If you’re not changing your mind about things at regular intervals, there’s a good chance you aren’t paying attention. That means you likely aren’t learning or evolving at the rate you should. One of our core values at Packmule Training Co. is persistent evolution. It keeps us paying attention, learning, and improving our approach to hunting fitness. I’m not saying your mind should be so open that your brain falls out. But it needs to be open enough to get better — and that’s always our goal.

That means 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. 

Hunters Should Squat “More” Than They Deadlift

I used to be a deadlift zealot, and not for the best of reasons. Mostly, it was because I’m good at it. And when you’re good at something, it’s easy to rationalize it into overimportance. We get blinded by our own abilities. While we still include deadlifts in most of our training programs, squatting is more important for hunters.

Before we get carried away and deeper into the discussion, it’s important that you know I’m not totally walking back my stance on deadlifts. Heavy deadlifting is the best way for a person to raise their overall strength ceiling. If a hunter has a relative strength deficit — meaning they aren’t strong enough relative to their body weight — we lead with deadlifts until the deficit is corrected. But once it’s corrected, squats take the forefront in our lower-body strength work.

When I say hunters should squat more than they deadlift, I’m talking about frequency not amount of weight. Most folks, once they’re strong enough, will still deadlift more weight than they squat, even if they’re training their squat more frequently than their deadlift. The leverages workout for most folks so it’s “easier” to hoist something from the ground than sit down and stand back up with it.

It seems that the golden ratio of squatting-to-deadlifting for hunters is about 3:1. So, if you’re looking at that from a training block perspective — a training block is about 12 weeks — you’d use deadlifts as your main lift for one quarter of the year and squats as your main lift for three quarters of the year. Now, the appropriate question is, why?

The reason is simple: Squats have more carryover to uphill and downhill hunting. 

The joint angles of squatting relate more to the drive of uphill hiking. The lowering phase trains the quads for downhill control. Truth-be-told, the emphasis on the quads in both directions of the squat is a real big deal for hunters. They bear the brunt of the stress and, along with the calves, fatigue more quickly than the hamstrings while mountain hunting. Now, we still need the hamstrings, but there are better ways to train them for hunting other than with heavy deadlifting. Single-leg deadlifts and stability ball hamstring curls help us a lot more on the mountain.

It’s important to get a little more specific and talk about which squats are best for hunters. They are goblet squats, double kettlebell front squats, zercher squats, and barbell front squats. I hope you picked up on a theme — they’re all loaded on the front of the body. This does a few things for us. 

First, it makes them safer. Most people shouldn’t do barbell back squats. They don’t have the movement capacity or mobility to put their body in the right position while doing them. This puts undo stress on the back and hips. Second, holding the weight on the front of the body increases the load on the quads. We want them quads to get the spice, kids. Third, we get a very nice core training effect from loading the front of the body while squatting. As a bonus, that core stimulus we get from putting the weight on the front of the body also cleans up squatting form. 

Listen, I’m not saying don’t deadlift anymore. But I am saying that if you’re strong enough, you need to squat more often than you deadlift.

Zone 3 Training isn’t the Devil (It’s Necessary)

For years, we only touched the bookends of the spectrum. We’d spent a ton of time training in Zones 1 and 2. And we’d spend some time cranking up the intensity to get into Zones 4 and 5. Zone 3 was left as the neglected bastard child, wondering what it did wrong and why no one wanted to play with it. I had good reasons for leaving Zone 3 training on the bench.

Most of our members were coming to us from other hunting fitness companies who programmed mostly what was supposed to be high-intensity conditioning. Here’s the problem — it wasn’t true high-intensity training because the work-to-rest ratios weren’t right. So, while folks felt like they were working hard, they were dropped squarely into Zone 3 most of the time, overtraining that zone and overdeveloping their glycolytic (carb burning) pathways. Since most members were coming in after doing this kind of conditioning, I didn’t want to give them more Zone 3 work. 

The next reason goes hand-in-hand with the first. Folks were coming to us, and are still coming to us, with under-developed aerobic systems. Now, those folks who came to us from other hunting fitness companies had under-developed aerobic systems for the reason stated in the previous paragraph. Other folks just never accrued enough low-intensity training volume to develop their aerobic capacity. The outcome was the same. Neither group of folks spent enough time in Zones 1 or 2. 

Since most folks came to us with over-developed glycolytic systems, insufficient low-intensity volume, or both, I couldn’t justify putting them into Zone 3. It just didn’t make sense. There’s no use in training a system that’s already overutilized. And there was a lot of work to do to bring their aerobic systems up to speed. I was right about all of that. Now, let’s talk about where I was wrong.

For a long time, I didn’t think there was any use training in Zone 3. I believed a hunter could get all the conditioning they needed from low-intensity and high-intensity training. It’s not true. Especially for us folks who take extended walks up hills. Before I go any further, I will say that it’s important to accrue enough Zone 1 and 2 work before spending time in Zone 3. It makes your Zone 3 training more effective, and you need to develop the low-end of your aerobic system before you concern yourself with moderate-intensity training. However, extended slogs often have us drifting into Zone 3. So, while an appropriate amount of lower-intensity aerobic work delays the time until we get into Zone 3, we will get there at some point. And we need to be efficient at utilizing carbs for fuel when we do get there. We need Zone 3 work.

I’ve amended my training beliefs and practices when it comes to Zone 3 conditioning, but I still think it must be placed in the proper place in a year-round training schedule. For us, that’s typically some time mid-preseason, after we’ve done the right amount of low-intensity aerobic work and high-intensity aerobic power training. We build the book ends, then we put Zone 3 in the middle. After that, if it’s appropriate for the individual hunter, we maintain it in-season.’

Hunting Fitness: Squat More and Do Your Zone 3 Training

Hopefully, this little chat on mind changing growth inspired you to take a look at things you might improve. I hope it helped you realize that you need to get strong with deadlifts, but you need to squat a lot more frequently than you pull weight from the ground. I also hope it convinced you to build your aerobic base, then layer in Zone 3 training to have you as efficient as possible for the mountain. Hunting fitness is about persistent evolution to improve so we can stay on the mountain for as long as we want. So, you can expect more articles from me telling you about how I’ve changed my mind.