Discussion of Physical Training For Mountain Hunts

Re: Physical Training For Mountain Hunts

Jasein

I apologize If I gave the impression that I'm against lifting, just the opposite!!! I'm 100% on training functional and dynamic. This type of lifting has changed the course of sports for ever. The lifts that you mention are great lifts especially the push press which generates power in the hips. Also the front squats, which help prevents incorrect form.

The term I used functional meaning that your training needs to be similar to the activity that your going to do and make it dynamic. Combining two lifts in a movement so that you can also activate and train dynamic stability. This type of stability has taken athletes to another level and you see it in there vertical leap, lateral speed and 40's.

In the past athletes where trained with heavy weights all the time and it lead to injuries and shorten careers. They were only lifting in one plane, sports is about multiple planes being dynamic with all movements. Since strength coach's like Mike Boyle "on the east coast" and Mark Verstegen from Athletes Performance now EXOS, lifting has come out of the dark ages.

Steve

Re: Physical Training For Mountain Hunts

Thanks for this post! I have GOT to start training. I'm a big fella, 6'4" 320lbs and I live @ 327ft above sea level. I just quit smoking after 9 years of it. I plan on killing an elk by the time I'm 35 and I have a LONG road ahead. But I'm motivated and I will do it!

Re: Physical Training For Mountain Hunts

It is a good thread.Here in the mountains of western Canada, if you want to enjoy it..you better be legged up, before you go.Climbing these rocks , there is no substitute..but everything helps.Luckily, I live in Bighorn Sheep country. For those if you that hunt with horses, the same applies to them.Man or beast, year around fitness is the key.Also anyone can do it, I once horse camped with a 60 year old in a basin here..8 hours of riding , walking and leading a packtrain and his left leg stopped a the knee.Inspiring or what?Just gotta toughen the muscle between your ears.Cheers everybody.

Re: Physical Training For Mountain Hunts

For backpacking and alpine climbing in past years I've mixed weight training and cycling (mountain and road). This has worked well for me because I enjoy the training so much it is not hard to keep it up year round.

This year I've tried something new: CrossFit. My sister-in-law owns a local CrossFit "box" in my home town so I've taken it up and have been doing it since April of this year. I've really been impressed with the fitness and strength results. Working out with others has been fun and motivating.

I've done some scouting trips this summer and I've felt good. I leave for a week long deer hunt in the high country next week. Looking forward to see how the new plan pays off.

Re: Physical Training For Mountain Hunts

All I know is 2 days from now it won't have been enough.

I'd rather be tired and miserable at 10,000' than in the office though!!!

Re: Physical Training For Mountain Hunts

A good portion of my physical training this year started with a diet change. I am elimination as many carbs as possible in exchange for fats and proteins. It boosted myetabolism enough that I started moving faster and building muscle. I haven't lifted a weight and am keeping up with the young guys.

I also eliminated sweets and junk food. It really needs to be a lifestyle change, but I dropped 20 pounds in a month.

I would say I pretty much agree with every opinion from one extreme to the other. How can that be? Well we have people from teens to 60's and from Level Land Texas to the heights of the Rockies. We have slim and limber to portly and stiff, and vise versa. My experience was for my 50th birthday my wife blessed me with a Backpacking Dall Sheep Hunt. She didn't realize it was a backpacking hunt. And I think she thought it would be a good motivator for me to try to regain my cardio health after having what we think was viral(from flu virus) cardiomyopathy. In my case that meant the walls of my heart had gotten much thicker reducing the chamber size and caused me to go into Atrial Fibrillation causing my heart output or Ejection Fraction to drop to 30-35%. In layman's terms that meant that it got so I could not carry on a conversation or walk down the hall without gasping for breath.
I had to go through a bit to get to the point I was back on the road to recovery to even be able to start thinking about mountain conditioning. Long story short had to start with just walking. I progressed through crossfit and loved all of it other than at my age I had a knee get sore with the deep squats, and that plays a role later on. Crossfit also for a guy like me, put this in perspective at 48 I was almost 250 and not super lean but doing a 500 pound stack for standing calf raises, why 500 pounds? Because that is all the machine had, 22 reps 3 sets. I was back up to trying to maintain a 300 pound one rep max bench press. I had one 86,000 pound lower body workout that was a quick one. So when I did start feeling better and started into cross fit I loved the weights but by April I was at 250 and could not get a sport coat or suit coat on over my shoulders and even in my lightning fast mind I finally said I don't need to be carrying me at 250 up a mountain. So I backed off of the weights and went to more cardio and carrying a pack on alternating days. I worked up to a 75 pound pack and up and down hills with push ups at the bottom with the pack on. My knee started to get more sore from an injury I had in January and I started going some without the pack, it really flared when I started jogging up part of the uphill with the pack on. I got worried that it wouldn't heal in time so that is when I quit increasing weight in the pack. I had planned on being to 100 pounds a few times a week for at least the last two weeks and I did not make that. In fact I backed up to 35-45 pounds in the pack and sometimes no weight and then going to a stair climber with a neoprene brace on.
I also started swimming more as my knee got sore, as a 72 year old grandslammer friend told me worked best for him.
The point of all of this is, if you have the desire and your Doctor says you are in good enough shape to try, give yourself enough time and you can do it. What I would do differently would be to not have gotten my knee sore to begin with. So don't be 50? No just work to the deeper squats more slowly and don't press to hard on that. And know the difference between tired and injured. I would also have taken some scouting trips, or photo or camping trips out to higher elevation and did my routines out there at elevation in addition to my routine.
What worked? What I did worked just fine. I was very comfortable the whole trip until I had that heavy pack on the way out. And that worked fine too I just didn't have the, been there done that and I can make this easily attitude, I would have had if I had worked out with that weight.
There was a time or two I asked Shawn, my guide if I could do this in one load and he reassured me. And to tell you the truth when I got almost to the top of the pass with mainly downhill remaining I trudged up that caribou trail to the top like I did it every day.
You eventually will be able to see me in video at the strip looking somewhat like a turtle laid back on my pack and huffing but you will also see a genuine smile on my face. And if you are in reasonably good health, if I can do it you can do it. Start early and build cardio, then start building your strength. It takes some pretty good strength to hoist the 100 pound plus pack you want to have on the way out, and I grew up loading and moving many many 100 pound feed sacks but you need to build that strength. And then get lean and mimic the conditions as closely as you can. And remember the harder you push before hand the easier the pushing will be when you are there. Yeah I was still too heavy, about 232 in the photos.
Oh and it was fun enough I will be going back for goat and a combo with bear or deer this November and hope to be a fair amount leaner and just have that much more fun.