If you use your sniffer and your imagination, you can smell the turkey roasting in the oven. Sniff a little more and you’ll smell the pies baking, too. It’s the Holidays — one of the best times of the year. And it’s also a time of year when many hunters lose fitness. We’ll discuss the reasons why, what to do about them, and develop a holiday hunting fitness plan you can stick to, so you can make progress this holiday season instead of making excuses why you “couldn’t” train.

Why Hunters Lose Fitness Over the Holidays (And How to Prevent It)

We often don’t want to admit it, but we’re (humans) creatures of structure and habit. The holidays drop bombs on our routines that blow them to smithereens. We’re not working as much, we’re traveling, and we have guests. It all combines to disrupt the normal flow and triggers that scaffold our weekly training consistency.

Then there’s stress. Sure, the holidays are supposed to be relaxing, but family dynamics, shopping, and travel throw a heap of strain into our brains — and our bodies. The added stress often disrupts sleep and destroys our training motivation.

There’s also the good stuff — parties, hunting, and time spent with people you love that you don’t want to trade for time spent exercising. These are good trades. You should make them.

When you add up the good with the not-so-good, you see why it’s easy to lose fitness over the holidays. Lack of routine, stress, and good times make it tougher to maintain consistency. But you don’t have to take a backslide during late November and December. You can stay fit during the holidays if you stand up a few simple pillars.

The 3 Pillars of Holiday Hunting Fitness

A holiday hunting fitness program is less about the specifics of training and more about using a framework that helps you stay consistent. You’ll still need to strength train, work on your mobility, and do your conditioning. Those are givens. But you need some structural pillars that reframe how you approach them for the final five or six weeks of the year.

Pillar 1: Redefine Success with Shorter Workouts

We often feel a little angsty when we can’t do all of our planned training. That angst often turns into a “fuck this” moment. Say you have a 60-minute workout planned but you only have 40 minutes to train. Many folks approach that situation by saying, if I can’t do it all it’s not worth doing any of it. That, friend, is about as far from the truth as you can get. When things are hectic, it’s best to redefine success and use the time that you have instead of bitching about the time that you don’t have. If you only have 40 minutes, get done what you can in 40 minutes and move on. Hell, if you only have 20 minutes, use them as best you can. Training this time of year is (mostly) about maintaining consistency and momentum, not adding heaps of fitness 

Pillar 2: Train Before the Chaos

This is a strategy I often use with the busy, entrepreneur-types I train in Packmule Elite. They train early in the day before work and before they have a million “fires” to put out. Get up. Get it done. Be present with your friends and family. 

Also, this doesn’t have to be an early morning deal. Just get a handle on what’s happening during the day/week, and plan your workouts for a time of day before all of the holiday madness knocks you off track.

Pillar 3: Combine Workouts Where Necessary

Our Backcountry Ready and Pathfinder members follow this pillar during the final training phase of the year, and they might not even realize it. 

It’s typically not optimal to combine your strength and conditioning workouts. However, we’re not worried about optimal right now. The focus is on consistency and momentum. So, during Phase 4 of our In-season program, we follow up our strength work with a short aerobic session. This allows us to chop off one training day per week (if needed) and still get in enough good work.

Your Weekly Holiday Hunting Fitness Schedule

This is a sample hunting workout schedule for the holiday season. Don’t take it as Gospel. Use it as a template to develop your schedule through Thanksgiving and Christmas.

For strength work, just hit the big stuff for 15 to 20 minutes. Make your aerobic work seamless. Choose any method or piece of equipment that makes it easy for you to get the work done.

• Monday: Lower-Body Strength + 30 Minutes Zone 1/Zone 2

• Tuesday: Upper-Body Strength + 30 Minutes Zone 1/Zone 2

• Thursday: Lower-Body Strength + 30 Minutes Zone 1/Zone 2

• Friday: Upper-Body Strength + 30 Minutes Zone 1/Zone 2

If you don’t have time for four training days, do two lower-body sessions and one upper-body session. If you have time for five sessions, add in another aerobic session — make it longer if you have time.

The Minimalist Holiday Training Plan (For Travel)

Holiday travel often takes us to places where we don’t have regular gym or equipment access. That’s no matter, friend. You always have the best piece of equipment handy — your body. If you’re flying, throw a TRX or a similar suspension trainer in your luggage. If you’re driving, add a couple of kettlebells or dumbbells into the mix. Your body + suspension trainer + bells = very productive travel gym.

Interval-based body weight workouts are great when you’re traveling. Work for 10 to 30 seconds doing push-ups, lunges, squats, etc. Then rest for 30 to 60 seconds. Rotate through the movements for 15 to 30 minutes and you have yourself a nice little body weight strength session.

If you can bring some bells and a suspension trainer, think with a modular mindset and do the same “shapes” you would during a gym workout. For example, instead of barbell squats, do goblet squats; instead of barbell deadlifts, do kettlebell or dumbbell RDLs, etc. You’ll likely just have to add more reps to each set to get a training effect. But you can follow the same general structure you would during regular gym workouts.

Your Packmule Holiday Training Checklist

Here’s a list you can use as an easy reference to keep yourself training during the holidays. The image is linked to a PDF download. Click it. Download the PDF and keep it handy on your phone or print it out and put it where you’ll see it every day.

Final Takeaway — Make Yourself Ready for Offseason Training Instead of Making Excuses

It’s easy to use the holidays as excuses for cutting your training consistency. But if you want to maintain your hunting fitness, and prep yourself to ramp up after the first of the year, you have to keep training from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Your training for the next 5 or 6 weeks doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to happen. Follow the pillars, use the checklist, and keep yourself moving until it’s time to party in January. Many hunters lose fitness over the holidays. You won’t.

P.S. The Holidays are a great time to test your hunting fitness to prepare for the offseason. Click the link below to download our Hunters Field Test for free, and use it to find out where your hunting fitness currently stands.

The Hunter's Field Test