Is being too muscular bad for survival ?

U

ukknifer

Joined
Jan 30, 2010
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Hi
Just asking some theoretical question. I saw the guy on Dual survival (Cody) looking like a gym rat with huge muscles. He obviously is a body-builder.

Isn't being too muscular when food is scares is like having a v12 engine in a car when fuel is at an all time high? it needs allot of fuel?

What do you think is the ideal (survival) body? (sorry)
 
In terms of surviving in an outdoor environment where you may need to carry stuff (lumber, etc.), I'd say the more muscular you are the better.

In terms of surviving in an urban environment (IE: street brawl), I'd say it doesn't matter much. What matters is the physiological make up of the muscle on your body and how you've trained your motor units to function. You can train for strength and be insanely strong, yet have small muscles. Strength has only one true definition in health and fitness, and that's how much weight you can put up for one repetition. You only need to think a second to see the application.

I say that having studied exercise science in college.
 
Do some research on Ranger School. I have a few close friends who went through several years ago...some of them with a lot of bulk muscle. The course was designed to stress you with sleep and food depravation. It's roughly 60+days, yet a good friend lost 60 pounds, mostly muscle. I would say that in a survival situation, muscle bulk would be okay but your overall physical fitness and health is more important. If you're body is conditioned to consume a large number of calories and protein, you're going to have a tough transition changing the intake and metabolism shifts when in a survival situation. Ron Hood had a good discussion about this on one of his videos (Solo Survival I think).

Muscle bulk would okay, being in good overall shape would be better. The better your body is in physical shape, the better it will handle stress.

ROCK6
 
ROCK6 said:
Do some research on Ranger School. I have a few close friends who went through several years ago...some of them with a lot of bulk muscle. The course was designed to stress you with sleep and food depravation. It's roughly 60+days, yet a good friend lost 60 pounds, mostly muscle. I would say that in a survival situation, muscle bulk would be okay but your overall physical fitness and health is more important. If you're body is conditioned to consume a large number of calories and protein, you're going to have a tough transition changing the intake and metabolism shifts when in a survival situation. Ron Hood had a good discussion about this on one of his videos (Solo Survival I think).

Muscle bulk would okay, being in good overall shape would be better. The better your body is in physical shape, the better it will handle stress.

ROCK6
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Sold.
 
I think Cody Lundin is a strong man, not so much a gym rat. Lifting rocks in the desert has a way of toning and sculpting that urbane people really don't understand.

Its alot like my friend Noah, he is a LEO with a PD in Nevada, and Recon Marine, he is 5'10" and 165 pounds, but a cardio machine, not ripped, but the guy could drag my 225 lb frame at the time up a hill and into cover like a Grizzly on a whitetail.

Now, I am 260 pounds but flip tractor tires and engage what friends call the "Caveman" workout. Never hitting a gym and never touching a rubber mat.

The bottom line is don't judge a book by its cover.

I think on the whole I would rather be on the fat side than skinny side if dealing with a survival situation. Size on the whole though, muscularity at least, I think is a non factor for pure non-combative survival.
 
When your body is not getting enough food, it will cannibalize the glycogen stores in muscle first anyway. It tries to hold onto fat stores for as long as possible. Just ask anyone who is trying to lose weight! Also, Cody is muscular and has mentioned that he goes to a gym, but he isn't ripped so probably has sufficient fat stores to be fine when he is eating less calories.
 
I watched Survivor on CBS for several season. Ripped , muscular guys with little body fat are usually the first ones whos bodies give out.
 
Being big for the sake of looking nice is not likely to be an asset. Your muscle stores will burn a certain number of calories just to survive...even when they are not working to better your situation...however, how do you predict all of your needs?...perhaps it is better to have all your systems nice and (perhaps excessively) strong.

Any machine needs to be built for the tasks it performs...any mass that exists for any unnecessary reason is basically dead weight. In this regard, a bit of stored fat can be good (fuel tank)!

Said another way, huge pectorals that can bench press 500 pounds are probably overbuilt for most needs in a survival situation...but you never know?

Regardless, a small guy will tend to need less calories to survive as compared to a more muscular person....but the smaller man needs to survive, so he better have the strength/skills needed to do that first.
 
Being muscular might prove problematic due to the high daily caloric demands of a muscular body, since muscle burns twice as many calories at rest as fat does.

But it sure would be convenient to have muscles if you happen to stumble across a colony of stranded ladies in distress... ;)

JGON
 
tknife said:
When your body is not getting enough food, it will cannibalize the glycogen stores in muscle first anyway. It tries to hold onto fat stores for as long as possible.
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Your body only uses muscle because it can't get glucose from fat. It depends on fat for energy, though, before reverting to muscle. When your body starts burning muscle for energy after most of its fat stores have been used, the next step is called death. This should be avoided!

I guess ideally(for survival), you would want a lot of both muscle AND fat.

Yeah....YEAH! That's the real reason I don't get rid of this little extra I carry around the waistline!
Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it;)
 
Same here. I knew a bit of beer gut was a good thing. It's survival, strictly survival!
 
Just make sure you're a good hunter/forager and eat more, I think you'd be okay.

Besides, the body starts eating muscle if you aren't eating enough calories, so your body will probably balance out after a while.

Maybe.


In theory.
 
I'd say that as long as the body muscle can be used in conjunction with skill to catch lots of food than maintenance would not be a problem and the extra strength could be applied to such a demanding lifestyle in a very positive way. I think that extreme fitness is a necessity in any long term survival situation but hulk muscles are not necessarily that important...
 
I've been weightlifting or doing long distance running for about 15 years now. My best friend went through SERE school weighing 240lbs and he's built like a line backer. I think a lot of it has to do with being a healthy strong weight that is normal for YOUR body. Having an extremely low body fat percentage is definately going to hurt you in a survival scenario. I think the biggest benefits in doing intense physical training are the abilitys to recover quickly and mentally withstand a lot higher levels of physical stress.

Being skinning and unhealthy and overweight and unhealthy in my view are equally dangerous. I've seen both these types of people fatigue so quickly to the point that they appear drunk and are dangerously stumbling around, not good when you are 15 to 20 miles from a ranger station.
 
I think muscle mass doesn't tell the whole story about metabolism, it is more about your general diet and habits. That said.
You probably could use some muscles for survival but beyond a point it is overkill.
I'd probably worry more about developing stamina, and at some point muscle mass gets in the way.
 
I read a book "In the Heart of the Sea" which was about the shipwreck which gave rise to the story of "Moby Dick".

In the early 1800s a whaling ship was rammed by a big male sperm whale and sank within minutes far out in the middle of the Pacific. All hands survived the sinking, but were in three small whaleboats with limited resources.

The book documents their struggles for survival over the months that follow, and the story of their rescue. Most did not survive, and those who did had to resort to cannibalism.

Several of the crew were of African descent. None of them survived. It has been theorized that (aside from possible racial factors) those crew members did not survive because, as they were used for the heaviest, hardest work aboard ship, they had the leanest bodies and least amount of body fat. Therefore they had less in the way of reserves going into the ordeal, and this may have contributed to their deaths.

Having low levels of natural insulation can also contribute to susceptibility to exposure as well. Women tend to do better in cold water and colder environments because they have a greater fat to muscle ration than men on average.

Andy
 
I think it has a lot do with the individual, some people feel better very lean and others better with with more bodyfat.
I feel the best at right around 200lbs which where I am now. This is also a weight at which I can maintain the easiest.

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By pitdog2010 at 2010-12-06
 
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