It bugs the bejesus out of me when folks just need a little information to act on and they don’t have it. Sometimes it’s taking the simplest of actions that keeps our momentum and keeps us healthy. One of the glaring needs in hunting fitness is a simple explanation of how to manage training intensity during hunting season. 

We all know that a months-long break from training is a bad idea. But how do you manage your training with your hunting to get the most out of both? Hunting season is never as long as we'd like, so it is the priority. However, training keeps us healthy and resilient during hunting season. And it also takes care of the foundation we all must consider: we are humans before we are hunters. Being a human in the modern world requires consistent exercise to live a long, healthy life. 

So, let’s answer the question how do we plan training intensity during hunting season to get the most out of both? The answer is a combination of science, art, and realism. 

We’ll start by covering what I did to manage training intensity my 2021 hunting season. It was a busy one with some wrenches thrown in it. If I could make it through that season with my fitness intact, you can make it through any season, haha. Here’s what happened and what I did.

2021 Hunting Season: Alaska, Montana, Giardiasis, Covid

In mid-August 2021, I shipped out for two weeks in Alaska. After the long flight from the east coast, and the 500-mile drive from Fairbanks to Deadhorse, I spent 10 days on the tundra hunting caribou with two friends. It was my second trip up the haul road to hunt caribou on the North Slope. While the tundra doesn’t have the physical demands of the mountains, it’s a sneaky energy thief. Walking on it feels like you’re stepping on bowling balls covered by sand and then wet carpet. No walk is easy. Couple that with the huge temperature swings and 10 days of a caloric deficit and you end up a little drained.

My friend Elias and I set off from Deadhorse for the drive back to Fairbanks, where we’d each catch our flights home – him to Idaho, me to Virginia. I drove us through a snow storm in Atigun Pass, white knuckling and tensing everything but my nostrils until we were safely out of the mountains. I pulled over to give myself a minute to relax. When I opened the door to get out of the van and take a leak, cold air rushed in and hit me in the chest. Immediately, I caught a chill. It was the craziest damn thing I’ve ever felt. I went from being fine, to being sick in an instant. It was the early stages of Giardiasis. I had a very unpleasant week after that. (Click HERE to listen to the full story on The Fair Chase Podcast.)

After an overnight flight bedazzled with bathroom runs every 30 minutes, I made it home to Virginia. I recovered from Giardiasis and got back to normal life. It was early September and I had about six weeks until I left for Montana to hunt elk and mule deer. Then I had another problem.

I woke up one morning feeling run down. I attributed it to the two weeks in Alaska followed by a nasty gut infection. Then my chest tightened – uh oh. I drove by the clinic for a covid test. And you can bet your sweet woolen underwear, I had it. I spent the better part of the next week with the delta variant punching me in the chest. It was not a nice time. I did, however, watch 2,437 movies.

Once I kicked the covid, I had about five weeks until Montana time. I took a week to ease back into training, then I hit our Backcountry Ready in-season training hard. Even though I was archery hunting for whitetails, Montana prep was the priority. I archery hunted only once per week (maybe twice some weeks) so I could put enough time and intensity into training for Montana.

During those five weeks, I strength trained twice per week, trained aerobic capacity twice per week, and conditioned hard once per week. I did one intense strength training session and one intense conditioning session. This left me enough time, and energy, to get in some decent tree stand sits. Then it was wheels up for Montana.

My buddy Christian and I spent a week in southwestern Montana and came home with a nice mule deer buck and cow elk to show for our time. We had an ultra fun, pitch-black pack out through bear country after Christian killed his mule deer and a steep downhill deadfall obstacle course to navigate while packing out my elk. We had a nice dose of type two fun.

Here’s the thing: I felt great the whole time. My legs, my lungs, my entire body handled well the hikes in, the packs out, and the stress of the trip. I attribute it to two things: 

1) I had trained intelligently and consistently leading up to hunting season. 

2) I made the absolute most of the five weeks between recovering from covid and leaving for Montana.

There was still a lot of hunting season left when I got home from Montana. I’d still hunt the Pennsylvania ridges for whitetails, paddle a creek to set up for duck hunts, hunt a small Virginia farm for deer, and fill in the rest of the time with other duck and goose hunts. That went on until late February, when goose season ended. It was a lot of hunting. How did I manage it while consistently training?

We’ll talk about that in the next section.

How to Manage Training Intensity During Hunting Season

We need enough intensity and enough training volume to maintain our fitness during hunting season. Some of each can come from our hunts. Some must come from training. It all depends on your hunting schedule. The following are guidelines to consider while planning your training with your hunting. It all starts with recovery

First, Recover After Big Hunts

Even though illness occupied a solid measure of my downtime between Alaska and Montana, I still took the time to recover before hammering into training. 

Remember that week I took to ease back into training before hitting it hard for five weeks? That, dear friend, was an important week. During that week, I did light strength training, carries, mobility training, and aerobic capacity work. That light work helped to restore and reinvigorate my body before giving it intensity. It bridged the gap between hard hunting and hard training. Jumping straight back into hard training would have been a costly mistake. I could have screwed my recovery for the entire train up before Montana and left myself unable to train as hard as necessary to be ready.

Now, recovery time depends on the demands of the hunt and any other shit that might have happened to you on the way home. But typically, a few light training days does the trick.

I also used my Oura ring and Morpheus to track my recovery and based my training decisions on their daily reports. Tools like these give you objective data about your readiness and recovery. If you’re committed to training over the longhaul, they’re invaluable. By tracking my HRV, sleep, and other measures, they let me know when I was ready to get after it again.

Recover from your big hunts before you worry about training hard again. Trust me, you’ll be fine, you don’t need to jump right back into hammering yourself. If you do, you could put yourself behind the recovery curve. That means decreasing your performance in the short term and limiting your ability to prep for future hunts, as well as the rest of the season, in the longer term.

Plan Based on Intensity

There are solid swaths of public land where I’m from. Since I’m constrained to two small properties in Virginia, I like to get out and stretch my legs when whitetail hunting in Pennsylvania. That was the case during the 2021 season after I returned from Montana. The ridges and valleys of Central PA don’t match the intensity of the Rocky Mountains, but they have some grade to them – especially in the spots I like to hunt. (It’s nice because it keeps the rest of the orange army away.) 

Pennsylvania rifle season is short. It encompasses three Saturdays and the two full weeks between them. I try to get as many days in the woods as possible during the season. Those hunts look like a good trudge to the top of a ridge before daylight, still hunting across the ridge, then hiking back out when daylight fails. And, of course, it might be the case that I’m packing a buck out. (That’s right, I’m cutting that bitch up. I’m not dragging it.) 

These days count as my high-intensity training days due to the hard hikes and duration in the field. Then, I build the rest of my training during those two weeks around these hunting days. I drop the intensity of one of my strength training days and make my gym conditioning easy. 

Planning this way keeps me fresh for my hunts and keeps resilient throughout the season. Let’s chat more about that.

Focus on Resilience

Three types of training lay the foundation that keeps your body resilient during stress: mobility training, moderate intensity strength training, and aerobic capacity training. We need access to intensity to be the fittest we possibly can. But high-intensity training hits the body with a high cost. We don’t need a ton of it, and it’s not the main driver that gets you through hunting season.

Focus your in-season gym workouts on the resilience-building training modalities. Do lots of mobility training and two to three moderate-intensity strength training days during the training week. Hit a couple of aerobic capacity workouts ranging from 30 to 90 minutes, depending on the time you have and your fitness level. 

Training this way maintains your fitness level and your health during hunting season. Now, we include a high-intensity training day in our Backcountry Ready in-season program, but it’s optional. It’s there for those without any high-intensity hunts going on. 

When in doubt, stick to mobility, strength, and aerobic capacity for your in-season training. 

There’s one more thing to account for – stress.

Account for Other Stressors

What else is going on in my life?

It’s a simple question that stops you and gives you cause to consider how life, hunting, and training blend. Problem is, it’s too often that we don’t stop to ask ourselves this question. We avoid the question, and the answers, at our own peril.

Our body responds to stressors so it can adapt, it doesn’t differentiate them. Training, work, hunting, relationship issues, it’s all stress to your body and it all accumulates. The body doesn’t differentiate. It counts it all. So, we must be conscious of those stressors and how they are affecting us.

Sleep is a great example. There are a lot more early mornings and late nights during hunting season. It affects you, whether or not you’d like to admit it. Short sleep limits your ability to handle stressors, recovery from training, etc. You must adjust your training if you’re having a lot of late nights and early mornings during hunting season. If not, you’ll dig yourself a nice big hole that will take time you don’t want to spend to climb out of it.

I mentioned Oura and Morpheus earlier. They are great tools for helping you account for stress and adjust your training. If you don’t have either one of them, or something comparable, you must be honest with yourself. If your hunts limit your sleep, understand there is a cost. If your hunts cause work to pile up, understand there is a cost. If you're so focused on success it stresses you out, understand there is a cost. 

Design strategies so those things don’t put as much strain on you, or you  dial back your training. Otherwise you burn the candle at both ends and end up sick or hurt.

Listen, I want you to train during hunting season. Apart from good sleep and nutrition, it’s the best tool for staying healthy during the season and the seasons to come. But don’t train yourself into a hole when you have a bunch of other things going on. Walk yourself back up to the previous section and take that advice. Focus on resilience instead of intensity.

Train Smarter, Hunt Longer

Train Smarter, Hunt Longer: it’s our tagline for a reason. If you manage your training intensity well during the season, you’ll have better, longer days afield. You’ll also be better prepared for future hunting seasons. Recover from big hunts and then add intensity back in. Plan your training based on intensity – whether it’s in the gym or in the field. Use mobility, strength, and aerobic capacity training to maintain your resilience in season. And don’t ignore the other stressors in your life. Acknowledge them and plan for them. Do all this, and you’ll manage your training intensity well during hunting season.

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Make sure your in-season training keeps you healthy during the season while helping you progress toward next season. Shoot us an email at humanpredatorpackmule@gmail.com and put IN SEASON TRAINING in the subject line and we'll get your in-season training dialed in.