I’ve always been a fan of the show Heartland Bowhunter (even more so when Jeff Simpson was still a part of that production). I found this show called Montana Wild through a thread of Archery Talk and I think you’ll enjoy the hunts they video out in the Big Sky state of Montana. Check ‘em out. Episodes 1-3 of their 2011 season are up on their website now and they are great!

As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the workouts we are doing are adaptations of motions that the Crossfit workout program advocates. Sometimes, we just commit suicide and do what Crossfit actually recommends. In April 2nd’s case, it was a workout called “Manion” after a Marine who lost his life on the Afghanistan battlefield.

7 sets of 400 meter run with 29 weighted front squats in between each run. I did 55 pounds on the barbell and it was all I wanted (Crossfit recommends 135 pounds…yea right, psychos!). Didn’t fully recover until about 4 days later as it took me 32:30 to complete. Probably the most exhausting workout we’ve tackled yet, but there is absolutely no doubt that we are honing and refining our bodies to be better steep mountain tackling, heavy pack toting, elk killing machines come September.

In our training, we are moving from all-out strength building motions to a combination of that and stamina/endurance exercises. In other words, workouts are starting to suck!

April 16
5 motion rotation for 3 sets (1 minute each motion with 1 minute rest between each complete rotation)
26 pound kettlebell squats, 53 pound kettlebell swings, knee tuck jumps, jumping pull-ups, and shoulder press with 40 pound barbell.
Rep count is total motions completed during each complete rotation 107x90x66
Awful!!!!!

April 18
Curls, shoulder flys, burpees
Nothing too crazy, just keeping my rotator cuff limber with some light weights.

April 19
Split squats (same as front squat except one leg is forward and one is back in a “lunge” position)
10 each leg 85 pound x 95 x 95 x 105 x 115
10 lateral jumps in between (hard to explain, maybe I’ll post a Youtube video some day on this)

April 21
80 Burpees in 4 sets of 20
40 Pullups in 4 sets of 10

April 23
Deadlifts
3 sets of 5 with 215 pounds x 225 x 235
Considering my previous single rep best for deadlift was 245, I’m well on my way to crushing that mark next time
Took on my first 7 minute burpee challenge – wring them out as fast as you can for 7 minutes. I got 84. Still trying to catch my breath on that one.

April 24
Serious endurance workout
225 meter run x 10 reps with 1 minute time limit
Rest remainder of the 60 seconds you have, then get a :20 set of as many pullups as possible before running your next 225 meter run when the clock trips over the next minute.

April 25
Went shed hunting at my study site and toted my Badlands pack for almost 2 hours with a 40 pound sack of pelletized lime strapped in.

April 28
Not a full workout, but I was over at Pete’s and decided to conquer the 53 pound kettlebell which had squashed me on previous attempts at Turkish get-ups. Got it a couple times easily with both right and left arms. Progress…

April 29
Shoulder flys and curls
97 Burpees (hate it when I miss a day in the 100 day challenge!)

April 30
35 pound Kettlebell squats, swings, and lunges
10…9…8… …1
My previous time was right over the 10:00 mark, but I struggled to finish at the 12:30 mark this time. Late supper and my drive to best my previous 50 burpee time just before almost caused me to see my supper again… Good example of a workout not necessarily up to standards, but driving through it and building mental toughness.

Hurray for my 50 burpee time though as I dropped it to an even 3 and a half minutes!

There is more to our fitness regime than just getting faster, more powerful, and not tiring out so easily. Mental fortitude is just as important. Read Pete’s piece on this facet of what has turned out to be an awesome first 10 weeks of physical training.

My bow is for sale – I’ll explain the reason why later, but it is definitely not for negative reasons.

Go here to buy my old set-up!

I suffered my first injury since starting our workouts with a strain of my left rotator cuff. I think it was due to the 75 pound thrusters on March 28, but from April 1st until about the 10th I had limited range of motion and did a lot of stretching with a resistance band and using doorways to stretch my shoulders. Had some definite pain a couple days and I could feel/hear a popping noise that seems to have quieted down as I’ve slowly worked back into shoulder workouts. April 13th’s workout took all of 5 minutes but was a test of how my shoulder was feeling and everything checked out okay. Monday’s workout (April 16) was a doozy with plenty of shoulder activity and I seem to be completely back in working order.

April 1
Didn’t waste any time tackling a slightly tweaked version of a previous workout…
20 weighted lunges (35 pound kettlebell)
100 m sprint
5 sets for time (8:28)
Day 21 of the burpee challenge.

April 3
50-20 pound curls each arm
Swung a maddock and shoveled dirt in my mother-in-law’s new garden for 2 or 3 hours this afternoon…Great arm workout day!

April 7
Front squats – 35 pound kettlebell – sets of 20 reps
Burpees – sets of 10
5 sets of alternating motions…Time – 10:17

April 9
Front squats with barbell
10 reps x 95 2 sets x 10 reps x 105
1 set x 10 reps x 115 1 set x 7 reps x 125
Set a benchmark to re-visit at a later date for the standing broad jump of 82″
50 Burpees for time (3:47.78)
What a day of shaving Burpee time and getting another 10 lbs on the front squat! Even cleaned the weight on my first attempts for the 2 heavier sets which was a vast improvement from 3 weeks ago.

April 10
New movement for me today – sumo deadlift highs with a 40 pound barbell
1 minute on then 2 minutes rest (5 rounds)
I got 32 x 33 x 28 x 27 x 26 reps

April 12
Such an innocent sounding workout but did 200 walking lunges. Ouch!

April 13
Turkish get-ups with 35 pound kettlebell
5 per arm
65 Burpees to combine Days 32 and 33 of 100 burpee challenge

April 14
Kettlebell squats and swings 10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1
Didn’t have my phone to set the stop watch

Here’s the link if you decide you are interested in the 3 pack of sharpeners, but you can also pick up individual sharpeners for around $10 bucks apiece.

If you think your knife is dull after field dressing or skinning a white-tailed deer, just imagine what an animal with thicker hide, more hair, and heavier bone can do to a 4 inch skinning blade in a 2 or 3 hour skinning/quartering affair. If weight wasn’t a concern, I’d love to have a big block sharpener that only a few licks restores a razor knife edge, but this is about weight shaving yet maintaining high performance gear. I don’t think you’ll find a better system (you might find an equally good system in a lightweight set of sharpening rods or pull-through style sharpener). Each “credit card” weighs about 45 grams or 1.6 ounces, so the whole system weighs 5 ounces.

I’m going to do some more testing to see which cards I’ll be carrying, but I assure you that at least 1 or not 2 will be staying behind as I continue to shave those ounces.

You’ve heard me talk about Bushnell Trophy Cam trail cameras before (click here for my extensive product review), but I never thought I’d be considering them as must have elk equipment. The truth is that in the game of saving ounces a trail camera is probably going to be out of the question entirely. That is until I made a few adjustments to my camera and think I’ve reduced the payload to where it may make at least the first hike with me as we’ll be hunting in the early season on wallows and water holes – golden opportunities to employ trail cameras for scouting purposes.

Instead of loading up the camera with 8 cheap AA batteries, I replaced the 8 alkaline AA batteries with 4 (camera will run off a minimum of 4 batteries but up to 8 if desired) Lithium batteries which are more powerful and lighter weight than their alkaline counterparts. Removing the manufacturer’s straps and buckles saved some more weight and I was able to squeeze 2 mini-bungee cords where the other 4 batteries used to be.

All told, I’ve now got a modified trail camera that can serve as an extra set of eyes for the load carrying price of 11 ounces. Again, it will probably spend the majority of the trip in the truck, but in the warmer temperatures when water holes may be the hot ticket, it could prove extremely valuable. There may be a lighter weight alternative but I sure don’t know of one.

I decided that this was an item that hopefully never gets even a passing thought while we are away on our 2+ week adventure, but if we do need it will be worth its weight in gold (which is actually only 1 ounce).

My first aid kit is going to be pretty bare bones, but this wasn’t an item was willing to leave behind. Knowing that a bad wound can mean infection and a great deal of pain is bad enough, but when 3 or 4 guys are wielding knives around a downed elk and somebody slashes the wrong way, you might be looking at more than just a minor inconvenience.

QuikClot pouches aren’t cheap, but they are simple to use and may be the fastest way to get an open wound to clot up and close. Again, not an item I hope we have to use, but if called upon we’ll be glad for the investment.

Auburn University’s EcoDog Program is a new way to tackle old problems. People aren’t very efficient at finding small things in the woods, but when there is a characteristic scent associated with those items a dog can be a valuable asset. From finding skunk poo to tracking down Florida’s problem pythons to sniffing out pine tree diseases, these dogs have dealt with a wide gamut of natural resource issues.

Right now, a few of the dogs are being trained to find shed antlers to aid in Auburn University’s white-tailed deer research program. I went out with them on Wednesday and today to get them some practice and they are catching on pretty well. Deer antlers apparently have a small scent cone, but combining sight and scent I think the dogs have a good chance of being successful shed hunters.

I didn’t take any pictures of the antlers we picked up the last couple days, but once the spring concludes and full green-up puts the shed hunting out of business, I will pull out some notables and relate them back to some of the bucks I chased this fall.