Former Navy SEAL Clint Emerson, author of "100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative's Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation", explains how to escape if you've been tied up. Following is a transcript of the video.
If you take your hand and you go open and close, you can feel the muscles in your forearm contract. When you have a fist, your forearm is small. When you have your hand open, your forearm is big. So, you want to create slack by open hands. And then you’re going to pull those hands, your elbows, and you’re going to shoot them past your rib cage as hard and violently as you can, and it turns your body into a wedge, and the tape will sheer. It’ll look like it’s been cut with scissors. That will work for duct tape and zip ties, but anything beyond that, you have to get more creative.
Wiggle or use tools around you. Friction — you can use the corner of a wall and cut your way out. If you find yourself being bound, a good idea is to get big. Take a big breath if they’re trying to wrap around your chest. Flex your muscles, make everything as big as possible. That way, when it’s time to escape, you get small and all of a sudden all that slack appears and now you can wiggle out or get out of the restraints however you can.