Many of you have been sending us messages asking about maintaining your fitness during a busy hunting season. I know it can be difficult to keep up with when your mind is 100% focused on hunting, but know that this time of year, the three to four months of hunting season, is one of the most crucial times of year to remain disciplined. 

It's awesome to see you partway through the hunting season. I know several of you are several weeks in, maybe a month in. And a lot of folks wonder what to do during hunting season when it comes to their fitness or working out.

The mistake many people make it this time of the year, is when we're trying to balance everything else out we tend to stop working out. That's the worst thing you can do during the hunting season. There are several reasons for this, and that's why we wanted to get this video out to you.

One of the things we need to keep in mind is that hunting season gets harder as it goes along.

Remember...

The weather's getting worse.

The terrain is getting tougher.

And the environment and the elements are working harder and harder against you, as you go into the hunting season.

Now when you combine that with the fact that you're being beaten down, little by little, you're degrading in your performance ability as you go through hunting season, it's kind of a setup for disaster. You worked up really hard to get to the beginning of the season, but that was just the first hit.

You need to be able to sustain, and that's the dichotomy.

The terrain and the environment actually get tougher, as you go through the season. The worst thing you can do is allow your body to degrade as you go through. That's reason number one.

Reason number two is, for many of you who've been doing the program, you've been doing four months if you just started; eight months, for many of you. For some of you, you've been doing this for a year now. Keep in mind, your body has completely changed in the course of the four to eight to 12 months, that you've been doing the program.

Your metabolism has changed, your new normal has changed. Your body is now used to working out five days a week at high intensity. So you have to understand, that you're not the same person, in a good way, that you were before.

But when you stop training all of a sudden, it's like running full speed on a treadmill and somebody pulling that stop button.

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Your body hits that front and it wonders what the heck happened to it because you just hit zero from 60 miles an hour. So, we don't want you to stop training.

One of the biggest things you need to do during hunting season is to maintain your conditioning. Now, remember, this is not an all or nothing game. One of the things you can think about is the fact that, yes, you are tired from the weekend, you're tired from maybe a week out in the woods. Your body does get beat up.

That doesn't mean you stop, and it doesn't mean you have to do a full hard MTNTOUGH program. What you need to do, is modify the program. Makes you get a day or two of strength work in there. There's a lot of great strength routines, that you've already done in the program. Everything from the 22s, which is a good light day, to the 11s.

You can do some of the heavies - the tens, the eights, the sixes, and the fours and the threes. You all did those, as well. You can do those for your strength days. Get a couple of the HIT days in a week. You can pick them, modify them. Pair them down so you're not doing it at that level of intensity, if you're going to be doing a lot of hunting.

If you're not doing a ton of hunting folks, you can be inside the program working out the whole time and get a cardio day in there. So you can still maintain your conditioning. You don't have to go to absolute failure, but you need to keep your body moving. It wants to move.

Your metabolism will slow down dramatically on you if you stop working out.

Then you will be more lethargic in the mountains, and more lethargic at home than you would be if you actually got to the gym and did some work. So make sure you keep working out.

You're in the toughest part of the season, MTNTOUGHers. Don't lose everything you worked for, for four to eight to 12 months, by stopping now and going into the hardest part of the season untrained. Keep pushing yourself all the way through.

Now, another question we get a lot of is, "What should I do specifically?" Well, as I mentioned, you can pick the exercises out of the routines that you've already done. The 30 for 30 that's another great one if you want to do no weight.

If you're traveling a lot, get the MTNTOUGH 30-30 program. Again, for some of you who have been doing the program, that's an awesome one just to sustain. But if you can get to a gym, get back in and do some of your post or pre-program workouts.

Another question is, "How do I balance all of this?

Because now all of a sudden I'm in hunting season. I've got my family, I'm going out to the woods all the time, I've got work. All of a sudden my schedule is all jammed up, and now working out becomes a lot tougher.

Something I try to teach people to do, we teach soldiers early on, especially infantry soldiers is that your life goes through seasons. Hopefully, Dustin, Jimmy and I will have some time and we'll do a little tabletop discussion on this for you.

But one of the things we'd like to remind you of is, listen, this is a season. You're only in hunting season for three, four months max. You're probably not out there every week, or you might be. But whatever it is, it's a season. And when you go into a season, you learn to prioritize what you need to do for that season.

Army soldiers, when they're behind enemy lines, go into what's called a patrol base. You only have maybe three hours in there. It's a place to come in, it's not really refreshing. It's priorities of work, getting ready to go into your next mission.

Sometimes you'll get in there, and you say, "Hey, I only got three hours. You better get some sleep." But other times you'll get in there, and your gear needs to be repaired, your feet need to be taken care of, your cuts and scrapes need to be taken care of.

If I only have three hours and my body is screaming for sleep, what I'll probably end up doing is losing a good half hour to 45 minutes taking care of the other priorities. And then maybe getting two hours, and two-and-a-half hours of sleep. Because guess what? It's a season, and hunting season is a season.

So now you've got to prioritize.

You've got family - that's a priority.

Work is a priority.

Hunting is a priority.

Working out as a priority.

You may have to cut some other stuff off the plate because they're not a priority during the season.

You might have to get up a little earlier, to get your workout in. You might have to get up a little earlier to get to work a little earlier, so you can work out in the afternoon. You might have to modify your schedule a little bit, and take some stuff off that's peripheral.

Because you've got four primary focuses this season: hunting season, combined with family, work and working out. The other stuff will come back, and you can go with a little less sleep during this time of the year. Because, again, three months. You can do that standing on your head.

Lastly, MTNTOUGHers... a lot of you are going to come out of season at various times over the next few months. Don't wait till January, to start the MTNTOUGH Post-Season Program. Go on, get up, get in there and get started. We deliberately designed it the first few weeks, so that you've got time to recover and it becomes part of your recovery.

Don't hesitate when you're done with hunting season, get back in there, start the program and launch. And the last point, don't forget mobility. Make sure you're working that all through the season.

Speaking of the Post-Season program...

The Backcountry Hunter Postseason program is different, it is designed to build the optimal athlete. Making you as powerful, as strong, and as functional as you can be. It is really about developing an all-around & unstoppable backcountry hunter.

MTNTOUGH’ers know that hunting is a lifestyle.  It’s an all year thing. They know that winter is not a time to take your foot off the gas… it’s the BEST time to get stronger for next hunting season.

But you have to train differently in the postseason than you would in the summer.

That’s why we’ve built and tested the MTNTOUGH Backcountry Hunter Postseason Program. 

If you're interested in learning more, or diving in and getting to work --> click here <--