is of a physical nature. A few years ago, my wife went to the hospital for an MRI and other tests. While there they gave her a sedative. Being fairly small it put her further under and took her more time than expected to recover from the drug. The nurses helped me get her into the car but at home I was left to carry her into the house and upstairs to our bedroom. However, being fairly small I was able to get her inside. I did it, but it was not the smoothest or safest of rides (sorry dear). However, the most memorable part of the event was the resulting back pain. Ugh.
I found the starting strength program over four years ago. However, it took me a long time to internalize that Mark’s admonition applied to me. I wrote that watching Gus was the final catalyst. I purchased the blue book, weights and a bar. In the three years I’ve been crawling under the bar, I’ve never regretted that decision.
A few weeks ago, I was tasked to remove a nonfunctional refrigerator from our basement. I removed the doors to make the appliance lighter but it really wasn’t necessary. I found that by grasping the shelf between the freezer and cooling chambers and bracing against the sides I could actually lift it off the ground and waddle carry it. Getting it up the stairs by myself was actually no problem. At the recycling station, the counter guy looked me over and told me he couldn’t help me lift anything. I thanked him for his concern and pulled it from my truck and set it exactly where he wanted it; this time with the doors on. And the best thing, no back pain. I’ve learned how to set my lower back prior to a lift and have the strength to control more weight.
The starting strength program works. You can find all of the required details on the Starting Strength website but I encourage you to buy the book, it may prevent an avoidable injury. By the way, since I really didn’t follow the program, I can attest that working part of the program also builds strength; although perhaps not as fast. Don’t put it off, start building that strength account; you can never tell when you will need it; but need it you will.