April 23, 2017 Ashley Hulme

The Atlas Trainer

Fad: an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a craze.

The fitness craze that has taken root in the hunting community has been labeled a “fad” by many hunters as of recently. But is it a fad or just an evolution of today’s hunter gatherer? It is without question that our current lifestyles have been designed to be as convenient as possible. Don’t feel like leaving work to get lunch? Simply click an app in your phone and order anything you want, delivered to your door. Tired of talking to sales people in a store? Just order what you need online and have it within a couple hours. The list of ways we have made our lives easier can go on forever, but one thing will always remain true; when you go out into nature to hunt your own food, it will never be as easy as just clicking on an app.

Generations of hunters before us relied on hunting and their vigorous lifestyle to stay in shape. In today’s world, working behind a computer ten hours a day, five or six days a week, makes staying in shape a much tougher feat. To continue to chase our quarry all over the mountains, we have adapted by trading in our hiking boots for gym shoes in the off season. The problem we are running into as hunters is that the fitness industry has not caught up with the demands of the hunting community. That changes now.

The hardest thing to train for in a gym is the weight of a full pack on your back. We have all tried to rig a weight system on our packs using sand bags, weights and even rocks, but these techniques have their drawbacks. The danger alone of weight continuously shifting on your back can spell disaster with one wrong move. For all of these reasons, we have decided to bring a weight frame to market now. This fitness product is designed by hunters for hunters.

When The Outdoorsmans and Evco Plastics originally designed our frame system, we incorporated multiple mounting holes for different uses and this was one of those “out of the box” ideas he had many years ago. It was before it’s time back then, but in the fitness-crazed hunting community today, it is perfect! The ability to quickly convert your hunting pack to a training pack, with the addition of our plate carrier is a dream come true for many hunters. This system also gives you the ability to customize your weight load for the type of training you are wanting to do. From 5 pound plates all the way up to two 45 pound weights, the system can be customized to your fitness level quickly and easily.

The Atlas Trainer is a machined aluminum attachment that fits into our frame with the predesigned mounting holes. The two plates sandwich onto the frame creating a firm mounting point for the knurled post that holds the weight securely in place. This is a far cry from our original prototype of a steel tube welded to a flat! In designing the weight carrier in this way, we have created a way to carry heavy weights without them moving or shifting as you walk, or climb.

Brushing off the new generation of fitness driven hunters as a “fad” is easy to do from the outside looking in, but in truth it is hunters adapting to another change in an ever-evolving modern hunting world. So this off season, add the new weight frame to your training arsenal and train for the success of a heavy pack out.