A Quick Strength Training Tip For Hikers

Today I share a dead-simple (but very powerful!) tip to help you push harder and focus deeper with your strength training.

​Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, I wanna share with you a really quick but incredibly effective tip that you can apply to your strength training to help your hiking.

[0:12] Now, specifically, this tip can be really, really powerful for people who tend to struggle mentally when they're going through their strength training sets. And what I mean by that is a really, really common thing is someone starts a set of exercise and say they've got, you know, they're doing squats and they've got 15 squats ahead of them. And they'll do the first 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, okay. And then around about 6 or 7 or 8, you know, the legs start to get a little bit burny. And then 9, 10, 11 starts getting tough. And we get to this stage like three quarters through a set and we're looking like, oh my gosh, you know, I'm really tired already. I've still got to do 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 repetitions. And mentally, we just can't do it. So, we end up having to stop, take a little bit of a break and continue on. Or we just never get to the end and we just stop there, whatever it may be. This is a really, really common thing for pretty much everyone when it comes down to strength training, but specifically when we're trying to push ourselves a little bit more, maybe we're just struggling with a bit of energy one day, or even when we're doing more higher repetition stuff like doing squats for 15 repetitions or lunges for 20 repetitions or stuff like that, which is pretty common in the world of hiking. So ultimately, if you do feel like you you just struggle to really finish your sets or push yourself during your strength training or just mentally focus through your exercises, this is a really, really, really quick tip which can make an instant difference.

[1:38] Now, basically where this tip comes from is the typical approach to strength training is when we have a certain number of repetitions, so repetitions, the amount of exercise, amount of sort of...

[1:49] Movements we're doing at a time in a set, we sort of count up to it. So what I mean by that is if we have 15 repetitions ahead of us and we're like, I'm going to go do 15 squats. The first one we'll say one, then we'll do another one, we'll say two, then three, then four, then five. And we literally count from one to 15. It's just a natural way people go about things and there's nothing wrong with it. Now, the only tricky thing with this though, is if we are doing a particularly hard hard exercise, which we're getting quite tired, you know, early on the exercise, or if we're just doing lots and lots of repetitions, this can sometimes just be really tough mentally because we sort of look ahead and we do five reps. I'm like, oh my gosh, I've still got 10 to go and I'm already tired. Or our legs start burning out at a certain stage. You're like, oh, you know, I just want to rest. And it just doesn't seem like, you know, I can get to the end or whatever it may be.

[2:38] But one thing you can do to make this a little bit better is flip your counting around. and as opposed to counting up and one, two, three, four, five, count down.

[2:48] So, do your first repetition and start at the top and start with 15, then do another one, say 14, then 13, then 12, then 11, and just keep on counting down. Now, just listening to this, you might be like, well, Rowan, that's nothing. Like, what's the difference really? Like, what are you talking about? Why are you wasting a podcast on this particular thing? But I promise you, this can be incredibly, incredibly incredibly incredibly powerful and purely just having that number get a little bit less a little bit less a little bit less every time you do it and the end point just feel like it's getting closer and closer and closer and closer um just mentally it's just so powerful it can really really keep you focused it can really really help you just work hard even when there's a little bit of fatigue and really just help you just get to the end of these more challenging sets um without actually having to stop so it may sound a little bit like nothing nothing. But I promise you, your next strength workout, if you go and give this a go, I promise you it will make all the difference. So if you do ever find yourself struggling with certain exercises and you're like, oh my gosh, I just can't get through this whole set, and you struggle yourself pushing or focusing or whatever it may be, give this a go. Try the countdown, apply it, and I promise you it'll make all the difference.

[4:01] So in all honesty, that's a really short episode today with a very quick tip, but I just wanted to throw this in here because it's something I've passed on to a couple of clients recently and it's helped them and it just gave me a reminder that I thought it might be a good addition to this podcast. So give it a go and I think it'll serve you well. So great, thanks for listening and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.

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