Is this serious?

[Will_m]

Pulled this workout from another thread. Has anybody done this workout? I don't see how you can do 200 meters worth of lunges with the pack and dumbbells. Breaking it up into sets, maybe?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it looks to me like the lunges are to be done unbroken. That can't be real.

MTNTOUGH Fitness Lab's favorite Backcountry Hunting Heavy Pack Workout

The demands of high elevation backcountry hunting can put even the most athletically talented individuals in the dirt. Elk quarters are heavy, sheep country is relentless and unlike many sports, backcountry hunting requires you to maintain your strength, speed, and power for multiple days. Many...

www.stoneglacier.com

 

[MThuntr]

This would wreck a person on the first couple times and your legs would be in agony for a day or two at first.

I regularly do Bulgarian Split Squats with 80lbs but definitely not for 200 meters worth. Maybe more like 50 squats per leg. Lunges are a bit different and I'd back off the weight a bit to keep decent form...most of us don't use our butts except for sitting so if your quads hurt then drop the weight and just use body weight

 

[sd375]

It's a brutal workout, especially considering the intervals to start with and how you complete those. I definitely would not start with both the pack weight and the dumbbells. When I start doing this after a while off, I do no dumbbells to begin with and then every few weeks increase the dumbbell weight. Even with pack weight only, I still end up doing the lunges in sets (minute on, 15 second rest or something like that). In my experience the lunges are the hardest part of this workout. I'm sure there are guys that attempt/do the lunges unbroken, but I'm not one of them.

 

[justinspicher]

It looks like a good way to destroy oneself before the season starts.

These workouts always crack me up, you’re literally walking in the woods but you’re gonna train like you’re competing at the crossfit games. So you have to go slow because you’re not used to the elevation, big deal, you’re hunting.

 

[Will_m]

Honestly, this workout just seems silly.

 

[Jaden Bales]

I like @sd375 take on this workout. As Dustin says, this one will take you to the spirit world. So while you technically go into the lunges thinking you'll do it all at one go, it's definitely more of a mind-over-matter. When you finally quit, you take a couple deep breaths and then get after it again.

LOVE their workouts. For me, these workouts let me get 1000' up and 3 miles back from the truck in about an hour in the high country without being physically spent for additional hiking around. That makes all the difference for me hunting so I can sleep in my truck and be super mobile while archery elk hunting or sprint up the mountain and get 4 miles back there for an evening glassing session after work - which is how I got the bear in my profile picture.

 

[fatlander]

The gains from mountain tough program shines when you hit the mountains.

A lot of their workouts aren’t designed to be completed without stopping. The goal is to push yourself until you cannot go anymore, then take a breath or two, and keep going until you finish.

If you break it into sets, that’s all you’re ever going to do. Pushing until failure is where the real growth is at in my opinion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AgentVenom]

I’m glad someone posted you’re not supposed to finish, but just smoke yourself. I thought the hunting world was littered with just monsters of physical performance,

 

[5MilesBack]

Honestly, this workout just seems silly.

At 55, it seems like a little too much to me........but if I was 27 again I'd be all over this for hunting. Those are the kind of workouts I did in high school and college along with a bunch of bleacher training. I sure wish my knees could take that kind of training today. Just like everything else......."work up to a max" for these training recommendations. I don't think they expect a couch potato to throw on a 60lb pack, grab two 20lb dumbbells, and then do lunges halfway around the track after running all those interval sprints. But you could start with just the lunges without the extra weight.......then work up to whatever weight you want.

You'll be getting this workout by packing meat out of the mountains anyway, so why not try it at home first.........without the elevation changes. Just get your quads, hamstrings, calves, and hip flexors burning several times a week.

 

[FLAK]

Want to get ready for a mtn. hunt? Just hike in the mtns.

 

[KHNC]

Ill probably do it tomorrow. Our NC nazi governor still wont allow gyms to open

 

[jmez]

It could be done unbroken, you better look like the guy in the picture if you are going to do that! I'd break them into 50m sets if I were doing that. 80# lunges aren't that extreme. We do a lot of lunges with 50# DB's or 135# backrack.

 

[Poser]

These types of workouts make me laugh.

This is not training, it is exercise. If you want to be really sore from a workout not designed to capitalize off the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle, knock yourself out. These programs are designed to make you sore because that’s what appeals to people: “if it’s hard, and I’m sore, then it must be productive.” That’s bullshit. Effective training is not about being sore, it’s about producing a desired outcome. Extreme soreness and especially DOMS are counterproductive to training, cost you excessive recovery time and seldom, if ever, have a logical progression of stress with an appropriate amount of recovery in mind.

 

[5MilesBack]

Everyone starts out sore to start with, but after a little time that goes away even with the workouts.

 

[P Carter]

There's a thread on folks doing this (including myself) a few years back. Long story short, I believe almost everyone, if not everyone, modified by reducing weight, etc.

Here's the thread:
https://www.rokslide.com/forums/threads/stone-glacier-workout-email.71471/

I do agree with the comment above: if the "workout" makes you so sore that it impacts subsequent training, it's likely counter-productive. And the workout appears to be motivated in large part by feeling hardcore rather than providing a real training benefit.

I fell into that trap. In more recent years, as I've started reading and paying more attention to training, I separated out the VO2 max component (intervals), putting those earlier in the training cylce, and the muscular endurance component (weighted lunges and step-ups), putting those closer to the season and in a more hunting-specific form of uphill weighted pack hikes. This from a consistent base of aerobic work (running, for me) and strength work.

(Note: I didn't consciously deconstruct this workout, but rather tried to make a more conscious training plan following general principles. Looking at it now, it seems that I almost did deconstruct the workout over time.)

I'm far from an expert, but just sharing how things have gone for me!

 

[Poser]

There's a thread on folks doing this (including myself) a few years back. Long story short, I believe almost everyone, if not everyone, modified by reducing weight, etc.

Here's the thread:
https://www.rokslide.com/forums/threads/stone-glacier-workout-email.71471/

I do agree with the comment above: if the "workout" makes you so sore that it impacts subsequent training, it's likely counter-productive. And the workout appears to be motivated in large part by feeling hardcore rather than providing a real training benefit.

I fell into that trap. In more recent years, as I've started reading and paying more attention to training, I separated out the VO2 max component (intervals), putting those earlier in the training cylce, and the muscular endurance component (weighted lunges and step-ups), putting those closer to the season and in a more hunting-specific form of uphill weighted pack hikes. This from a consistent base of aerobic work (running, for me) and strength work.

(Note: I didn't consciously deconstruct this workout, but rather tried to make a more conscious training plan following general principles. Looking at it now, it seems that I almost did deconstruct the workout over time.)

I'm far from an expert, but just sharing how things have gone for me!

I think everyone goes through a phase where they fall into that trap. I sure did. “Hardcore” and being sore, and complexity, and randomness, etc are all seductive. Super seductive. That’s why there are a thousand of these types of “workouts” out there. They are presented as some “hardcore” yet illusive solution to your individual problem. And, off the couch, any person will respond well to any type of stress. It’s in the long term that these random workouts reveal their absolute inferiority. I agree with you that your workouts should have specific purpose with specific intents and broken into specific types of training. Trying to mix strength, endurance and conditioning all into one single workout is a disaster.

Unfortunately, strength training, and conditioning, and muscular endurance is surprisingly boring, not entirely seductive, super repetitive and don’t result in bragging about how sore one is, or how smoked they feel afterwards because proper training often doesn’t lead to that type of exhaustion. The goal of training is to induce just enough stress to drive adaption. Increasing the dose of stress just to be sore produces no metrical benefit unto itself. It’s unfortunate fact that soreness alone is 0 indication of training progress or adaptation.

For example, if someone were going to run a marathon off the couch and the training advice they received was “just run a bunch of marathons, break them up anyway you need to, anyway you feel on any given day and keep doing that randomly... you’re gonna be so sore!”, would any reasonable person think that was sound advice? How is that any different than using this particular workout? It’s entirely arbitrary and random and not part of a logical progression.

 

[*zap*]

I think that these type of, I did not look this workout up just going off what has been posted, workouts may be good if done very sparingly but I believe that most people do not see the benefits of doing low intensity steady state cardio vs these type of very high intensity workouts and do way too much of this high intensity cardio.
To perform for longer duration hiking I believe that you need to train your aerobic fuel system and that is using oxygen to burn fat stored in your muscles or excess body fat to produce your atp. In order to do that you need to stay below your aerobic threshold heart rate because once you go above that you start using glycolysis to fuel your atp production. Once you cross the line to anaerobic fueling your no longer training your aerobic fueling process to the best of your ability. Training within LISS heart rates you will over time raise your aerobic threshold and be able to sustain a higher heart rate for long periods of time using the aerobic fueling process. LISS = low intensity steady state, steady state means that you are able to supply enough oxygen to your muscles in order to fuel the activity via oxygen burning fat, avoiding the glucose process which can create buildup of lactic acid and cause fatigue.

Using anaerobic fueling a trained person may go about an hour at that pace before needing to stop. Using aerobic fueling a trained person can go for much longer plus there is a heart rate zone that uses a combination of the two. In order to train your aerobic fueling process it is necessary to do liss and depending on where your aerobic threshold is at and your goals you may want to do 80% or more liss for cardio.

YMMV.

 

[KHNC]

I did this one yesterday after work in 86 degrees and 90% humidity. It was very nice!!

Subbed 45lb ruck and no DB's . Still was a bitch and i train 4 days a week.

 

[mtwarden]

Want to get ready for a mtn. hunt? Just hike in the mtns.

Seems so simple; but maybe too boring, not as sexy, not as hardcore for some?

That's been my "plan" for the last ten years (along with specific strength raining twice a week) and I've never felt handicapped elk hunting in the mountains- in fact just the opposite

 

[FLAK]

Yes, I've jogged, biked, lifted weights, squats, etc.... but nothing prepares me better for a hunt than just hiking, or hiking w/pack.
I will still do some weighted squats just for good measure.
As soon as the humidity/heat abates down here I need to get started walking/hiking again. About to pull the trigger on an Aoudad hunt.