Wondering what everyone’s favourite gym exercises are for mountain hunting

[Elite]

I have been going to gym consistently for 2 years and have gained a lot of strength and discipline from it. I do a simple push/pull/leg split.

I have been focusing more on squats and core strength. But I am wondering what else everyone else does that translates to helping with mountain hunting and heavy pack outs


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[madtinker]

sounds like we do similar things in the gym. For legs I alternate between deadlifts and squats. I keep it real basic for the sake of time. I also ruck twice a week and run and do kettlebells. In the gym I started doing farmer carries as well.

 

[fatlander]

Sounds like you’ve got it as dialed in as you can in the gym.

Nothing preps you better for carry heavy stuff up , down, and across steep hills than carrying heavy stuff up, down and across steep hills. This time of year, I spend more time with a sandbag in my pack than I do moving weight around in the gym.


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[SteveAndTheCrigBoys]

The stair climber and single leg weighted lifts. Lunges and step ups, usually with kettlebells.

 

[ahawk116]

Bulgarian Split squats are the only thing I would add to this conversation. Favorite? They suck, but they work.

 

[D_wit22]

Something that involves weight on my back and moving around with different incline and decline. At this point in the game with the season closing in, I’d skip the gym and hit the hills with a pack

If swimmers want to get better at swimming, do they play golf? No they spend time in the pool
Same goes for mountain hunting. Spend time training the same way you will be “competing”

 

[LongWayAround]

I warmup with the rower and do a squat variation every day, either conventional, yoke bar, or zercher with a heavy sandbag.

My heavy deadlift days are behind me, but I like dumbbell RDL.

Step-ups holding plates.

Push-pull on the sled. I bought a 12' tow strap for pulling it. The push is relatively easy, the pull is absolutely brutal.

I also do a fair number of walking lunges, either with an EZ bar or holding a plate.

Upper body, I typically superset push-pull motions in both vertical and horizontal planes.

I always get a kick out of all of the "skip the gym and go hike" comments. Not everyone has a trail right out their back door. I'm fortunate that I can be hiking in 20-30 minutes, but for a lot of people the gym is a much more attainable workout most days.

Edit to add that I definitely agree with carrying weight on your back as the best medicine, just that it's not practical for everyone on a near daily basis.

 

[fatlander]

I warmup with the rower and do a squat variation every day, either conventional, yoke bar, or zercher with a heavy sandbag.

My heavy deadlift days are behind me, but I like dumbbell RDL.

Step-ups holding plates.

Push-pull on the sled. I bought a 12' towards strap for pulling it. The push is relatively easy, the pull is absolutely brutal.

I also do a fair number of walking lunges, either with an EZ bar or holding a plate.

Upper body, I typically superset push-pull motions in both vertical and horizontal planes.

I always get a kick out of all of the "skip the gym and go hike" comments. Not everyone has a trail right out their back door. I'm fortunate that I can be hiking in 20-30 minutes, but for a lot of people the gym is a much more attainable workout most days.

Edit to add that I definitely agree with carrying weight on your back as the best medicine, just that it's not practical for everyone on a near daily basis.

Agree with this point. I’m lucky to have access to mountains fairly close so I get out there with regularity.

One thing that’s really overlooked is something like reservoir dams, man made retention pond dams, man made berms, etc. and creek/river bluffs.

It’s boring, but go do reps on the steepest thing like that that you can find. They’re great for side hilling too. On the side hilling note, any old ditch works as well.


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[The Fat Coyote]

I had an interesting experience, I had been doing 5 x 5 stronglifts, which is a pretty basic program, squats, deadlifts, snatch etc- it was an app on the iphone back then- after about 7 months of doing this program, i went out for a backpacking trip with my girlfiend at the time who was a marathon runner, and she could not keep up with me at all, it was crazy, i attribute it to the squats, but it couldve been anything. Best backpacking trip i ever went on