Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting 2014 Fitness/Workout Thread

Joel,

It's tough to replace squats, or work around them. Without knowing what your garage, yard, driveway, lawn, street, basement, shed, barn or greenhouse looks like, or if you have any physical limitations, I'd start with something like this:

Timing: 3 months or more before your charter season starts.

Diet: as much as you can eat for reasonable cost, as often through the day as you can stand. 6 decent meals or so. No particular foods - you'll get enough of what you need for growth (calories, protein, nutrients) so long as you eat relatively normal food. Living where you live and doing what you do, I'd be eating an awful lot of king salmon and mashed potatoes.

Equipment: Barbell and iron weights. Barbell should have raw (non-chromed) finish, light knurling, and ends which are bushed and turn freely with load on them. Weights can be plain iron or fancy rubberized bumpers - doesn't matter. You will eventually need over 300 lbs.

List of no-squat-rack lifts that are worthwhile:
1. Deadlifts
2. Power Cleans
3. Standing Press (clean it up to your shoulders)
4. Front Squat (clean it up to your shoulders)
5. Back squat (up to the weight that you can clean to your shoulders and then herft up over your head, and reverse the process to set down, if you hurt yourself in the process you're using too much weight...)
6. Lunges (see disclaimer for #5 above)
7. Chins (palms toward you)

Start with two alternating routines, and lift three times a week.

Routine 1:
Squat 3x5: Start with something you can do easy (45, 65, 95 or 135 lbs) and increase by 5-10 lbs next workout.
Deadlift 3x5: Start with something easy (95, 105 or 135 lbs) and increase by 5-10 lbs per workout.
Standing press, 3x5: start with something easy and increase 5lb per workout
Chins 3x5, add reps as allowed by your strength

Routine 2:
Front squat 3x5: (because you'll need to know how to do these once your back squat gets too heavy to lift into position)
Deadlift 3x5
Standing press 3x5

In a few weeks or months' time, you will stall out on squats becuase you'll be heavy enough to need a rack. If you don't want to make one or buy one, change routine #1 as follows:

Front squat 3x5
Power Clean 3x5 (start with something easy, increase weight 5 lb per workout)
Lunge 3x5 (step forward with weight, and push yourself back to your rear foot, ten reps total per set; five reps per forward leg, alternate forward legs)
Standing press 3x5
Chins 3x5

Don't do any other exercise, and get lots of rest. You'll probably have to shift mindset to maintenance once your fishing season starts. Workouts the same, but don't expect any weight increases.

You won't get strong nearly as fast when you remove back squats from the equation. Cleans are started earlier than rippetoe recommends because you need to know how to do them to get your barbell in position for front squats, presses and lunges.