A Note On Loaded Pack Walking

 Today I explore an important topic for all hikers using loaded pack walking in their training.

Episode Transcript
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[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So today we're talking a little bit about loaded pack walking for hikers. And essentially I want to dive into this subject just in a bit of detail and explore a little issue I've seen in the hiking community lately, or a common mistake I've seen in the hiking community quite a few times lately, and shine a little bit of a light on this. So loaded pack walking, what is it? It's basically just putting on your pack and walking around the local neighborhood, in a park, on a treadmill, you know, literally anywhere. And this is an absolutely amazing method of training for hiking. You know, it's simple, it's accessible, and it's a really, really great way of just developing some great specific hiking fitness and conditioning. And in all honesty, you can't really get more specific than this, except for actually getting out and hiking. And it's such an awesome workout. And I have all my hikers from the pure beginners to the absolute long-term experts doing this at some point in their training to one degree or another. It's just such a great method of training.

[1:01] However, when we are talking about low-to-pack walking, there is one thing that we need to be really, really, really, really, really clear about and just make sure we're crystal clear on is low-to-pack walking is not a replacement for strength training.

[1:16] So let me tell you a little bit more. Now, there seems to be a little bit of a trend in the world of hiking and fitness where people like to claim that pack walking will bring pretty much the same benefits of strength training. Now, there's been a recent sort of trend where people are talking about pack walking just in the general realm of fitness much more, also known as rucking. And there's a few big influencers out there who talk about it. And they say, look, this is a great method of training. They really advocate it. And they say it'll bring X, Y, and Z benefits, which is all well and good. And there's also a lot of of people in the hiking sphere who are either taking inspiration of this and decide, hey, it's a good time to talk about it, or they're just talking about it off their own end. And they're talking about load of pack walking. And they'll often sort of say things like, you know what, not only is it a great method of training, but they'll throw out phrases like, hey, load of pack walking will strengthen up your legs and your bum, or it'll build bone density, or build up your connective tissue to protect from injury, and a bunch of different things. And while there is like an element of truth to these statements like yes pack walking will strengthen up your legs to a degree and yes pack walking will build up bone density in your legs to a degree and yes pack walking may potentially build up your connective tissues to a degree.

[2:32] It can all you know these things are all to a degree and there is an element of truth in.

[2:37] But sometimes this just gets a little bit murky. And it leads to a lot of people considering that load of pack walking and strength training are kind of interchangeable. And they're bringing pretty much the same benefits. So it's like, well, you know what? I actually really just enjoy walking. So I'll go out and do pack training and I won't worry about strength training.

[2:57] You may think I'm just bringing this up out of nowhere, but I've talked to many hikers recently. In probably the last, what, August now, probably the last six months, I've talked to many, many hikers who've kind of had this opinion. And they've said, look, you know, I'm just doing pack training and that's helping me strengthen up my legs or it's helping with my bone density or whatever it may be. And it's not just me saying this. This is a comment from conversations I've had with hikers. And when it comes down to it, we're looking for this in the top end. Load-a-pack walking, yes, it will add extra load to your legs,

[3:27] to your bones, to connective tissue. There's extra weight on your back. It'll add extra strain, extra stress to these areas. And as a general rule of thumb, anytime we do overload the body in training, meaning we apply more stress than it's used to, it will usually be forced to adapt and to improve. Because that's basically what training is. The body doesn't like being uncomfortable. So if we put it in uncomfortable situations or apply loads that it's not really used to, it'll be like, you know what, I want to get better at this. It'll adapt in certain ways and improve, so it's not quite as uncomfortable further on. That's just training in a nutshell.

[3:59] When it comes down to this, even though there is extra load going through pack walking, there is a big, big, big, big difference in load and in stimulus when it comes to traditional strength training, which we talk about in this podcast all the time, and pack walking. Now, when it comes down to strength strength training. So when you're using dumbbells, barbells, even body weight or bands or even a pack or whatever it may be. When we are trying to induce what we call a strength stimulus, so a stimulus that will improve your muscular strength, we typically want to do exercises which will kind of fatigue you after 10 repetitions or less. Meaning you choose an exercise or you choose a weight which you do repetitions, you do one, two, three, four and you get up to about 10 and you're like, you know what, I need a bit of a rest. Or you do less, you get to eight and need a rest or six and need a rest or four and need a rest or whatever it may be. That's typically what we consider a technical strength stimulus. Like if we want to get technical and if you're well-versed in the world of strength training, you've been doing it for ages and this and that, there is a lot of variation and nuance here. And if we get heavier and heavier and heavier, we get more and more of a strength stimulus. So some people say, hey, you only get strength if you do eight or less or five or less or four or less or whatever it may be.

[5:12] There's some variation. And yes, Yes, it is true if we do sort of higher repetitions, if we do 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 or whatever it may be, which are very common in programs, that will improve your strength a little bit. But if we're sort of really looking at technical things, we can sort of say, look, really simple rule of thumb, 10 or less is kind of what we're aiming for as a strength stimulus.

[5:32] Now, in pack walking, even if you're carrying a really, really, really, really, really uncomfortably heavy pack, you can typically take hundreds of steps before really hitting that major fatigue. It may not be super comfortable. You may not love it. It may sort of impact your walking, but you can probably keep on going for a long time before hitting fatigue. So while this pack walking is a challenge, and it can definitely benefit the body in a lot of ways, the stimulus is very, very, very different to strength training compared to 10 or less repetitions where you need to rest to hundreds or at the very, very least dozens and dozens and dozens of steps. It's very, very, very different. And this distinction, it may sound a little bit pedantic. And you'll be like, well, does it really matter, Rowan? Why are you talking about this? Strength is strength. Stress is stress. I'm getting challenged either way. What does it matter? But if you are really looking to get the best results from your training, if you're really, really, really really wanting to improve your strength to best help you on the trail, if you want to improve your resilience to injury, if you're wanting to improve your bone density, it is important to understand this distinction.

[6:38] Now, I've talked to, as I said before, a lot of hikers in recent months who, basically the conversation has gone like, what are you doing with your training? They're like, look, I'm doing a load of pack walking to improve my strength. Or I heard that I need to work on my bone density, so I'm doing pack walking and this and that. But they haven't been doing strength training. And this is really unfortunate because again, while I love load of pack walking, and yes, it will bring some benefits to these things. And yes, I have all my hikers doing it in one way or another. They would just get, and you would get loads, loads, loads, loads more benefits to your strength, to your injury prevention, to your bone density and all those other things. If you also do some traditional strength training. So it's not one or the other. It's not just doing pack walk. it's not just doing strength training, doing both, you know, that's where you get the best benefits.

[7:25] So ultimately, what does this mean to you? Well, if you're already doing both, happy days, you know, that's all good, you're doing great. But if you're only doing one of these things.

[7:36] You may want to consider adding the other one in there. Now, when it comes down to pack walking, you don't have to be doing this all year. It's something that kind of comes in. But I typically put it in the category of cardio. So when we're looking at our week, we're like, okay, we want to do our strength training. We want to do some cardio, maybe a bit of hiking, maybe a bit of mobility. Cardio could be pack walking. Cardio could be stair and hill climbing. Cardio could be interval training, whatever it may be. Put that in the category of cardio and And consider strength training its own separate thing. Yes, there is a bit of blurring of the lines, but it's not interchangeable. And if you really, really, really want to get the benefits out of your training, if you really, really, really want to just make sure you're in the best possible position and get all the benefits that, you know, on this podcast, I've talked about hundreds of times probably around X, Y, and Z that you can improve from strength training, make sure you're doing the right things to get that. So for some, this may sound a bit pedantic, but for others, hopefully this is illuminating and hopefully this can help a lot of people with their training and make sure they're getting the best benefits from everything. So thank you for listening to my little rant today. It is something I've come across quite a bit recently and I was like, you know what, I need to talk about this because it's firing me up a little bit. And there were a couple of articles that I read that I was like, oh my gosh, that kills me. So I wanted to do this just to sort of talk through.

[8:59] And ultimately when it comes down to this, you know, hopefully by now you've got a good understanding of just how good strength training can be.

[9:06] Whether it's this episode or the other episodes, whatever it may be. But I fully understand if you're new to this podcast or new to strength training, you may not really know how to put into action, or you may not even not know what I'm talking about. Like some people are like, look, I don't really know what strength training is. Like, how does that actually work? Or how do I put together my own workouts for my hiking or anything like that? But if you're in any of those situations and strength training is a bit fuzzy for you, a little bit murky for you, and you are interested in learning a little

[9:31] bit more about strength training specifically for hiking, I have something cool for you. So if you haven't heard before, I do have a free mini course, which is around strength training for hiking. And essentially in that course, we'll basically introduce you to the benefits of strength training, talk you through some of the sort of principles of effective strength training to get the most out of this, and also teach you how to put together a couple of your own workouts. So you can basically put together your own workouts to apply it into your week to best help your hiking. Now, this is more geared towards people, beginners in regards to strength training or very, very early intermediates. Maybe not sort of someone who, you know, if you've been strength training for years and years and years, you know how to put together your programs, you consider yourself pretty well-versed. You probably don't need this, but if you're more on the beginner spectrum, this can be really, really, really useful and it's completely free. So if you wanted to get your hands on that and check it out, all you need to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash strength-mini-course.

[10:30] That's summitstrength.com.au slash strength-mini-course. And I'll leave a link for that in the show notes below. And you can basically get your hands on that course for free and you can check it out for there. So with that being said, thank you for listening to today's podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope it helps a few people and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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