Cardio options?

[asdf]

Summer(ish) employment with the Forest Service. Lots of traipsing up and down hills with a pack.
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Maybe week 6/easy week/repeat week 6.
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It's mostly the step-ups.).

Sounds like a great job and a good plan for extending the program. Yes, weighted step-ups suck. I think you'll find that hiking up hills is much easier. Good luck!

[Allentown]

Summer(ish) employment with the Forest Service. Lots of traipsing up and down hills with a pack.

Don't let @Allentown find out you have his dream job. He'll be so jealous.

Ugh. Conceptually, I love it. In reality, since I assume there isn't a nightly shower, I'd be angry after about 2 days.

[psmith]

Yes, weighted step-ups suck. I think you'll find that hiking up hills is much easier. Good luck!

Thanks m8. Yes, hills much easier than step-ups for the same elevation gain.

Ugh. Conceptually, I love it. In reality, since I assume there isn't a nightly shower, I'd be angry after about 2 days.

There are a few jobs that will have you living out of a pack or a saddlebag for days at a time, but most end up back at the ranger station at the end of the day. (Though I was living out of my truck my first season, so that doesn't guarantee a shower.).

And they're hiring!

[BigE]

After a couple of months I do like the C2. At first I was questioning what I had bought such a masochistic machine. I like it now, as my form has became much more efficient, and I have just a touch of conditioning. The first month or so, after a few minutes on it, I would roll off of it into the floor, and lay there waiting on the reaper. Nowadays, I can make it to my gym recliner and not have my wife trying to call 911.

[psmith]

I did it nearly a decade ago and didn't take any notes other than recording the workouts. But the training itself was a Rob Shaul Military Athlete program entitled "Afghanistan Pre-Deployment Training Plan."

For sure, I'm doing it myself right now (more or less), thought your description sounded familiar. Do you remember whether you thought it worked? Too much, too little, anything you would have done differently knowing what you know now?

The step-up/run supersets are an interesting idea. I've been doing my step-ups in boots anyway and I'm not crazy about repeatedly putting on/taking off a pack for short intervals, but then again, what the hell, no reason I couldn't do them in running shoes and as long as between-interval time is reasonably consistent from session to session who cares?

Man, I tried going back to this when I didn't know what to do (well, to be exact, it was this one https://mtntactical.com/shop/hotshot-cr ... g-program/ which is actually specific to what I'm training for.). Was really enjoying it for about the first three weeks and then the wheels kinda came off. I don't know what to conclude from this experience, but it's pretty frustrating.

[asdf]

Man, I tried going back to this when I didn't know what to do (well, to be exact, it was this one https://mtntactical.com/shop/hotshot-cr ... g-program/ which is actually specific to what I'm training for.). Was really enjoying it for about the first three weeks and then the wheels kinda came off. I don't know what to conclude from this experience, but it's pretty frustrating.

I can relate. Although it's been years since I've used one of Shaul's programs, his progressions were often too aggressive for me.

(Not sure why I didn't see this post when you added it back in April. Hope your pre-season training ended up going well.)

[psmith]

Man, I tried going back to this when I didn't know what to do (well, to be exact, it was this one https://mtntactical.com/shop/hotshot-cr ... g-program/ which is actually specific to what I'm training for.). Was really enjoying it for about the first three weeks and then the wheels kinda came off. I don't know what to conclude from this experience, but it's pretty frustrating.

I can relate. Although it's been years since I've used one of Shaul's programs, his progressions were often too aggressive for me.

(Not sure why I didn't see this post when you added it back in April. Hope your pre-season training ended up going well.)

Thanks. I feel like it was manageable for me in the past, but I also had fewer knee issues then.

In hindsight, I'm pretty sure my best training block was the very easy unstructured stuff I was doing as a prelude to what I was thinking of as the real training cycle. Lesson there, though I still have to resolve some injuries before I can replicate even that.

[mbasic]