Pre-hunt scale back?

[T-town]

I'll finally be on the mountain in 12 days. Do any of you scale back your workouts/ conditioning leading right up to your hunt? Want to be primed and ready but don't want to push too hard and wind up tweaking something or getting gimpy just before game time. Definitely not gonna sit around but may back off a little.

 

[V2Pnutrition]

It's largely going to depend on your training leading into the hunt.

You're likely to need some reduction if you've followed some kind of progressive structure, starting to feel the cumulative effect of it, and not taken any strategic recovery weeks while building.

If not, then an official 'deload' probably isn't needed.

The general rule of thumb (assuming you're looking for "optimal" here) following a progressive plan (above) is a 50% reduction of max volume 2 weeks out and another 50% 1 week out. Mostly focused on reduced time instead of reduced intensity.

As a coach once told me before my recovery weeks: "Don't get sick, don't get hurt, and don't get stupid..."

What we say in our program is "boiling water doesn't get more boiled the longer you leave it on the stove..." With the hunt only a week or so away, the work has either been invested to this point or it hasn't. A few more brutal sufferfests won't produce more fruit.

Good luck to you on the hunt!

 

[P Carter]

Yes - I consider it a "taper." As I understand it, the recommendations for a taper are: scale back on the duration of the workouts, not necessarily the intensity; step down 2 weeks before to 50-75% of load and 25-%50 of load 1 week before; extra emphasis on nutrition, sleep, mobility, etc.

This is coming from an endurance perspective rather than a strength one.

I am tempted to, and often do, just stop the workouts 2 weeks beforehand. That tends to hurt rather than help as I feel sluggish rather than ready to go. But it takes discipline to plan and execute a good taper!

All that is definitely thinking waayyy to hard since hunting doesn't really require "peak performance" in the way an event does. But hey, it's worth overthinking sometimes!

 

[P Carter]

Ha! @V2Pnutrition and I responded at the same time…and looks to be pretty consistent. Trust him, not me!

 

[Throwin Darts]

In my Ironman training I taper two weeks out from a race. Those two weeks have lots of low impact low heart rate work in them. Focus on rest, nutrition and hydration. Same would work for the mountains.

 

[T-town]

Thanks gentlemen! Good point about nutrition, rest and hydration.

 

[mtwarden]

Yup- Couple weeks out I always pull back my strength training (lower weight, higher reps), pull back on the weight I'm rucking and nothing too crazy (terrain wise) on my hikes. It probably helps a little from a performance standpoint, but it's more for insuring no last minute injuries

 

[sjwfarms]

Couple of weeks of tapering off the training has always been the magic number on the several marathons I've run. Allows the body to heal some without losing any of the benefits of training.

Given I'm doing my first mountain hunt this year I'm kind of interested to see how this approach works in a different setting. Typically all of my training is for events with a set finish line. i.e. I know at the end of 3.5-4 hours I'm done with the 26.2 miles and then weeks to recover. A six day hunt isn't as cut and dry on when the race is over and will most likely have to call on some reserves, both mentally and physically....Sorry, just thinking out loud on that last part.