Hunting Season Workout

[Vince]

Tom, one thing that you can do that is aerobic and won't further injure your Achilles tendon is swimming. I would stay away form running for awhile until that tendon heals. My ex boss swam for some months when his AT gave out, he was told to not run for several months.

Great advice!
I'm surprised your Dr didn't tell you to lay off the running. If he did, and you choose to ignore the advice, shame on you. I "muscled through" a lot of injuries and did things I shouldn't have when I was younger. Today I'm paying the price.
Treat your body well because it's the only one you're going to get and replacement parts don't work as well as original equipment.

 

[tddeangelo]

Sorry, I should have been more clear.

The doc told me to lay off running for a week, maybe two, or until the pain is gone. At that point, I could reintroduce running very gradually, but must stop if pain resurfaces.

So I asked what I could do in the meantime, and she said, "anything that doesn't cause pain or make it worse."

I asked specifically about a bike and she was pretty enthusiastic that a bike would be good while the tendon heals.

I'm not pushing through this with running on it injured. My running is done for at least a week, but probably a bit longer.

 

[Guy Miner]

After shift last night I was still feeling a little frisky I guess. Changed out of uniform, and on the way though the police gym I heard the weights calling my name. Did some deadlifts. Felt good. Big bike ride in a couple of hours, if I can stay awake long enough.



I thought that was pretty decent for a 57 year old guy who's more into cycling and hiking than lifting.

BTW - the officers got together and bought all the weights & cardio gear for our gym. The city just gave us the room to train in, for our DT (defensive tactics, cop talk for hand-to-hand) training. We spent about $40k all told as I recall. Makes for a pretty decent little gym that is open to cops 24/7/365, and used a lot. Most of us hit it for an hour or so right before shift.

Guy

 

[C.Smith]

That's an awesome idea. We are supposed to get a new station next year might have to keep this in mind.

Corey

 

[Guy Miner]

If it's planned in, it's not too expensive to do. We got our new police station about eight years ago. The "DT" room was planned all along and has lots of room for the mats, doing take-downs, all that good stuff. There's also plenty of room for the equipment. We've got four cardio machines, quite an array of free weights, and several weight machines too. The cable machine helped me recover from shoulder surgery a few years back. Still working on that, never have regained full strength in that shoulder.

Gives me something to work on I suppose...

Yeah, the "DT" room is my favorite room in the station. We have to walk through it twice a day, before and after shift, to get to and from our lockers. Makes it real convenient to get a workout. Mostly younger guys on my shift, like 20 years younger than me, and often the whole doggone shift is in there an hour or more before we start, working out. One of our guys is the lead "DT" instructor, and is great about working with us off-duty on holds, take-downs, etc...

There's also one heck of a nice view of the mountains from the gym, it's upstairs and has a big window-wall facing north towards a mountain. Pretty nice.

Guy

 

[Vince]

First night in the gym after work.
In and out, as I hate the gym, but worked the muscle groups I needed to. I was a little weaker than I thought on one group but a lot stronger on another. Now I just need to balance it out and the gym will help me to do that.
Up until now I've been exercising at home, treadmill and leg exercises with my pack on. Now I'll hit the gym after work before I get in the truck to come home. I already feel a difference from last year's hunting season.

 

[Vince]

Hit the gym again after shift.
Just a quick in and out but I feel the burn. I focused on my Hamstrings and Quads again, which is where I'm lacking.

 

[jmad_81]

Man talk about some motivation! I need to get back into it. I started P90X a few months ago, it only lasted a month. I think I'm going to do some modification to my work out program. I'm wanting to hit my Idaho buck tag really hard. I'm thinking that I'm going to load my pack up and hike two to three times a week in the morning before work, and then do a few P90X work outs three days a week as well.

I have to work out early in the morning as my work can keep me late and if it doesn't my two kids need to see me sometime. Got a pretty good route planned, should be able to get me a few yotes off of it this summer as well! It's about 1.8 miles and gets as steep as 31%. Not near what we'll be hunting in, but better than nothing.

View attachment Workout route 1.jpg

 

[Vince]

Looks like a good route JMad!
Git 'er done!

 

[Vince]

OK.

Three nights in a row after work I've made a point to stop in the gym and hit the leg curls. Quads and Hams are burning. Just a quick in/out, fifteen minutes, but I can feel the burn. I've also increased my protein intake to help build some muscle. Nothing fancy, tuna, fresh eggs from our chickens, extra turkey slice on my sandwich.

I'll recuperate today and hit the treadmill Sunday/Monday. My plan is 4 nights in the gym and then two days on the treadmill. I'll start scouting next week so that will involve some hikes in the heat. The entire month of June has been 100+ degrees with 112 predicted for today.

 

[tddeangelo]

Well, picked up the new bike today....didn't get a chance to get the reflectors off it yet, but took it for a relatively easy 14 mile ride and love it so far!

I still can't run, and it'll be some time until I can, so definitely be racking up miles on it. Once I get the Achilles back in shape again and can run, I am going to work toward a goal of 15 miles of running and 75 miles on the bike per week. Nothing crazy, but a good target to work toward. By the end of NEXT summer, I'd like that to be 20-25 of running and 100-125 of riding per week. We will see if I can manage it.

Time to swing around the kettlebell.....

 

[Vince]

Did three of four days in the gym after shift.
Nothing fancy just looking to build some strength and mass to support my knees. I do a set of leg presses followed by hamstring curls, and finish with leg curls for the quads. I do three sets without much rest between sets. By the time I'm done my legs feel like rubber and I still feel it the next morning. I'm pushing but not overdoing it. The knee pains have significantly decreased since I started exercising. Hunting season will be the real test though.

 

[Guy Miner]

Vince, I found a similar solution years ago. My knees were hurting. I'd been doing a lot of running, mostly on blacktop. Pounding the pavement.

Cut down on the running. Hit the gym. Did a lot of squats. Within weeks, not only was I much stronger, but my knees didn't hurt at all. The light bulb lit up!

Some guys can run, and run, and run. I did my running. Now I lift, hike, bike and ski. That's enough. I don't run unless I REALLY want to catch somebody. :mrgreen: Even then, I've chased in the squad car. That works out pretty well until they go over a fence.

Bicycled 51 miles this morning. Wasn't planning on it. Six of us finished a 25 mile ride. My buddy said "Hey want to ride to Monitor with me, for lunch?"

Sure... Why not. Scorching hot by then. Lots of hills between here and there. It was a GOOD workout! Came home, fell asleep on the family room floor in my bike gear. Dog loved it. Sons thought it was pretty funny. Wife thought so too. Grumble, grumble.

Riding with them again tomorrow morning! :grin:

Guy

 

[ajvigs]

I have a "fun" little workout I do on the treadmill. I alternate doing an uphill walk with an uphill sprint.
I will set the incline to between 12-15%, and begin by walking at a 4.0mph pace for 5 minutes. Then, for 5 minutes, I run at between 8.0 and 10.0 mph on the incline for 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. I alternate the sprints with the walk for 25-35 minutes.

 

[tddeangelo]

Vince, I found a similar solution years ago. My knees were hurting. I'd been doing a lot of running, mostly on blacktop. Pounding the pavement.

Cut down on the running. Hit the gym. Did a lot of squats. Within weeks, not only was I much stronger, but my knees didn't hurt at all. The light bulb lit up!

Some guys can run, and run, and run. I did my running. Now I lift, hike, bike and ski. That's enough. I don't run unless I REALLY want to catch somebody. :mrgreen: Even then, I've chased in the squad car. That works out pretty well until they go over a fence.

Bicycled 51 miles this morning. Wasn't planning on it. Six of us finished a 25 mile ride. My buddy said "Hey want to ride to Monitor with me, for lunch?"

Sure... Why not. Scorching hot by then. Lots of hills between here and there. It was a GOOD workout! Came home, fell asleep on the family room floor in my bike gear. Dog loved it. Sons thought it was pretty funny. Wife thought so too. Grumble, grumble.

Riding with them again tomorrow morning! :grin:

Guy

Guy,

I track my calories in and out, and since I got the bike, I'm burning an unbelievable amount of calories, and my mileage and speed are still on the upswing, having my bike only about 3 weeks so far.

Tonight I did 14 miles in 55 minutes, and yesterday I did 25 miles in 1 hr and 45 min, with 1540' of climbs. My legs and lungs can hack it, but my posterior gets awful tired of the saddle by an hour and 30 or so.

Would be fun to ride a "century" sometime...maybe before I'm 40 (I turn 38 this November). LOL

 

[Guy Miner]

A "century" can be real good. Lots of fun if you're riding with some friends.

Don't bite off more than you can chew though, a very hilly course with a lot of climbing, or high temps, can be one heck of an ordeal.

I aim for six hours in a century. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't. If I could just train for one, I'd make 'em more often! But... Life gets in the way.

Regards, Guy

 

[tddeangelo]

I am still very much a wuss when it comes to hills. I am better than I was, but I do still plan my routes around some of the really rough ones. The area I live is not home to many BIG hills, but there are some that are formidable to a novice like myself. I thought about having the cassette changed on my bike to have some lower gears available for the really steep stuff, but I'm not even a month into this, so I figured I'd give myself time to improve and see if the gearing change is really needed.

I don't see me doing a Century for at least a year. I try to do my longer mileage rides at a slower pace (hard to force myself to slow down sometimes) and on weekends when I have the time available. I'm hoping to edge up to 40-50 miles for my weekend rides before the weather gets dicey, which will be sometime in November, most likely.

I do need to figure out a better weight training program, though. The kettlebell program I'm using isn't cutting it.

 

[Desert Fox]

Been riding my mountain bike a lot more since January, averaging 100 miles a month. I will turn 56 this September and I feel great. I will probably throw in back packing as soon as the weather cools down a bit. I need to get ready for New Zealand hunt next June.

 

[Guy Miner]

DF - I've gone nuts on the bike this year, mostly the road bike, though I get out on the mountain bike time to time. I think mostly because I've connected with a bunch of friends who ride, mostly road bikes. It's just been a lot of fun. The group rides every morning, I join them two to five times a week, as my work schedule permits. Yesterday we did 60 miles. The first twenty were pretty fast, and mostly flat except for one big hill. As it got warmer, we hit more hills and this big fellow started hurting pretty good.

I had to really struggle the last ten or fifteen miles, trying to stay cool, hydrated, and to just keep going. Still we accomplished our ride in pretty good shape, and I'm going with them again here in about an hour. Thinking we'll go thirty or so with today's group. Sure has been fun, and I'm down roughly 20 pounds from winter.

Feeling pretty good about that!

Regards, Guy

 

[tddeangelo]

Guy,

I have 96 miles this week on my bike. Hoping to get out later and take an easier ride, should put me just over 100 for the week, plus I got 5 miles of running in, too (one 5-mile run, actually). I hope to get up over 100 per week on 4 rides, and up to two 5-mile runs. Would get me to the 100/10 I was targeting.