Ep. 86: From Workouts To Packouts
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As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard-won experiences into tips and tactics that'll get you closer to your ultimate goal, success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance.

Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. I was looking today and it looks like we're actually on podcast episode 86. That is, there's a lot of nuggets of hunting wisdom in there. And I think just based on a lot of the podcast feedback that I've got, you know, there's been a lot of people that have found success by using the tactics in there.

And just like anything, you can take this knowledge and be successful, but there's a little bit of it that's on you. So when it comes to this week's podcast, I'm basing it off of the idea of training. And when you think about hunting out West, one major factor in success is really your physical preparedness, the ability to hunt hard day in and day out, go that extra mile, pack out an animal where others might think it's too far. And that just gives you an edge. One question I get asked a lot is,

is how to prepare for a hunt in the mountains, especially from people that maybe don't live in the mountains. While I'm not a personal trainer or fitness expert by any stretch of the imagination, what I am an expert in is carrying a heavy pack around in steep country, packing out meat long distances, hiking and hunting the back country day in and day out.

In my opinion, while there's no replacing training by doing, I spent a lot of time this past year kind of building out an actionable formula to help you get ready to hit the mountains. But first, I want to share a story of a day where I got into a lot of elk and put in a lot of miles. Most of the time I've spent hunting and just being out either solo or on a hunting trip,

I've always had this mindset that nothing's too far. I just go where I need to go. Now, I also haven't really had to train for that because I just, as a professional guide, I'd spend most of my year, majority of my year hiking around with a weighted pack on, with a day pack, a backcountry pack, whatever.

What I do every day is carry a pack around and hike. And so just by doing that day in and day out, it just becomes natural and distance and other things never really enter into my mind. Now, there was a time where I will look at the mountain and say, oh, that maybe should I go up there? Oh, this is a far spot, whatever. Oh, maybe I look across and oh, there's elk over there, but they're way over there. And then my...

Kind of entire realm of thinking shifted very early on. Nobody ever talked about how far do you go when you hunt or what's difficult? How, how would you push, you know, nobody ever, I never heard any hunting articles about pushing yourself while hunting. And I was reading, I was actually on a long drive from Nevada to Montana.

And I had a book on tape. I'd listen to a bunch of book on tapes. And this is actually like a CD. You'd come in a CD pack. I would put it in the CD thing and drive. And the one that I got was the Lewis and Clark journals, but it was the journals kind of adapted into a story. I can't even remember the author. But as I listened to that while I was going, you know, it just really was like eye-opening to what people went through and how far these guys would go. They were dragging boat 10 miles, 20 miles away.

you know, hiking 20 miles a day or 10 miles a day through rough country. And I'm thinking, man,

This was a group of tough hombres. Like these dudes really got after it. Now, I don't know how accurate things were or whatever. That's beside the point. It really inspired me to think, man, if guys 100 years ago could tromp through these same mountains and go through the same landscape and explore through some of this stuff and just cover some good distances, man,

I should surely be able to do it with my modern technology and the type of boots and clothes that I have, the gear that I have and way less weight. And I don't know what happened, but it's just like this light bulb moment of thinking, yeah, nothing really is too far. I shouldn't really limit myself when I'm hunting. And kind of from that moment forward, I really just never thought about it. I just pushed the thought of something being too far out of my mind and just kept hunting harder and harder and harder.

And through that process, I've found a lot of success. And I found that success is a lot easier to come by. Over the years, I've really found that most of the time, just being able to go that extra distance by being able to get somewhere quick, by being in good physical conditioning, good physical shape, the duration of the hunt or the ease of hunt is actually easier by hunting harder. You find a lot more success that way. I actually...

I was probably about 19 or 20 and I had a GPS. Um, it was kind of like the first like GPS unit that I had. And I figured, you know, as people would always ask, Oh, how far do you think we went? How far do you think we went? And everything up to that point, I always just measured by map miles, you know, it was just like, Oh, we went two miles. You know, I knew how far things were on the map, on the grid. I didn't ever factor in the walking around and the,

additional moving and just be like, Oh yeah, a few miles, whatever. So I had this GPS. You could track exactly how far you went. There still was not the technology to track your elevation gain or any of that. It was just purely as the crow flies map miles calculated throughout the day. So I think it was the first day of the season, first of September, early season, long days.

I'm going to go into my favorite spot, spot that I'd been scouting out and had some good success the past season in their archery. So I figured, okay, I'm going to go in there, give it a go. So I hike in, start

a few, quite a few hours before sunrise, really early in the morning, hiking, get in there as the sun rises. I let out a few bugles and I see some elk in the bottom of this Canyon. Now I'm at the top of the mountain. It's probably a 2000 foot elevation drop from where I climbed up to, to now where the elk are. I ended up dropping down, trying to get into the elk and

It doesn't work out. They end up going into the bedding area. Then I look back up where I was that morning and some elk come out there. So I'm like, okay, cool. So I go back up, hunt those elk, end up blowing those elk down toward where the other elk went. Like just, they got my wind wrong. They're below me. I actually had a shot at one of the bulls. It was like a small five by five, but there was just like this giant

six by six in there and they weren't really running hard. They were just kind of moving around in the timber. I'd snuck in on them. I wanted to shoot that big six by six, passed up the five point. And then they kind of caught my wind and ran down. So I'm like, okay, well, I'll go down. So I go down, circle around the mountain and then start working into where I think the other group from the morning was bedded.

I end up sneaking in there. There's a lot more cows than I was expecting and bumped them out. Oh crap. So now they're running back up the mountain, pretty much where I came from. So I decided I'm like, well, it's hot out. I'm just going to see if I can, like, I kept seeing, it was just this long line of elk. So I'm like, kind of like just dogging them, chasing them essentially, but they don't really know where I'm at. They're just running their escape route and it's uphill. And I'm noticing like these elk, they've got their tongues hanging out. They're overheating. They're hot.

I'm like, man, if I can beat them up to the top, I know where they're going to go. Like I know where those other elk were. I know the elk in this area well enough. I think I can actually cut them off. So I ended up having to like run through the bottom. They see me across the Canyon, but I'm going to go up the other side of the mountain around the mountain and then cut them off at this little saddle where I think they're going to go through. And I'm just like going as fast and as hard as I can go. I'm just like cruising. I,

I'm tired. I'm go up in water and I could see those elk across the way in this big burn, like tongues hanging out, sweating, and they're still moving. Um,

So I get up around the backside, drop down, run around. The wind's good. Get to the saddle and I'm busting through these little trees. And here comes the first few elk of this group. And I'm like, whoa, this is awesome. So here they are, tongues hanging out, just veins popping out. It was a hot day and they'd been pressured pretty good to run up the mountain. I'd sprinted around, got into position, and now I'm in the right spot and they're filing past me. Single file, like 15 yards cow.

cow, cow. I mean, one of them, I feel like I could just tackle this little calf that comes by. It's just whooped, right? It's going through the cow, cow. And I'm just waiting. I'm like, I know this bull is going to walk out. So they're walking through and I'm like, this is incredible. I actually had a little camera in my pocket, a little film camera. So I pull it out and I start snapping a couple of photos of these elk, like walking by just tired. I was like, I actually ran these elk down. This is crazy. So I'm snapping a few pictures of these cows and

And put the thing back because I'm like, all right, there's quite a few have come by. The bull's got to be here pretty soon. Wait, wait, wait, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

I'm like, all right. So I go to the edge and look, and I ended up catching the bull. The two bulls that were in that group had split off from the herd, like halfway down. I think they just got too tired. Like they couldn't keep up with the cows. Maybe it was their heavy antlers. Maybe they were like, ah, whatever. And they were actually going back down the mountain into a big thick patch of timber. Now, while I didn't

catch up to those bulls. I did feel like I'd done something pretty crazy where I really got after it. I really pushed myself, got into position and essentially cut this herd of elk off. And I got that picture. I went and had that picture printed. And to this day, it still sits on the little fridge in my cabin, um, as a reminder of that, that first time where I really just like got after and essentially chased a group of elk down.

Now it's like three o'clock by this point. I'm like, okay, well, I've really tossed the salad in this zone. So I decided to get on the ridge, hike down and go to like the other side of the basin for the evening in there. It's just like, I see a group elk, I get after the elk.

and don't end up getting on anything. I actually remember I got a little too aggressive with the calling. I snuck in there, there was a bull bedded and I just decided, I'm going to start off like real fired up, give him some bugles, rake a tree. Before he really got fired up, I've learned a lot about elk hunting since then. But, you know, and he ended up just rounding up the cows and going away and into an area and then it got dark and that was that.

I was like, sweet. So now it's dark and I've got a long walk back to the truck. So probably maybe six, six miles back to the truck, something like that. Maybe a little further, probably a little further. So dark walk back to the truck. I'm like, oh gosh, man, I am freaking tired. How far did I go today? So I pull out my little GPS thing and it was like 39 miles. I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

You know, I thought about it. I'm like, well, okay. There was a section where I was running a long ways. I did. And then I started thinking about, well, I did six miles before the sun came up and six miles or more after the sun came down and did the running in the middle of the day. And then went and checked all these other spots and was constantly moving around. And it was a long day. I mean, I don't know what times that time of year sunup is probably like

5 a.m. and probably gets dark around 945. So really just doing a couple miles in between there, those miles added up and it really opened my eyes saying, wow, like that was, I mean, that's, that's an extremely long day. I was, I was doing a lot of moving. I wasn't doing a lot of glassing or being very patient, but it really opened my eyes to saying, wow, when I took that idea of something's too far out of my head and just started to hunt and was in really good shape,

It was just the miles didn't matter. I just kept getting on elk, chasing elk, being in elk, and having those encounters. And of course, it led to over the years, just that philosophies led to a lot of success. Now, I'm not saying 30 some odd miles is a normal day, and that's not even including the thousands of feet of elevation gain. Some days might be

A couple miles, some days might be more, but just being in shape, being ready and being active plays a huge part in my overall hunting success. Now, of course, I told a story of what I'd probably consider that the biggest day I've ever done, like single day while hunting. You know, when you're out there,

You want to be hunting. It's not, you aren't trying to run a marathon. You aren't trying to get in the most miles. You're just getting after animals. I honestly think the days that I probably put in the most miles is chasing antelope because I'm doing a lot of stocks, covering a lot of distance. It's pretty flat. You just cover a lot of ground. I don't think I've ever even come close to that day any other time.

And it made me think, you know, I get asked all the time, like, well, how far do you go in a day? Especially, you know, as an outfitter or a guide, people say like, how far should I expect to go in a day of hunting? And really it could be some days, two miles or a mile and some days, maybe 20. But what I decided to do this year was I kept record of all the miles that I went. And this is like guiding, this is with guides.

you know, hunts on my own. This is sometimes with clients that might be older and not in great shape, whatever, and just average those out. And actually the average has surprised me. So archery elk season averaged 9.03 miles per day. Now you got to think about it. You think, well, that sounds like a lot and it is a lot. And at the end of those days, you're, you feel fairly tired. You feel fairly,

You know, you're like, wow, I put in some miles. That's the average. So there's days that are higher and there's days that are lower. I think archery season, you got to remember too, the days are really long. So there's a lot of daylight. There's a lot more moving around. There's a lot of getting into an area and coming back out or, or whatever, but you've got a lot of daylight to make it happen.

Now for rifle elk season, this is during the guiding season with clients. Some of them are older, but really actually this last season, everyone was successful. So it was like, okay, how many miles to kill a bull elk? Some guys did it in a few days. Some guys took longer, but we averaged 6.82 miles per day during the rifle season. Now those are shorter days. And you also got to remember, hey, there's more things involved like snow, other factors.

Throughout that last season, the lightest day I did, I didn't actually have like notes on, oh, maybe I only hunted half the day or whatever, but the lightest day was, was 4.46 miles. And the longest was 13.65 miles because

But you got to also remember that's just the miles. That doesn't really paint a great picture because there are places where there might've been 3,500 feet in elevation gain and maybe a mile or two or other areas where it might've been more flat terrain and it covered a lot of, a lot of ground, but maybe not as tough ground. There's days where you might go one mile. That's a lot harder than 10 miles.

So there's a lot of variation. I've seen some really rough 600 yards before where you're looking across the canyon and that's a 600 yard shot. And you think it's going to take me all day to get over there if we get that. But I think that these are some good benchmarks and some, something to kind of,

think about, especially if you're, if you're new to this type of hunting and say, well, where should I be at? How, how fit do I need to be? Do I really need to get in shape for this? I think these are good benchmarks of taking myself that almost every week that we've gone out with a hunter or whatever, we found success. We've been successful and this is how many miles and how many hours and whatever it's taken to get that. So it paints a, paints a pretty good picture there.

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Now, I think one thing you got to think about, you go, okay, well, there's all these miles. That's an easy picture. And you think about, yeah, I'm hunting in the mountains. There's going to be a lot of climbing, which does get people, you know, it's tough, it's difficult. And I think that that part people go in with the mindset of yes. But the one thing they aren't used to, the thing that slows everybody down, you

the most. The thing that I think is the biggest hindering factor on those, even those four mile days, those shorter days, just going up the mountain. The thing that I think people are unprepared for, they maybe are prepared for the physical moving, going some miles, hiking part. What they aren't used to is the fact that when they're actually out hunting, they're doing that with a pack that has some kind of weight in it. And that is what slows you down.

Now, you know, most people, they can't be in the mountains hundreds of days of year, wearing a weighted pack, just getting used to it. So what I tried to do is I tried to create a system that kind of accurately prepares you for the best type of hunting movement. So when we think about, okay, I'm out there hunting, what head space do you need to get into? And that's going to be

hiking with a weighted pack. So I wanted to kind of set up a system of weighted pack training. So these rucks, I think, are going to help get your body ready for the mountains and whatever the hunt's going to throw your way. So here's how it's going to work. I'm going to kind of describe, I've been out kind of testing these things, kind of practicing some stuff, kind of seeing what really mimics

that movement and the things that I notice get tired when I'm out in the field. And then I wanted to try to translate that into something that's actionable, where you, if you live in somewhere that's flat, somewhere that's got no mountains, you can kind of put a weighted pack on and maybe do this stuff in a gym or on a treadmill. Maybe you could do it on like a stair climber machine or

Or if you've got some mountains around, I mean, obviously in my opinion, the best way to do this is outside. That's actually how I do it, especially with this last year, not getting out as much. I've noticed I still need to stay in shape. And this is kind of what really is, is

This is how do I stay in the best shape when I'm not hunting 300 days a year, when I'm not, you know, going to the South Pacific and hunting the mountains for tar, when I'm at home and then I've got to be ready starting August 1 to go sheep hunting, to take people elk hunting, to do all this other stuff and keep that and maintain that physical fitness.

capability. And so for me, I do it in the mountains, but I also wanted to translate that to maybe where you could do it at home or on something else. I think stairs is a great way to do this. I think, you know, some kind of machine with treadmill or whatever. So we're going to start it out in three stages and I'm going to break it out here right now. So the first stage is going to be what I call the day rock. This is just kind of like getting your body going. This is the base level. And these little workouts are really just going to be

a short amount of time, but we're trying to kind of build up that, that strength, that endurance, and that familiarity with wearing something that's uncomfortable and heavy, a pack. Then we're going to move, graduate you up to stage two, which is going to be the backcountry ruck,

system. And then stage three is going to be the packout system. So that's going to be the heaviest weight. So stage two, the back country is going to be a little bit slower, longer and heavier. And then the stage three is just going to be all about getting used to that really uncomfortable heavy weight. So let's jump into these three stages and then what you can do at home to kind of build up.

Now, when I think, if you think about breaking down a hunt into things that you encounter, right? So day one of the trip, you're going into an area, you're going to explore, you're chasing elk, you're chasing mule deer, whatever you're chasing, it doesn't really matter. What's something you're going to encounter? Well, you're going to have your pack on. It's going to probably be a day pack. You're going to have your water in there. You're going to have your spotting scope, you know?

Um, you're going to have a lot of, a lot of gear. You're going to have your bow rifle, whatever you're hunting with some food, and you'll probably be going from the truck coming back every day. So you don't need all your overnight stuff, but you also have a few more creature comforts and things specific for hunting. So you're also going to have your, your game bags, your spotting, you know, just your tripod, just a bunch of different stuff, your camera,

Whatever. You're going to be probably hiking all day. You're going to be doing a lot of stopping and glassing, getting to vantages, stopping, glassing, and then moving. So it's something where you're going to need that endurance.

But I also wanted to think about ways that we can kind of burn out the things that start to burn out. So where do you start to feel this pack? Also on the day hunt, you actually put in probably more miles than you do on a backcountry hunt, I think, because you're covering a lot of distance. So we want to be kind of ready for that and also kind of build our bodies and get them used to recovering quick, as well as getting used to the kind of the uncomfort level and where those pinch points are once we start hiking.

If I also break down a hunt, how does it normally start? I think every time I leave the truck, I'm walking uphill. I don't know how it happens. It seems like every hunt you go on, you leave the truck walking uphill and you walk back to the truck uphill. The uphill both ways thing is real. It means that I leave hiking up. Somehow I drop below the truck throughout the course of the day. And now I'm hiking back up to the truck. That happens to me more times than not. So we want to be trained for that uphill hiking. So here's what we're going to do.

I'm breaking this down, stage one, the day rock, and we're going to call like a prescribed weight. I think that your goal for this stage is going to be 30 pounds. And then with that 30 pounds, what we want to be able to do is our first, our first intro to it is going to be 15 minutes. You might think, well, 30 pounds, 15 minutes. Okay. That's easy. Or some people might say that sounds hard. You can start out with lighter weight before you even move on to the next one. You want to be able to do these in that 30 pound range fairly easily.

And what we're going to do is we're going to use 15 minutes as kind of like our first workout period.

And what I like to do is I like to start out, say you're on a machine. Let's say you live somewhere flat. You're going to do this on a treadmill, or maybe you're going to do this in the hills, whatever. You just find something that matches this. So whether it's a treadmill, whether it's a mountain, whether it's a stair climber or running stairs, whatever, whatever it is, find something that mimics these things that I'm talking about. Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to build that muscle memory in a short amount of time.

that kind of will translate into taking on the mountain over a longer period of time. So however you can do this, you guys can figure that out. Now this first 15 minute one is going to be

putting on that weighted pack. And what I want you to do is you just start out going uphill at a, you know, you can start out at maybe like a moderate pace. I want it to be like, kind of start getting your body warmed up. If you got to do something else to warm up first, great. And then just start walking and start hiking at like a higher pace. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to use speed and incline.

to kind of mimic duration. So in a normal hike, you know, you get tired, you can stop. What we want to do is we want to build up this muscle and the feeling of everything, but without stopping. So we're going to kind of fatigue things faster. So as you start going, you're going to start at a, if you're on a treadmill, let's say it's got one to 10, maybe started at two incline and just start kind of walking for a couple minutes, get your body going. Now you're going to start ramping it up. I want you to start ramping up the speed

to that point where it's like, you couldn't hold a conversation with me. You're kind of at the speed where you're like, I'm not running, but I'm definitely moving. And I want you to kind of now pick that elevation up to maybe say if it's a treadmill, maybe let's hit it at 50%. So you're using an incline with a good speed where you're like, you're just able to keep up. You know, you wouldn't be able to hold the conversation with someone. You've got that weighted pack on and you're moving.

Now for the next half, let's say we hit our seven and a half minute point. Now we're going to ramp it up. We're going to start kind of pushing everything into those muscles and we're going to start the climb. If you're on a treadmill, you're going to hit that to the highest incline that it's got. And you're going to try to maintain that fast speed for as long as you can.

Okay. So you want to be holding at that speed where it's like, okay, I'm going to burn out. I would say now within three minutes or so, you want to start feeling everything burning where that pack is on your body. You want that to hurt. We're just mimicking that fatigue that you're going to find later in the day in a shorter amount of time, because we're kind of increasing the intensity of everything. So you can ramp up the speed on that treadmill or whatever, but

and just keep pushing. You want to, you want to really feel it. And now you don't want to stop, but if you have to slow the machine down, go for it. You want to just keep moving. So where you're like constantly at what you think is your max, you're like, oh man, I'm, I can't go any harder. But you're just like constantly keeping it at your max at that incline. And you can just keep gradually dropping that speed down, dropping that speed down,

Um, but not stopping, even if it's a really slow pace, we want to just go, we're just basing this off of time, not a certain distance. So you've got your 15 minutes of that and then stop rest, whatever. Now I would say if you're, if you're, if you got 30 minutes to, to give to this now, jump on and do that same thing again in that same pace.

What we're going to try to do before we move on is we're going to get really comfortable at this point where you've got your time up and you've got your, you know, so you're going further distances each time you do this and you're building up what

What you're going to start noticing is the parts of your body that burn. You're going to, your lungs are going to start feeling it. Your legs are going to start feeling, your legs are going to start feeling heavy. The portions where the pack is resting is going to start feeling heavy. And that's what you want. And then what you want to do is just track your own progress and say, okay, I started out here. Maybe make some notes as you do this. Say I started out here. Here's how far I went on the machine, or here's how far I did in the stairs. This is what it felt like.

The time will be the same, but the distance will be different. And then, or maybe you're out on a mountain and you're doing it and you're like, okay, I was going really slow at the end. Remember, you just want to keep pushing yourself at that max level every time. So it's very like, you're your own coach on this one. But what you're going to do is you're going to notice over time, you're going to be able to do it a lot easier. The pack's going to kind of...

in many ways feel lighter. Those points where it starts to feel, your shoulders are going to start to feel it first time. Your back's going to start to feel it. Your legs are going to start to feel it. You'll start noticing that you can go further. You can do these easier. And it's building up that muscle memory for the exact activity we're doing, hiking in the mountains with a heavy pack on.

And once you've got that, now you can move to stage two. So the stage two is going to be our back country rock. This is just going to be slower and heavier. We're going to try a longer time period for this. So what I want to do is now starting out, you know, you want to work into everything. If you've never done anything like this, don't throw on a 30 pound pack and try running on your treadmill because you're probably going to hate it. You're probably going to get injured. You're probably whatever you want to build up to these things. You want these things to just come

come naturally. And I want it to be something where you're like, Hey, I can do this. You know, it's like I said, the first one could be 15 minutes. Now what we're doing is you should have kind of mastered that first stage. Now we're going to move on and we're going to add some weight. So it's going to be the back country rock. We're going to go prescribed weight here is going to be from 35 to 60 pounds. So we're going to try to max out up at that 60 pound range. If you've got the time, you can either do this in 15 minute intervals or 30 minutes.

And what we're doing here is you're still going to want the incline. You're going to want that up, but we aren't going to be necessarily pushing, especially starting out, pushing it like with the speed, like we did on the last one. You want to slowly burn into it. And that extra weight should, you know, you're going to kind of keep it right around. I would say, let's say like starting out, you're going to want to work yourself at like 75%. Okay.

because you've got that heavier pack on, but you still want to be moving at a good pace and kind of activating your muscles, burning things a little faster and just getting used to that. Now, additional weight, let your, your muscles kind of stabilize building up to it. Eventually we'll do this same one with that weight. Very similar to, we did the day hunt where we were picking up the speed and everything, but I want you to work slow into it. So you're

You start out on a moderate incline, you work your way halfway up to halfway. And then the second half is going to be kind of like a more full incline if possible. If you're in the hills, just pick a good hill, pick a good

uphill incline. You could do a steady, whatever. You just want to make sure that you've got that uphill going. And then as this becomes easier, you're going to increase the intensity with your speed. So kind of picking up the pace like we did in the last one, you could do these in 15 minute or 30 minute intervals. And one thing that I like to do too on these heavier packs is just say, okay, I've got 30 minutes. I can go a ways in 30 minutes, but I'm going to pick a pace where I know that I can kind of

maintain a good pace, but throughout the entire 30 minutes with this heavier pack on. And that's a great way that kind of gets those, those endurance muscles built. I feel like it really mimics that like you're out there and you're

when I'm backpack hunting, I've got my backpack on and it's like, Hey, I'm just getting into camp. So you've got that heavy pack and you might be going for three, four hours, steady, steady clip, you know, half hour time, half a time, whatever, you're taking a few breaks in there. And then, you know, you're probably setting up camp and then lightening your pack from there. So it really is going to mimic that heavy pack in that getting used to that additional weight and building that muscle for climbing. Once you feel like you've mastered that,

Then we're going to bump it up again and we're going to hit what I would call the pack out portion. And this isn't going to be something that you're going to do a lot.

But I always find it funny how, you know, guys go on these big hunts, they've done whatever they've got ready. And then it comes time to carry something out and they've never put that much weight on their back. The last place you want to learn to do this is in a mountain 10 miles from the truck. But that's exactly what we do. I mean, it's just like, we're all guilty of this. So it's one of those things, if you can practice this at home,

I think that you're going to be a lot better off. I know back in the day when I was going to school in the spring and summer semesters, and then I would just jump into the fall guiding. I was like, man, I would stay pretty fit. I do a lot of other exercises. I would hike with my pack on.

But before that first part of the season would kick off, I would always start with my really heavy pack to really mimic that, that pack out. And I'd work up to about 110 pounds. And most of that was like where I could walk. I would just walk that in the neighborhood, whatever. So this portion just first, um, let's call this prescribed weight 65 plus pounds. So we're going to try to hit that 80 pound or higher. You know, I don't want anybody like injuring themselves. So work up to things you can do. Um,

Um, how heavy of a pack should you be able to carry? I weigh about 175 pounds and I regularly carry a hundred pound packs out. I don't like to, I have, I do sometimes I, my body now feels it. And so I think like that 75 pounds is like a pretty solid number. 75, 80 pounds is like a pretty light number, solid number for a pack out to feel good and not, not really like tear up every joint and all this other stuff. Um,

So we're going to start thinking about that. What this is going to be is this isn't like a speed thing. This is just getting used to that heavier weight. So these are going to be longer. If you can, you can start out with 15 minutes, work up to 30 minutes, whatever. We'll start on flat and we're just going to start getting used to the weight. This is something you could do.

in your neighborhood, walking outside, maybe give yourself a half hour and just kind of walk around and start building that. Your body used to carrying that heavy pack, your body, all those little muscles that keep you stable in unstable terrain with that weight, just being able to work those out now before you head out in the mountains.

Then you're going to progress this to being able to doing some sort of slight incline. And also if possible, if you can get out a decline. So if you're doing stairs, this is one you want to be super careful on the decline, but most packouts, like you're hiking up from the truck and packing down at the end of the day, it's the downhill stuff that really wears you out. Being able to control yourself with weight,

Uh, when you do this one, don't be afraid to use like some trekking poles, something to help stabilize and, you know, not burn those muscles out. Especially if you're in the mountains doing this one, you want to just be super careful, no injuries, but you do want to get your muscles and your body used to carrying that heavy weight. So this is our stage three. We can start this on flat ground. We can take that time that we did before and just start building up the weight that we're actually carrying. So, um, salt bags are great. Maybe two salt bags in your pack. Um,

building up to that 80 pounds. And then if you're feeling good with this, you can start adding a little bit inclined to that.

I think by kind of following this weighted ruck system, by building up and doing these different things, I would say the pack out portion, you're going to do a lot less. You don't, this isn't something you necessarily have to do every day. None of this is. I think that outside of the ruck, if you're into working out or you've got a fitness regimen, which I think is awesome, you definitely should. Outside of this ruck, I think you want to work in other workouts that do similar things and build endurance. I personally do rowing.

rowing machine in the springtime. I try to kayak as much as I can on the lake or whatever. So doing different kinds of endurance activities, rowing, riding, maybe cycling into stationary biking, whatever. And then running. I like to run. Some people don't like to run, whatever, whatever you like to do, just doing some endurance stuff in the winter. I like to ski too. It's like, it's a leg workout. It, I go down and

do a lot of turns and try to like burn my legs out in a short amount of time while doing something that I enjoy. But I add in a lot of these other workouts. So maybe, you know, starting out the day rock is a good one. It's like a good go-to workout. I could throw this in any day. I could do it every other day. I could do it once a week, whatever. And then mixing these other ones in as you graduate. And it doesn't mean that you have to, Oh, I got to the packout stage. So I don't have to worry about

the day stage one day rock. No, this is just, that's your more base. That's your go-to building that muscle memory, building that act by doing the thing that you're going to use the most, just having that weighted pack on and doing these hikes. And if you can get out on the weekends, maybe you're going on a shed hike, whatever, throw some weight in your pack, throw, throw your gear in what I do.

Honestly, I just leave my pack set up how I've got it. So I've got my water in there. I've got my bigger spotting scope. I weighed it out. It's like 30 pounds worth of just gear that I'm probably don't need. Um, you know, you gotta remember you're going to have your bow or your rifle. Another thing to think about is like maybe grabbing a five pound weight.

or a 10 pound weight and carrying that in one hand and passing the weight back and forth. That's really good for mimicking, carrying your bow, carrying your rifle, building that. I know when I'm self-filming, I've got my bow in one hand and a camera in the other. I'm always carrying around. I've got 20 pounds between my two hands. It feels like not including what's in my pack. So building that, the areas that are going to get fatigued while you're hunting, training for that in the off season. So when you hit the mountains,

Your body's going to be familiar with this stuff. It's not like, well, where's this coming from? There's a lot of other workouts. You can do a lot of other exercises that I think you should mix in. But you know, if all you do is run, all you do is ride or whatever, maybe you lift weights, whatever you do, if that's all you do, and then you get out in the mountains and you throw a heavy pack on and start hiking, you're

it's going to be a new workout. It's going to be new to you and you're going to get drained even though you're in really good shape. So the key here is just to build that muscle memory, build that familiarity with the act of doing what you're going to do. So train by doing. And I think that by doing this, you're going to find that you'll be able to kind of

plan your hunt less on how far something is, how hard it's going to be. And you're just going to, your body's naturally going to acclimate faster. Your body's naturally going to be able to hunt harder and you're going to find a lot more success.

So this week I decided to do a little something different for this podcast because I thought, hey, I'm trying to think of ways that like make this more interactive for you, make it easier for you. Some of this might just be like, oh, this is very difficult to understand. So what I did, I just uploaded it today on my Remy Warren YouTube page. So you can go to YouTube, search Remy Warren, find my it's my own YouTube page, my own YouTube channel.

What I did was I made like a 15 minute companion video for this podcast. So we've got our stage one rock. So how this is going to work is going to be like, okay, you decide, Hey, I want to do this. So what I did was I just threw on a heavy pack. I got my camera. I got, I actually had somebody come with me to film this as well.

And it's going to be like, if you're on a treadmill, you can put this video up and essentially hike alongside me and gives you the times and the rates and, and a little bit of like inspiration and how to do this while you're walking or hiking. So I'll tell you, okay, like let's bump the speed up here, keep that speed going, increase that incline. And then you can follow along on this 15 minute video as just kind of like an inspiration of here's what I do. And I'm

I'm going to do this while I'm working out. I don't know if that's going to help, but I've seen like other things like this and thought there's nothing like that for hunting that I know of. So let, this is just a way to kind of get that, that ruck training started. And so go check that out. If this is something that you think you want to do, if you're like serious about building up that muscle memory with that weighted pack on, you've got a hunt planned for this year. It's not necessarily meant to be a video where you just like sit there and watch it. I think it'd be strange, but,

a video to do that, but throw your pack on, get on a treadmill or a stair climber or something, and then hike to this with this. I think it'll help like kind of build that idea and get you kind of going in the right direction. So I thought I'd do that. Let me know what you think about it. I'll keep doing more, but I didn't want to do a bunch of them. And then people will be like, this doesn't work. I don't, I don't get this, whatever. So your feedback will be awesome on that. Feel free as always shoot me messages, you

Either on social media, you could even just drop a comment on that video or whatever. If you like it and you've got hunting buddies or whatever, share it with them, share this podcast with them because look, I mean, your hunting group is as strong as your weakest hiker. And that's one thing that I've learned as a guy is like, Hey, I'm hiking to the guy behind me.

I'm constantly trying to push them. And I think that that's cool is like, you know, as hunting buddies, you're probably going to be pushing each other. But if you're, if you're going on a elk hunt with a couple of friends, family, whatever you're hunting with your, I hunt with my dad a lot. My dad's actually in killer shape. This is stuff like he puts on a weighted pack and hikes every day. He does some serious elevation. Like we're fortunate. We live close to mountains. He does it every single day.

And, um, he's actually does it more than I do. There's day I miss days. I'm not going to lie, but I think that this is like a good way to get started. I think this is, if you were to ask me one thing where that would make you more successful, honestly, this is it. Um,

There's a lot of hunting skills and other things out there, but unless you're in some kind of shape and it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter where you're starting out. You can always be better. I'm not saying you need to be in the best, like better shape than me, better shape than the next guy, whatever, but just the best for you. And I think this is a really good way to start really good way to do it. And I think that if you get in the groove of this, if you start it, you're going to find a lot more success.

So go check those out. Let me know what you guys think. I'd love to build more of these out for you. So, um, this is where it's this whole podcast thing is going to get interactive. I want this to be about things that benefit you all. So let me know what you think about it. And until next week, keep on rocking.

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