I try to work out five days a week to stay in shape for hunting, but getting fit is more fun and more effective if you can include your family.

My wife and youngest daughter are fitness fanatics, and they also push me to work out hard. Yesterday we drove up to Mount Hood to the highest trail there is around the mountain, above timberline, and we pushed it hard all day across fields of lava rock, loose volcanic ash, and glacier-fed streams. This was likely the best workout I've had for a few months, and it was the perfect workout to get ready for hunting. It was beautiful, and ten-times the fun when done as a family outing. We'll be at it on another trail, somewhere else, next weekend as well. During the week the gym and running will have to do, but NOTHING works as well as these high alpine trail hikes, especially if select steep trails and keep it brisk.........

AD

AD-now this is something worth chatting about, this is way more important that most of the stuff chatted about when it comes to hunting!

Our friend Brad and I spend more and more time discussing such matters and less time about what type of gun etc...(grins-can you believe how people get cranked about how much we do or don't spend on rifles-I'll shut up so this thread doesn't get hi-jacked)

To the point, I had another knee surgery (my 5th in 7 years) I am gonna be 47 in November. I drew a really good muley buck tag for this fall and a goat tag (after waiting 25 years)! You bet I am taking being in shape serious. Plus I get to go along with Brad and help his sone on his first hunts this fall (how cool is that).

I love the bike, it is user friendly on the knees and it does a good job of getting me in shape. I bike 5-6 days a week and I lift about 3 days a week. I also love the elipticals.

Oops I gotta go the lil lady just reminded me it was time to head to Sunday services.

Lastly I believe that we'd all be a lot better hunters if we spent as much time worrying about our condition, as we did our rifles and our gear. Heck how many guys do you think are out there that spend more time weekly on hunting forms and reading about hunting in rags than the do in working out and taking care of their one most piece of equipment.

Gotta go

Have a super day AD

MD

Excellent topic Allen.

I envy you on this. As we age my wife and I have become more sedentary. The heat bothers us now and we have the AC on and jump from house to car etc.

This in fact is why I am on the net and not on the boat. We used to live aboard all summer and now we just run back home. A heat wave is on its way again and here I am.

Age is a part of it too and the bad luck of injury.

If it's been said that the active live inspires activity and the sedentary life inspires inactivity I would believe it.

It has been said that the great goal of life is action and not knowledge.

Allen-You couldn't be more right.I do a couple miles every day on the tread mill and other things,but the other day my son and I walked down to a lake at 9,000 feet.It sure makes a difference at the altitudes your hunting.

We spend alot of time up where I hunt in the spring and summer or I couldn't probably do it as easy as I do at 6-9,000 feet compared to the 3500 we live at.

Good post and right on.
Jayco

Allen, that sounds like a great day afield with some of your family, and the added benefit of exercise.

I am embarking on an attempted 'change of the lifestyle' to get back to closer to the shape I was in until a few years after the college days. I need to drop a few lbs., but more importantly get the aerobic level back up.

Do you lift weight as well as doinhg the cardio stuf when you work out? If so which do you spend more time on, or figure is more important?

Regards--Don

My wife and I walk between 1.6 and 3.2 miles a day and I'm in the gym a couple of days a week.

You can't really enjoy hunting if you're not fit and you'll live much longer if you stay in shape.

I'm 54 and looking forward to another 50 years of hunting.

$bob$

I compete as a powerlifter several times a year and this keeps me lifting weights 6 days a week. To suppliment this I also teach "Spinning classes" 4 hours a week and then swim 2 hours a week. The cardio keeps the heart and lungs working well and I seem to have little trouble climbing hills. As I am in the east-- can't say what mountains would be like, but I would love to find out!

I work out 6 to 7 days a week all year and mountain bike for an hour a day or more all spring and summer.I also walk most of the time instead of taking a vehicle for short trips.

Mark hit it on the head. For all the fun we have playing with guns, loads, and other equipment there is far more value in being in shape. It is especially true for mountain hunting but it is a big benefit to the eastern stump sitter as well. In the winter I spent 3-4 days at the gym lifting, working on the eliptical (easier on the knees than running), stair climbing, and working on core excercises. Those combined with a good stretching routing are particularly valuable for us older hunters. In the summer I switch primarily to bike riding and hiking the hills at a local ski area and I play ball a couple nights a week. I make sure and include my family in all activities. It makes it much easier to have someone to motivate you.

Jeff

Fish30114, cardio is foundational to any fitness program. I hike, run, or work out on the Stairmaster five or six days a week, and lift weights four days a week, in conjunction with whatever cardio work I'm doing that day. I'm fortunate in that I'm not plagued with back or knee problems, and never have been.

My wife is 42, and she is a greater runner. She's such a great runner that for years she's been on a relay/marathon team that required her to run three nine-mile legs from start to finish, and much of it in the Cascade and Coast mountain ranges. Not easy!

But she's had to back off the running because her knees have started to trouble her. So I bought her an eliptical machine, and she loves it........

AD

What a great workout! At 52 I've decided to quit running and save my knees. Strength training and hiking seems to be keeping me in ok shape but I miss the running.

When I'm not injured (getting more frequent with age, I'm afraid), I like to stay on the treadmill at least 6 miles a week (usually twice a week), at a very brisk uphill walk.

Then, to get ready for elk season, I hunt the chukar season. Makes hunting elk look like a walk in the meadow... JMO, Dutch.

AD, I guess you're tellling me what I intuitively know--you need to do both. I've been considering a Bowflex machine, but alternatively have purchased a small selection of dumbells--up to 50 lbs. --which is typically more than I can handle except for a few exercises.
Man I remember 2 a days for football, I think walking the hills around here are even harder with the extra years. I am trying to stick to the 'it can't hurt' workout theory, without hurting myself!

Fish,
You are right that you need to do both. The older you get the more important resistance training becomes. Maintaining muscle mass helps maintain your metabolism and bone density. For cardio 3-4 sessions a week of around 30 minutes will do. Increasing the intensity if it gets too easy will give you better results than increasing duration.

Jeff

Strength training with weights and various forms of cardio (weighted vest stairs, running, trails) are mandatory to good conditioning (of course). But for guys in their late 30's and over, flexibility is the first thing that deteriorates.

Add careful stretching of warm muscles to the program, too.

Allen:
Good post. Nothing like the scenery up on Hood,eh? I'm 52 and in stressful desk-job shape. I could stand to lose 12 pounds and improve may cardio health. My exercise program consists of trying to keep an acre in shape -- challenging, but not a proper or regular workout.
Thinking bout your post, I have decided I need to walk at least four times a week for starters.
Bill

This past weekend my 12 year old son and I did a backpack trip to a lake at 9,100 feet in the Crazy Mountains... a tough fifteen mile round-trip hike for a kid that age but he made it. Fun was had by all and I agree, nothing like sharing the outdoors with family!

Brad, that's mighty pretty country and you shared it with quality company, that's for darned sure!

AD

Brad,
Color me jealous! I'm still trying not to feel homesick for central and southcentral MT. Can't complain too much about where I'm at now, never spent much time in the Crazies, but I sure do miss the Beartooths.

Brad-as you and I have talked about b4, God's gym is by far the best!!!

Glad you and Cole had a great time! Can't wait to watch him take his first lope in a couple of months.

I gotta go to class

C-Ya

Dogz

He's a wonderful boy and truly is great company.

Brad,

I bet your son will carry the memories of that trip with him all his life. Maybe you too!

Good on yah!!!

$bob$

Good post Allen. My wife who is 43, is also a running fanatic. She gets up EVERY day M-F at 0340! and runs between 5-7 miles. Me, I just try to run abuot 20mi/week but I run at work. Unfortunately, the climate and terrain here in Florida are just plain butt-ugly. I just can't figure out why people like to live in this friggin' state. It's flatter than an anorexic super-model and the humidity makes one sweat by just standing around. Tell you what though, it paid off in africa as we were both able to keep up with John and the boys up and down thos kopjes! jorge

I agree, good post Allen.

Lisa is a runner and has done the Hood to Caost run a few times as well. They should be running that soon as I believe it's usually run in August..?

Unfortunatly Lisa's knees are starting to bother her, so she doesn't put in the miles she used to when marathoning. She does run about 3 times a week with Fido and regularly does 5 and 10K's.

I also used to run, but bad back, knees, ankles, limited my career. Now daily 2-4 mile walks and gym 3 times a week.

Lisa, Fido and I will be hiking this weekend. haven't decided where yet, but Hood sound good. Might have to make the drive up there.

Beats the hell out of the treadmill at the gym.

-Steve