There are a few types of athletes that come to mind who will regularly be putting themselves into these situations. Wildland firefighters, backcountry skiers, hunters, mountain guides, and military personnel top the list. I’ve worked with all of them professionally, so I’ll do my best to explain the mindset behind their programming and why I feel each aspect is so important.

Unconventional Training Method #1: Building Durability with Kettlebell Training

First and foremost is durability. In my opinion this is something that separates some of the best athletes in the world from those who are just good. The capacity to resist injury is incredibly important in the athletic world. You could be the best quarterback on the planet, but if you’re always hurt, you’re always on the sideline.

In the case of the above scenarios, durability can mean the difference between having a good story to tell your friends, or finding yourself in one of the scariest situations of your life. Imagine this one: you and your hunting partner are scouting for elk 4 miles into the wilderness and are crossing a small creek. Your partner slips on a rock and twists his knee, falling into the water. It’s October, you’re 8,000 feet above sea level, and you have only a couple of hours until it gets dark. Your partner can barely walk and now he’s soaking wet. What’s your play?

These situations can arise faster and easier than you might think, and it’s important to be as strong as possible to avoid getting hurt. We’ve all heard it: “Stronger people are harder to kill,” so my best advice for durability is to get strong. It’s like having a suit of body armor to protect you, and stronger tendons and ligaments will resist strains and tears better than weak ones.

I recommend focusing on the vulnerable areas such as knees, hips, and lower back by squatting, deadlifting, and pressing each week. These movements are simple, but they are the best for building a strong, stable core and joints. I’m partial to barbells, however you have to use what’s available, so kettlebells, dumbbells, and sandbags will do here as well.

Unconventional Training Method #2: Building Work Capacity with Sandbag Training

Your second goal of training is the capacity to work under a load. You can’t go multiple days without carrying gear, so you’ll undoubtedly be doing hours and hours with a backpack. I have a few exercises I like for this purpose, and they’re grueling! Sandbag Get Ups, sandbag shoulder carries, and high volume weighted step ups with a pack are the three that come to mind. The only way to get better at these is to put some weight on your shoulders and go for it.

A military athlete in Jackson, WY uses a step up test for the final piece of “Operator Ugly” involving 750 step ups onto a 16” bench in under 30 minutes. Oh, and you have to wear a 25lb pack or weight vest. This is a pretty good indicator of your ability to put your head down and work hard under weight for long periods of time – and it’s a freakin’ gut check!

It’s important to understand how much more work a 30-40 pound backpack causes over the course of a few days. That weight can cause a significant calorie deficit for someone who’s fit, let alone someone who doesn’t prepare. Cramping, exhaustion, or a simple lack of work capacity can slow down a group, and if you have a partner who isn’t used to carrying that load it gets to be a problem come day three of your trip.

You plan for a certain amount of food and water, so having to slow down and take extra time on the trails is not always a good option. Be mindful of how you hydrate and eat during these hikes, because you don’t want to dig yourself too far into a hole.

Unconventional Training Method #3: Building Stamina & Recovery with Bodyweight Training

Finally, we have stamina and the ability to recover. This is the reason I send my hunters on day-long 10-20 mile hikes over the weekend when they aren’t in the gym. You need to get your body used to the volume by actually getting on the trail a few times and pushing through a long one. We don’t have to get too crazy here, but going out for a 5-6 hour hike is going to help your body and brain adapt to the abuse it takes on the mountain over time, and trains you to recover better from day-to-day so that you don’t wake up in your tent too sore to move on the second day.

I also use a combination of high volume bodyweight squats and lunges to train the legs for this same thing. Then I suggest some eccentric loading exercises because skiing and downhill hiking or running require quite a bit of eccentric strength and endurance. You need to hit some longer days to build that stamina up, and I don’t really like people doing more than 60-90 minutes in the gym, so I send them onto the trail, sometimes having them put a few bottles of water or some big rocks in their pack to increase the weight for training purposes.

Putting It All Together: The “Hard to Kill” Unconventional Training Routine

The question now is how do we put all of this stuff together in an organized fashion to train for events? Depending on the athlete’s level of fitness, I like to start 6 or 8 weeks out and work up to some of the tougher days. I’ll outline what a typical week of training would look like for one of our guides or big game hunters who spend a lot of time out there grinding away on their own. It’s nothing glamorous, and it would be fairly repetitive over the training cycle but it would be progressive to ensure fitness gains in the areas that I see as important to the task.

Workout 1 – Monday

Warm Up
A1: Sandbag Get Ups: 10 min x 60lb bag

B1: Work up to a heavy Back Squat, then complete:

C1: Back Squat – 5 sets x 3 reps x 80% of your 1RM x 2-3 min rest

D1: Step Ups – 5 rounds x 100 reps (50 each leg) x 15lb backpack
D2: Weighted Sit Ups – 5 rounds x 15 reps x  25lb plate
D3: Push ups – 5 rounds x 15 reps
Rest 30 seconds between rounds

E1: Kettlebell Romanian Deadlift – 3 rounds x 8 reps
E2: Elevated Plank – 3 rounds x 60 sec

Workout 2 – Tuesday

Warm Up
A1: Jogging – 10 min x light stretching

B1: Air Squat – 7 rounds x 10 reps
B2: Lunges – 7 rounds x 5 reps each leg
B3: Jumping Lunges – 7 rounds x 5 reps each leg
B4: Jumping Squats  – 7 rounds x 5 reps
B5: Run 200m – 7 rounds
Rest 60 seconds between rounds.

Workout 3 – Wednesday

Warm up
A1: Jump Rope – 4 rounds x 60 sec
A2: Pull Up – 4 rounds x 5 reps
A3: Push Ups – 4 rounds x 10 reps
Light stretching and foam rolling

B1: Military Press – 5 rounds x 5 reps (increasing weight each round until 5 reps is hard)
B2: Weighted Pull Ups – 5 rounds x 5 reps

C1: Sandbag Shuttle – 6 rounds x 200m with 60 lb as fast as possible x 1 min rest

D1: Elevated Plank – 3 rounds x 60 sec
D2: Heavy Backwards Sled Drag – 3 rounds x 50m
D3: Single Leg Hip Bridge – 3 rounds x 15 reps (each side)

Workout 4 – Thursday

Recovery Day
A1: Run – 30 – 45 min moderate pace

Workout 5 – Friday

Warm Up
A1: Bike Ride – 3 rounds x 2 min
A2: Kettlebell Swings – 3 rounds x 10 reps x 44lb
A3: Bulgarian Split Squats – 3 rounds x 5 reps (each leg)
Light stretching

B1: Work up to a Heavy Deadlift

C1: Deadlift – 5 sets x 3 reps x 80% of 1RM x 2-3 min rest

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
D1:Sandbag Get ups – max rounds x 8 reps
D2:Ankels to Bar – max rounds x 8 reps
D3: Renegade Row max rounds x 8 reps x 20lb dbs
D4: Step ups – max rounds x 50 reps x 20lb pack

Workout 6 – Saturday

A1: Hike – 10 miles x 20lb pack

Workout 7 – Sunday

Full Rest

The post 3 Unconventional Training Methods That Will Make You Hard to Kill appeared first on Onnit Academy.

I’ve had the great fortune of training under one of the USA’s great weightlifting coaches in Steve Gough, who coached his son, Tom, to the ‘96 Olympics. In case you don’t know much about weightlifting, Tom snatched 167.5kg, and clean and jerked 210kg as a 91kg weightlifter – both are American Records in that class. It goes without saying that Steve comes highly regarded in the strength world. Most of what I know about getting strong comes from this grizzly old ex-marine and San Francisco police officer who has trained me for the last 5 years.

I know that strength means many different things to coaches and athletes around the world. Strength comes in many different forms, but as my experience grows I find that a few rules hold true in order to help bring each athlete to their greatest potential in the least amount of time. Stick to these, and you probably won’t become the next Tom Gough, but you might find yourself doing things you never thought possible.

Rule of Strength #1: Legs Feed the Wolf

Squat Heavy. Squat Often. Squat Deep. There is no substitute for the barbell squat. Period. This movement should be the primary strength builder in any program since it develops strength through the abs, hips, back, and legs as they work together to move a huge amount of weight over a long distance. Heavy squats stress the central nervous system and cause a favorable hormonal response that not only mobilizes fat to use as fuel, but helps to increase muscle mass and overall strength.

Wanna see your bench press go up? Yeah, keep benching, but try squatting more. Squatting deep, as in “ass to grass,” will engage more of the posterior chain, work more muscle mass, take pressure of the knees, and I’m pretty sure it helps cure cancer. Squat heavy (but with low volume) as often as five to ten times per week and watch your numbers start skyrocketing.

Rule of Strength #2: Think Bulgarian

In 1969 a man named Ivan Abadjiev took over the Bulgarian National Weightlifting Team. In a relatively short amount of time, coach Abadjiev took this little country of about 7 million people, and began destroying the rest of the world (including the powerful Soviet Union of 140 million) in international competition. No world record was safe from the Bulgarians. They attacked the bar with confidence and relentless aggression.

What was so unique about the way they trained was that they seemed to have no real “program” set in place. They simply went into the gym with a killer mindset each day, sticking to a few primary movements. Their focus on intensity and quality is what set their training regimen apart, and their discipline is without a doubt how they reached such a high level of dominance in the sport of international weightlifting. They trained hard everyday, and their bodies adapted. No matter your goals, strive to go to the gym each day with the same mindset of the Bulgarians.

Rule of Strength #3: Buddy Up – Get a Training Partner

The Bulgarians knew the value of competition; they competed in approximately 20 world cups, regional, and national championships each year. Their belief was that competitions were the best training sessions. I’m here to tell you from experience that this is true. When you put a motivated athlete into a competitive environment you see a different level of performance. This type of performance means a higher quality training session and therefore better results.

Here’s where a training partner comes into play; if you have someone keeping you accountable, pushing you, and challenging you, there are no off days. If someone that I should be out-squatting is getting close to my numbers, it only motivates me to do more no matter what I feel like that day. I’ve seen times where I practically crawl into the gym, thinking there’s no way I can lift that much, and then I see my training partner hit a 10# PR that beats mine, and just like that I’m raring to go. There is no better way to motivate yourself or one of your athletes than to pin them with (and against) a quality training partner. It may not be easy, but find one and you’ll see your training go to the next level.

Rule of Strength #4: Go Big or Go Home – Max Out Often

Maximum effort lifting has plenty of benefits, and according to researchers at the University of New Mexico, heavy loading induces a high degree of nervous system stimulation, which can last anywhere from five to thirty minutes. This potentiation (termed PAP) has gained much popularity in the strength world because it introduces a way for coaches to temporarily optimize power production in explosive activities such as sprinting, weightlifting, jumping, and throwing.

This means you can actually prime your nervous system for further activity by beginning your workout with a heavy strength exercise like squats or deadlifts. Going to do a sprint workout? Try warming up with a 1 rep max back squat and see if you’re ready to go hard and fast. Additionally, regular training at high intensity loads (high percentage of your 1RM) can help to increase the density of nerve impulses from the CNS. Basically, this means an athlete who trains this way will be able to recruit a greater amount of muscle fibers in a shorter amount of time – increasing power output significantly.

Rule of Strength #5: Transferability

Let’s face it – the barbell is the best way to build true, total body strength, but real life demands that you have the ability to move awkward and uneven loads. This is where kettlebells, sandbags, sledgehammers, ropes, tires, sleds, and slosh pipes come into play. Use these objects not as the primary builders of strength, but as the tools of transferring barbell strength to brute strength. These objects challenge your body in a different way and they are the most effective when built into your training with that concept in mind. An 80 pound barbell probably feels pretty light, but try moving an 80 pound sandbag around the same way; it’s a whole new monster.

So many sport programs utilize a periodization model, transitioning from preparation, interim, and competition phases of training. However, there is a school of thought amongst some very successful coaches (such as Gough and Abadjiev) that will throw that model away, stating that “…it is illogical to achieve outstanding results by working hard, and then simply go back to a lower level of performance.”

There will be days you don’t want to train, days you feel you can’t possibly train, and days when 135 pounds might as well be 435. If you find yourself there… you’re probably doing it right. Just keep pushing through and I promise that with time you will see the results.

Example Strength Workouts

Strength Workout #1

A: Warm up/Work to 1 Rep Max Front Squat
B: Work to 1 Rep max Clean & Jerk
C: 5×1 Clean & Jerk @ 95%-100% of 1RM
D1: 3x Kettlebell Turkish Get up to Windmill each side
D2: Sprint 60m
10 Rounds of D circuit. Rest 30-45 seconds.

Strength Workout #2

A: Warm up/Work to 1 Rep Max Back Squat
B: 4×2 Back Squats @ 85%-90% of 1RM
C: 5×4 Weighted Tarzan Pull ups
D1: 10x Heavy Sledgehammer Tire Strikes each side (20 total)
D2: 50m Heavy sled push
10 Rounds of D circuit. Rest 30 seconds.

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