E169: Strength and Conditioning for Preppers

E169: Strength and Conditioning for Preppers

In this episode we sit down with Greg Gottfried. He's a strength and conditioning coach, and fitness podcast host, who's going to pump you up for the apocalypse. So put on your 80s sweatband. We're going to lift heavy.

Strength Training Topics Discussed:

• Who is Greg Gottfried?
• Why should preppers care about physical fitness?
• Why do you prefer lifting heavy over cardio?
• What do people normally get wrong with their exercise regiments?
• How can people with disabilities become mobile or even physically fit again?
• What do people most often get wrong with their nutrition?
• How do you prep, store food, and ensure that your stores are of the best nutritional value?
• Does sleep and rest play a big role in fitness?
• Does physical fitness purely mean pushing and pulling weights?
• How much can be done with simple body weight exercises?
• How important is having a trainer or coach?
• How can unable to afford a trainer or coach get good information about physical fitness and ensure they're not going to injure themselves?
• If a friend or family member was asking for advice on a trainer. Let's say for whatever reason you couldn't work with them. What advice would you give?

Quick Takeaways from this episode:

How is Greg Gottfried? [...] I'm a strength and conditioning coach. I'm also a track and field throws coach. [...] I also teach CPR and First Aid. I'm a member of my local CERT. And just recently got my HAM license.

Do you consider yourself a prepper?

Absolutely! And I haven't been my whole life. Hurricane Katrina is what flipped the switch for me. Seeing how helpless people were and the lawlessness... just the devastation really forced me to be honest with what situation my family was in. [...] Since Katrina, I've really gone full bore to make sure my family is safe and prepared.

Did watching the aftermath of Katrina make you think, "my G-d, what if this happen to my family?"

Yeah! Like I said, it was like a light switch for me. [...] It was like a cartoon lightbulb going off. I was sitting in a town house and we two shared walls. And I was thinking we don't have any extra food. We don't have any water. And my shotguns are stored at my parents house. What the hell do we do?

Portland is not a bastion of firearms love and affection. How does that work for you in your area? And is preparedness looked at as being weird in your area?

Guns are a hot topic here. And we're not exactly the most welcoming of firearms. [...] It's not something I talked about a lot before I got into all of this, but believe it or not they were all closet preppers too.

It always surprises me how there are more people into guns and prepping than most people think. It just takes opening up a little bit, often.

Where does preparedness, physical fitness, and nutrition intersect for you?

[...] Like I mentioned before, I'm a member of my local CERT and First Aid. I'm a member at the local gun club also. And I can't help but notice how terrible shape people are in. [...] Or the things they're prepping are horrible foods. And it's the thing I like to do: help people fill in those gaps. So when I'm talking to someone about nutrition... I'll bring up, "Well now that you have all these healthy foods, what if we get snowed in? Do you have acces to more foods like this?" Or when I'm talking to people about compressions, it's like... do you think you can maintain chest compressions for 15 minutes before an ambulance shows up? Or can you get that 300 pound vicim out of harms way?

I just notice a lot of people are not physically fit. And they call themselves preppers. It kind of gets under my skin. If you're not ready for life right now, how are you going to be ready when a catastrophe hits.

Are we going to talk about becoming a gym rat today: making working out like a part time job? How deep are we going to go here?

It can be really simple. What's important is that we can move through a full range of motions... in compound movements, like a squat or hip hinge, or be able to push or pull and be pain free.

A lot of people are just sitting at their desks all day long. [...] And they just can't move around very well. They just don't have that mobility that they once had as kids.

What's important is being about to move through life more efficiently.

How do we get there... How many hours a week are we talking for the average person to get and stay functionally fit.

It doesn't need to take forever. A good well rounded workout done in an hour. And you don't need to do that every single day. But 3 to 5 times a week is fine. So we're