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

Not to get all theraputic on you, but can you deadlift without pain?

Is your squat movement painful even with very little (bare bar) weight?

What are the credentials of your PTs? Do they squat?

They're all professional trainers, some DPTs. some MSs, two have power lifted competitively. Yes, they squat, and it was the first thing they asked me to do.

Sometimes the squat movement is painful with zero weight, like when I do BOSU ball squats between sets on the squat machines.

I can do deadlifts.

I can also do a couple machines, as long as I don't go past about 90 degrees.

PS, I won't be doing anything that requires lifting with both arms for a while, recovering from rotator cuff surgery.

Looks like we're posting while we're posting...

You're not wrong about carrying packs in the mountains. That's the coup de grace of my hunting training, but I do it only in a couple of weeks leading up to hunting season - time sufficient to harden my feet and strengthen my lower legs. That time is also sufficient to get my wind back for the long uphill pull. This is more an issue of convenience than anything - the closest hill to where I live is 20 miles and a long drive away, up here at work the brooks range is quite a ways south.

The big strength puts a few things in your favor. You can generally do more of a given movement, if that movement requires less of your overall strength. This is particularly true when loaded heavy. I think this translates gym time into the long slog, where the hard uphill pull doesn't wear you down because it doesn't require a relatively large part of your overall strength. I don't go into a big hunt cold from a cardio standpoint - see the paragraph above.

You might be a big strong SOB - so I don't know if you will relate to this. I am a fair bit stronger than the average guy, and the gym effort required to squat and clean what I'm doing now leaves me a bit queasy when done. I don't do much else than front squats, deads and standing press one day, back squats, cleans and bench press the alternate. There is a lot of hard work happening. There is a lot of time spent standing around with a very elevated heart rate. It is not comfortable.

I'll stretch the volume a bit as the season nears - sets of 15 instead of 8 for squats. That is *really* uncomfortable.

What little upper body work I do (presses, pullups and chins) is augmented by very strong trapezii and lats from cleaning and deadlifting. Heavy packs (80+ lbs) worn for hours aren't uncomfortable to me, even if I've not worn one for a long time.

Bottom line, IMO the average guy will get more bang for his buck in time spent doing weights and intervals than doing long slow things, but the long slow things have their place in polishing up before the main event. The strength and interval work puts you in position to quickly acquire whatever capacity you might be missing.

Regarding mimicing mountain movements - my next planned acquisition is a prowler.

I don't provide the updates indicating that between each lift day I either set the treadmill at 15% and alternate forward uphill for 4 minutes at 3.5 mph and backward uphill (to mimic going downhill...) at 2 mph for 2 minutes, for about a half hour. Or, I'll run 1/4 mile at 11 or 12 mph on the treadmill, starting every three minutes for a mile.

Makes sense, thanks for taking the time to write that up.

Vek and I are in very different leagues when it comes to strength and strength training. That said, the programming I did helped me tremendously this past fall, even if I did have two cake pack outs. The first way it helped, IMO, is what Vek posted. Something that takes less than full strength you can do longer. Secondly, I felt like the high intensity short duration stuff allows me to recover faster. I think these two things translate very well humping a pack...for ME.

That said to get to Vek's suggested numbers I'd have to get to a 550+ squat and a near 600# deadlift. I'm just too fat. That said I do plan on working more this year on pure strength.

Now to today's cluster of a workout:
Every minute on the minute for 6 minutes

5 Muscle-ups OR
5 pullups & 5 ring dips

I got ZERO reps. Jumping or banded pullups weren't allowed today, so I worked as hard as I could to get A, yes 1, pullup and failed...

Front squat 8 x 185, 225, 225
Deadlift 5 x 315, 315, 315
Standing press 6 x 135, 135, 135

Backsquat:
5-5-5-3-3-3-1-1-1
225#-245#-275#-295#-315#-335#-355#-365#-375#

Been doing what I can with one good arm.

Also been reading some good books. One by an Alaskan sheep guide who seems to know his stuff. He was talking about going into a hunt with a few lbs. of fat reserves, since he will normally lose 5-10 lbs on a week+ hunt. I would tend to agree because I typically lose 5+ pounds on a good hunt too.

Upshot is, a lot of the stuff you read about workouts that pertains to cutting body fat % may not be a good idea for a week+ hunt in the mountains where you don't have the luxury of unlimited food.

This is the first good news I have read on this post, thanks for confirming I am on the right path! I'm good for a month long hunt at least right now.

Everything's a tradeoff--the benefit of the extra calories on your waist vs. lugging extra pounds up the hill...

I lost about 13 lbs on a sheep hunt. Started out over 220, came back at 208.

Did that on my first ever elk hunt years ago. Good memories. Will be ready for fall this year, got a few things that need chasing after a long absence.

Are we still talking hunting here?

Vek, at one point, I could squat your (first) warmup set! I'm so proud of myself.

Smoke, what book are you reading?

Sheep Hunting in Alaska by Tony Russ:

http://www.amazon.com/Sheep-Hunting...;pebp=1421704217067&peasin=963986961

Gotcha. When are you going to take the plunge and book a trip?

Already paid my deposit, gonna hunt starting August 10th.

I like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Dall-Sh...mp;sr=1-1&keywords=jack+wilson+sheep

Thanks, I may have to check that out. Got some good DVDs too, awesome country that.