Reps and Strength/Power training

[Darren Best]

His book is 15 years old and predates his Crossfit and his hybrid version of Crossfit. If you read his essay or the book mentioned above, he states Crossfit and his attempt to make a hybrid of it were mistakes. He spent two years trying to prove that Crossfit could work, he failed, this in his own words. His hybrid version of it also failed.

Here is a small piece of TINSTAAFL by Mark Twight.

Periodically people ask me specific questions about training for endurance and specifically my experience with using short, high-intensity cross- and circuit-training to improve it. My answer is based on the twenty year period I spent climbing mountains, as well as more recent experiences with ski-mountaineering racing, bike racing and decades of experience training others for similar events.

Folks usually don't like what I have to tell them.

When someone asks about what I now refer to as the free lunch method of improving endurance performance, or any intervention of whereby a time-crunched athlete tries to achieve a particular result by means of a shortcut, I first refer them to an article I wrote about my two-year test of this concept. The article is archived on the Gym Jones website, but I'll summarize it here.

No top-performing endurance athletes achieve their results on a diet of short, hard intervals and circuit training in the gym. Instead they build hours and hours of baseline fitness and then temper the foundation in races, and with a very small percentage of high-intensity interval training. Do you imagine that a bicycle racer who rides 20,000 miles per year isn't looking for a way to achieve the same results without having to spend so much time in the saddle? Or that someone has invented a shortcut, a method to end-run all the effort and time and suffering, and that no one else had previously tried it? I thought had found the shortcut. I was wrong. Others think they have found it, Some are even selling it. The true professionals are not convinced. And they are not being beaten by anyone taking shortcuts.

When I was drunk on CrossFit punch I kept trying to force the square peg of high-intensity circuit training and heavy lifting into the round hole of endurance performance simply because I liked training in the gym. I was addicted to the endogenous opiates produced by hard effort and wanted to continue getting high.

There is more to his excerpt in the book, but you get the idea.

Read the book bye Steve House, it will enlighten you a great deal.

 

[jmez]

I think you need to decide the definition of a "top performing endurance athlete". I wouldn't put mountain hunting in that category. Depending on where you go it isn't all HIT training. The workouts I do vary from 6 minutes to an hour. Some involve a lot of rowing and running, and not just in short bursts. I'm not one of these guys that thinks I could go out and run a marathon because I've been doing HIT training. I know there are some in that camp but I don't agree.

I also don't think it would be beneficial to train specifically for high level endurance. That isn't going to be a big help when you have 100#'s on your back and need to take it up 1500 feet. It is a trade off both ways. One of my hunting partners is a wiry little guy that can run circles around me in the distance game. I'm a bigger stronger type that ran sprints in track. If we went a ran a mile I would lose sight of him by the finish. Put 60#'s in our packs and start up a steep face and he'll be asking me to slow down and wait.

Need both strength and endurance.

I think a lot of the dislike of Crossfit is due to the cult like mentality of a lot of the participants. It is a big turnoff. It isn't the end all be all of exercise programs. I don't like all of the jargon and speaking in acronyms. Hardcore Crossfitter's are their own worst enemy with their attitudes. A poster I saw summed it up pretty well; " I went to a Crossfit gym last week and learned that it is the exact opposite of Fight Club as the number one rule of Crossfit is to never STFU about Crossfit.

 

[Darren Best]

Since we hike and hunt for more than two hours in a day, that makes us endurance athletes. It is entirely feasible, in fact desirable that we participate in strength training. But using strength training as the sole means to make us better in the mountains is misguided and will leave us short of our potential.

First off the misconceptions about endurance athletes and endurance training.

The scrawny marathon runners are built that way by design. They are as light as possible so they carry less weight, allowing them to run longer distances faster with less strain on their cardiovascular system. The more you weigh, the harder your cardio system has to work.

Stronger legs through strength training add to our endurance because it is easier to climb the same hill with less effort expended. Therefore the base for endurance, is strength. But time spent strength training is only a small percentage of the total time we should spend training. The vast majority of which should be zone 1 endurance training.

Do alpine climbers not carry heavy packs on their approach to a base camp to do a climb? What differentiates that from what we do outside of the actual climbing? Carrying a heavy pack up a mountain is still carrying a heavy pack regardless of what a person calls himself.

If the basic strength/endurance training that a alpinist does gives him super human climbing endurance, would it not be wise to duplicate that same basic training for our own purposes?

 

[Poser]

Elkhunter_241,

I do intend to read this book and, being a long time fan of Twight, will do so with an open mind. Back in the mid to late 90s when I started climbing, I found a lot of inspiration from Twight's style and learned a lot of about alpine climbing.

A couple of things to address:

The athletes that Twight is training at Gym Jones are top end, world class athletes over half of whom are sponsored athletes. What does that mean? It means that it is their job to train. As was brought up earlier in the post, some of this only has theoretical application for the amateur/weekend warrior athlete. For example, the average working man/family, whether a hunter or a Triathlete, is going to have, what? 6, 8,10, maybe 12 hours a week to actually train? If you are working 40 hours a week, tending to the wife and kids, 10-12 hours is a generous amount of hours a week to spend training and that's assuming those are actually hours training and not commuting to a gym or training location. If you are in fact using supplemental training in the form of weights and various exercises in any form of volume and/or intensity, you are generally looking at 1 or 2 rest days a week, preferably 2 if training hard (recovery workouts not counting) and that's not even getting into optimal sleep.

How do we equate the weekend warrior hunter with the cyclists who rides 20,000 miles a year? We really can not do that. The closest comparison that I can think of is a Sheep guide who spends months scouting, climbing and hauling clients up mountains. There is really no accurate measuring stick for performance with regards to hunting. We can't easily compare training styles with application the way a Triathlete can look at training programs and successful times. With the rise of the "Train to Hunt" movement (one of the founders is a Crossfit coach, BTW), we may very well have somekind of comparative outlet to test different methodology against each other, but, for the time being, a small group of hunters (man of whom are on the forum), train the best way they know how or within the time restraints they have, and spend time hunting, in which case they are either satisfied or dissatisfied with their performance. Twight, of course, faced the same dilemma with training to climb, though climbing involves significantly more complex movement than mountain hunting.

As for his statement on HIIT, Crossfit, etc, it is difficult to say. I am looking at the chapter on High Intensity Endurance Training from Extreme Alpinism right now and see descriptions of 2 kinds of work outs: 97 to 99 % of your AT for 60 to 120 minutes. The second is 3 to 4 sets of 10-12 minutes intervals at 97 to 99 %. Call me crazy, but that sounds an awful lot like a HIIT workout, doesn't it. I mean, if you are going max effort on, say, Burpee Box jumps, Power Cleans, KB swings and double unders, I'd assume you are operating very close to your AT. One could even wear a heart rate monitor as Twight instructs, and do just that.

Take a look at this Gym Jones sample workout from Muscle & Fitness:

January 15th, 2009
6-Way BB Complex (thank you Istvan Javorek)
6 reps each of the following movements done non-stop without setting
barbell down
Snatch, Overhead Squat, Back Squat, Good Morning, Row (back parallel
to floor), Deadlift
2 sets @ 75#, 2 sets @ 95#, rest 2-3 minutes between sets
Then:
6x Weighted Lunge (barbell on back, @ 40% of Back Squat 1RM, 3 each leg) +
6x Weighted Step-up/Hop @ 2x 30# DBs on 10" box +
6x Split Jump (3 each)
6 sets, rest 2-3 minutes between sets
Then:
Pull-up & Ring Dip circuit:
10/1, 9/2, 8/3, 7/4, 6/5, 5/6, 4/7, 3/8, 2/9, 1/10
First round looks like: 10x Pull-up + 1x Ring Dip
Second round looks like: 9x Pull-up + 2x Ring Dip
Etc.
Then:
Cool down

----
Is it really that remarkably different from Crossfit workouts you have seen? Granted, this particular workout is targeted towards a specific type of athlete.

This brings me to my second point and, despite being a fan of Twight, there has been some criticism of his program being a "Same Chit, Different smell."
This could be for a couple of reasons:

He makes a living off of his unique program. In fact, he has landed DOD contracts and Hollywood film deals off of this branded program. He spends a lot of time differentiating his program from that of Crossfit because of this and also, possibly because he was sued by Crossfit. If you follow this link, you'll read a report by a Crossfit athlete who attended a Gym Jones seminar: http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Berger_InsideGymJones.pdf

You will read that Twight does spend a lot of time going out of his way to differentiate how his program is different and there certainly are differences: No stop watch, No AMRAP as etc, but you also see admissions such as this:

What we do, and what CrossFit does, it’s the same stuff. But training must be individualized or after a certain point you
make no progress.
—Mark Twight

Where's the truth in all of this? I don't know. Obviously he eschews Crossfit. I also suspect that Twight absolutely believes his programming is better and that if I were to attend Gym Jones, I would get better results than what I get from Crossfit. I also recognize that Twight, just like Crossfit, is a business, and he is no longer just applying this training to a handful of pro athletes, he also sells online programming for $50 a month and Crossfit is his direct competition. An adversary, even. He certainly has no reason to sing the praises of Crossfit.

So, we circle back. You have 8-12 hours a week to train. Maybe you can even get some 2 a days in a couple of days a week. Maybe you are afforded 4-5 hours in one session on the weekends, but, most people are still going to be limited to 60-90 minute training sessions. How are you going to make the most of that time and, all things considered, is Crossfit a couple of times a week and/or supplemented with some sport specific training an inappropriate way to spend training time for the average backpack hunter?

Personally, I've never thought of any of this as a "short cut." Even out of shape, I've always been pretty good at endurance. Going all out for 60 minutes to me is more of a challenge than 2-3 hours of 70% effort. The philosophy behind it is, if you can go longer than the prescribed workout, you are not doing it correctly. I don't see that as a short cut. Less time, perhaps, but most professional training programs reduce the actual training time in favor of recovery. It is the amatuer who is more likley to go overboard and train unproductively or overtrain. It is easy to call it a "short cut", but I'm not sure if it was ever intended to be a short cut from A to B. There is still tremendous effort. If we reverse the "short cut" philosophy, could we presume that spending more time training, unto itself, wins everytime over shorter sessions. There are plenty of people who spend hours upon hours in the gym without optimal results to show for it.

 

[5MilesBack]

If all we're trying to do is get in better shape for hunting, are you overthinking all of this? Man, after reading all that, digesting it, and even remotely trying to understand it all.........I could have already gone up, shot my elk, and carried it off the mountain by now.

 

[LJ Buck]

Check out Mountain Athlete Gym online in Jackson WY. This guys focus is about mountain training and being in shape to handle much harder mountains then what we deal with big game hunting.

 

[PJG]

If all we're trying to do is get in better shape for hunting, are you overthinking all of this? Man, after reading all that, digesting it, and even remotely trying to understand it all.........I could have already gone up, shot my elk, and carried it off the mountain by now.[/QUOT

I don’t think that any of this is being over thought. I get the feeling that most of the people posting on this thread are far beyond beginner status in there training career. A beginner in any lifting sport will see big gains early on that will eventually turn into small gains over time. The only way to overcome the small gains and plateaus is to find out what is holding you back. Sometimes this might be working a muscle group that is lacking or taking a different training approach. I think more advanced lifters and people that consistently train are obsessed with finding ways to improve. I am not talking about the people that are looking for the easy way out, I am talking about the people that actually just love to train be it weights, running, crossfit…whatever, the mindset has to be the same across the board. It has to be a lifestyle, not a part time hobby.

I think it’s a fine line finding the perfect training regimen for mountain hunting. A person can easily find themselves spending too much lifting, not enough time doing cardio, and also the same the other way around. I do believe that you have to find some type of long endurance training. At least for me an hour or less of some type of cardio activity will not prepare me for a full day in the pack with a 40 pound load. I am not sure where the perfect mix is at, but at least in my mind a lot of good input is being offered in this thread.

 

[justinspicher]

I think I am going to have to agree with 5MilesBack. This is thread seems to be the same conversation over and over. You all sound like you are taking your hobby and turning it into chore. This is just my perspective and I am not bashing any of you, in fact, I am rather impressed with the knowledge some of you have. I wish some of the guys I worked with who are given ample amount of time and required to work out put this much effort into it.

 

[onpoint]

Some great posts here, interesting topic for sure. The key for anyone, across any sport or activity is power/weight ratio but that ratio must be tailored to the task and therefore addressed through specificity of training. A powerlifter's power/weight ratio and therefore training program will place an emphasis on the power side of the equation (eg. lots of oly lifting, very little cardio) whereas a pure runner's power/weight ratio will emphasize the weight side of the equation (lots of bodyweight movement aka just running and very little oly/serious lifting).

The problem the vast majority of us face relative to this specificity however is the very nature of mountain hunting is non-specific. Unless you are hunting the exact same ridgeline or basin and taking the exact same trail in and out every day/weekend, in most cases we don't know what we'll encounter over the next ridge or summit. There is no question we (mtn hunters) need a combo of strength and endurance and to be clear the workout you can actually DO is 100% better than the workout you cannot do, so I am not suggesting that one should just put a pack on and hike. During the week (for most of us) that is simply not possible whether that be due to family, work, whatever at least not at the volumes required to truly "prepare" us. But as an example, as prep for last year's hunting season I was training for a 50 mile trail ultramaraton (my 2nd) and I have for years followed a Twight-esque program of my own design, solid amounts of strength work with lots of miles on the trails (I live in Vancouver, BC so have literally hundreds of miles of mountain trails out my back door). I am 6'1" and usually 185 lbs but will drop down to just below 180 lbs in the lead up to these events so I am not the "typical" sunken cheeked runner. Despite this foundation of both strength AND endurance, come our September backpack hunt in Northern BC (80+ lbs on my back) I wasn't five hours into our first day hiking up a river bottom/valley in an attempt to get to a known untouched sheep area and was found myself near my limit of endurance.

To give that context, the 50 miler took me just under 11 hours to complete and was a mountain race so no shortage of elevation but I was less than 50% into that volume in the river valley and was near maximum capacity for that day, why? What changed? Number 1, pack...80 lbs is not 80 lbs when it comes to walking and hiking it represents 2-3x that amount from a physics standpoint (ground reaction forces or action/reaction). Number 2, the entire river bottom was covered in rocks varying in size from 10 pin bowling balls to basketballs so it was like trying to hike in hockey skates. Number 3, repeated river crossings as the river required us to continuously alternate from one side to the other. The bottom line is that the amount of stabilization required to cover that sort of ground (with minimal elevation that first day I should add) was something completely NEW for my neuromuscular system and therefore despite my training to that point, this new task was incredibly taxing as any new task will be.

My point here is although I was at what I would consider a very high level of "mountain" fitness I was not specifically trained to deal with those demands. To try and break true mountain fitness into ""zones" is a gross over simplification of the nature of the task and the pitfall of many training programs. Yes we must both cross-train/metcon/lift and develop a solid foundation of aerobic/oxidative capacity to handle the demands of mountain hunting but all of this training should keep the "unknown" in mind and more importantly must incorporate "skill" as per Twight's definition below.

This excerpt is also from Twight's TNSTAAFL and IMO is the most important point he makes in the entire rant:

"Achieving fitness at the expense of skill is a waste of time and resources so using "cross-training" as the primary means of improving sport performance is a dead end. That said it's a fine approach to basic conditioning, and a useful supplement, or diversion in the off-season for active athletes. Of course, one can improve endurance performance by, for example, increasing strength and muscle contractility but this is a single characteristic of endurance fitness and speed, and like anaerobic metabolism, finite. It's easy to pick a particular aspect of the whole and make it one's shtick. And it's a trap. I've fallen into it, as have others: we have ignored the diverse characteristics of specific fitness to our detriment."

 

[Darren Best]

I hear you about limited training and recovery time. In fact I have come to the conclusion, that without proper training leading up to it, you only have so much mental/physical energy in a given day to even train after you have done everything else your life requires, so yes, this makes interval training tempting, very tempting.

You and I cannot afford a proper coach with the support staff to monitor everything we eat, the number of hours we sleep and the current state of our health to see how far we can push ourselves. We have to learn enough about our bodies to be our own coaches.

The body I have today, is the direct result of the overuse of HIIT type training. Even after I tried CrossFit and walked away from it, I was still tempted by HIIT type sessions and continued to use them. So yes, I know about the "same shit in a different wrapper" deal. HIIT is extremely taxing, in fact more taxing than just lifting weights. I think people vastly underestimate how long it takes to recover from a HIIT session.

We all have more time available to train than most of us admit. Yesterday I did 12" box steps for an hour while keeping my heart rate under 75%. The hard part about this was reigning myself in. I kept getting a rhythm going and kept pushing my HR too high. I did this while watching a movie on the TV, which I would of normally done sitting on my butt. Then in the evening just before dinner, I knocked a couple sets of pull-ups. A hour after dinner I went for a recovery walk around the neighborhood with my wife. So looking at it from a "training" perspective, I got in endurance training session, one strength session and one recovery session in the same day. Not as cool or sexy as a pro athlete, but with good nutrition, plenty of quality sleep and sticking to it day in and day out, I will make progress. I didn't feel overworked at all and in fact, energized and ready to do more.

The biggest mistakes that most gym goers make is ignoring their recovery, or not understanding how it works at all and not keeping a training log to track their progress or lack of it. They do the same movements with the same weight, week in and week out. Or they get training ADD and hop from program to program. I'm just as guilty of these same mistakes.

After 6 years of HIIT training, zone 1 training doesn't even feel like "working out". But I am tracking my progress to see if I actually start to get some where and see if my tendonitis goes away. At this point I have nothing to lose except getting fatter than I already am and I have everything to gain if it works.

I haven't done a HIIT session for two weeks now, the temptation to rip one off is overwhelming. But until my ankle and hamstring are fully recovered, I refuse to walk that path again and even then, I will still use HIIT very sparingly. Hopefully I am learning from my past mistakes. I am slowly healing and hopefully, slowly getting the strength and endurance back that I had when I was 25.

I am a test subject in progress, I will let everyone know how it turns out at the end of summer.

 

[ohhiitznik]

Ill simplify it for all of you guys so you don't feel overwhelemed. If you want to be a better mountain hunter, do stairs or hike hills with your weighted pack at varied speeds. Your weightlifting options are up to you. but to be better on the hill, hike the hill and don't overthink. Majority of this advice is very specified training tailored to specific athletes

 

[ohhiitznik]

Nothing helped me better, not crossfit. Not powerlifting, not any of that for the mountain more than doing bleachers with a weighted pack. I would do about 1000 vertical feet ascent and descent everyday for the month leading up to my hunt and I went up the hill like a raped ape. Didn't really lose my breath below 10500 feet. Take it for what its worth.

 

[Darren Best]

I don't think we are overthinking it at all. The whole point of this forum is the exchange of ideas and knowledge to make us better mountain hunters.

You get two basic kinds of hunters looking for knowledge like this.

A guy that lives in Florida and has no mountains to train on and will spend a couple thousand dollars on his dream hunt in Idaho, Montana or Colorado. How does he best spend his time to get in the best mountain shape possible without any access to mountains.

Another hunter coming here might be a guy that in the past hunted from roads and base camps and wants to extend his reach, but has hit the limit of how many miles he can cover in a day, and possibly his training has hit a wall and is unable to progress further.

onpoint,

I think that without your base fitness you got from your ultra running you wouldn't of lasted as long as did. Yes that is extremely challenging terrain and definitely nothing replaces putting a heavy pack on and going off trail.

There is a ton of information in the book I am not able to share simply because I don't have the time to reprint it here.

Steve stresses that at least one of your training sessions each week should be a long hike that comprises at least 25% of your total training time and should be under a pack. So yes, he encourages a combination of "sport specific training" and basic endurance wrapped into one tidy package. This would build on your strength sessions and other endurance sessions done during the week. For guys with no mountains, they need to substitute a steep hill, flights of stairs or even just a box step.

 

[Poser]

Both very good and informative posts, Onpoint and Elkhunter_241.

 

[Poser]

Check out Mountain Athlete Gym online in Jackson WY. This guys focus is about mountain training and being in shape to handle much harder mountains then what we deal with big game hunting.

That is a good page. The Q&A page has some very interesting info in it. That seems like it would be a great place to train if you lived in Jackson.

 

[Poser]

If all we're trying to do is get in better shape for hunting, are you overthinking all of this? Man, after reading all that, digesting it, and even remotely trying to understand it all.........I could have already gone up, shot my elk, and carried it off the mountain by now.

True that....

 

[5MilesBack]

I don’t think that any of this is being over thought. I get the feeling that most of the people posting on this thread are far beyond beginner status in there training career.

And there you said it........"training career". That's exactly what I'm reading about in this thread. And if that's the intent of this thread, then I'll step out and by all means continue. However, I keep seeing phrases such as "mountain hunting" and "hunting training", etc, within the mix. That implies to me that this is for preparing for mountain hunting. And in that, IMO I think there's some over-thinking going on here. Like Jdog, in college I was a basketball fanatic. I'd spend 2 hours a day in the weight room, and 2-4 hours a day on the court every week. Hunting season obviously was a breeze back then as I was in the best shape of my life. But even now at almost 50 and rarely getting more than a couple hours a week in of workouts, I have never stood there during the season saying......"gosh I sure wish I had trained for 6000 hours more, and varied all my training for strength, cardio, and endurance in the past year". Yet 90% of my hunting is all above 10k feet and I'll cover 7-12 miles easily every day, and average between 16 and 25 days for our 30 day archery season. So you don't have to be some marathoning, super human, power lifting, extreme ratio conforming, fitness legend to succeed in mountain hunting.

I'm not saying that being in good shape won't help you on a hunt.......especially past week one........it will indeed. I'm just saying for most hunters all that I'm reading seems more suited for the "training career" types rather than the hunting types. And that's all good too. I just don't want some newbie hunter seeing all this and saying "Holy cow, I don't have a chance of ever succeeding on a hunt because I haven't trained a day in my life". Improvement is good.......but just wanted to put my perspective on it.

 

[onpoint]

Ill simplify it for all of you guys so you don't feel overwhelemed. If you want to be a better mountain hunter, do stairs or hike hills with your weighted pack at varied speeds. Your weightlifting options are up to you. but to be better on the hill, hike the hill and don't overthink. Majority of this advice is very specified training tailored to specific athletes

For those that do not have access to trails/hills/mountains this is simple and excellent advice.

 

[onpoint]

And there you said it........"training career". That's exactly what I'm reading about in this thread. And if that's the intent of this thread, then I'll step out and by all means continue. However, I keep seeing phrases such as "mountain hunting" and "hunting training", etc, within the mix. That implies to me that this is for preparing for mountain hunting. And in that, IMO I think there's some over-thinking going on here. Like Jdog, in college I was a basketball fanatic. I'd spend 2 hours a day in the weight room, and 2-4 hours a day on the court every week. Hunting season obviously was a breeze back then as I was in the best shape of my life. But even now at almost 50 and rarely getting more than a couple hours a week in of workouts, I have never stood there during the season saying......"gosh I sure wish I had trained for 6000 hours more, and varied all my training for strength, cardio, and endurance in the past year". Yet 90% of my hunting is all above 10k feet and I'll cover 7-12 miles easily every day, and average between 16 and 25 days for our 30 day archery season. So you don't have to be some marathoning, super human, power lifting, extreme ratio conforming, fitness legend to succeed in mountain hunting.

I'm not saying that being in good shape won't help you on a hunt.......especially past week one........it will indeed. I'm just saying for most hunters all that I'm reading seems more suited for the "training career" types rather than the hunting types. And that's all good too. I just don't want some newbie hunter seeing all this and saying "Holy cow, I don't have a chance of ever succeeding on a hunt because I haven't trained a day in my life". Improvement is good.......but just wanted to put my perspective on it.

No you do not need to be "super human" to succeed in the mountains as a hunter at all 5milesback but I disagree with using your experience of only a couple of hours of working out per week being adequate for the newbie, especially given your previous "training career". There is a big difference between SURVIVING a hunt and THRIVING on a hunt in the mountains and for me the mental spillover into my ability to think and make decisions clearly in an ever changing environment against (usually) difficult to hunt prey is well worth the extra training. Yes, you need to be a competent hunter but I know and have hunted with many whose hunting trips were ruined or least severely effected because the first two days were too difficult. This can absolutely be the difference between having the ability to make it to the next basin or over the next summit. Afterall the buck, bull or ram of your dreams may be in there! I have seen too many guys say, "I'd love to go in there but there's no way I'm packing an animal out of there" and for my preferences that is unacceptable.

 

[Poser]

No you do not need to be "super human" to succeed in the mountains as a hunter at all 5milesback but I disagree with using your experience of only a couple of hours of working out per week being adequate for the newbie, especially given your previous "training career". There is a big difference between SURVIVING a hunt and THRIVING on a hunt in the mountains and for me the mental spillover into my ability to think and make decisions clearly in an ever changing environment against (usually) difficult to hunt prey is well worth the extra training. Yes, you need to be a competent hunter but I know and have hunted with many whose hunting trips were ruined or least severely effected because the first two days were too difficult. This can absolutely be the difference between having the ability to make it to the next basin or over the next summit. Afterall the buck, bull or ram of your dreams may be in there! I have seen too many guys say, "I'd love to go in there but there's no way I'm packing an animal out of there" and for my preferences that is unacceptable.

Case and point: “We bought tags, drove 2,800 miles, had a $120 hotel room, and barely hunted for 2 Days.” - See more at: http://soleadventure.com/2013/09/so...-your-partner-ready-too/#sthash.g9MPLKwh.dpuf