Boost Your Hiking Performance with These Essential Workout Tips

Hiking is more than a workout. It’s a love affair with nature. To truly enjoy hiking, a certain level of fitness is required. In this blog post, we’ll talk about some workout tips to boost your hiking fitness, allowing you to conquer every trail with more endurance, stability, and strength.

The Importance of Working Out for Hiking

Before diving into the workouts, it’s essential to understand why some specific categories of fitness are crucial for hiking. Hiking is a full-body activity, requiring cardiovascular fitness, lower body strength, core stability, and even upper body strength for carrying a pack or using poles on rugged terrain. Workouts specifically designed for hiking focus on these areas, preparing your body for the physical demands of various trails.

Cardiovascular Training:

A strong cardiovascular base is key for hiking. Hiking often involves long periods of activity, and having a robust aerobic system allows you to sustain these efforts.

The Goal: At Least 90 Minutes Per Week of Cardio Training 

Aim for at least 3 sessions a week of 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous effort. That means getting your heart rate up and sustaining it just a little outside of your comfort zone. If you were to imagine intensity on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being the easiest (a casual saunter) and 10 being the hardest (breathing so hard you can barely speak), try to do your workouts somewhere around a 6-8 level of exertion. This will help you challenge your system and develop endurance adaptations over time. 

Stair Climbing: Mimic the demands of hiking by including stair climbing in your fitness regimen. Whether it’s on a stair machine or actual steps, this is an activity that will help your body be ready for long ascents on steep terrain. 

Interval Treadmill Walking: This is done by alternating between fast and slow OR alternating between low incline and high incline walking periods. Pick a time such as 2 minutes on and pair it with 2 minutes off. Alternate going fast for 2, slow for 2. You can also mix in incline walking for 2, paired with low or no incline walking for 2. Repeat these cycles for 30 minutes. This improves your heart rate variability, or in other words, trains your body to recover between bursts of intensive effort, exactly like hiking up steep sections of a trail.

Lower Body Strength:

Strengthening your lower body will help you manage steep inclines, declines, and rough terrains with ease.

Squats: A foundational movement, squats strengthen your entire lower body. Start with bodyweight squats; as you get stronger, you can add weights.

Lunges: This exercise targets the quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings. Just like squats, you can begin with bodyweight lunges and gradually add weights.

Box Step Ups: Using dumbbells or simply body weight, box step ups can help you develop range of motion and work on training the major leg muscles to get better at working together. 

Calf raises: Pushing your body up an incline requires strong calves. Work them out in the gym and build up muscular strength and endurance for this key lower leg muscle group. 

Core Stability:

A strong core enhances balance, reduces fatigue, and prevents injuries.

Planks: A simple yet effective workout for core stability. Hold the plank position for 30 seconds and gradually increase the duration as your strength improves.

Bird Dog: This exercise engages your entire core with a particular focus on stabilizing opposite sides of your body when you’re off balance, which will help you with hiking on unstable surfaces. 

Upper Body Strength:

A strong and stable back and shoulders are especially important for challenging trails where you may need to carry a pack with gear and water for the whole hike.

Pull-ups: While they can be challenging, pull-ups are excellent for increasing your upper body strength and back strength.

Rows: Any type of row – seated cable, bent over with dumbbells, with resistance bands, et cetera – will help strengthen the back to prepare for carrying a pack. 

Conclusion

By incorporating these exercises into your workout routine, you’ll be on your way to improving your hiking fitness! Begin with two to three sessions a week, listen to your body, and progressively increase the intensity. The more reps you put in during training, the easier the hike will be going up (and down) the trails!