Dream Hunt? Don't start training too late.

A few years back, I took my buddy Joe on one of his first backcountry elk hunts in Montana.  It was almost his last.

He was a diehard passionate bowhunter from Mississippi who dreamed of hunting out west.

Mid 40’s. A hard working, busy family man.

I tried to tell him to start training early… but he was convinced he could just crush the elliptical machine everyday in August and be alright.

Our trip finally arrived and we went to this awesome high country spot. We kept pushing deeper into the backcountry looking for elk.  

We have a name for it… it’s called “Bonking”

It’s that moment when your mind and body completely shut down.

It’s hard to explain to someone if they’ve never experienced it.  

It comes out of nowhere.  One minute Joe’s good and the next, he’s convinced he can’t make it out.

What scares me the most about bonking is that it’s not really a conventional medical condition that can be treated like heat exhaustion or dehydration.  We’ve all had training to handle stuff like that.

Bonking is different.

It’s some kind of dangerous combination of muscle fatigue, exhaustion, and calorie depletion… but the most unique aspect is the paralyzing mental failure that comes with it.

Confusion, fear, and a burned-out body all come together to bring a regular guy like Joe to his knees and convince him he won’t make it out.

This is the kind of thing that can put a guys life at risk.  Or send him home off the mountain early, ending his dream hunt.  

It’s not something many guys are prepared for.  And Joe had no idea what hit him.

I spent hours talking to him trying to get his head right and calm him down.  It was hard to get him to eat a snack or drink any water… but I finally convinced him to take down whatever he could to refuel.

After that, it was miles of baby steps.

5 steps then a break.  5 steps then a break.

We got back to the truck in the middle of the night and Joe slept for the next 12 hours.

I don’t mind sharing his story because Joe’s a helluva guy and good friend.  I still hunt with him to this day.

The next year he started training way earlier… and incorporated more types of training instead of just cardio.

He hasn’t bonked since.  A few years later he harvested an awesome bull in some of the nastiest country I can think of.

How to Avoid Bonking

When you’re short on time, short on energy, and short on specific knowledge you’re just going to gravitate to what you’ve done before to prep for hunting season.

But what’s familiar isn’t always the best...

Bonking can happened to anyone, but the guys who properly prepare their bodies for the backcountry have a much lower risk.

Joe did something so many guys have done, waiting until August to start training for hunting season.

It’s a common mistake… and one that can put you at risk in the mountains.

Don’t wait until August to start training for hunting season.

Sure, any training is better than no training at all… but the mountains are unforgiving.  

When we sat down to start developing our Backcountry Hunter Programming, we looked at how long to make the program.

Six weeks?  Nine weeks? Go to a full 12 weeks or more? We debated this topic for months during our team meetings...

Based on the 32 years of combined training experience and the science of what we were up against, we came to the conclusion that we needed at least 12 weeks to put together an effective and long lasting program for a backcountry hunter.

But the truth is, that’s just the beginning.  And the primary reason we’re so focused on being “Always Ready” and changing your mindset to instead be thinking: “Train All Year.”

Here’s why...

Neural Recruitment

It takes at least 2 to 4 weeks of a new type of exercise for your body to get past the neural recruitment phase when you start.

Neural recruitment is basically the waking up of dormant muscles and getting them activated.

The first few weeks are really not necessarily you getting stronger, but your body and your neuromuscular pathways are becoming more coordinated.

So you're using muscles better in groups and you're really lifting more weight because you're coordinated better, not necessarily because you're a lot stronger. And it takes about 2 to 4 weeks for those adaptations to really develop fully.

After that 2 to 4 week point, we can start putting on muscle mass and strength. That requires at least another 4 to 6 weeks to get the muscle gains that are repetitive enough to build the foundation that we want.

Muscle Endurance

Once you have the neuro recruitment down to where it needs to be, and you body has put on a good base of muscle, then you can start another 4 to 6 weeks of building the endurance with that muscle.

In other words, we want you to be able to lift all the weight you're going to lift with a lot less effort than you used to lift it, for a lot longer time than you used to lift it.

This is going to give you things like leg endurance for a multi-day hunt.

To do that, we need to make you strong so you're looking at about 4 more weeks training your body to carry weight over a long distance of time.

So those are the muscular reasons why we need 12 weeks.

Cardiovascular Training

Cardiovascularly, you have a similar process.

It will take your body a week to start manufacturing more red blood cells and hemoglobin levels should rise within three weeks, so that requires some adaptation time.

It takes at least 4 to 6 weeks for your heart rate to grow and adapt.

This is what you need to recover fast, for example feeling recovered in 30 seconds versus 2 minutes after a big climb or sprint.  Which is crucial for when you need to calm down and be steady for a shot.

That gets you into the phase where you're now ready to start expanding and building on your cardio training.

The Bottom Line: Change Your Mindset to “Always Ready”

Any backcountry hunters we train at MTNTOUGH, we now start training in the spring with our 4-month preseason prep program.

With approx 10,000 MTNTOUGH'ers training online, several thousand of us will be going through the Preseason Prep Program together at the same time.

This year is special. The entire local MTNTOUGH community in Bozeman, including Dustin, Nate and Ara will be there alongside you each day, grinding through these workouts and posting their results daily. Keep an eye on the leaderboards for support, accountability, encouragement and competition.

Join MTNTOUGH'ers from around the world for our biggest training progression of the year - Preseason Prep. The MTNTOUGH Backcountry Hunter Preseason Prep Program is the #1 program for the backcountry hunter, built by backcountry hunters with thousands of hours of testing on dedicated mountain athletes.

This is the ideal training program to prepare for hunting season.

They see good gains in the first six weeks. They can make some incredible progress in six weeks, there's no doubt. But to really get permanent, lasting gains, we need to push them over to 16 weeks for those things to start taking effect and staying in their system.

As you start doing this kind of work, your body composition is going to change. And that also requires time for your body to now adapt to the new oxygen requirements it needs.

In other words, you're going to have more muscle mass, more lean mass, and less fat mass. It's going to change how your body utilizes energy. All those systems now have to learn to adapt and your body has to deliver more oxygen.

That's why it takes a little longer for you to adapt on the cardiovascular side because you're pushing more muscle now than you used to.

You also need to make sure that your cardiovascular system is having time to adapt to your new body composition, as your body composition changes.

Additionally, you need to boost your mobility to prevent injury and increase durability.

A period of preparation that makes the transition to hunting season feel seamless.  That way you’re not getting in and out of shape each year… instead, you’re Always Ready for hunting season.

Don’t Start Training Too Late

We have people approach us all the time to prepare for hunting season or BUDS or a big race and by the time they approach us we’re bearing down on the date with very little time to train.

Training to reach a goal requires time – you truly want to get stronger, faster, and better (and we want you to get there too) – but you want to do it in a way that doesn’t hurt you or force you to sacrifice other things you value, like spending time with your kids.

The science is pretty solid that you need at least 12-16 weeks to prepare your body for hunting season… but that’s just the basics.

To be truly ready for whatever the mountains are going to throw at you, the time to start training is NOW.

Whether you end up taking advantage of our 4-month Backcountry Hunter Preseason Program or working with a personal trainer, start now.  

Not in August.

Many hunters wait until the last minute to get ready and don’t prepare their energy production system, core, and legs sufficiently to handle the demands of the mountains.

A "trip of a lifetime" can quickly turn into a nightmare or dangerous bonking situation without proper conditioning.

That’s why we crafted the MTNTOUGH Backcountry Hunter Preseason Program to transition you into the mindset of “Train All Year”… to take you through all the necessary body transformations to best prepare you for the demands of the hunt.

And now is the time to start, so come fall, you’re not “that guy” that bonks and has to rely on his buddies to get him out… all because your body wasn’t prepared.

Here’s the rundown:

• It’s a full 4-months of backcountry coaching, right from your phone.
• You get 5 in-depth video workouts each week, delivered through our private MTNTOUGH app.
• You will get a daily workout for your fitness level: beginner, intermediate, or elite.
• You get access to the MTNTOUGH community for support, accountability and motivation from like-minded peers.
• You have lifetime access to the material, so you can use this program to prep for hunting season every year, with free upgrades as we improve it over time.

-->  Click here to start training today

NOTE: 2021 enrollment for Preseason Prep is only open for a few more weeks!

- Dustin

P.S. - Here’s more feedback from other hunters that have been through the program: