Get Your Feet Ready - Conditioning For The Mission
It is clear from the chatter that it is that time of year again. People are getting ready for big trips. They are getting their gear together and working on their physical conditioning. Outstanding! That is exactly what you should be doing but I want to reiterate an important point from previous articles. It is extremely important to condition your feet.
I have heard this from the SEALS in Coronado, the adventure athletes at Primal Quest and I know it from my own experience. If you want to push your body and your equipment to the limit and expect top performance from both, they have to be conditioned and tested routinely in preparation.
Lou Whitaker, the famous mountaineer, told me that the best exercise for mountaineering is mountaineering. If you are going to be humping heavy loads over rough terrain for extending periods of time then you had better be doing the same in your training. Your feet are an often overlooked but a critical piece of that equation. Here are a few suggestions
I have heard this from the SEALS in Coronado, the adventure athletes at Primal Quest and I know it from my own experience. If you want to push your body and your equipment to the limit and expect top performance from both, they have to be conditioned and tested routinely in preparation.
Lou Whitaker, the famous mountaineer, told me that the best exercise for mountaineering is mountaineering. If you are going to be humping heavy loads over rough terrain for extending periods of time then you had better be doing the same in your training. Your feet are an often overlooked but a critical piece of that equation. Here are a few suggestions
- Make sure that you are using the same sock/boot combinations in your training runs that you plan to use on the trip
- identify footwear problems early and fix them-persistant problems won''t just go away on their own, they will get worse
- make sure you clean and re-dress your boots often
- spend as much time as you can in the same type of conditions you expect to be in on your trip-altitude, grade, terrain, weather etc
- do extended training runs lasting several hours or more-funny how things that were hidden during hour 1 tend to reveal themselves in hour 5
- load your pack up and incorporate it into your regime-this improves core strength, balance and puts a proper test load on your feet/socks/boots
- do a thorough dress rehearsal or a shake out cruise to see what goes wrong and address it accordingly-minimize game day surprises
- Prior Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance-the 7 Ps will make you safer and more effective in the field which increases your chance of achieving the objective whatever it might be.
It boils down to common sense and discipline people. Like the old Chiefs say, the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
Thanks.
Wade Nelson
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Posted by Wade Nelson at Tuesday, September 22. 2009 
Categories: Feet, Wilderness Medical
Tags: pre-trip conditioning trip preparation
Categories: Feet, Wilderness Medical
Tags: pre-trip conditioning trip preparation
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