A Great Balance Exercise For Hikers

Today, I want to share with you a simple but very effective exercise a hiker can use to improve their balance and stability on the trail.

Balance Training For Hiking 

Many hikers our there are concious that their balance could do a bit of work.

Maybe you have a history of tripping or falling on the trail...

Or you feel a bit unsteady on your feet on steep climbs or descents...

Or you are trying to prepare your body for any eventuallity the trail might throw at you.

​But whatever the case, doing a small amount of balance work in your training can go a long way!  

Now, when it comes to balance, we often preach about keeping things simple.

Because many people tend to get WAY to complicated in balance training.

Typically, I recommend that people just start with the basics.

(E.g. practising standing on a single leg - first with your eyes open. Then, with your eyes closed. And eventually, progressing this to something slightly 'unstable under your feet like a pillow or stability disk)

But beyond the basics of balance, sometimes it can be useful to make things a bit more 'dynamic' and change your body's ability to stabilise and balance in moving situations (like it would do on the trail).

There are many ways to do this, but one exercise I have recently been enjoying is the: 

'Front Rack, Pack Loaded Forward Lunge.'

Which is a bit of a mouthful, I know...

​What it involves is doing a standard forward lunge and holding a loaded pack on the front of your shoulders.

On first glance, this might look like any old lunge (which many hikers have done a million times before), but there are a few key points here:

1. The forward lunge in itself has a reasonable stability requirement, and it can be a challenge to make sure you're stepping forward, dropping down, and up are all steady and controlled. This can have some good crossover, aiding stability during the descents
   
   
2. Holding the weight in a 'front rack' position (i.e. at the front of your shoulders) adds a bit of extra stability challenge (as you won't have your arms at your sides to balance, and you will have to concentrate on keeping good posture)
   
   
3. Doing this with a pack (as opposed to a dumbbell or barbell) will restrict your vision - and you won't be able to see where you are putting your feet. This will make things significantly harder for stability and is really useful at improving body awareness (which is very relevant for when you are hiking, and not actually looking down at the trail).

I find this exercise has a nice balance (no pun intended) between having a solid stability/balance requirement plus also being a great strength exercise as well.  

(And if you really want to increase the balance difficulty, you could load the pack with a dry bag of 3/4 filled with water. And the 'sloshing' of the water will make things MUCH harder to stabilise again). 

So, if you are a hiker who wants to improve your balance, and you are looking for a new exercise to add to your routine, give this a go!  

And you might be surprised at how it feels!  

Yours in trekking,

Rowan 

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