Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Training for the upcoming season

Right chaps, it’s finally warming up here, north of the medicine line.
Time to get my fat ass in shape for elk season.
What is everyone doing to get in shape?
I run a little, bike a bit. Plan on doing one steep hike with my pack at least one evening a week.
What’s everyone else doing?

I hit my gym 4x a week year ‘round. Weights and cardio. It’s much easier to stay in shape than get in shape….

This^^^^^

I've settled into 2 strength days and 3 cardio days per week, with 1 of the weekend cardio sessions doing LSD.







Long Slow Distance

What did you think I meant......

Very true!
I was in decent shape last fall, did sweet blue f-all all winter and paying the price now.

“Lad Seeking Disco”

In the foothills where I live it's a daily 5 mile hike with a 10 lb Garand in my hands (no sling) and a 30lb slab of iron on my back 6 days a week. Back at the trailhead if the ground is dry or frozen then its pushups, then shed the backpack, and do crunches. Otherwise, it's back to the shack to do those.

When it's icy I add crampons. When the snow is deep it's time for snowshoes. The minimum objective is 1,000 miles of trail before heading to elk camp.


Definitely true it's easier to stay in shape then to get in shape...

Switch from Busch to Busch Light

I’m pretty time challenged so do a lunch workout in company gym. Wear a 40lb weight vest & climb uphill on the treadmill for 35 minutes 2-3 days a week. Have a good steep 1.5 mile hike on my place do that with a pack & shotgun on the pack at night with a headlight several times right before. Mix in longer hikes with packs haphazardly. Walk the golf course & carry my bag instead of riding a golf cart when I get a chance to play. Not exactly marathon training but pretty focused on what I need at 60+ years of age.

You all will find when you hit the mountains your cardio is pretty good but unless you did some hip flexor and abductor training your legs will get shot pretty early.
Lots of going over downed timber that taxes your various hip muscles way different than normal gym exercises. You'll be swinging your legs over logs sideways and every which way except straight over..
Do some hip adductor and abductor exercises on a cable machine and some various lunges with weights.
Stairs are also good for cardio and building quads and glutes, hit a taller building near you and take the stairs.

Alot of truth in this post. You'll know when you feel an ache in your glute up high and towards the tailbone of center. It's you glute medius and it helps keep your hips level. It will start complaining way before the quads or glute max. Your hip flexors will start complaining when you pick up your booted foot for the 10,000th time that day to step over a log. Banded hip or psoas march will train that muscle. Took me a couple years of backpacking to figure that out. Literally did band walking (monster walk, side steps, toe taps) today and do it 2-3 times a week from now till season. It doesn't take long and works - at least for me. Work in hip marching in coming weeks.

This reminds me I'll have to change the oil on my 4-wheeler.

I am of the opinion that gyms can be a good compliment to a plan of getting into hiking shape, but it isn't wise to rely totally on them. I personally can't stand going to them other than to check out the hotties. The cookie cutter exercises there and normal hikes down trails just don't work muscles at all angles IMO.

Personally, I trap and bird hunt all winter long on foot then bear hunt and fish in hard to reach areas all spring/summer. Those in the deep south may be able to find some swampy mess to get through and fish which I suspect would be as taxing on your legs, hips, back and core as anything else.

I agree completely that mixing in real world is the best way to go. My place starts at 1600’ & goes to 1900’ in only 12 acres so we have plenty of good slope to do climbing & going down hill with packs & guns but there is no substitute an extra 6000 ft of elevation. I’ll bow hunt at about 6,000 ft on the family’s place in the local mountains but it isn’t the Rockies the elevation just seems to compound fatigue those first few days.

Agree. But in my case I’m at 200 feet above sea level. Going to 9,000+ feet I don’t have much choice but to hit it as hard as I can in the gym. Still Lill’s me the first three days until I acclimate.

Ya, I am aware that many folks are at lower elevations and therefore there isn't much they can do to prepare themselves concerning the O2 level issue, however the gyms in Denver are as limited as they are at any other elevation. That was why I threw a statement in about folks in the deep south but I probably should have expanded that to include all areas not at higher elevation. I suspect the OP, whom I was responding to, is fairly close to the Canadian Rockies but I cold be wrong about that.

Regardless of where you're located, I still think hiking around in whatever woods/swamps/timber you have available is a better mainstay to your routine than concentrating totally on the gym. Walking around in that mucky, swampy mess you all have down there is tiring on your legs and core, especially if you have weight on your back. BTDT and I felt it worked my body overall much better than gym exercises.

Good luck to all this fall, whichever route you choose.

+1, and doing it with a pack on your back with some weight in it is even better......

I don't do any specific training for elk season except a few special treadmill workouts in Aug/September. On a yearly basis I run 60-100 miles a month and mix in some weights works out. Last year my totals were 954 miles, 15,900 push ups, 4050 pull ups, and 3288 sit ups and that doesn't include the weights workouts. I shoot a few run and guns a year, which dictates most of my athletic and firearms training. Come late August and September I'll mix in my hill climb treadmill workout. It's 60 minutes, 15% incline, and I vary speed to climb as high and as far as I can. On a really good day, I'll get 3000' elevation gain and 4 miles. Killer leg workout.

If was to train specifically for elk season, I'd focus on building up cardio endurance, pick your poison, running, hiking, rowing, biking...nah, scratch biking, can't stand them. At a min. be able to go a solid hour at an elevated heart rate. Mix in some leg specific exercises. A weighted vest is good, or running/jogging hills is good too. Just get your heart rate up. If you're not sweating, you're not exercising.

Truth, but the snakes, mosquitos and alligators are a bitch in August.

May 1st I switch from Bud heavy to Bud Light

Seriously, Rona wrecked my azz. Lost thirty pounds of leg and arm muscles. Going to be a long summer of up the suck hikes.

Finally I’m on a pretty decent strength and aerobic program……for an elk hunt that I won’t be having! 🤬 memtb

Didn't draw a tag the year. Might be a blessing. Had my knee replaced and am a little behind where I should or want to be. Then the weather sucks so bad its hard to get out and walk with the wind/rain/snow. Unbelievable how much strength you loose after this surgery, sucks. And put weight on to make matters worse. I'm in trouble!! Need the weather and leg to straighten out. Keep at it guys!!!!!

Damn, sorry to hear that wyo. The good thing is, elk season is about the best motivation you can get to put in the work. Good luck with your getting back into shape.

This is good advice. I just did a hike with a lot of blowdown and it's always surprising how that will sap you if you don't do it much. Which reminds me one of the reasons why my favorite hunting spots are my favorites--no beetle kill so less blowdown than a lot of places. But still plenty.

I used to do a lot of leg lifts but I developed a little arthritis in one hip and my PT told me my hip flexors were way too tight and I needed to stop doing the leg lifts, stretch the hip flexors and tighten up the glutes to help with the hip alignment and reduce the arthritis. So far that's worked for the arthritis but I'm not looking forward to stepping over a bunch of blowdown this fall.

Monday & Thursday:
Pullups, single bar dips, goblet squats, suitcase carry KB mile

Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday:
Kettlebell swings
Suitcase carry KB mile

The KettleBell mile is a suitcase carry (I use a treadmill on a slight incline), changing hands when necessary. If the mile takes more than twenty minutes, use a lighter bell next time. Once the pace gets to 15 minutes or less, move to a heavier bell.

bwinters tell us more about the LSD ?

Training? What training?

That would be the training that, while you're halfway into your first good climb of the season at 10,000 feet and stopping to suck wind way too often, you wished you'd done more of.

I've never seen it work the other way, as in being halfway up and thinking "I really put in too much time training the summer."

Seeing the OP again this morning got me to thinking…….how do you train for disappointment? memtb

LOL, go bowhunting.

😂 I hadn’t considered that! 👍 memtb

How old are you donkey cock? I work for a living. That always keeps me in good enough shape. Try fitting 608 feet of angle iron in a day and you'll know what I'm talking about. Elk season is like a vacation. Still "work", but not quite.

Try carrying a suitcase welder through a barge with a 3 ton come along and all your other tools and get back to me

LOL, you're my hero.

Run
Pack hike w 45#
Bike

Between the covid and cancer treatments, I’m a mess. I’m working on it, but surely not going to hunt as hard and long as I usually do particularly for mule deer in the early season.

I'm thinking of booking a high fence hunt in TX.
I hear is just as difficult as hitting the mountains but you get to eat real good and sit on the couch and get drunk with the other "hunters" each night.
Do they have a catering truck that visits the box blinds?
Do I have to fill up the corn feeder on my own?
If so I should probably start doing curls.

My entire hunting career has been geared toward such. Pretty used to it now….grin

I found that no matter how good of shape I was in, the elk made me wish I was in just
a little bit better shape.

best idea here yet.

Stair climber & rowing machine. Free weights for pecs, lats & back. Lunges are real good also. Keep a positive attitude is really important