Sensible training plans can still cause considerable tiredness in the legs over the course of the week. Long walks, loaded climbs, strength training and weekend scouting can all be placed on top of a busy work and family schedule. The key to all of this is to recognize the purpose of recovery, to be able to tell when you are no longer gaining benefit from your hard work and to find time to move throughout the week at a low enough intensity to maintain your general hiking fitness without causing unnecessary damage.
Start with the demands of the hunt
This workout should mimic the types of tasks you'll need to complete on the hunt. So a long walk on even terrain to develop endurance for steady-state activity would be a good place to start. Uneven and rough terrain for improving agility and changing direction quickly, loaded packs for endurance while carrying weight, and standing quietly for long periods of time. Even simple decisions while tired would be an important one to train for as well.
You have a number of demands that you can prepare for in the week. Your hunting is going to involve steady walking, uneven terrain, loaded carrying, long periods of standing still, and long periods of time spent out in the woods. As such, you want to practice all of these aspects in your training. However, remember that each of these demands require different training and thus different sessions.
Of course, you have to be willing to trade off in order to reach your goals, but I think in this case it is worth noting that in order to reach your goals for hunting, having enough recovery time in order to complete evenly demanding workouts to train for your specific demands of hunting would be better than to try to complete an over abundance of hard workouts in order to try to reach your goals for the season.
Distinguish useful fatigue from a warning sign
Tired muscles from a long unusual effort may need a few days of gentle movement, good nutrition, rest and normal activity to recover completely. However, unusual aches, sorenesses, pains or weakness while training outdoors is a warning sign of potential injury. These include: pain that changes your normal gait; swelling; numbness or weakened areas; pain that gets worse during the session but eases as you start to warm up.
Functionally test yourself to determine if you need to replace a tough workout with recovery time or modify the activity so that you can complete it without causing injury. Are you able to walk normally? Can you go up and down stairs without compensating for pain? Can you complete the activity that caused the problem for you previously and complete it for reps with good form? If not, then either recover or don't do that activity. Seek appropriate medical attention for persistent or severe symptoms and don't attempt to train through them.
Keep a simple log after your hard sessions. Briefly record the activity, surface, intensity and load, your sleep and your normal daily activity. After a few days you will begin to see patterns emerge and it will help you to identify the causes of painful hot spots on your feet for example. Are they your boots, insoles or pack, or are you simply jogging in circles on hard surfaces and wearing inadequate socks?
Give recovery days a job
The purpose of rest days is to ensure that training is not having an excessive impact on the body. This doesn't mean that the individual must be totally idle on their days off from demanding training.
For recovery do some of the following to aid recovery. A short casual stroll may help release tension in very stiff people. Some gentle mobility work can be beneficial as long as it does not cause pain. Lightweight domestic work can help people who are very fatigued from a number of sources. People with heavy legs who have had poor sleep and are feeling increasingly fatigued and starting to feel decreasing concentration for work may be best to take complete rest.
Finally, recovery can include some simple routine activities to ensure you are recovering properly, such as: replacing wet clothing, looking after your feet, eating proper nutritious meals, drinking when thirsty, and getting proper sleep. Do not turn a recovery day into another 'hard' workout of yours.
Place hard sessions where they can succeed
It's also important to consider the overall calendar when scheduling hard training sessions. Ensure you have adequate sleep and that you're not piling too much high cost activity together. For example, a hard Saturday hike followed by leg training and another long walk the following day would leave you fatigued and unable to determine cause of fatigue.
An alternating hard and easy work-out with a recovery period after your longest trip for the week could be a good training program. Remember to work around your schedule for work and other daily activities, your age, your prior training experience, and your current state of fitness. Train as if you were going on actual outdoor trips.
On the other hand, don't allow one poor night of sleep to prevent you from going for a run the next day. If you find that you've got a number of poor nights of sleep in a row, then it's time to start looking at your schedule and see if you can't complete the same amount of work in less time by decreasing the length, intensity or frequency of your workouts.
Adjust equipment before adding effort
Your training gear is expensive. Make sure that you are not using it to make long, difficult training sessions that are to be done on rough terrain, on long journeys in and out of the hills, on high energy expenditure, all to get little in return. Make sure that you have trained on your gear before you use it on a long, hard training session.
The basics of being to carry packs over rough terrain need to be checked first: is the pack sitting correctly on the back, not pulling you back, are all the straps correctly adjusted. Try a short trip first to check for any irks. Introduce new items such as socks and footwear one at a time and test them out on a short trip before subjecting your poor worn out body to long harder trips.
You have a system to test out your outdoor gear before heading out on long adventures but don't want to subject your joints to too much stress in your training. This means you can train with realistic weights and or distances but cut the length or intensity of some of your training sessions.
Keep a record and revise without drama
Keep a simple log of your sessions that includes details of the activity, your perception of the effort involved, the terrain, the load, any areas of discomfort or other symptoms that affect your movement. Include how you felt the following day.
Only changing one aspect of your training will mean you can more easily see the effects that it has had. So for example if you've been getting sore shins from running then reducing the distance that you run each time will more easily highlight whether or not it is the running itself that is causing your problem.
Recovery days can still include some outdoor-related activity, for example exercising easily on smooth surfaces. Remember to keep easy movement easy. Use warning signs as information not as more 'hard work' to overcome.
