Cordova, Alaska is the kind of place that makes you feel like you’re stepping into a movie set. At least that’s how I felt the first time I stepped off the plane there. I’d caught a flight on Alaska Airlines’s “Milk Run” as it returned south towards Seattle from Anchorage. It was May and I was there to hunt bears. When my feet hit the tarmac, I looked around at the mountain peaks surrounding the airport. I thought to myself, “Well, this is what I do now.” I know that I’m not alone in how I felt that day. I’m sure you’ve felt the awe of beautiful and wild places.

I kept staring at the mountains as I walked toward the small, metal building that serves as the terminal. I confirmed in my mind that I’d do what it takes to keep hunting what’s beautiful and wild until I was an old man. I’m sure you’ve also had similar conversations with yourself. But without action, such thoughts become pipe dreams. They become wouldn’t that be nice statements. They become memories we never got to make but wish we did. We can’t let that happen. 

So no matter what age we currently are — 25, 35, 45, 55 — we have to do what it takes now to keep us wild until we’re 85. And we have to keep doing it. As my good friend and business partner in my gym, Chris, says, “Your results aren’t yours to keep. You have to keep earning them.” The great thing is, if we go about earning our results in the right way now, they’ll keep us on the mountain as old geezers. However, there are a couple of big things to consider. 

How Do You Measure Longevity?

I’m not going to hit you with some biohacker bro shit here. We’re going to talk about real things that you can measure to ensure that you’re on a solid track for hunting, and life, longevity.

First, get regular blood panels. (Truth be told, I need to take my own advice on this one.) You need to have a good handle on your cardiovascular health, metabolism, organ function, and hormone levels. The best way to do that is to consistently have someone take a look at your blood. Otherwise, you don’t have the raw data you need for the type of behavior change that keeps you pounding ridges when you’re old. 

Second, look at your performance metrics in relation to age related norms. V02max is a decent example.. Now, you’ll need an actual lab that does a gas exchange test to get an accurate reading. The readings you get from watches have large margins of error. Your watch reading could be way higher or way lower than your actual v02max. However, they are decent tools for tracking fitness improvements over time. You just can’t trust them to tell you exactly what your v02max is, especially in comparison to age related norms. V02max, though, is a decent measure of your current capabilities now and a predictor of future performance, should you do what’s necessary to maintain it. 

For example, I have a Packmule Elite member who’s 65 and has a v02max of 45. That is superior for his age. It’s better than most men 10 to 20 years his junior. It’s a decent indicator that he’ll keep hunting mountains for a long time to come. However, v02max doesn’t tell the whole story and it does have a large genetic component. So, it’s not the only thing to look at, and it’s not an indication that you won’t have longevity if yours isn’t high. That’s why we have to look at other performance metrics that tell the whole story and are sometimes more meaningful.

It’s useful to look at simpler performance metrics such as increases in aerobic capacity, increases in strength, and increases in mobility. 

Are you able to do more work while keeping your heart rate down? Is your aerobic threshold trending upward? Great. These are both solid indicators that you’re improving your performance now and in the future. Aerobic fitness is also linked to all kinds of positive health outcomes, like including cardiovascular health, insulin sensitivity (type 2 diabetes is a bitch), weight management, and cognitive and mental well-being. 

Is your strength consistently improving or, at least, maintaining? This is a great indicator of your longevity. Strength and power are the first things we lose as we age. You want to do cool shit when you’re older? Build and maintain them now — even if you’re still in your 20s.

And you’ll have a real hard time building aerobic capacity or strength if your joints aren’t healthy. Good joint range of motion is crucial for joint health. All the joint supplements in the world won’t do a damn for you if you aren’t moving well (if they truly do anything at all). If your joints hurt, you can’t do as much, and there’s a real good chance your motivation to move will decline. Daily mobility is a non-negotiable for longevity.

Then we come to the factor that influences all of this — consistency. You can’t get any of these results if you don’t consistently train and consistently eat like an adult. Good habits are the foundation of an upward trajectory. The simplest longevity metric is tracking your consistency over the course of years. If you’re training and eating well over the long haul, you give yourself a great shot at being on the mountain when you’re 85. 

This leads us to the next big question — how should you train to improve your longevity?

How to Train for Performance Now so You can Walk Mountains When You’re 85

There’s a lot of biohacking nonsense floating around about training for longevity. The truth is simpler. Intelligently designed fitness training is longevity training. You don’t need to sun your butthole or face east while screaming into the wind, or whatever silly shit influencers would have you do. What you truly need to do is consistently train and eat in a way that’s sustainable while moving your fitness forward. It is simple, but it’s not always easy. And it begins with getting your head on straight.

The Longevity Mindset Shifts

I’ve observed two big mindset issues when it comes to training for hunting longevity. Each causes folks to behave in a way that their future selves can’t count on. One causes people to burnout and sabotage their long-term progress. The other creates beliefs in false limitations, causing them to short change their abilities.

Numero uno — giving the ego too much of a say. This causes folks to over value the present in a way that’s detrimental to the future. Here’s one way that plays out.

Folks perform for an imaginary audience. They’ve been filed into their seats by an usher named Ego. He’s been watching social media and measuring you against the curated version of reality that most people post. He shows you the highlight reels, and he tells you that you don’t measure up. You’re not tough enough. You’re not strong enough. You’re not fit enough. Then he tells you that the only way to be like them is to murder yourself with exercise intensity. So, you do it, pandering to an auditorium full of imaginary opinions. But the seats are empty. No one is really watching.

You go on to crush yourself with nonsensical workouts that only make you feel more like you don’t measure up. You absolutely smoke yourself, and you still feel like you didn’t give enough. Ego is watching and listening as you talk to yourself. He agrees — you still don’t measure up. Then he talks you into feeling worse about yourself. Then you either work yourself into the ground, losing fitness and going backwards. Or you quit because, despite how hard you’ve worked, you still don’t gain ground. In each case, your consistency tanks.

And it’s because your ego puts a higher value on your current capabilities instead of the sane and sensible work it truly takes to perform in the short-term and the long-term. It filled your head with the opinions of people who aren’t actually watching you, and of those who curate a rosy version of reality that doesn’t exist. Besides, even if those folks can truly do all of the amazing things they show in your feed, it doesn’t mean they know their asshole from the elbow when it comes to training.

You avoid doing what’s necessary for your longevity because you gave your ego too much of a say.

Numero dos — people tell themselves they’re old well before they are. They think old; they feel old; they move old; they act old. 

Balanced Conditioning (That Biases Towards Easy)

I talk a lot about relatively easy aerobic training in Zones 1 and 2. That’s because it’s necessary and it seems like a lot of folks need to be beat over the head with it in order to do it. We also do high-intensity conditioning, and so should you. But it all must be planned and executed with the right balance. You need way more easy-to-moderate aerobic training than you do high-intensity conditioning. Plus, it’s far easier to be consistent with easier aerobic work than it is with intense work. And we know that it’s consistency that moves the needle forward the farthest.

Eighty-percent easy-to-moderate, fifteen-percent pretty hard, and five-percent really hard is a common conditioning intensity distribution. It works. People looking for general fitness who have accrued a lot of training volume and are pretty fit could follow this on a weekly basis, depending on how much time they have to train. However, as hunters we have to think of this more on a yearly basis and dictated by how much training volume we’ve accrued and what our current performance tells us.

For our purposes, it’s not necessary to add high-intensity conditioning if we’re not getting at least two hours of aerobic work in per week. We just can’t trade that volume because we need it for endurance. It’s especially important to accrue a lot of aerobic training early in the year to prepare for specific conditioning as we get closer to hunting season.

But once we accrue aerobic volume, and see our aerobic capacity improve, we layer in the harder stuff to round out our conditioning. The pretty hard stuff improves how well we use carbs for fuel. The really hard stuff improves how fast we deliver oxygen to our muscles and how efficiently our muscles utilize that oxygen. So, we need it all to be as conditioned as possible for hunting. We just need way more of the easy stuff. But what about from a health and longevity perspective?

You still need both, and you still need way more low-intensity work. Here’s what each does for you longevity-wise. (These lists aren’t exhaustive, just some solid examples.)

Low-intensity work:

• Increases mitochondrial density and health (poor mitochondrial health is a huge factor in aging)

• Improves your vasculature (reducing stress on the heart and getting more oxygen into your body)

• Improves your ability to use fat for fuel (over-reliance on carbs increases metabolic stress, which can lead to diabetes and cardiovascular disease)

• Reduces the risk of hypertension and heart failure (I don’t need to explain why that’s important)

• Improves nervous system tone (parasympathetic dominance is associated with lower mortality risk, better emotional regulation, and better immune system regulation)

High-intensity work:

• Improves V02max (it’s a strong predictor of all-cause mortality)

• Maintains fast-twitch muscle fibers (they’re the first to go as we age)

• Improves lactate signaling (it helps improve metabolic resilience and cognitive performance because your brain can use lactate for fuel)

• Improves insulin sensitivity (important for fighting type-2 diabetes, but only works if you have a sufficient aerobic base)

Intelligent conditioning programming that plans intensity in the right places and in the right proportions does all of this for you. It improves hunting performance while maintaining health and longevity.

Solid, Consistent Activity Level

You can make fun of the office step counting contest. But you can’t make fun of how big of an impact maintaining a consistent activity level has on health and longevity.

It sets the baseline for your metabolism, manages your nervous system tone, lowers chronic inflammation, maintains healthy blood pressure, and protects mitochondrial function — among other really important things.

Move as much as you can. Hitting at least 7,000 steps per day is a great way to start. Once activity level is baked into your habits and your life, you can stop counting. However, what gets measured gets managed. So, it is smart to start by tracking to maintain awareness — especially if you’re certain that you’re not moving enough right now.

Daily Mobility Training

We talked about it earlier. None of this works if your joints aren’t healthy. And your joints won’t stay healthy if you’re not caring for them. You must gain as much controlled range of motion as you’re capable of, and you must keep it.

The brain is a stingy bastard. It tries to save energy everywhere it can. That’s why it’s so important to train consistently year-round. If you don’t persistently tell your brain that a capability is important, it will cut it to conserve energy. It’s a long, baked-in survival strategy. 

It’s very stingy with joint range of motion. If you don’t consistently tell it to keep range of motion, it cuts it. So, you must tell it daily. That’s one reason why we start all of our training sessions with a mobility-based warm-up. But to hit mobility every day, you have to do some work outside of training sessions. It doesn’t have to be an hour of yoga-esque bending. You can literally do enough to maintain your joint range of motion in less than a minute and a half per day. Watch this video to see how.

Weekly Strength and Power Training

Power is the first physical ability we lose as we age, with strength at its heels. This happens for a couple of reasons. First, fast-twitch muscles atrophy and lose function much faster than slow-twitch muscle fibers. Second, the nervous system loses the ability to coordinate and quickly send signals — meaning you can’t rapidly contract muscles to produce force. Training, however, fights this and maintains our strength and power. Research has also shown that it’s never too late. Elderly folks can re-build strength, muscle, and power with consistent strength and power training while consuming enough protein and total calories. But let’s talk about you right now.

If you’re currently lacking strength, and depending on the degree of your deficit, you likely need somewhere between two to four strength sessions per week to get to a sufficient level. However, if you’re already strong, you can maintain your strength with one strength session per week. This allows you to put more energy and effort into other areas of training, like muscular endurance and aerobic development. 

The good news about strength and power development is that it doesn’t take nearly the training volume required to develop aerobic capacity. And it takes even less to maintain it. But it is a button you must press weekly.

Year-Round Training with Structure

The brain is a stingy bastard, this we’ve discussed. But the body follows suit. If you’re not training year-round, you can’t develop and maintain the abilities necessary to maximize your hunting fitness. Fitness is developed in layers, and takes time to put down each layer before moving on to the next one. If you don’t train year-round, you won’t have time to develop all of the layers. Plus, your stingy brain and body will cut the abilities you did develop if you don’t work to maintain them. 

Placing the layers requires sound, intelligent training structure. Each aspect of training needs to be done at the right times and in the right proportions. This is true for general and individual reasons. We all need certain amounts of training in general to get what we need. And there is individual variance within the general needs based on current fitness level, natural abilities, and any necessary specific prep. Without the right structure, you can’t meet all of those needs.

Then there’s the most important training variable for performance and longevity — consistency. Training year-round over the course of years is necessary continually improving your performance while also ensuring your longevity. Long breaks cause you to lose fitness. And only prepping for the few months before hunting season will never have you ready. A good training structure promotes consistency. A good structure, well-executed, consistently produces results. It’s easier to stay consistent when you’re seeing progress. Also, intelligent training structure makes consistency easier because you don’t beat the shit out of your body. It’s a lot easier to show up to train when you don’t feel like hell. 

Pound Ridges Now, Keep Walking Them When You’re 85

Intelligent hunting fitness training is longevity training. If you keep your mindset in the right place, balance your conditioning well while staying generally active, and keep up with your mobility and strength training, you will promote your longevity. If you do all that with a sound, year-round training structure that’s aimed at building hunting fitness, you’ll pound ridges now and keep walking them when you’re 85. Leave the wouldn’t it be nice statements for someone else.

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