Physical Conditioning: Let's get basic

In our benighted age, being fat, lazy, and weak doesn’t get you dead nearly as fast it used to. In fact, too many waste their lives sitting on a couch and letting their minds and bodies turn in to sacks of tapioca pudding until they keel over at 60 and suddenly everyone is blaming soda and poor diet. And salt.
It’s not just the diet. It’s the lack of exercise combined with poor diet.
So, the hordes of Azathoth are descending, consuming everyone and everything in their path. Beings so foul, so greedy, the only thing worse than them are politicians. Your one chance of survival is to grab enough gear to keep you alive for a week, cram all fifty pounds of it into a backpack, and hightail it for the hills, miles away, on foot because the sound of a combustion engine, one of the greatest engineering marvels the world has ever seen, draws the slobbering hordes right to you.
Raise of hands. Who can do that?
Liar. Ok, some can, no problem. The rest of us need to get fit, get in shape, and get back to a basic line for fitness.
Army Basic, that is.
“The Army’s Basic Training Physical Fitness Test is a three-event physical performance test used to assess endurance. It is used to measure a your physical strengths, abilities, and cardio-respiratory fitness.” [1]
This is what is known as ‘Starting somewhere’. It’s a hell of lot better to have standards than just “Yeah, I’m fit, I guess” and not have any idea how well it translates to real-world uses. Even if you aren’t hitting those standards, yet.
Sure, there are guys that can blow past every category here. Awesome. Make friends with them. In the meantime, get your butt off the damn couch and get moving.
The Army fitness tests has three exercises. That’s it. Three.
Push-ups, sit-ups, and the 2 mile run.
Let’s take a look at the minimum the Army is expecting[2]:

There you go, couch potato. A goal. If you can’t hit the minimum, Azathoth will be gnawing on your bones amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes, and you don’t want that.
“But, but…” Stow it. No one cares. Your job is to get from where you are now to where you want to be, and no one can do it for you. No one will do it for you.
Hit up the link for further details: https://infogalactic.com/info/United_States_Army_Physical_Fitness_Test
My intention is not to discourage you. Every journey begins with a single step. I know, trite fortune-cookie level of blather, right? But nonetheless, it’s true.
If you aren’t where you want to be, make a change right now, today. Can’t do 10 push-ups? Do one a day for week. Even that small step is in the right direction. And once you start taking steps, keep moving. You can also check out our Beast Life articles that give specific instruction for strength training.
One more fit Man of the West is one more that can stand in the gap and take the slings and arrows of our enemies and give back with interest.
[1] http://www.military.com/military-fitness/army-fitness-requirements/army-basic-training-pft
[2] https://infogalactic.com/info/United_States_Army_Physical_Fitness_Test