Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Getting in shape for BP hunting

Hello All:

3 or 4 years ago, I was was tweaked fairly bad in a car wreck involving a drunk driver (the other guy was drunk) and have been stuck with hunting from a truck. I miss getting out and seeing the vistas from being up high at dawn etc. I've been cleared by the doctor to hunt as much as possible within reason (I'm 54 years old now) and am looking to get back into the mountains. I've looked at systems like P90X and have a heart attack just looking at it. Does does anyone have any reasonable ideas for getting back into shape that won't kill me in the process? I was not in the best shape when the drunk driver T-boned me?

First things first, if it were me recovering from injuries like that and trying to get back in shape, I'd build up my cardio capacity as the first step.

Do you belong to a gym? If not, sign up and interview a few of their trainers before you sign to see if there are any you think are any good. Check their training/credentials. Tell them your objective, take a few training sessions and get a good idea of the routine, and then do it on your own.

Once you re-build your cardio, you'll be in a much better position to add strength training and be able to work hard enough to get the benefits.

Start slow. Scale workouts as necessary. Choose functional movements like pullups (assisted if necessary), pushups, squats, lunges, running/walking hills/stairs/loaded pack. Mix those up in different combinations and work up to high intensities for a few minutes at a time. Constantly change things up! The stopwatch is your friend. Combine movements for different time intervals, but if you're going hard, there's no reason to go longer than 5-15 minutes at a time most days.

If you get bored, buy a little kettlebell and learn to do swings, squats, lunges, and turkish getups. There is a ton of info on the web, but this is where I'd start.

And eat good! But that's another thread...

I'm 30 and have been in a number of car wrecks myself. I have been through lots of physio and other types of rehab. I have found weight training to be the best thing for me. Thanks to this site I also came across a training program called starting strength. I purchased and read the book as well as purchased the training DVDs. I have found this structure to work for me. I am not trying to gain mass but try to follow the training schedule and the proper form as per the DVDs. I have found it helpful and my general physical health has improved as a result.

Fuzzy

Do some backpacking!
Start with gentle trails and light packs, work your way up with distance, difficulty, and weight.

Walking and hiking.

Burpee's.

Skip rope.

If you got some cash, sled drags and pushes, or make your own.

I don't know anything about your injuries but I would say that finding out which exercises you can do that don't hurt would be a good start.

Start with the basics and put a BIG emphasis on diet. Hauling around less (bad) weight will help you in life, in the gym, and on the mountain.

If you can squat, by all means squat. Learn to do it correctly.

I would talk to a doc and/or physical therapist about getting back into shape for backpacking given your injuries and current physical conditioning. Take their advice. Get back to where you can comfortably backpack. Add hunting back into the mix later.

Don't expect instant results, it could take a season or two depending on how severe the injuries were and how much healing still might be needed. I messed up one knee and it took 2 years before it was "right." I messed up a shoulder the same year and it's still not right, I can do most everything but I can't throw the way I used to. That's WITH physical therapy. Some things you just don't come back from, especially when you mix age into the equation.

Tom

Buy and ride a decent bicycle extending the distances and speeds at which you go as you gain fitness. People in the poorest of shape can start off slow and work their way up. It's low impact. The leg motions are similar to climbing. It also gets you out and about which is good.

Good advice.

I've been unwinding my body from a car wreck this last 6-8 months. My body per se wasn't even what really got hurt but even still, and impact like that ties you up in ways I never imagined until it happened! Anyway my advice is to start with deep stretches and core exercises. Get your butt, abs, and hip flexors working.

Concurrently, do low impact cardio. Walking (fast!) and/or biking.

As you feel your body coming back step up the intensity. There will be tweaks to work through. Don't fear muscle pain but do fear swelling joints and tendinitis. My Achilles are an area I have to strengthen carefully as they are prone to the latter, and a bout of tendinitis is no small thing, and can take forever to clear up. Joint swelling can be several things but again can be a challenge to work through without worsening the problem.

Then, find yourself some vertical (hills), put on a 20-lb pack, and get to it. I'm lucky in that I've got a vicious trail I've resurrected that gives me a brutal amount of steep up/down, and has the payoff of long range shooting about 3/4 of the way through. I do it once a week. A few days ago I added a 20-lb chunk of madrone to my pack just to make it harder. It feels GOOD to get those thighs combusting!

But first things first. Start with the stretching, core exercises, and low-impact cardio. Nothing will derail an exercise regime faster than injury. Takes the wind right out of your sails. So start at the beginning.

Good luck!!!!!!

I am clearly no expert when it comes to fitness but strong legs, mental/physical pain tolerance and determination are the keys to backpack hunting, IMO.

Whatever else you do, put a pack on your back and go for a walk in the hills.

Smoke, backsquat your bodyweight 20 times, then powerclean and jerk 135# 30 times for time and let me know if that does anything for your "cardio". Certainly that isn't where this guy needs to start but the myth that weights can't be "cardio" needs to die a timely death.

I would advise against a "personal trainer". The best advice I can give would be to learn POSE running technique, obtain and read Mark Rippetoe's "Starting Strength" (the barbell "bible") and find a good Crossfit gym that has an "on-ramp" trainup program for newbies. Learn and employ the principals of both the Zone and Paleo diet.

That ought to raise BP and pulse, but that ain't "cardio" as I understand it.

First, I never said resistance training can't be cardio, so you'll need to quote someone else if you want to argue that particular point. You can tell me to do X number of these, and Y number of those. I'll tell you to go try "fight gone bad." 6 of those, half dozen of these, it's personal preference and there ain't one "right" answer.

Second, dude, go back and read the original post. The guy was injured in a car wreck failry badly 3-4 years ago, and wasn't in very good shape even prior to that. You have no idea what lingering problems/injuries he still has, what muscles are weak and need to be re-habbed, or any of that. To suggest that someone in that condition just run out and join a class ain't the best advice because his needs are going to be entirely different from anyone else in the class. Advising him not to see a competent trainer ain't very good advice either.

A good trainer will put him through some paces, see where he's weakest, and get him doing simple excercises to re-hab and strengthen what needs to be re-habbed and strengthened first. And work on his cardio. I've seen the trainers at my gym work with people who have gotten out of shape and yes, they do some resistance training but they also do the treadmill to build up a modicum of stamina. Then they can go harder at the resistance.

He's gonna need cardio no matter what, and if he works on his cardio and works with a trainer first, then he'll be in much better position to do whatever strength training he needs.

Smokepole pretty much nailed it.

We have unknown injuries: The severity of which we have no knowledge and which may pose limitations and therefore we can only guess from here. Combined with out-of-shape starting point and age creeping up.

I would think a sports therapist would be a sound starting point. Especially one familiar with an aging body. Even without problems, what the young guys can do is not always the best starting point. I'm 68, so no offense implied. Once you build a strong base and knowledge, you can strikeout on your own physical program and modify to your specific needs. Impression from the original post, you may not be ready to put a pack on and hit the hills. From the sounds of things just walking may be the starting point.

Another suggestion would be a formal Yoga class to work on flexibility. It will also work on your core strength.

Get some hands on advice and build from there.

Addition: How many over 60yr participants do you see in the P90X videos? Serious workout and essentially for the younger and under 50 crowd. It would be the exception for someone pushing 60-and with a sound starting point-to be able to continue the program over the long haul. At this stage of our lives we should be more concerned with functional strength rather than doing 20 burps. Again, no doubt there are exceptions, but they are the exception and not the rule. In our case long and slow will get the job done just the same.

For someone that is untrained and out of the game for a long time, a slow start is in order. However, I see zero benefit with holding off on resistance training of any sort until some so-called cardiovascular reserve is built. Strength training and endurance are not mutually exclusive.

Done properly, started with minimal weight (read: broomstick), and very gradually ramped up, full range of motion resistance training with barbells has the peculiar ability to un-screw lots of problems. Some problems cannot be un-screwed without surgery, and some are too risky for even that. We're talking blown discs and spinal cord impingement here. Otherwise, damage to ligaments/tendons/muscle can be helped/healed by slowly adding strength.

As far as "strength training" goes, any exercises other than full-body movements like squats, deadlifts, standing presses and some sort of bent over row or chinup or lat pulldown are not "strength training" for a novice. Somewhere between 95% and 99% of folks who regularly train with "weights" are novices, based on how much (or how little) they can squat.

As far as personal trainers go, my own observations would indicate that between 1% and 5% of trainers I've seen in commercial gyms are qualified to give advice on strength training. The rest will have you perched atop a freaking bosu ball doing single arm curls and calling it strength training or core training.

A 54-year-old cannot recover like a high schooler unless they're some sort of genetic freak. The Starting Strength book addresses starting from square-one for folks of all ages and takes recovery into account. It is $25 well spent.

Aside from barbells, whatever else floats your boat and gets you moving. Walk on undulating ground. Bike on same. Get a woodstove and put up firewood. Take the stairs. Backpack hunting starts and ends with walking with weight, so a guy would think that walking with weight would be good training too.

The amount of exercise required to break in a new pair of boots and harden the feet sufficiently to walk in the mountains (up down sideways) will more than take care of your mountain hunting cardio needs.

That has not been my experience, I guess it depends on the quality of the gym and the quality of trainers they hire. Down here we have plenty of good ones. If you go to a gym regularly, observe and ask around, it's not hard to find good ones that know strength training as well as re-hab of injuries. I've re-habbed a shoulder and a knee, and periodically hired trainers to help with strength training, and never had a bad one. But then again, I didn't just go to the gym and ask for a trainer, I knew who/what I wanted and who to go to.



Yeah, I had a pair of boots like that once, LOL. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "mountain cardio needs."

Hey Kevin, Try to get a couple of buddies to train with you. I did this this year. It really helps keep you motivated. Funny how on the days I just dont feel like it, My son or a buddy will call and ask what time to meet. I too am in my fifties. Gotta love hunting. Its kept me in shape and tought me how to use a computer.LOL Tony

Yes, there is one "right answer". It is called Crossfit, done/led by someone skilled in it's precepts. I posted that he needs to find a gym that has what is called an on-ramp/beginners' program. Crossfit will take the human body through just about every movement most of us are capable of performing, and it will diagnose/disclose old injuries and a Level II certified Crossfit coach will have some sort of plan to work around them. I can't do overhead barbell squats as a result of a pinched nerve in my neck from a SERE school ass-whipping. I figured out a way to work around that.

As for running? Everybody some be able to run, and NOBODY should ever run a step in cushy shoes, landing on your heels.

If a Crossfit gym isn't an option or unavailable, like Vek said, learn the basic barbell lifts and get to work on them, certainly a coach would be beneficial if one is available.

As for personal trainers, like Vek said, most of 'em are cashing their paychecks under false pretenses. Most of 'em bought Arnolds' book, and have a pretty good supply of syringes and needles, 'cause personal "training" is all about looks and not performance, in most cases.