Training for mountain hunts

[Shane]

I've got an elk hunt booked for September in Colorado, so I'm adjusting my training to prep for that. The last couple of years, I've been focused mostly on overall strength training. I'm shifting focus from now til September. I'm gonna do more HIIT and steady state cardio than I've been doing, in order to increase my VO2 max. That will mean fewer strictly weight lifting days, but I'll still hit all body parts once a week with strength training exercises.

My plan is to do a HIIT workout on the Airdyne bike every Monday and Friday, along with a pretty brutal core circuit workout on those days as well.

I'll do steady state incline treadmill plus stair climber work on Wednesdays. I'll do those with weighted pack.

Tuesday will be strength work on Legs, Back and Biceps.

Thursday will be strength day for Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps.

Running is out for me. Too hard on my knees. I don't want to go into the mountains with sore knees.

What kind of program do you guys do to prep for hunts in the mountains?

[J Wales]

Sounds exciting!

A good mixture of HIIT, cardio, weights and core has always served me well. I have found nothing better to compensate for high altitude than spending a lot of time huffing and puffing, but you still need the weight & core workouts to keep your legs in shape for negotiating hills, rocks, logs, etc.

In the last few years, I have incorporated a lot more hiking (either on a treadmill or stairclimber) or around the neighborhood with a weighted pack (with the weight increasing over time) and while wearing my heaviest pair of hiking boots. I think the heavier boots help to condition your legs, hips and knees as much as anything to be prepared to swing that weight at the end of your leg all day long while hiking. If it is an early season hunt, I typically end up wearing a lighter weight boot for the hunt.

[Gclyde28]

I was in pretty good shape for my hunt last year but if I was doing it over again this year I would definitely be running way more bleachers / sprints up hills / sprints with the incline maxed out on the treadmill. I think sprinting and wearing out my lungs that way would have served me better than the monotonous cardio did. Especially when it came time to need to sprint up the mountain to get on the correct side of the thermals.

[WItoTX]

What kind of program do you guys do to prep for hunts in the mountains?

I follow Pat McNamera on Instagram. He has hundreds of videos of workouts that you can do with just about any heavy object you can find. I generally pick 6-7 of them, and do them twice a week. My HR will fluctuate from 130 to 180 for these. Then I run distance (8+ miles min) twice a week, keeping my HR around 145 to 150, and either run stairs or carry weight (40 or 50 lbs) up stairs once a week (I have access to 17 stories), and do it 6 or 7 times, with my HR peaking around 180 or so.

Weekends is walking dogs and resting.

[Traildust]

Nothing wrong with getting in shape.......getting up in the mountains a couple days early to acclimate is even better!

[TX03RUBI]

Squats. Lots and lots of squats. Doesn’t have to be heavy, but high repetition squats and lots of stair master with a weight pack. That coupled with a good cardio regimen will keep your lower body in relatively good shape.

[DTala]

stairs, steps, bleachers, steep hills...rinse and repeat.

[SabreKiller]

stairs, steps, bleachers, steep hills...rinse and repeat.

This is what I did before my sheep hunt, for a year. A weighted pack and the high school football stadium bleachers is awesome!

[Hockley]

Tagged. I will post up some of what I do when I get back to a PC. It is mostly HIT type stuff and hiking with a pack. Kettle Bells are the only kind of weight I picked up and I hate jogging.

[wytex]

Good chance you'll have dead fall to deal with. Work on all the muscles involved with lifting your legs up to the front and side, abduction and adduction.
Hips and quads get very tired and sore after days of stepping over logs. Lower abs will fell it too.
Wearing your weighted pack for cardio is great advice.

[justletmein]

In the past I just do my normal lifting routine which is broad enough to keep me in shape, though I did throw in some tire flips which were a nice way to get cardio in without having to stand around the cardio machines for hours with the instahoes. This year I'm way out of shape and been consistently untrained in general for close to a year, so need to be more aggressive and formulate a plan to catch up or I'm going to be hurting in the fall. I'll have to tag along this thread and see what others are doing and incorporate it. I also have to stop drinking so much beer and let the smoker cool off between meals.

[jeffpg]

You’re on the right track Shane. Your regular routine of staying in decent shape will go a long way towards helping you make the most of your mountain hunt. I just turned 58 last month, and I am constantly challenged by the need to stay fit enough to make those trips into the mountains that I love so much. One thing I like to do is simply hike the toughest terrain I can find with some weight tossed into the Exo backpack that I hunt with. I wear the boots I’ll hunt in and use my ever present hiking poles. Every mountain hunt I do screams out to me, “Legs & lungs!”

If you would like to have a very well put together specific workout plan for this type endeavor, click on the link below and scroll down towards the bottom where it says: “Sign-up to become an Exo Insider and we will send you a FREE Backcountry Hunting Training plan...” I was a couple weeks into this routine and found it to be quite legit for me, until I got on a turnaround project working 7-13’s. At my age, this kind of work schedule creates a whole new challenge in my fitness routine.

Good luck brother!

https://exomtngear.com/

[Bryan11]

Can't go wrong with stairs, lunges and sprints up hill. Like Gclyde28 mentioned, you may need to get somewhere quick and then need to settle back down fast to make a shot.

[thegrouse]

A Garmin with an HR monitor can help track your progress. Good luck

[TexaRican]

Shane, I lost 70lbs training for my elk hunt in 2018. Rucking 40 to 60lbs on the mountain bike trails (since we have no other elevation in Houston) and lots of step mill at the gym. What I totally was not prepared for was walking down hill. That by far was the worst and really the only bad part of the trip. Definitely the part that caused me to lose toenails.