Assault bike workouts

[bobcattin]

Bought myself an assault bike. I'm mainly into strength training 3x a week and do cardio on the side (usually hiking the mountains with a pack).

Looking for some good assault bike workouts that would carry over to hunting but aren't mixed in with crossfit workouts (I like to keep my strength training separate from cardio training and seem like most assault bike workouts I find are crossfit based)

 

[Coach Chris]

Assault bike workouts don't crossover into hunting.

 

[bobcattin]

Assault bike workouts don't crossover into hunting.

I don't want to argue with you because you seem more knowledgeable on the subject than me. I am going to share with you what I was thinking so that you can maybe tell me where I am wrong. Just saying this because I don't want my comment to come across like I am trying to start an argument I am here to learn...

My thinking as a recreational lifter without any training in physical fitness is that using the assault bike would improve my cardio or VO2 max which would help maybe hiking up a mountain and taking a shot with my bow or something. I figured if you took two identical hunters and one did nothing and the other used the assault bike along with Zone 2 cardio every week that the person training the cardio would be a more fit Hunter. No?

Thank you for any input or advice

 

[teamwhitebelly]

the cardio end of them do. dont use your arms.

 

[molliesmaster]

I like using them for sprint intervals. Warm up. 40 seconds easy pace, 20 seconds sprint. You can adjust the length and number of intervals to your liking. Lower impact than actual running. Very effective.

I don't know if it will help you with "mountain hunting" though.

 

[bobcattin]

I don't know if it will help you with "mountain hunting" though.

Thanks, even if it doesn't it seems like a good cardio workout since I'm into general fitness anyways (but always looking to be a more fit hunter if possible)

 

[molliesmaster]

Thanks, even if it doesn't it seems like a good cardio workout since I'm into general fitness anyways (but always looking to be a more fit hunter if possible)

I'm not a professional but I can't understand how being more physically fit won't help you in the mountains.

 

[Poser]

I'm not a professional but I can't understand how being more physically fit won't help you in the mountains.

Conditioning tends to be rather specific in its training effect. The type of conditioning most people do on Assault Bikes is not the type of conditioning used to perform in the mountains, which is slow and low, zone 2 aerobic base and muscular endurance.

Basically, the assault bike trains quarter horses where the mountains require pack mules.

Is it going to negatively impact your performance? Not at all. But, that training time would likely be better spent doing something else. Ideally, if you are going to use a machine, a rower would be a better option than a Assault Bike, IMO.

 

[bobcattin]

Conditioning tends to be rather specific in its training effect. The type of conditioning most people do on Assault Bikes is not the type of conditioning used to perform in the mountains, which is slow and low, zone 2 aerobic base and muscular endurance.

Basically, the assault bike trains quarter horses where the mountains require pack mules.

Is it going to negatively impact your performance? Not at all. But, that training time would likely be better spent doing something else. Ideally, if you are going to use a machine, a rower would be a better option than a Assault Bike, IMO.

I 100% get you. I feel like in my original post I should have further explained that when I say I do cardio on the side I am hiking almost daily with a 20 to 30 lb pack and other times going heavier and for longer distances.

When I was thinking about assault bike workouts in my head I was specifically thinking about those times where you are climbing straight up a hill with a heavy pack on and you go from Zone two cardio to some heavy breathing with heavy legs...like zone 3 and above. I get that 90% of the time I am just hiking from spot to spot with a heavy pack on but there are definitely times when my heart rate is maxed out or at least feels like it.

 

[Poser]

When I was thinking about assault bike workouts in my head I was specifically thinking about those times where you are climbing straight up a hill with a heavy pack on and you go from Zone two cardio to some heavy breathing with heavy legs...like zone 3 and above. I get that 90% of the time I am just hiking from spot to spot with a heavy pack on but there are definitely times when my heart rate is maxed out or at least feels like it.

What your describing is not sustainable for more than short bursts. Ideally, in the mountains, you slow your pacing down to accommodate the slope angle and altitude to stay in that zone 2 pace that you can maintain all day. Dipping into an anaerobic state on a steep slope with a pack on your back (and at altitude) is going to come at significant energy cost (and probably result in you having to stop and catch your breathe/recover which will negate the benefits of going that fast in the first place).

The general approach to building this capacity to maintain a pace all day is built from the ground up, not from the top down. In other words, as your body adapts to training in zone 2, your threshold between zone 2 and zone 3 will increase over time, allowing you to go faster in the same heart rate zone, but you build that by spending an appropriate amount of time in zone 2, not training zone 4 in short bursts.

Obviously, HIIT training has been all the rage for the last ~20 years. Many of us, including myself, went through a phase of HIIT training and most people who stay in the mountain game for long enough conclude that its not the most effective way to train for mountain endurance. HIIT training gives some feedback that is rewarding -you're going all out and it feels productive to go all out, lungs burning and tasting copper in the back of your mouth/throat.... it can be addictive. That, however, doesn't make it appropriate or the most productive training for mountain endurance.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Don’t listen to coach Chris. He’s caught up in semantics.

Any cardio or strength is going to help you. Otherwise there would be no point in working out at all.

Remember 99.999% of these “coaches” just got an exercise science degree from a state university, worked at big box gyms as personal trainers wearing basketball shorts and polo shirts before starting their own businesses, they aren’t doctors and the world is absolutely flooded with them, they are a dime a dozen and they have to act like they have some secret trick in order for them to set themselves apart.

Not much money in telling somebody to squat, bench, deadlift and add a few lbs to the bar whenever they can.

Sport specific training is the best but there is never a situation where having more strength and better cardio is not going to be a benefit.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Years ago I went to a speech thing about the physics of baseball, there was some MIT PHD physics guy there and a few retired baseball players including Nolan Ryan.

The topic of corked bats came up and the physicist refused to agree that the corked bat made the ball travel farther, he dug his heels in that corked bats don’t make the ball go any farther. The baseball players didn’t seem to have the intellect to say much other than “we tried it and it worked”. Nobody got their point across to the other party.

In fact the physicist was stuck in semantics. He was correct, corking a bat dosent make a ball travel farther but a corked bat is lighter so a player can swing it faster and harder, that DOES make the ball travel farther. The scientist being stuck in semantics sort of ruined the discussion.

That is what coach Chris is doing. No lifting weights won’t make you a better hunter, it will make you stronger and more durable though which will be a great addition to your training and hunting.

The fitness world is filled with this shit and lots of people who don’t have the intellect to question things or explain themselves. There is a jump rope page on Facebook, I was part of it during Covid when the gyms were shut down. Everybody there uses Crossrope jump ropes (which are cool). One guy had some ridiculous app that would count his jump rope and tell him how far he went.

He’d post pics everyday “I jump roped 2 miles”…..how the hell did you do that? How do you assign distance when you are jumping up and down in place. Everybody there was like “well I jump roped 20 minutes so that’s equal to 3 miles of running”…..no 20 minutes of jump rope is equal to 20 minutes of jump rope”

I saw it when I did triathlons too, people would say “how many miles of running is equal to a 3 hour bike ride???”…..none. A 3 hour bike ride is equal to a 3 hour bike ride.

All that ranting to say that Chris has a point but he’s trying to sound intellectual. It’s annoying and very common among “coaches”.