Yes!   Halloween, one of my favorite times, even my studio, aka back room storage closet, smells like cinnamon, the air is cooler and football is legit this weekend!

This is the updated, podcast version of what was one of my personal favorite blog articles.   Updated and modernized to commemorate Halloween.

We’ll keep this one fun and light.   It’s all about a push for health and all that is right in wellness and fitness.  It’s about asking the honest question to yourself – ARE YOU HEALTHY ENOUGH TO SURVIVE an emergency?

well, How about healthy enough to survive a Halloween spook flick?

Lets just say all of our Halloween fears and spooks from the movies actually came alive – do you have what it takes to make it through the night?

This is for you, out there on the couch  – the guy that just rolled his eyes in Michigan and said under his breath…”I’d just shoot ’em.” and then went back to the bowl of Cheeto’s in his lap.

Guns don’t work on spooks and haints guys, we all know that…puh, you never watched Jason at Crystal lake or grew up with Freddy Kruger?     “I’d just shoot ’em.” isnt always the best answer.    This is really how this particular article came to be.

See, I practice gun stuff… It’s Texas, people like there guns here.  Some, even actually practice.    Many of the guys I train with spend tens of thousands on their gear.   Guns, ammo, magazine, suppressors, better ammo, more guns, tactical pants, boots, tactical watches, hats, hidden holsters, knives, crossbows, targets and a few more guns.

and I’m cool with it all.  I always say, “you do you.”   it’s a motto.    I like to have friends that are different than me and I learn a lot from these guys.

But I have an issue with their belief system on why all this run and guns and extra gear keeps them safer.    I’d rather Play the odds.  I’d like to prepare for the most likely scenerio.  As in… Let’s spend the majority of our money, time and effort on what the majority of our problems will be.

such as..

The odds are so much higher that you’ll die from a health related issue than from bad guys.   A bad ticker is more likely than a bad trigger.  You’re eating bad ammo rather than your gun has the wrong stuff…you get what I’m saying here.

SO…..if you are truly into your family safety and surviving to be daddy and keeping  your kids safe you should spend time – much more time, on the stuff that is more likely.

OK I know horror movie monsters aren’t the most likely, that’s just the fun part of this article – it’s my fun, holiday style tool to get the point across  –

The POINT  is just to focus on your health, from a tactical perspective as a bar meter of how healthy you are.   The POINT is,  I see my tacticool peeps focusing an disproportionate amount of time on the wrong aspects of Longevity.

enough… Let’s go…The movie has started and the opening credits have passed. The spooky fog filled intro with violin music and dolls in attics.    The Halloween Horror movie just began.

Are you the Hero, will you SURVIVE to the sequel?    The entire town and most of your friends are relying on you to save the day and get them to safety.

What in the world you’re doing outside of the insane asylum/cemetery on a spooky foggy night with a full moon is anybody’s guess, but now you have a insane zombie horde on your heels.  “Run…The zombies are coming…oh MY GOD the ZOMBIIIIIIIIES!    RUN…Runnnnn”       Tactic #1

1. Run  – safety is one mile away and although the zombies are slow, their shuffle and unrelentness is at about…. a 13 minute pace.    You need to beat that and the faster the better – safety is only a mile away!   

FOR NOW.   You may have to do this repetitively.   Zombies don’t rest yo!

I think our ability to run is vastly overestimated as we all kind of have a mental image of ourselves in our peak shape –  I ran a 6 min mile, once.    But, Where are you right now?  Can you run?  A mile is a great fitness assessment and one of my tested parameters in my 13 step “Measure your Real Life Age.” 

If you want a true test of overestimation, get up, right now and run a mile.    

You’re supposed to be the HERO of this flick, not the the extra that had his moment in the movie last a VERY SHORT TIME!    Don’t be the first character to go!

tactic 2

2.  Quickly get in the backseat and out the other side.    

Emergency situations don’t happen in spaces the size of airport terminal hallways.  They don’t happen at the 5 acre field where the 3 gun championships are held.  They are close and personal and awkward.   

So, back to our movie…You escaped the Zombie asylum by getting to the safety at the abandoned Junk yard.  But now Chucky, the horror movie doll from the 80’s is coming at you with a knife and you need to escape, NOW! – get your body moving in new positions.  And shut the door behind you.

seriously.    Mobility, the ability to move is very conducive with early death and not just in the movies.    Get coordinated and move.   Now, do this quickly.  True tactical sense always dictates, create space and keep something between you and the threat.    You need to get this wall of abandoned cars between you and the creepy doll…If you can’t move well, this will become evident quite quickly.

3.  Lift yourself over a wall.

(see image)

So you made it through Chucky, so far so good- but  as soon as you caught your breath, millions of hairy scary bugs are on the loose and are coming for your feet.   Get up over that wall and to safety!

This is about functional strength.

In a number of emergencies you may have to move something out of the way, move cover and concealment over you if you need to hide or throw a desk over – any number of reasons you should be strong enough.   You need to be strong!   and not just bench press strong.   

back in real life – not 2 days ago I had a patient say to me, “as long as I don’t lift my own suitcases on this vacation I’ll be fine.” 

hmmmm. I don’t think you really will.    The scary bugs got this person a long time ago, she just didn’t realize it.

4. Sprint 60 feet

60 feet is pathetic, I don’t think it will save you but it’s a bare bones minimum because that’s across the street of a typical downtown.  

60 feet doesn’t even come close to you avoiding the aliens in their spaceship and laser beams that are blasting all around you but I do know indoors is better than outdoors and the quickest people are going to make it to the next scene while the slowest, the ones that mosey their way across the street are about to go out in a fabulosu 1970’s technicolor display pile of smoking ashes.

The amount of danger you can avoid by simply crossing the street is amazing and if you can do it super fast you are probably 95% safer both in real life and the movies.

5. Crawl

that’s right, it’s down there next to the ground.  Your kids love it down there, lots of interesting stuff.  You should join them…often.

and you better, because if I’m not mistaken that guy with the chainsaw and crazy look in his eye has nothing but a suburban hedge of coincidental concealment between you and he and safety.   Your only chance is to crawl away while he’s not looking, best get to it brother!

6. SWIM

dude, how many of these movies have you seen?   The girls that cant swim never make the next scene and seriously endanger the rest of the cast.   Everybody knows Vampires cant cross moving bodies of water…duh….  You’ve got to be able to swim.  It’s your only chance.   The rescue boat is 200m away and the Rock Dwanyne Johnson is holding out his muscular tribal tattood arm.  my God! He looks fantastic and he always beats the bad guys! you’ve got to get wet and Get to him!

7. Get agile, get stealthy

You should be able to move like a kung fu grandmaster.  Only not at kung fu.  Walking.  You’ve been walking since somewhere around year one.   You should have mastered and excelled at walking by this point in your life.     –    I’m not asking for ballet type beauty here but you walk and are amplulating all day dude.  You should be a pro.  You NEED to be World class at moving well.

The Roving Hoard of Bad Guys that gang together after the EMP hit have showed up at your neighborhood and you need to be able to move in the dark down your street from Cars, to Trees to giant trash cans  without being seen.    If you trip and fall, breath too hard from exertion or step on a cat’s tail, it’s game over muchacho – welcome to the Thunderdome, you are tonight’s entertainment.

8.  Lift something off your buddy

Why is it that the last two characters in the movie inevitable almost screw it up?  I have no idea, but its been happening since Scooby Doo and the band KISS took down the creepy nephew at the haunted state Fair.    Someone is going to have something fall on them at an inopertune time.  They’re pinned.  it’s classic, its traumatic and it’s up to you. In this case it’s a body weight carved mahogany etched bookshelf with aromatic leather bound limited edition horror classics, how profound?!

You need to get that off your buddy before the rising water full of sewer sharks and mutant gators reaches critical level.  If you’re not strong enough, prepare yourself for a very emotional yet artistically angled tear jerker goodbye scene –   “I’m sorry…it should be me..”  That’s right man, it should be – “you cant even throw a shelf off my legs?”  How are you supposed to be the HERO again?

9. Get away – walk or jog 5 to 10 miles

Hate to be redundant but this is Hollywood Halloween correct? 

Hollywood is all about repeat success and running it into the ground…

After all of that effort and displays of fitness you’re right back where you started at…the zombies are back.  Why so much Zombie stuff?  Zombies and trending and HOT right now is why…you have to escape zombies again…   

 Your first mile earlier just gave you breathing room and time to think. Honestly, in Survival end of the world zombie pocolypes type deals you should be able to pack 10-20 miles a day if necessary.  with a back pack and wearing whatever you’ve got on right now – this is a bug out situation.   Not a gym workout pregame stretch routine.

In one of my tactical gun classes, an instructor told a story about a military operator of his that was caught up in the earthquake in Haiti a decade ago.    Total chaos and hell on earth. It took him nearly 7 hours to get back to the hotel just 1 mile away!  No water and he was wearing office shoes.  He had no choice though. What if you just physically couldn’t do it? There is no ambulance, Nat’l Guard or police coming to help you G.  You’re on your own!

10.  Be, NOT the slowest of all your friends and those around you.

You know what they say about being chased by a monster in a horror movie right?  

 You don’t have to be the fastest, just make sure you’re not the slowest.

Last ditch Quick tip from my special forces amigos – “IF you find that you are actually in a run for your life AND your life actually does depend on speed  AND you are indeed the slowest – kick your buddy in the kneecap and keep running.”

Ok well there we go.  10 Tactical objective that I feel are pretty much a bare bones minimum to being healthy enough to survive Halloween.

It was probably my favorite article to write.

More importantly it should be eye opening and real.  Hopefully this podcast got you smirking while at the same time questioning if you indeed have the chops..It’s important by God!

It’s important for you and your family and should be both a goal and a severe wakeup call for some because although dracula and aliens are a stretch- there is real life stuff out there, real life emergencies that demand a level of fitness that you either posses or you do not.    As much as it’s fun to conjure up Halloween scenarios I could just as easily put together real life emergencies that would be harder to digest and uncomfortable to think about.

So be it your goofy sidekick on the Halloween movie or your wife and kids in a real life scenerio –

Tier it out: – Can you do this.  Are you Fit enough for an emergency.  10 steps.

“OK Chad, I counted.   I can do 1-3.”

Just lay down and give up.  You’re no help.   We need a hero not a zero – this is Blockbuster level fitness.

I can do 4-6

wow!   4 to 6 huh?   That’s terrible.  You are probably in the way and are making it harder for other survivors to do their job.   You’re the burden of this particular seasonal film.   definitley second to go – you’ll never make it to tomorrow. and the daylight sunrise closing scene/

I can do 7-9

If you are absolutely diligent about spacial awareness and always on alert for danger and anticipate scenarios and act on your gut instinct and spidey sense – if all that works out just perfectly AND you kind of get to direct your own script here – well then I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance you survive.   The idea was to avoid a fight – and there is always a chance you are going to have to fight..I hope you’ve trained the guns and fighting and all the other tactical stuff, you may still need those skills.   If you haven’t, send me an email, I’ll get you in touch with some of the best!  

I can do all 10!

You nailed it!   Now keep pushing, the sequel is only a year away and is sure to be tougher.

Great – that’s a minimum –  Keep living buddy! See you in TEOTWASKI aftermath!