Stone Glacier Workout Email

[label027]

This is my first post on Rokslide and this is the perfect thread to do it on. This year will be my first Western hunt and I've been absorbing as much as I can from the forums, so thank you guys!

This thread was a big wake up call for me. I did this workout last night. It sucked. No, it was worse than that. I used a 35lb pack and 15lb dumbells and did the workout RXed. I recently picked up an Outdoorsmans Optics pack and this was my first test with it. I now hate the pack. I also now hate the dumbells and I hate my high school. Some pretty good memories from high school are now overshadowed with this torture. I think its cute that the tap dancing up and down running trails and the dumbells I aimlessly threw around the past few months actually counted as working out in my mind prior to this. So naive.

I ran the 1/4's in around 1:30 average, 1/2's both took 3:25. The pain of the lunges had to be a close equivalent to giving birth. I think I blacked out for the stair part (I did it on a hill instead). Planks actually weren't terrible. Overall I finished in right under an hour, hour fifteen if you count the time after I curled up in a ball and wept.

Turns out I have a lot of work to do. Next month, when my legs aren't sore anymore, I'm going to do it again. Thanks for posting!

 

[mtwarden]

Welcome aboard

any sweat/tears shed now will certainly pay dividends this fall; besides the obvious benefits of the workout, you also make a good point on the pack- if your pack isn't up to snuff or doesn't fit - you'll find out in a hurry

 

[bounds]

Welcome! Great first post... Had me laughing.

Forgot to mention I didn't use dumbells. I need to get some more sand because I had my one set of dumbells in my pack.

You're at least on the right track. I did my first mountain hunt in the Weminuche of Colorado. It's high and steep. I was 23 and in decent shape for the sports and activities I routinely did; but not in mountain shape. Lungs and legs are what you need. The altitude will suck it out of you no matter how much you prepare. I come from sea level in Texas, so there's no getting around that. And while distance running is necessary to have a strong aerobic base, intervals like this workout throw at you much better prepare your legs and lungs.

My buddies gym in Austin has shirts that say "Legs feed the wolf". He's an elk hunter...

 

[mtnrunner260]

Label, awesome job on doing the workout.
Everything you do now that sucks, makes you uncomfortable etc not only help get your body in shape but also your mind.
You'll always be able to say this sucks less than carrying dumbbells and a pack up and down the bleachers.
Keep it up.

 

[justinspicher]

I feel fortunate to have a job that puts in the mountains doing manual labor four days a week for 8-10 hours a day. I usually work between 9-11,000' so I don't have to set time aside to do crazy workouts like this.

 

[bounds]

I feel fortunate to have a job that puts in the mountains doing manual labor four days a week for 8-10 hours a day. I usually work between 9-11,000' so I don't have to set time aside to do crazy workouts like this.

Wouldn't want to have to keep up with you chasing elk!

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

This is my first post on Rokslide and this is the perfect thread to do it on. This year will be my first Western hunt and I've been absorbing as much as I can from the forums, so thank you guys!

This thread was a big wake up call for me. I did this workout last night. It sucked. No, it was worse than that. I used a 35lb pack and 15lb dumbells and did the workout RXed. I recently picked up an Outdoorsmans Optics pack and this was my first test with it. I now hate the pack. I also now hate the dumbells and I hate my high school. Some pretty good memories from high school are now overshadowed with this torture. I think its cute that the tap dancing up and down running trails and the dumbells I aimlessly threw around the past few months actually counted as working out in my mind prior to this. So naive.

I ran the 1/4's in around 1:30 average, 1/2's both took 3:25. The pain of the lunges had to be a close equivalent to giving birth. I think I blacked out for the stair part (I did it on a hill instead). Planks actually weren't terrible. Overall I finished in right under an hour, hour fifteen if you count the time after I curled up in a ball and wept.

Turns out I have a lot of work to do. Next month, when my legs aren't sore anymore, I'm going to do it again. Thanks for posting!

Love it.


I think I will see about torturing myself with this workout over the weekend. Even with spring time running, switched into some lifting and 50lb hikes on rolling hills by me I still was reminded I have a lot of room for improvement over the weekend going up to 11k with an overnight load on. The cardio is always a bit humbling when the system starts getting strained up there even with my 5k baseline (good idea on the intervals in this routine) but I will say my rolling hills with 50lb sandbag didn't do shit (or enough) for my hamstrings cause those suckers were burning more than I thought they should be with <50lb pack on. Step ups/stairs/bleachers/driving to a steeper trail and now critical in my mind for the next couple months.

 

[label027]

"Legs feed the wolf".

I like that!! I've always operated under the 'curls get the girls' mentality, but 'Legs feed the wolf' is WAY better.

I'll admit, I may have been a bit dramatic in my post, I don't actually hate my pack. I was very pleased with how comfortable it rode. I've done some backpacking in New Zealand, and took half a day to get fitted for my pack on that trip. Ordering this Outdoorsmans over the interweb sight unseen was a little unnerving but so far so good. I think it'll be a good one.

I'm headed to Idaho, so it'll be no walk in the park. I wish I would have stumbled upon this workout 3 months ago! I can still make some good headway in the next few months.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

The hole in my game gets a spotlight: lunges.

Total time 50:45
The pairs of intervals were the exact same time which I found somewhat interesting.
2x400s 1:36
2x800s 3:56
2x400s 1:43

50lb + 10lb dumbells 100m lunges: these destroyed me, I couldn't get very low nor take more than 5-10steps at a time. Gave up after 100m as I was way to under prepared.

10min bleachers was fine just 9steps up and down though, would have liked longer segments.

3x30sec plank: I collapsed at 20sec on the last one.

Summary more midweek weighted lunges

 

[bounds]

The hole in my game gets a spotlight: lunges.

I'm right there with you. The lunges make me cry.

Well with the newborn, about the only alone time I have to hang out with my wife is late at night. That's when I prefer to workout for some reason, so something has to give. I got up at 5 this am to hit another round of this. I was pretty gased. Haven't done a workout like that straight out of bed in a while and went to bed a little later than I wanted, so that's probably why.

In the running, I skipped out on 1 of the 800s.
2X400 @ 1:25
1X885 @ 3:45
2X400 @ 1:25

Lunges @ 35 lbs
4X25 meters

Just doing step ups on a box since I'm working out at the house
10 mins with 45lbs

Planks
3X45secs

I don't know if yall have ever been to the gulf coast (particularly the pineywoods) at daylight this time of year, but talk about humid. Just a quick walk to the mailbox in your boxers will have you sweating. I was dripping at about the same rate as I do after a couple steps out of the pool. It's ridiculous.

 

[Ashy Larry]

The track at the high school my wife teaches at just got resurfaced. Time to go give this a try one day this week. Probably start with 40lbs and 10lbs since I like having knee joints.

 

[270quest]

I have done this workout now a couple of times. I have a 45# pack - and no dumbbells, but doing everything else as described. The lunges flat suck... The first time I did the workout, i could barely walk for a couple days. The last time I did it on Sunday, wasn't nearly as bad. Will be adding pack weight and some 10# dumbells the next time I do it.

 

[sveltri]

I did it as it was written last Wednesday. It wasn't until yesterday morning that the pain/soreness subsided. Total time was right at 1.5 hrs. I had to shed the pack and rest between the lunges and the bleachers. The truth is it was too much weight for me and I was to dumb to lighten the load. I plan on hitting it again and scaling the weight back to just the 60# pack for the next couple weeks. I have never wanted to quit another training session in my life like I wanted to quit this.

 

[mtwarden]

funny there was no cautionary note with something along the lines of "probably want to work up to this". I think it would be the rare person that could just jump into this workout without altering the weight or distances.

I think the workout has a lot of merit, but my plan is to ease into it and slowly increase the weight. Hopefully in the not too distant future I can do it unaltered and unbroken.

 

[bounds]

Yeah I think the pack weight should probably be a percentage of body weight. The guy in that is doing it in the email was probably 220. I'm 165... 60lbs is a lot different to him than it is to me. Doing rough percentages, that puts me doing 45 lbs. Feeling pretty good with that on the step ups I've been doing. Gotta step up my lunge game.

 

[Ashy Larry]

Yea I thought about that too. I'm 195 so I think 50/15 is fair for me

 

[label027]

I thought about that too, as I did this with a buddy and we had the same weight on, but I weigh a good 15-20lbs more than he does. At the same time, what we are training for is packing out a monster. A quartered animal doesn't care what you weigh!

 

[P Carter]

This is a real bear. I'm mostly a runner, thought I would mix it up w/45 pound pack, no barbells.

2x400 1:15
2x800 2:50, 2:45
2x400 1:17

Could only muster 100 yards of lunges. I called it off before destroying running for the rest of the week. (Already going to be super sore!)

Bleachers were OK, planks were hard.

What a buttkicker. Thought I was going to puke in the car...and sitting here at my desk. My hips and butt are spazzing out on me...going to be a nasty hamstring cramp later in the day.

I think I'll put this down as a Wednesday morning staple. I think I'll stick w/100 yards of lunges and perhaps gradually start upping the weight. Want to focus on the track work while still supplementing with the weight. Good stuff! I was getting a bit stuck in a rut after my regular running training got disrupted with an injury early in the spring.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

To be fair if you have at least a moderate cardio baseline to do the run part the lunges really do seem like they will make a big difference in the mountains, those attack the hamstrings like climbing steep stuff does. I've brought along folks hauling that were good runners so their cardio was set but putting a 70lb pack on them started tearing up their hamstrings very fast. The 60lb weight is what an elk rear weighs more or less thus as noted it doesn't really mater what you weigh. But yeah working up to it is likely needed.

 

[bounds]

At the same time, what we are training for is packing out a monster. A quartered animal doesn't care what you weigh!

The 60lb weight is what an elk rear weighs more or less thus as noted it doesn't really mater what you weigh.

Touche...

I'm glad this has been brutal for just about everybody lol. Interesting that my quads are giving out on me with the lunges, not my hamstrings. I'm stretching out my steps so that I'm coming down with my knee directly above my ankle and my hamstring parallel to the ground. I do jumping lunges in place on another workout, and those hit my hammies hard.