Hell, I never thought I’d write an article like this. I dislike running. I’ve run one half-marathon in my life, and I didn’t enjoy a stride of it. Since then, friends have tried to talk me into running more races, including ultramarathons. My response is always the same, “The only way I’m covering that much ground is if I kill something at the end.” So, until someone develops a mountain hunting ultramarathon, there are no more races in my future. Still, I run, and I program running for Packmule members. 

That’s because it is the best hunting fitness foundation builder. It produces more at a lower cost to your body compared to rucking. We have to ruck, but only after we’ve used running to build our aerobic engine.

Here’s why.

Running Has a Better Cardiopulmonary Effect

I’d like you to try an experiment for me. Do your best to go on living without your heart and lungs. You’ll have about 10 minutes until the lights go out forever. While keeping you alive is far more important, the heart and lungs are two of the most important pieces of aerobic machinery. It’s tough for your muscles to keep your body moving forward if your cardiopulmonary system isn’t sending enough oxygen and nutrients their way.

Cardiac output, then, is one of the most important aerobic adaptations. It’s the amount of blood your heart pumps out per minute. It’s driven by stroke volume, the amount of blood your heart pumps out with each beat. The best way to increase cardiac output is by spending a lot of time in the aerobic training zones (Zones 1 and 2). Working at these heart rates causes blood to pool in the heart’s left ventricle, causing it to stretch. This is called eccentric ventricular hypertrophy, and it’s very good for your endurance. 

Eccentric ventricular hypertrophy is what’s called a central aerobic adaptation, meaning it directly affects the heart and or lungs. It’s logically best to develop central adaptations, and the adaptations that support them, before worrying too much about peripheral adaptations, or the adaptations that take place in the muscles. You have to build a smooth highway before you speed down it or drive it with a heavy load. And it’s often speed and load that do the most to build our peripheral aerobic system. That means we need to use training methods that build strong central adaptations before progressing towards training for peripheral adaptations. Think of it this way: We want to make blood pool in our hearts before we make it pool too much in our muscles. Aerobic running allows us to do that. Let’s compare it to rucking to see how.

Our dear buddy rucking has peripheral limitations. That’s a fancy way of saying that your legs, shoulders, and back tire out while rucking well before your heart and lungs do. Now, that’s not so bad when we’re working to improve our specific conditioning and muscular endurance. But it’s not as good when we’re training to make our heart and lungs more efficient. Yes, aerobic running makes your legs tired. But not as quickly. So, you can go for longer on an easy run while keeping your heart rate in the right place, giving you a better cardiopulmonary training effect. 

Time, kids, is the deciding factor in this case. It takes at least 30 minutes of continuous effort in the aerobic training zones to improve cardiac output. You need blood to keep pooling in your heart so that dang ventricle keeps stretching. While we use long rucks during the preseason to specifically prepare for hunting, they come after training blocks that include a lot of muscular endurance training that allow us to handle all that time under our packs. That’s not necessary with running. You can incrementally increase the duration of easy runs without extra prep work, given that your joints are healthy. So, if we want to spend enough time in the aerobic training zones to maximize our cardiopulmonary endurance, easy runs are the ticket.

Which brings us to the next point.

People Can Typically Handle More Running Volume Than Rucking Volume

I’ll use an extreme example to illustrate this point. 

My gym business partner runs ultramarathons. He’s currently walking his running volume up to 70 miles per week. That’s a heroic amount of running. Some of it is intense, some of it is easy. And he’s handling it just fine. He’s not getting beat up and he’s recovering from all the work. The man is even strength training three days per week on top of all that running. Now, he’s a smart, experienced coach and he knows how to program it. That’s important. But even with intelligent programming, there is no way on God’s green earth that he’d handle that kind of rucking volume in a week. The boy would get absolutely thrashed. 

When you lay them out side-by-side, most people can handle more aerobic running volume than rucking volume. The reason is simple. Rucking adds external load to the body, putting strain on muscles and joints. That means rucking is more about developing strength endurance than pure aerobic capacity and endurance. The strength component makes recovering from rucking more difficult than recovering from running. Since recovery is more difficult, you can’t handle as much rucking volume. Now, why does that matter?

Volume builds your aerobic system.

It’s not just training volume per week, it’s also training volume accrued over time. That means months and years. To accrue that volume, we have to use training methods that allow us to recover from all the work while also checking other boxes (more on those other boxes in a minute.) Aerobic running is the best method for doing that.

Running Leaves More Room for Progression at a Lower Cost

Before we get into the other points, we need to talk more about rucking’s external load as it relates to heart rate, conditioning effect, and why it’s limiting when it comes to aerobic development. 

The simplest way to say it is that rucking has a low ceiling. When intelligently programmed with appropriate weight, folks quickly get efficient. Getting your heart rate to the top of Zone 1 while moving at a good clip on flat ground becomes a challenge. Once you get there, you can’t significantly increase your pace. 

There are two means of progression, and each is costly. Add more weight or get on an incline. Now, each is necessary for specific hunting preparation. However, since the cost is so high, it doesn’t make sense to focus year-round progressing ruck weights and inclines. A few months per year does the job. And even then you run into a relatively low ceiling when it comes to weight. Managing heavier loads and steeper inclines also requires prep work so it doesn’t beat a hunter to hell and back. Not the most efficient means of aerobic progression. Why use an expensive training method to obtain a training adaptation achieved by a cheaper method?

That cheaper method is running.

Not only is aerobic running less costly from a musculoskeletal standpoint, it also has a way higher ceiling. You can train yourself to move significantly faster while still using predominantly aerobic metabolism. And you can do that over the course of years. Training methods that offer a longer runway with lower cost work better to improve the aerobic system via accrued training volume over time. Running offers a very high aerobic ceiling. Here’s an example.

Year 1: A hunter runs a 10:40 mile with an average heart rate of 140.

Year 2: A hunter runs a 9:40 mile with an average heart rate of 140.

Year 3: A hunter runs an 8:40 mile with an average heart rate of 140.

This isn’t speculation. This is something I’ve trained people to do. That’s what real aerobic development looks like. Significantly faster movement at relatively the same metabolic cost. Then, you take that aerobic development and apply it specifically to hunting prep in order to peak for hunting season or a specific hunt. 

General to Specific Training Allows for Better Hunting Fitness

Before I settled on human performance as a career, I was training to be a teacher. This was during the No Child Left Behind era. We were being trained to teach to the test, essentially prepping kids to past standardized tests instead of truly educating them. I saw what a load of shit it was, so I got out. Teaching to the test limits intellectual development and a child’s ability to be successful, and it doesn’t even make them better at taking the tests. Their base of knowledge and skills is so limited that they can’t think, draw connections, and solve for the answers.Training works the same way.

Capacity comes before performance. You need a broad base of raw materials to draw on and funnel into performance on the test. In our case, the hunt, or hunting season, is the test. 

Let’s look at what capacities are necessary for hunting performance.

Aerobic Capacity

Aerobic Durability

Strength

Strength Endurance

Terrain Rucking Skill and Capacity

Rucking skill and capacity depends on the first four capacities I listed. You develop the foundational capacities with general training, then you use specific training to turn them into performance.

Frequency and workout duration are the two biggest tools used to build an aerobic engine (capacity + durability). Running is a much better tool for higher frequency and longer duration aerobic training. We covered why earlier–-the musculoskeletal cost is much lower, allowing for easier recovery. Rucking restricts the amount of aerobic volume you can accumulate year-round while still pushing past development ceilings. That’s why it’s maintained during the offseason and only given developmental training doses during the preseason. Without doing it this way, you’ll never gain the aerobic engine necessary to take full advantage of incline and terrain rucking.

Build the engine with running, make it perform with rucking.

Running Improves Spring as well as Foot and Lower Leg Resilience

You might be wondering, “Well, what about other methods of aerobic training like biking, swimming, and rowing?” That’s a good question.

They can each have their place in a general aerobic development program. However, running offers more carryover to hunting fitness, and it offers something that the other methods don’t—it improves the strength and bone density of your feet and lower legs.

Running is plyometric. That means your foot must hit the ground and quickly redirect force to propel you forward. This is a very good thing for us as hunters. It makes our feet and lower legs more resilient. It also increases the stiffness of the tendons in our feet and lower legs. Stiffer tendons are better at storing energy, meaning each step you take costs you less energy. This helps a ton when you’re covering mile upon mile in rugged terrain.

Running also has more mechanical specificity to hunting than the other general aerobic training methods. That means it’s easier to take what you gain from running and turn it into specific hunting fitness.

There is without a doubt a place for other aerobic training in a year-round program. But those other methods should be side dishes, not the main course.

Running is the Most Pragmatic Form of Aerobic Training

Then comes practicality. 

Running has the lowest barrier to entry compared to all other aerobic training methods. It’s low-skill, and all it requires is a decent pair of shoes and for you to head out your front door. 

Consistency is the most important training variable. Any training method that makes it easier for you to be consistent is invaluable.

“But Running Hurts My Knees”

There are people with orthopedic limitations that keep them from running. That’s fine. They have no choice but to do more incline treadmill and rucking work. Bike training also helps out as a nice supplement. However, if you don’t have any orthopedic limitations (body weight being one of them), it’s not running that hurts your knees…it’s how you’re running that hurts your knees (substitute any other joint for knees).

Most people who start running to improve their fitness begin way too fast and way too hard. You have to start easy and slow. And you have to build tolerance before hopping into the deep end of the pool with training volume and frequency. You can’t go tearing off hard four days per week and expect anything good to happen.

Starting with 30-minute run/walk workouts a few days per week is the best course of action. It’s enough time to get you a cardiac output adaptation, as well as other aerobic adaptations, but not so long that it beats you up. The easy start also builds up tolerance that makes your feet and legs stronger before you start running harder. As they get easier, you start increasing the duration of the runs. Then, in a relatively short time, you’re running continuously for 60 minutes or more without shitcanning yourself.

Progression matters. It’s how you build tolerance and how you improve your fitness without hurting yourself.

You Can Get Better at Rucking without Even Doing It

I’m currently training a Backcountry Ready member for a half-marathon. The boy has been doing him some running. He’s also stuck with strength training. He hadn’t rucked for months until he decided to do a little experiment.

Here’s the message he DM’d me in our training app:

“Last Saturday we had some crazy nice weather and I just felt like rucking, obviously it had been a good bit since I had rucked since I’ve been focused on the race. Had 20% BW and man I couldn’t go fast enough to get my HR to stay in the 130s, which is the floor of my zone 2, it just hung out in the 122-125 range. I was just under 4.0 MPH for the 90 minutes. I had passed the assessment awhile ago but that was like another level especially considering I haven’t rucked in a good bit.”

Running had improved his aerobic engine. He kept up with his strength and strength endurance work. Then he went for his first ruck in a long time, and smoked it. He got better at rucking without even doing it. 

If you can get better at something without doing it, how useful is it as the base of your year-round aerobic training plan if you’re healthy? Not that useful.

There is no doubt, we must ruck to be prepared for hunting. And we especially need to do incline rucks and terrain rucks to be specifically prepared. But those things come after we build our foundation with running.

Lace Up Your Running Sneaks

You don’t have to like what I just told you. I don’t even like it that much. But it’s the truth. If you want to be as fit as possible for hunting, running should be the foundation of your aerobic conditioning. It has the highest ceiling and produces the most good for your conditioning. Then you take what it gives you and turn it into specific mountain fitness.