On a serious note, this discussion about fitness made me think of the difference between soldiers and athletes. Soldiers need to be able to do their job under the worst of circumstances. Athletes are given the ideal circumstances to give their best. It seems to me that survival is less about being the fittest person possible so you can run away from ISIS. It is about being able to get away from ISIS even when you have a broken leg. Athletes are graded 0-10. In a survival situation we're graded pass/fail.
Well define 'Athlete'. Mountaineer here "given the ideal circumstances"... Nah. Even the triathlete side of me; swimming, cycling and running. Pretty sure I train in the cold, heat, wind, sun, rain and snow.
Actually most athletes that are described as a ‘adrenaline junkies' are very emotionally stable, well planned and flexible. Also it helps that athletes have stronger muscles, that protect your body from harm.
A more practical question -- what's a reasonable criterion of fitness for survival? Do we use the various military benchmarks? How do we adjust for age?
Well you can’t really tell what skills are handy to survive. I mean if you do, I would suggest to avoid that situation. But a combination of overall strength and endurance seems to be most sensible to me.
With age comes experience and with experience comes efficiency…
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