Non hiking season non-summer fitness activities?

[SSSdave]

Few alpine skiers backpack and instead many mountain bike summers while few backpackers alpine ski though a few do cross country ski. Am wondering what other types of athletic and outdoor activity pursuits Sierra backpacking members herein participate in during the late fall through early spring periods? Of course some may backpack and hike in local coastal and desert areas but what else?

This person that has never had gym memberships and lives in a dense urban zone, skis winters and all year street aerobic exercises, especially much walking.

[windknot]

I do a lot of walking (on a walking pad at my standing desk at work on weekday mornings, outside on weekends), cycling, and indoor bouldering. I'm also starting to paddle with a local outrigger canoe club.

[CAchief]

SOT kayaking, local day hikes, gym, walks and chasing two young kids around! My dog was my motivator to get out for daily, 5 a.m. 2 mile walks and weekly hikes, but he passed in December and some of my motivation left with him unfortunately.

[c9h13no3]

I have a Strava account if you want the day to day. But basically lots of trail running & mountain biking. Sprinkle in skiing once the snow gets good, and some weighted hikes. I really like the winter, as my weekend drive gets so much shorter

[dave54]

I am too old and no longer interested in messing with the cold white stuff, so I pack up the RV and head to Arizona for a couple months every year. I hike and bike ride in the desert.

[shawnterustic]

I love walking so, so much (clearly), so I do long urban rambles as well as hikes (I'm in SoCal). I also lift weights, do yoga, run, and ride a stationary bike from time to time - and I still backpack in the winter

[Lenier]

I never stop hiking in the Sierra, nor do I stop backpacking. Luckily there are quite a few foothills trails (including cross country!) that actually provide me with more frequent hiking opportunities in winter.

[giantbrookie]

Some folks' "off season" fitness activities are discussed in the Outdoor Boot Camp forum, but they aren't really discussed in a single thread like this one.

I do in fact continue to hike at lower elevations during the "off season" and I have various athletic and training routines that continue throughout the year.

I have never been a skiier (briefly tried it in my young adult years and was a hazard to myself and others on the same slope) nor have I done alpine winter hiking/backpacking. In fact my "off season" athletic regimen has changed somewhat with age. From about age 14 to 40 or so I played a lot of basketball and playing a lot of full court basketball as well as conditioning I did to play more effectively helped me stay reasonably fit in the off season for High Sierra hiking. Chief among my basketball training exercises that benefitted hiking was running stadium bleachers (run uphill but walk/jog downhill). Playing basketball resulted in injuries, knee injuries in particular, that impeded my summer hiking, but the rehabilitative routine I put in to recover and play again also benefitted my hiking. My first knee operation in 1978 started my never-ending commitment to quad building exercises, especially quad extensions isolating the weaker knee (right one for decades but now sort of toggles between right and left). In addition, the fact that I am an undersized basketball player (a touch under 5'11") also led me to begin strength training to improve my upper body strength so keep me from getting too easily tossed around by bigger players. The upper body strength helped me with off trail scrambling/mountaineering stuff, and I think it has also helped prevent or reduce injuries from various falls I've taken.

Hurting my lower back one day while stretching too much (and without enough warm up) prior to playing basketball when I was 21 resulted in recurring back spasms and blow outs from age 21 to about age 52. This eventually was mitigated by more intense core training, specifically doing the plank (holding it for longer than 10 min at time) so that beyond age 52 my back was way better than it had been from age 21 to 52.

As I aged I progressively reduced the amount of basketball I played until I all but quit in my mid 40s. The only period of "old time" basketball activity since then was at around age 60 when some of my students coaxed me back on the court, where I started to play fairly regularly again until COVID closed the gyms. I am now trying to avoid a basketball relapse which is really not a good thing for someone of 65. "Some people have a drinking problem, I have a basketball problem"

The most significant addition to my training regimen in recent years, both off season and during hiking season, was starting weighted neighborhood hikes in the summer of 2022. In addition to I do weighted climbs up stairwells, usually in the Science 2 Building at Fresno State where my faculty office is (when I'm there instead of in the eastern Bay Area). The packweight varies from 30lbs to greater weight (sometimes in the 50+ lb range). These began in response to me hiking weakly with Lee (son) and Dawn (daughter) that summer, probably impacted by low testosterone resulting from treatment of my prostate cancer. By the end of the summer of 2022 the weighted training hikes were driving greatly improved hiking performance. I have tried to keep up these training hikes through off season and during season since then.

Starting in 2005 I began to do more local (Coast Ranges, mainly) hikes for the purposed of geologic mapping for my research. I hadn't done that much off season low elevation hiking prior to that.

Whereas my strength training was initiated for injury rehab and injury prevention, it has developed into an end in itself. There is an extent to which as an older person, one's performance in the gym becomes a sort of spectator sport. As I've aged I've had to add or subtract parts of my routine. I didn't do my first muscle up until I was 55 but it became a signature of mine until I quit doing them at about age 63. A lot of injuries and range of motion issues resulted from those muscle ups. I couldn't fully straighten either of my arms and I still have some issues with my right shoulder that I recall first injuring when doing a "field muscle up" while climbing during fieldwork in Taiwan in 2017.

My arms can now properly straighten though. In the meantime, my bench press strength had declined from regularly doing sets of 5 reps on 225 to struggling to put up a single rep at that weight (to topping out at 185 following the COVID shutdown). COVID kept me out of the gym from early 2020 to late summer 2022, but I'm back in the gym regularly. Other than muscle ups the only COVID-era standard I set was a new push up PR for myself of 110 in a single set. I don't do muscle ups now but will do normal pull ups (sets of 15 to recent PB of 25) and weighted ones (up to 45 lbs on chain, but main workout weight right now is 25). Bench strength has been very slowly inching back, but the most 225 reps in set I've done since about 2018 is 3 (last fall sometime and yesterday). I started emphasizing incline press more than in the old days. Last Thursday I hit a new incline PR of 225 (old PR was 205). Kinda cool to hit a PR at age 65. It is also inspiring to see folks much older than me hitting the weights hard; this includes some folks that are stronger than me.

So my strength training is year-round as are my weighted training hikes. I also do more saltwater fishing during the off season, although this doesn't really involve much hiking, be it hiking out on jetties, or clambering around rocky shorelines. But the High Sierra hiking season is not quite over this year.

[Gogd]

• Walks in the Palos Verdes Nature Reserve. With and without a pack. This is actually a collection of several nature areas located in different parts of the PV peninsula. Some of the trails are very steep with over 700' elevation gain.
• My "off season" backpack trips are taken in the high desert. In fact I will be out for several days in the Joshua Tree vicinity the first week of November. The desert hikes cover fairly level ground, but no water at camp makes for a pretty heavy pack for a four day trip.
• We have a 5 story parking structure two blocks away. I go up and down, repeatedly, equating to climbing/descending 100 flights of stairs. I'll be doing that as soon as I log off HST.
• If I get really bored, I'll walk along LA's South Bay ocean coastline.

Ed

[Wandering Daisy]

My main concern with off-season activity is that I do not injure myself or aggravate my arthritis. Younger people probably to not have to worry so much about that. Most injuries I get in the winter have nothing to do staying in shape for backpacking. I now have a chronic achy hip bone from falling down on slick pavement while walking the dog. Some injuries have been caused by yard work and gardening or poor form with lifting. Although a moot point where I live now, I quite shoveling snow in my 30's due to always getting injured.

I really do not do much except 3-5 miles of urban walking every day which mostly keeps my feet in shape. I am also careful not to gain much weight over the winter.

I still find that it only takes the first or second backpack trip to get back in shape. I suppose if you want to do hard-core long distance per day backpacking you would need more training during the off-season. My backpacks are pretty moderate.