Breathing Exercises For Hikers

In this episode, we explore a brand-new, free course to help your breathing when hiking up hills.

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​Sign up for our free breathing mini-course here:
https://www.summitstrength.com.au/breathing-mini-course

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Episde Transcript:

[0:00] Right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So today we're just doing a quick episode talking about my brand new mini course for hikers,

[0:09] which is all about breathing drills and breathing exercises for helping your hiking performance. Now, when it comes down to hikers, probably one of the most common complaints and the most common issues that hikers face is they get out of breath when going uphill. This is something I work with hikers every single day, every single week. And it's something that so many people struggle with because obviously not super comfortable in the best of circumstances. In the worst circumstances, when we really struggle with our breathing, it can cause a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, and really suck a lot of the enjoyment out of an adventure. Not to mention, even in the best case scenario, maybe just doing that with a day pack, you know, out on a day hike. But if you're going up to high altitude, if you're carrying a heavier pack, if you're going out with hikers who will be quicker than you or whatever it may be, you know, this can get worse and worse and worse and worse. So improving breathing, going up hills is a really significant thing for a lot of hikers.

[1:08] And while there's so many hikers out there who really do want to improve their breathing, you know, most people out there in all honesty don't really know where to start. And typically when I talk to people about this subject, you know, they'll kind of fall into a couple of different categories. Like some people will go down the route of the hit route, you know, the high intensity training where they're like, look, I get really huffed and puffed on the hill.

[1:31] I get really, really struggle out of breath. So what I'm going to do in my training is I'm going to find some type of training, which absolutely gets me out of breath. I'm going to push and push and push and push. I'm going to jump around, do circuit training, whatever it may be, and that's going to improve me. And there are a lot of coaches out there who recommend that for this type of situation.

[1:48] But you know as i've said on this podcast many many times you know that type of stuff if it's just the generic hits class where you're going down the local gym or doing online classes or whatever may be you know this can improve certain things it can you know help you feel a bit more comfortable but it does have limited effectiveness in the context of hiking because there is a little bit of a difference between absolutely redlining yourself in the gym for 30 minutes or 40 minutes compared to you know having to perform on the trail for hours and hours and potentially climb up a hill for however long. So, there is limited effectiveness on this side of things. Now, on the other side of things, a lot of people will go down the route of breathing training, and they'll go on YouTube, they'll go on Instagram, and they'll look into this. And there are a lot of coaches who talk about specifically breathing training. There's a lot of coaches out there who advocate for certain types of training and different types of drills and this and that. But in all honesty, this world, there is definitely some good stuff out there, and there's definitely some potential benefits. But often this ends up just being a bit of a rabbit hole. Often I sort of see, you know, for a lot of people, this is just needlessly complicated and people just going straight to the advanced stuff without even mastering the very, very basics. And I see people talking about breath hole training or using training masks or whatever may be. And this type of stuff, there may be benefits. It may be useful in certain situations, but it's kind of, in all honesty, I feel like a bit unnecessary for a lot of people.

[3:16] And I don't think it needs to be complicated for at least 95% of hikers out there. So the intention around this mini course and why I put this together is just basically designed to be a really, really, really simple approach to hikers. Something that's going to be way more specific to hiking than just going out and doing HIIT training or circuit training, but something that's going to be way more simple, way more practical, way more achievable than some of those more advanced methods. It's ultimately just designed to be a no-frills approach to breathing.

[3:47] Some of the things I share may seem shockingly simple, almost. And you might be like, well, whatever. But I promise you, if you follow these things, it can be really, really useful. And on top of that, the added benefit of what I share in the course is all the stuff you do will actually be beneficial for your hiking in many other ways. It's not just your breathing, but you'll be improving your fitness, your endurance, your capabilities on the trail. So you get a lot of benefits out of this. Now, these specific drills I share in the course They're not just stuff I've made up. They're stuff that I use every single week, and I've been used for hundreds of hikers over the years, and they're very, very effective. So specifically in the course, and it's completely free, what I cover is two foundational breathing skills, which you can practice and learn, which can really rapidly improve the effectiveness of your breathing. And you can practice these anywhere, at home, at work, or whatever it may be. It's stuff that I've talked about in this podcast many times before. As I said, it's pretty basic, these things. But we just cover the foundations to get it right.

[4:49] After that, I share with you three simple breathing drills, which if you apply and practice and train, they can really make a dramatic difference to your comfort and confidence when you're climbing up steep ascents. You'll feel more in control with your breathing. You'll feel more comfortable when you get to a really tough section and you get really huffed and puffed. And you're like, hey, actually, I wanna control this down a little bit. You'll feel a little bit more comfortable, confident, just sort of looking at a big old climb and with Opaq on your back, you're like, hey, I'm going to go do it or whatever it may be. And you'll get three very, very simple drills, which can make a big difference. And on top of that, I'll provide just a simple 12-week training progression to kind of show you how to apply these drills over a logical progression over the time.

[5:34] So ultimately, you can just take these ideas, just slip it into your normal training or your normal week, and you will probably get some really nice results.

[5:41] Now, to be clear, this course it's designed to be simple. It's basic stuff. It's foundational stuff. And we're not going to be talking about breath holds or using masks or devices or complicated techniques. It may look deceptively simple, but I promise you, if you apply it, it can be really, really useful. So if you are looking for just some simple exercises and directions to help your breathing feel a bit more comfortable on the trail, this can be really, really useful for you. Now, as I said before, this course is completely free. All you have to do is just sign up and you'll get access to it. If you wanted to check it out, all you got to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash breathing dash mini dash course. That's summitstrength.com.au slash breathing dash mini dash course. I'll leave a link for that in the show notes below. But it's basically freshly released today. So if you want to get your hands on it, check it out and we can take it from there. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap up today's episode. I hope to see a few of you in the course, because I think it can be really, really useful. And I think it'll just be a really nice, simple approach, as I said, to help improve your breathing, get you feeling a bit more comfortable,

[6:49] and to help build out your training and get the most out of your training time. So thanks for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it. Hope you can enjoy the course, and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

Sign up for our
​free breathing mini-course here