 Our next caller is Alex from Reno. Hey, what's up, Alex? How can we help you? Hey, guys, yeah, I was reaching out. I had a question regarding some programming. So a little background, a few years ago, I got really into backcountry hunting. And yeah, something that just really became a passion of mine. But I've kind of had a hard time programming my training to give me in the best shape possible for that. And I was a college athlete. And I have some experience with training for performance, especially explosive performance. I was a pitcher, so that a lot of the stuff we're doing there is really quick, fast twitch muscle movements. So I have a good understanding of how to train for that. But something I've struggled with over the years that I've realized is when you're on these long days hiking through the mountains with anywhere from 20 to 100 pounds in your pack, I find myself burning out really fast within the first couple of hours. I feel great first thing in the morning. But by late morning, after a couple of miles in, I find my body is just kind of beaten down. And I've had a hard time getting to a point where I have that kind of all day performance, all day endurance. And so I was curious, what you guys think would be the best way for me to go about programming my training? I do a lot of strength training. I really enjoy that. I got that from training for sports in college. And I try to work in some cardio where I can. But yeah, how would you guys suggest balancing out some strength training as well as the cardio to give me the best shape possible come hunting season? Start building up your work capacity. Yeah. I would say always your best bet is to train. The best way you could train for specific activities to do more of that activity. So if you want to get good at hiking with weight on your back, I would incorporate more of those into your workouts. Like once a week, do a long hike with a pack filled with enough weight to simulate what it would be. One of those weighted vests or something. Yeah, because there's a lot of skill involved, right? So you can be strong with weight. You can do squats. You can do all these exercises, which are great. They give you general strength. But there's a lot of skill involved with specific activities, including the one that you're talking about. Now, as far as workout programs are concerned, the two programs that we have that would probably benefit you the most would be like MAPS OCR or MAPS Strong. I'm also going to recommend some supplements to you to help you out a little bit. So if you utilize caffeine, what I would recommend doing is about a month before you do a big hunt, is I would wean yourself off caffeine completely. And that way you can use it for when you're out and doing your thing. So you're very sensitive to it. And then what you could do is you could have a small dose in the morning, and you could have a couple more doses throughout the day. And it's like magic. When your body is sensitized to caffeine, it is actually a very powerful drug. And then the second supplement I'll recommend is Cordyceps. Cordyceps are phenomenal for stamina and endurance, especially if you're cold or hot. It's one of the best supplements for doing that. But in terms of increasing your work capacity, you're going to want to simulate what you're doing at least one day a week to really maintain that skill for what you're doing. Yeah, I would echo that. But honestly, I'd steer you a little bit more towards Strong, because that was one of the main programs where we were focused on work capacity. We're adding that in as more volume in between. And a lot of ways to do that with farmer carries, lots of carries with weight. Just getting you the time and experience with having and holding weights and building up that muscle endurance and that grip endurance. OCR is great, but I think in terms of Cordyceps, you want it to be as specific as possible. So like Sal said, with a rucksack or a weighted vest would be great, but also just carrying things constantly in between your foundational days, I think would have a lot of benefit for it. I'll be even more specific. So if you were a client of mine, you would absolutely, I'd have you run MAP Strong. On that program, you have two days where you have these work sessions. One of them, I'd have you run exactly how it is in the programming. The second one would be, I would ask you to go outside and do exactly this, but I'd be even more specific there. So you know when you have these days where you go out and you go hunt, I don't know what the bouts look like. Do you normally hike for about an hour and a half straight, 30 minutes straight, whatever that is, I'm gonna try and emulate that in your training during the week. Okay, you're gonna go for this uphill hike, get a backpack that's weighs 80 pounds in your back, go hard for 30 minutes, hour, whatever bouts that you do and do that a couple of times for the day. And that training, I'm doing that at least once per week in your training. And then you have what's programmed already for you in MAP Strong. That I think is perfect for what you're trying to do. Yeah, that makes sense. Cause yeah, a lot of it is, yeah, you're busting your butt up a hill or walking a ridge for, yeah, an hour or two. And then you're sitting down, glassing, using your binos for a couple of hours and you get up and hike some more. So yeah, it's definitely a lot of start and stop there, but there are, yeah, definitely an hour or two of some really intense work there. And of course there's gonna be some days where I totally understand that you just said, it's not feasible to get outside and go do that. This is where it actually makes sense for the guy in the gym who's wearing that vest, walking on the incline up, you see this all the time and I always laugh because it's always somebody who's doing it to lose weight or to build muscle, but you are the guy that actually should be doing this. You are the guy that you are trying to emulate exactly the way you would be training out there or going out there hunting and stuff. So it makes a lot of sense because you want to get adapted to that. You wanna get good at that. You're not doing it because you wanna lose a bunch of weight. You're not doing it because you wanna build a bunch of muscle. You wanna get good at putting a backpack that's 80 pounds on your back and either going up a flight of stairs or going up an incline on a treadmill. So it makes sense for you to be that guy who's in the gym if you can't get outside and go do it. For sure. All right, well thanks for calling Alex and we're gonna send you maps strong for free. So you'll get access to that. Awesome, I appreciate it. No problem, thanks for calling. Yeah, I can't stress this enough. Like if you wanna get good at a specific skill, then priority in your training, not the only thing you should do because you definitely should do cross training and other things to prevent things like injury and to augment your performance. But the priority should be that thing that you do. You wanna get good at football? You're supplementing everything else around that thing. You're trying to get good at this. There is a thing though you have to understand a little bit with this. So this guy is not, he's not doing this professionally. It's not, I mean it is a sport in a sense, right? So that the sport specificity does apply what you're saying. But I also don't think he's trying to go out and go do three hikes a week out to emulate his hunting season where he goes for two or three months. He wants to probably live a normal life, train in the gym most of the time. Maybe like two or three, like a couple months before, eight weeks, right? Then you start to prepare by doing the specific stuff. Yeah, but I mean, there's definitely like a program like Strong that I think is gonna have tremendous carryout. You're right. Like, okay, so if I had to compare the guy who three months of going out and hiking three or four times a week and with the backpack versus the guy who trains MAP Strong, the guy with the backpack is actually still gonna do better at doing that because it's very, very specific. But the reality of that, who's gonna go really go do that when it's not like your... Well, and I think too, like a lot of times people have the idea that if it's something that requires endurance, like immediately they're gonna go run or they're gonna go walk like crazy miles instead of like loading their body with weight and making them actually like hold onto things and in their grip, like building up like that kind of muscle endurance is a totally different objective. It's just a specific skill. Like you can be great fitness, never hike for 20 miles with 80 pounds on your back, put 80 pounds on your back and all of a sudden it's like, why are my traps on fire? Oh my gosh, it's hurting the skin over here. My knee's hurting because you don't have that skill. You never do it. You gotta get adapted to it. Well, that's why I love pointing out too because I mean, I know we've made fun of the guy like that in the gym, right? So, but here is the guy who does... Makes sense. It makes sense. This is not like, you see people do this a lot, right? They throw the weight vest on, they work out because they want to burn more calories thinking they're gonna get leaner by doing this or they're gonna build more muscle by having this on there. It's like, no, that's the silly reason to do this. But if you want to get good at training with 80 pounds on your back, that makes a lot of sense. I can't even make fun of the guy with the altitude mask anymore. Right. This is me off.