Excellent DD! Keep on truckin

Three walks this week: Monday (5.7 mi), Wednesday (6.25 mi), and Friday (5.5 mi) but my pack weight at the moment is only 20-25 pounds.   Today was especially difficult ... wasn't really mentally ready for 85 degrees and sunny!

Time to step up the weight in my pack.  (BTW Kingfisher:  I can't DRINK sand!)

dd

mastertangler wrote on Mar 18^th, 2011 at 12:57am:

WOW!

Instruments of positive change are a good thing!

Dudes
I've been rockin. I'm up to about 3 miles per day with my full pack and bags. Of course it's flat so I'm not sure it really counts that much but I'm movin along pretty good. I've been able to add strength workouts into the mix as well. Knot between my shoulders is all but gone. As soon as I hit 4 miles per day for a week it will be time for some cross training. I went from 207 to 194 and now it's coming off quicker around the middle.

What I'm most pleased with is recovery. When I started in Oct. I was getting halfway through a video or a walk and I would get mentally tired. Like I wanted to take a nap. That was very much new to me. I understand getting physically tired but mentally tired from physical exertion has never happened to me before. (it's the big five "O" baby!). Now I'm just ready for more and lovin it. No more being tired! Still haven't got the swagger though.........probably won't get that until after the trip .

I have some folk to thank. If I hadn't been encouraged to bite off an ambitious trip I would of never thought to get into decent shape. Once I get into decent shape I have full intention of staying there. Never underestimate the power of being an encouragement to someone. Just a few positive words can potentially change some ones life. (one thing leads to another.....but it has to have a start.......a seed that is planted)

Well, enough philosophizing. My sincere thanks....you know who you are.

Al




 

Weights in a blanket the quickest method of all. Add a few pounds each trip. Unfortunately I have to hike through a somewhat urban area, but I try to climb up and down little walls as I walk, plus walk on slanted curbs to build up the ankles. I know MT was asking specifically about shoulders, and conditioning them to the friction and pressure, but this beats up the shoulders too.

-- kypaddler

DentonDoc wrote on Mar 11^th, 2011 at 5:48am:


I started out with frozen gallon jugs of water and that worked pretty good especially in the summer heat when it functioned as a sort of back cooler. The only problem was that the ice/water was too bulky and I didn't have any room in the pack to carry anything else. The sand provided the weight at about half the volume and it conforms to the back better.

Kingfisher wrote on Mar 11^th, 2011 at 5:34am:

I use the same idea, except I use left over plastic water bottles (refilled with tap water).  Its a bit cleaner than sand and you can add in known increments of weight.  And if a water bottle springs a leak ... well, its just water.

I started carrying a pack on my walks beginning March 1.  I still do the same 5 1/2 - 6 miles and try to keep the same pace as before I added the pack.  Its usually 1.5 - 1.75 hours for my route, which is mostly over mountain biking trails--narrow, lots of rocks, some climbing/descending, etc--this is about as rough a trail as I can find in my area.  And to help you keep your focus, you have kamikaze mountain bikers headed right for you that you have to step out of the way of.

dd

Not so much for muscle building but for toughening up the shoulder area for the pressure and friction of a yoke and canoe hauling is to hike with a loaded backpack or more specifically, a rucksack. Forego any kind of waistbelt and let your shoulders do all the work. I load mine with 30lbs of sand and set off on a fairly rugged trail. There is definitely some tenderness across the shoulders the first few times until the area toughens up for the season.

mastertangler wrote on Mar 9^th, 2011 at 7:09pm:

Nothing special here MT.  My thoughts are to toughen the muscles a bit. There is a machine at the gym that isolates the deltoids.  It sits you with your upper arms down, then you rotate them out and up to horizontal against a resistance.  Another one I like is to hold the dumbells in front of the waist and raise them to chin level.  This works deltoids, biceps, and the muscles between neck and shoulders (name of ??).  I agree the vertical shoulder press is good, but need to avoid because it agrravates my lower back when stacking enough weight to do any good.
My yoke pads are made up of a 3" thick piece of open cell furniture cushion over a 1" piece of closed cell material which has more stiffness. The idea is the softer furniture cushion mushes down over the shoulder and distributes the weight to a larger area.  The stiffer piece is a secondary cushion as the soft foam will compress solid where the load concentrates.  I also keep the pad assembly slightly loose so that it can be bumped laterally along the yoke while carrying.  Helps to find the sweet spot and then to allow the shoulders to relax.

KF,
You might be interested in an encounter I had on the Monument Portage. I met this solo dude that seemed to fit the build of the ideal voyaguer.  He was single portaging, one large pack hanging low off his back, another on top of it supported by a tump line, a third hanging from his teeth.  How he had then gotten his oversize wood/canvas canoe on top this load is anyones guess.  He grumbled something in French as he passed by.  I apparently didn't yield the path quickly enough.  He looked vaguely familar.  I later asked my wife, "was that . . . ?" "Yep."   (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

-YB