Meet Joel Raether | Strength and Conditioning Specialist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joel Raether and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joel, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Hunt Hike Harvest was born under the premise that there is a need and place for evidence based physical training that needs to be brought into the forefront of the outdoor industry. The physical demand that big game western hunting requires is very high and our expertise in strength and conditioning can be utilized to improve performance for those who desire to enrich their experience in the woods.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Hunt Hike Harvest has been a labor of love since its inception in 2019. We have slowly and strategically developed and worked to build a presence in the outdoor industry. It has been a slow and arduous process as we decided that we would build this company from the ground up and take very calculated steps to establish who we are, what we do and the type of audience that we wanted to garner. The toughest part in the physical training world really is the amount of misinformation, perceived validity of unproven training methods that are rampant in the social media world and trying to foster true science backed training into a community that has a lot of very type A, alpha personalities.

We are slowly overcoming and gaining traction through our efforts to build relationships with credible companies and entities that see and understand our vision and know that Hunt Hike Harvest truly is different in our approach and ability to help people attain better outcomes through our methodology. It has been a tough balance of examining the market, who key players are and how we can develop lines of separation between what we do and know compared to others and still accomplish this in a professional manner.

The best way that we have overcome some of these hurdles is simply to immerse ourselves into events, getting more involved in organizations and developing content and media based opportunities to speak to a broader audience where we can generate dialogue about Hunt Hike Harvest Outdoors that further speaks to our mission.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If our best friend wanted to spend a week with us we would obviously look directly at planning some type of excursion in the mountains chasing elk, preferably in September when the aspens begin to turn colors and the elk are bugling from the treeline. It is the best time of the year and simply exhilarating to be in the woods trying to match wits with such majestic and intelligent animals. WIth endless country to explore these weeks are challenging, exhausting and yet still massively rewarding. Everything outside of the hunt in terms of food, drink, etc is typically just for necessity unless we are fortunate enough to achieve harvesting an elk which then turns into feast of tenderloins wrapped in bacon and cooked in bone marrow which is nothing short of perfection.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
In my 20+ year career as a strength and conditioning coach there are so many people that are responsible for driving me, guiding me and encouraging me to be where I am at today. I have had mentors in the industry who have created opportunities, driven me to grow as a professional and also challenged me to become a leader in the field. My business partner in our current training facility, Jason Hirsh, was a huge part of why we started Hunt Hike Harvest. We both had a mutual passion for the outdoors and as we merged our companies in the sports performance industry, we both began seeing and exploring the concept of developing Hunt Hike Harvest. With our collective backgrounds and skills we started the company with a very simple vision and desire to spend more time doing what we love while still being capable of doing what we do for a living with the intent that if we can grow Hunt Hike Harvest the two would slowly merge into one.

Website: www.hunthikeharvest.com

Instagram: @hunthikeharvest

Twitter: @hunthikeharvest

Facebook: @hunthikeharvest

Youtube: @hunthikeharvest