Training for Treeplanting Part I

In order to finance our latest expedition, Justine and I have made the decision take up our planting bags once more and come out of tree planting retirement. There simply isn’t a better paying job for young people in our position. Planting money financed both our previous travels as well as our University educations. Now it’s time for one more big score.

Yet every year, Canadian youth (I guess there’s tree planting elsewhere in the World, but as far as I know it’s much less extensive) hear tales told of the massive wealth to be gained from taking up the bag and shovel, and head out to remote regions of BC, Alberta, Ontario or Quebec only to be bitterly disappointed to find planting isn’t what they expected and that they don’t have what it takes to succeed, or even endure this highly physical work.

With this in mind, it’s important, especially for the rookie planter starting their first season, to physically and mentally prepare for the coming ordeal. Since you’re payed by the tree, there’s plenty of incentive to ensure you’re in peak condition in order to plant the most trees you possibly can. I know I owe every ounce of my planting success to my physical prowess and mental toughness garnered from years of training. If you’re heading out for the Spring planting season, now is the perfect time to start training (if you haven’t already). You’ll have three solid months to progress up to reach peak performance just in time for when you start planting.

Adding sprints to your runs will improve you ability to race across the 'cream'. Running on the beach isn't a bad idea, either.

Most people I’ve planted with who talked about any training or preparations they made for the season seemed to put a strange emphasis on cardio. To be sure, cardio is essential. You need to have a good lung capacity and endurance to be able to keep up a steady pace all day long, and those long, gruelling runs build up mental toughness like nothing else. But what is often missed out on in extensive cardio training is the explosive power needed to really plant quickly. You can build this into your runs (and I do recommend running over cycling or ellipticals when it comes to planting training) by engaging in High Intensity Interval Training. This method, used by numerous athletes, including the Legendary Bruce Lee, allows you to go on lengthy, endurance building runs, while also developing speed and power. Basically, after you’ve gotten fairly comfortable with a running route (30 to 40 minutes running time seems good), instead of keeping the same, consistent pace the whole way through, every 300 feet or so, quickly speed up into sprinting as fast as you can for another 100 feet, before going back into jogging at your regular pace. Repeat. You’ll very quickly find yourself much more spry and agile.

This method actually simulates the rigours of planting fairly well, as not all terrain will be equal. There will be slow going, ‘slashy’ bits that you just have to slog through (don’t slack off, though!) but, if you’re lucky, this will give way to some ‘creamy’ pastures, like ash fields or open sand. This is where you sprint, and pound in those trees like nobody’s business! If you’re working on prepared ground, the need to move fast will be all the more important.

The usefulness of explosive power extends beyond sprinting across cream. In order to highball the camp, you should be launching yourself from one tree to the next, using long, powerful strides. This requires strength, an element which seems to generally be neglected in most planter’s training regimes. There’s this idea that because tree planting is so endurance based, strength training isn”t useful to it. This couldn’t be more wrong, as I mention in a previous article.

Strong legs and lower back are key to planting success. You need to develop your muscles to the point that the weight of your bag up of trees simply isn’t an issue for you. If you can carry 700 or 800 trees with ease, you can sprint with 500 or 600 trees. Strong legs also allow you to power over rough terrain more easily. And the easier an action is for you, the less tiring it will be, which means you will be ale to do it for longer and at a faster pace, which in planting means you will make more money.

I recommend a strength training regimen that focuses on ‘total body power’. Big, compound lifts using barbells and some dumbbells (don’t bother too much with machines) will stimulate growth all over your body, and prepare it to carry heavily loads. This means doing mainly Squats and Deadlifts. If you only have time for a couple of exercises, make it these two. Both primarily develop the legs and lower back, which is what we need for planting, but because you have to use virtually your entire body just stabilize and hold the weight, you will get bigger and stronger all over.

In the first few weeks, use a weight you can perform 10 to 15 reps with. As the season approaches you can increase the weight and decrease the reps, but don’t bother building up to a one rep maximum, as this probably won’t help too much with planting. What we want to do is train our body to be able to do lengthy, gruelling bouts of grunt work. Do as many sets as you can until you can longer perform the exercise properly with a decent amount of weight for a decent number of reps. This could be as few as three or as many as 10. Everybody’s legs are different, though the goal here is to turn yours into powerhouses.

If for some reason you can’t do squats, the Leg press machine can be an acceptable alternative. It won’t develop the rest of your body the way squats can, but it will build up your quadriceps well enough to carry heavy bag ups.

This excellent illustration demonstrates the dumbbell and the barbell lunge variations.

Other useful exercises for the legs are Lunges and Farmer’s Walks. These two will develop your ability to launch from one tree to the next quickly and powerfully. The lunge can be performed with a barbell on the neck like a squat or holding a dumbbell in either hand. Either position has its advantages and disadvantages, and both are applicable to planting, so change it up from time to time. Farmer’s walks are basically just walking while holding heavy stuff, either dumbbells or specialized apparatuses.

Good Mornings and Stiff Legged Deadlifts are a great way to prepare your lower back and hamstrings for all the bending over you’re going to have to do. The lower back is one of the trouble spots where many planters get injured, so keeping it in good health is key.

While lower body training should be your main emphasis, don’t neglect the other muscle groups. Huge biceps won’t help planting too much, but strengthening your arms will help you put on your fully loaded planting bags more easily, as well as allow them to absorb the shock of plunging your shovel into a rock, which, if done repetitively, can also cause injury. If you’re going to limit the amount of upper body training you do, you might as well make that training all about the Bench Press, as the muscles involved will help your shovel handling, and there’s no other upper body exercise that stimulates overall growth like it does. I also recommend you build up your shoulders, and strengthen your rotator cuff, not only to improve shovel power, but to prevent injuries to this delicate joint.

If you have a space where you can do farmer's walks, I highly recommend you do so.

It’s a good idea to work on your grip strength, to help you close up tree holes, but don’t overdo it, otherwise you could be in for some tendonitis before the season even starts.

If you include some core work, do lots of movements that involve twisting actions. On the block, you’ll find yourself in this position from time to time, and if your body isn’t prepared, you may pull a muscle.

Finally, build up some flexibility. Heavy lifting through the full range of motion combined with stretching will make you more flexible. The more flexible you are, the less likely you are to get injured, particularly on those cold, rainy mornings where your whole body stiffens up. Focus on stretching the hamstrings and lower back. Stretching the glutes and quads can’t hurt either.

Start out with very general workouts at first. Don’t push it to the limit and take your time figuring everything out and getting into a groove. Over the weeks slowly increase the intensity and challenge yourself. Try to time things so that a week before planting starts, you’re training as hard as you can and performing better than ever. Then, take that final week before the season off. Just do light workouts and don’t push yourself in any way. Like an athlete preparing for a competition, you want to be well rested and and in peak physical condition when planting starts. If you keep all these elements in mind, over the next three months you will quickly develop into a fast, powerful and tireless engine of reforestation. And you’ll be making crazy cash.

Click here for Part II