Beau Martonik of East Meets West Outdoors and I each grew up hunting whitetails in Pennsylvania. So, early November through December is a time near and dear to each of our hearts. That's the time that extends from the whitetail rut until rifle season opens just after Thanksgiving. We've talked a lot about whitetail hunting over the years, and the toll all-day sits during the whitetail rut take on a hunter. I decided to help other hunters decrease the effect of that toll.

Picture this: You’re standing at the top of a ridge after a big climb. Your pack is heavy — it’s full of elk meat. You look back, your hunting buddies are still slowly making their way up the ridge. So, you lean on your trekking poles and look out over the country while you wait for them. Then you notice something that surprises you. Your back, shoulders, and legs all feel great, even after a heavy uphill climb. You look back down the mountain and smile. You did all those kettlebell workouts for hunting prep, and they paid off.

It’s not that elk hunters lose focus or that rifle season is an afterthought. They’re just unclear on what to do to train for late season elk hunting fitness. That’s understandable. There isn’t a lot of good info out there on how to transition training between elk seasons. I’ve set out to change that with this article. We’ll cover how to maintain the elk hunting fitness built during the lead up to archery season, and we’ll talk about how to specifically prepare for the cold weather shift into late season elk hunting.

When you understand the truth about how to use the gym as a hunter and what conditioning truly is, you stop wasting time with training that doesn’t sustainably work, and you start doing the things that get you results you keep, results that prep you for any hunt you want to go on.

I’ve taken a lot of pictures while hunting; that picture is one of my favorites. And it came just after one of my all-time favorite moments in the field.

Sometimes you gotta eat a little crow. I’ve done that with two things over the past few years — deadlifting and Zone 3 training. One we need less as hunters, the other we need more than I was programming. I changed my approach to remedy each of my oversights. We’ll talk about how each has improved our approach to hunting fitness.