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

I was thinking more along the lines of getting some sort of method to resemble the pressure of a boat I guess. I do lots of regular shoulder stuff. Pretty satisfied with that.   It sounded like YB had some sort of special training method. I dunno.

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

-YB