Hunting seasons are wrapping up, but it’s not quite time for offseason training. We’re stuck smack dab in the middle, that time during the end of the year that either lays the foundation for a great offseason or leaves you stuck because you didn’t utilize the post-season to rebuild your fitness. If you’re not sure what to do, it’s not your fault. There’s a lot of convoluted information out there, and, honestly, you’re not a human performance coach. 

So, I’ll help you out with the advice you need to know how to train after hunting season. 

Why You Need Post-Season Training as a Hunter

Post-season fitness is the transition into off-season training. It’s the time between mid-November and early January, depending on where you live and what you hunt. And it’s 100% necessary to use that time wisely if you want to get the most out of your off-season training as you prep for next fall. (Sure, your mind might not be there yet, but you and I both know that you’ll blink and it’ll be August.) Let’s talk about the why of post-season hunting training with the focus on hunting recovery.

What a Full Hunting Season Does to Your Body

“It’ll beat the piss out of you.” That’s the easiest way to say it. 

In more nuanced language, hunting season will stress your joints, steal your strength, and cause some aches and pains. The most common joint issues we see are foot and ankle stiffness, both from moving on terrain and from wearing stiff-soled high boots, lower-back stiffness and pain, and sore knees from hiking up and down hill — especially under a pack. Each is the product of persistent, high doses of stress, usually without enough maintenance mobility work to keep joints feeling good. 

Strength loss is mostly a product of de-training. It’s not as big of an issue if you’ve consistently strength trained throughout hunting season. But that’s not the case for a lot of hunters. They hunt hard and (mostly) forget about the gym. I get it. However, if you want the most resilience in the field and the best possible hunting longevity, maintaining your strength and/or rebuilding it post-season is something you just can’t skip. 

There is one more concern we ought to chat about. That’s deconditioning. This is an issue if you did some mountain hunting early in the season and then transitioned to more sedentary types of hunting like sitting for whitetails or waterfowl. The truth is, kids, if you don’t use it, you absolutely lose it. So, for many hunters it’s necessary to re-build their aerobic base as the season winds down. Like strength, aerobic capacity is the foundation of your resilience and your longevity as a hunter — and in the rest of your life. The longer you wait to jump back in, the harder it will be to rebuild.

Prepping for the Off-season, Winning the War Before You Even Fight the Battle

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Our guy Sun Tzu said that in his classic war doctrine, The Art of War. Our enemy is a body that requires half of the off-season just to get back to baseline. We do not want to fight that enemy, because, truthfully, we can’t win. Even if we are in decent shape by next hunting season, we’ve left even better fitness on the table by having to play catch up for months. You can never truly hit a “peak” before the season, and you just won’t have the readiness to jump at an opportunity should one crop up. Besides, inertia is real. Newton said it with his first law — a body in motion stays in motion.  We win that war without ever fighting by starting now, by getting your body in motion and keeping it going. And we do that by doing the right things right now to prep you for the best off-season workouts for hunters.  

We’ll break down your post-season training into four steps.

Step 1: Move Your Joints, Get Your Mobility Back

Post-season recovery for hunters begins with moving well. Friend, that requires consistent and persistent joint mobility work. When I say that, I mean every day. I’m not talking about two-hour yoga sessions. But I am talking about taking the time to address the big problem areas every day.

The Big Four Problem Areas: Mobility for Hunters

As humans and hunters, we have four common problem areas when it comes to joint mobility: hips, spine, ankles, and shoulders. We generally (as humans) have problems with all of these for two reasons — we stand upright in gravity and we sit too damn much. As hunters, they cause us issues because we walk over gnarly terrain, we sleep on the ground, and we sit for long periods with our eyes on the glass. If you’re a whitetail hunter, long sits in the stand tighten up all these areas. You have to focus your efforts on improving movement at all these joints post-season so your body comes back to baseline efficiency. 

Inefficient movement costs you more energy than you can spare. It puts a big tax on you even if your strength is on par and your aerobic system is dialed in. And it’ll make it tougher for you to build strength and develop your aerobic system because everything you do will require more effort. Not to mention it will be more difficult for you to achieve good positions while strength training, limiting how much force you can generate and potentially setting you up for a nice little injury. You must move well as a human and a hunter. Here’s how to get your movement back in the post-season.

Your Daily Mobility Double Whammy

There are two times per day you should work on your mobility.

1. First thing in the morning.

2. During your warm-up.

Collagen is the foundational protein of your connective tissue. It’s mostly produced at night while you sleep. By starting a morning mobility routine, you have the best chance at directing how that collagen is laid down in your joints. You want to influence it to give you access to the biggest possible ranges of motion. So, you want to move your joints through full ranges first thing in the morning. Now, you can do this in as little as a minute and twenty-four seconds by using my morning CARs routine (CARs stands for Controlled Articular Rotations).

Here’s a link to the YouTube Video: Morning CARs Routine.

You’ll also start every warm-up, whether you’re strength training or conditioning, with mobility training. Start on the ground and work your way up to standing. Address each of the four problem areas on the way up to your feet. This ensures that they each get work, and it primes your body to get into better positions while strength training.

Step 2: Rebuild Your Aerobic Base

For the rest of my career, I will beat you over the head with why Zone 1 and Zone 2 training is important for hunters. Here is one more swing of the bat, with a post-season emphasis. 

Why Now’s the Time to Work on Your Aerobic Base

We can trim all the reasoning down to one word — volume.

It takes a lot of consistent training volume over time to build and maintain your aerobic capacity. While some adaptations happen early, you don’t start to reap most of the rewards for six to eight weeks. And that’s just the beginning. You must keep pouring it on to keep making progress. I don’t make the rules, man. That’s just how human physiology works. We can bitch about it, we can ignore it, or we can do what’s necessary to play by the rules and give ourselves the best possible chance at being physically prepped for hunting. The last option is the right choice. 

Starting now increases your runway while also allowing you to get more out of your offseason training. You’ll be farther down the path and your body will better handle increased training volume and intensity during the offseason. That means you’ll be able to go longer and harder. 

The Aerobic Work You Should do Right Now

Aerobic training right now doesn’t need to be specific. That means you can get the job done with a wide variety of activities. There are, of course, the hunting fitness staples, rucking and hiking. But if you want a break from your pack and time constraints keep you from hitting the trail, hop on the bike, do some easy running or run/walk intervals, hell, you can even get on the elliptical at the gym. Right now, it’s just about getting it in.

“In” means at least two hours per week with each session lasting at least 30 minutes. It’s best if you get on the north side of three hours. No matter what, take the time you have and use it wisely. 

Step 3: Rebuild Your Strength

If you don't consistently lift during the fall, you have to rebuild your strength after hunting season. Here’s how you start that party.

Volume with Basic Movements

Repeat after me because I want you to remember this for the rest of your life:

Volume before intensity.

Volume is the amount of work you do. Intensity is how hard, or how heavy, the work is. Volume comes first because it lays the necessary foundation. When it comes to lifting, that means connective tissue strength and health, movement skill, and specific work capacity (helps you recover from heavier lifting.) So, rather than jumping right in with heavy front squats, hit some higher rep sets of goblet squats or zercher squats. Instead of ripping heavy deadlifts, get back to basics with RDLs… and so on and so forth. 

When I say higher volume sets, I mean in the 8 to 20 rep range. Here’s an example workout:

A1. Zercher Squat: 3 x 10

A2. Chest Supported Dumbbell Row: 3 x 10

B1. Dumbbell RDLs: 3 x 10

B2. Dumbbell Bench Press: 3 x 10

C. Farmer’s Carry Intervals: 10 x :30 work / :30 rest

Balance Your Training

Have a look at the above example workout. You’ll see that there is a lower-body push (squat), upper-body pull (row), lower-body pull (deadlift), and upper-body push (press). There’s an exercise for each quadrant of the body. That’s important since this is a general re-building phase. 

You, hopefully, spent the summer a little out of balance with your training, placing more emphasis on squats and the quads to prepare for uphills and downhills. Hopefully you did more pulling than pushing to prep your back for heavy packs. And you just spent the balance of the fall on hunting. That further accentuates the imbalances. It’s necessary to get back to balance now in this transition phase to maintain the health of your muscles, joints, and connective tissues. Otherwise, you could walk yourself right into an overuse issue or two. 

Depending on your schedule and needs, get in two to three workouts per week similar to the one above. Be sure to work in some single-leg and single-arm movements (lunges, presses, rows, etc.)

Step 4: Address Your Weak Links

You likely realized there were a few things about your hunting fitness that held you back this season. Maybe you noticed that you were unstable when stepping on your left leg. It could be that you struggled to fight the rotation of your pack when it was loaded up. Now is the time to start addressing issues like muscular imbalances, lack of stability, etc. 

Now, you may have noticed those weak links but aren’t sure exactly what’s causing them. If that’s the case, you need some clarity. I’ll offer you that clarity in the form of The Hunter’s Field Test.

It’s a comprehensive hunting fitness assessment that tests your mobility, strength, and your conditioning. If you’ve come through the season with some weak links and aren’t sure what the hell happened, or if you want to set yourself up for success as you transition from post-season into the off-season, download the Field Test for free and do all of the assessments. You’ll get an accurate snapshot of where you currently stand.

Click to Download >>> The Hunter’s Field Test

Your Post-Season Training Plan

This calendar space between hunting season and the off-season is the best time to lay your foundation for the next year. Get your joints right with daily mobility. Rebuild your aerobic base. And start the party again with some higher volume strength sets using basic movements. Do it and you’ll be happy you did once January rolls around. Skip it and make 2026’s prep much harder on you than it should be.

(We’ve done all the thinking and planning for you. No guesswork, just results. Click >>> Packmule Programs.)