Thread: Hunting fitness

Originally Posted by Tussock

I started a hunting fitness thread but it got deleted. This is my 2c worth.

You can thrash yourself to your hearts content, you can get your cardio as high as you like. It will not matter if you do not move efficiently. Put a pack on, load it to the point it is awkward to walk on, then get off trail. Focus on walking as tall as you can and not moving awkwardly.

Training often teaches you to move inefficiently. If you want to move well and carry heavy loads well, climb and avoid injury, it is your level of agility, your rhythm and cadence, balance and efficiency of motion that matters.

By the time you sort that out, where you are choosing your footing well without looking down to much, moving in time with your breathing, controlling your cadence and rhythm well without losing it to obstacles, you will have cardio and strength.

If you are stuck in a city, do agility work with a pack on. Do sprints, especially with sharp cornering. Do heaps of balance exercises.

Personally, I would take a dance class. People usually pull faces when I say this, but it is pretty normal for MMA fighters. Not usually called pussies. This will give you great feet and life is pretty easy with great feet.

When you get wrecked by someone in the hills that looks like they are just floating along, this stuff is the reason. If you are clumping about with poor balance stumbling about, heavy foot falls and breathing all over the place, that is where all your energy is going. Some people just seem to float, even under a heavy pack.

As we get older the fluid in the onboard spirit level in the inner ear thickens and it is important to do balance exercises to keep it moving. Worst case is when the fluid gets so thick a person gets vertigo. Dance with spins and quick turns, hopscotch, touch rugby, in fact the same sort of movements as when we were small kids learning our balance skills all keep those balance skills. I posted a link to the 'Double Dutch' skipping comps earlier in this thread, don't know if anyone looked at it from the point of the balance skills learnt through skipping. Boxers don't skip just for fitness