CrossFit Training For Hikers

In this episode, I discuss whether or not CrossFit is a good method of training for hiking, trekking or backpacking.

Is CrossFit A Good Way Of
Training For Hiking?

A little while ago I was asked what my opinion on Crossfit for hikers was. Long story short, in most situations, I don't think it is a fantastic way of training for hiking. However, it does come with some benefits which might be useful for certain hikers out there.

So today I explore what the benefits and drawbacks of this type of training for hiking are, and how to best use it in your week (if you decide you want to).

You will learn:

• A common story I often hear about hikers who only do CrossFit in their training
  
• A few potential benefits of Crossfit for hikers
• Several drawbacks to using Crossfit for your hiking preparation
• My ultimate opinion on whether or not Crossfit is a good way of training for hiking
• How to fit Crossfit into your training week (if you already use it in your training)

Join the Training For Hiking And Trekking Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/trainingforhikingandtrekking/

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Episode Transcript:

Hello, hello guys. Today we are talking all about CrossFit for hikers and whether or not it should be considered an effective training system for someone preparing for their hiking adventures. Now, the reason I want to talk about this today is I was recently asked about my opinion about CrossFit for hikers on a post on Instagram. And basically the lady was asking, she said a little while ago she was on a hike over in Patagonia and there was a girl who was slimmer and stronger than her who basically said it was going to be easy, this particular hike, because she was so used to CrossFit. And then in the end, after an hour, this girl was really, really struggling, she wasn't in a good state. But the lady commenting was saying, "Look, it wasn't easy, but after five hours I was still going and I was feeling pretty good." So she was just asking what my opinion of CrossFit was because she was considering and tossing it up whether it might be something she's worthwhile doing her preparations.

So today, I want to explore a little bit more in depth around my opinion for CrossFit and talk about some of the benefits that hikers might see, and then also some of the drawbacks as well. If you are looking for a quick answer to this podcast, you probably already know my opinions seeing I talk about it all the time with HIIT training, in the sense of saying that I'm not a huge fan of CrossFit for hikers as a sole training source, but it can have some benefits in certain situations. So we're going to be exploring that today. And before we go any further, if you are a CrossFiter, do not worry. I'm not going to tell you you're not allowed to do it, but I do think there's a better way for hikers. So we want to explore the ins and outs of this so you can understand my opinion, where I'm coming from, and then just to potentially have an idea around a different approach which you might incorporate both types of training.

So to start with, let's break down the big benefits of CrossFit and what this really advertised and what it really appeals to a lot of people for. Now first and foremost, probably the most beneficial one is time efficient. Now, basically it's claimed and this whole philosophy around CrossFit is if you go in, you work super, super, super hard from anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, work your butt off, end up in a big pile of sweat, you'll accomplish so much more in that one short amount of time by working hard than you will in hours and hours of moderate exercise. And that is a big appeal to a lot of people because we're all busy. A lot of us don't enjoy spending long periods of time exercising. Sometimes you get bored in the gym, we might be limited with work or a young family, or whatever it may be. And yes, there is absolutely no doubt that CrossFit is time efficient. So for many people who are limited in time, it can be a very nice option just to go in, work hard for a small period of time and then go out.

Now for the general population, that is absolutely fantastic. And for some hikers, yeah, it might be a good approach. Now I would argue for if you are specifically training for your hiking adventures and you're not just training for general health and not just training for general fitness, you could probably get more work done by following a structured program within those time constraints, whether it's 20, 30, 40 minutes, and follow a structured and specific program or structured and specific workout for hiking in that time than if you were just doing a CrossFit workout. That will be my argument. But obviously, you need to put a little bit more thought into that and that's what this podcast is all about. So yes, a CrossFit is time efficient and it definitely cannot... You cannot argue that fact. But personally, I think you can probably get a little bit more specific work done in that time.

Another big benefit, and one that I am a big fan of when it comes to CrossFit, is it introduced many people to the concept of strength training and also heavier strength training. Now, as I've talked about on this podcast many, many times before, I'm a massive fan of strength training for so many reasons. And a lot of people are hesitant around lifting weights, and particularly the female population, lifting weights is a pretty foreign thing until CrossFit came around. And CrossFit does a really good job of introducing that concept of just pushing yourself on the strength training a little bit more and if you haven't done some type of strength training and you were really, really hesitant, I feel like as a big culture shift and as a big change over the last... What? 10 years or so, or maybe a little bit less, that definitely has introduced a lot more people into the idea around heavier lifting. So I like that as a concept around CrossFit. I think the application, again, could be a little bit better. But as a concept and a [inaudible 00:05:12] shift in culture, I do think that's really good.

The next one is you can get competitive in CrossFit. So the people who do have the competitive drive, this is a really, really big benefit. Now, a lot of us spend our lives playing sport, a lot of us spend our... Not our lives, our teenage years and our school lives playing sport. Now we get out of school and we just don't compete anymore. We go into the real world, we enjoy ourselves, we go have a good time, we go to work, but we don't really get competitive. And CrossFit is actually, for the people who do have that competitive drive, it can be a really, really good way to reignite that, to really get a little bit more out of your training, to push yourself out of your comfort zone. And that is a real good benefit if you do have that particular mindset.

The other big one is it's fun. So a lot of people thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy this type of training, they love getting in there, love getting hot and sweaty, and any other type of training they really, really struggle with, but they just find their groove with the type of CrossFit workouts. And that for me, I see is probably the overarching best thing about it, purely for the fact that a lot of people are enjoying their workouts more, a lot of people are getting in there and just doing more work. And whether or not if you're doing 100% structured approach for your hiking adventures, but you absolutely hate it and you're skipping sessions all the time, but you absolutely love CrossFit and you are doing every single session every single week, that's probably a pretty good insight into where you might want to be leaning towards.

And then the final benefit, which also ties into the fun, is the community aspect of it. So CrossFit gyms do a really, really good job of building a community of their members, something that most gym environments really don't do very well. And there's nothing better than walking in a gym where everyone knows your name, where you have friends, where you have little social circles, where you go out and socialize as a team. It really is fantastic and CrossFit does a really, really good job of that. And that is something that is a bit lacking in the hike training for hiking world, because everyone's training for individual events and you might have a few hiking partners who you go and do training sessions with, and that's absolutely amazing, but unfortunately not everyone has access to them. So I'd say probably that fun and community are probably the two biggest reasons why someone might consider CrossFit is if they just need that to get themselves exercising consistently and training, and that's something you might lean towards.

Now saying those benefits, there are also quite a few drawbacks just both for the general people, people who might be trying to get fit, but we're going to specifically be talking about hikers and trekkers because that's what you all are. Now to start with is something I've mentioned quite a few times in this podcast before is CrossFit, and any other type of high-intensity interval training approach, when that is the only approach your doing, it generally trains the wrong energy systems. What I mean by that is hiking as a whole, probably 90% of hiking, is working your aerobic energy system in which your body is producing energy in the presence of oxygen and using oxygen as a fuel source. Now CrossFit on the other hand, seeing you're working so hard and so quickly, that aerobic energy system just cannot keep up. And what you're developing energy from and what you're getting your energy from is something called the anaerobic energy system, or anaerobic energy systems so I should say, which produce energy without oxygen.

Now, there's nothing wrong with this in day-to-day if you're developing your anaerobic energy systems every single day, for most people that's not a problem. But if you're training for hiking, you really want to be putting your effort and your emphasis into the energy system that's going to be used on the trail. And yes, there will be a bit of carry over, but it's much more effective if you're spending your time and the majority of your time developing yourself aerobically as opposed to anaerobically. So as a whole, if you're doing the majority of your training as CrossFit, that's a big, big drawback, and that will affect you on the trail. As Andrea in her story said, the CrossFitter was very, very strong, very, very confident, but after about an hour, she was really, really struggling, purely for the fact that she'd only ever trained her anaerobic energy systems. And after an hour, her body just did not know how to deal with things. So that is a big drawback.

Number two, and probably just as equally important, is this type of training CrossFit and high-intensity training in particular, high-intensity interval training in particular, but CrossFit does have a reputation as it does have a very high risk of injury compared to many other types of training. Now, there are a few reasons behind this. Number one, probably the most important one or the most obvious reason behind this, is they quite often will do high repetitions of complex exercises. So things like barbell back squats or deadlifts, or even powerlifting when they do cleans and snatches and things like that, these are very, very complex exercise. They have a lot of moving parts. It does take a lot of concentration to get them right. And if you do them wrong, they do have a large risk for pain and injury. But unfortunately in CrossFit, with the high repetition and the competitive approach, you're trying to do these repetitions for lots and lots and lots of them when you get tired and also very, very quickly.

So quite often, I'm not going to say all the time, but quite often the form starts to go a little bit dodgy, the body can't really handle things, and that's where you pull up with pain and injury. And that is a big issue. And I would never ask anyone to be doing 20 deadlifts in a row because that's not really a good idea. But it's quite common in many boxers around the world. Now the next one that ties into that is rushing exercises. So if you are going for a timed approach, which is very, very common in CrossFit where you're trying to bang out reps as quickly as you can, again, you can lose a little bit of form. You're not really thinking, you're going to make mistakes and that can get you into a bit of an issue.

For myself, I am a very, very slow trainer when it comes to strength training, because I know the few times I've stepped into a CrossFit or a high-intensity workout and I try to keep up with everyone else, where I rush with everyone else, and I look around me and everyone's banging it out. I'm like, "All right, I can keep up with that." I end up doing something wrong and I end up hurting myself. Now for many, many years, I thought there was something wrong with me because I couldn't keep up with the people around me, I couldn't keep up with my peers, because I like to take my strength training slow and controlled because I knew I needed to do that. I honestly thought there was something wrong with me and it took me quite a few years to realize actually, some people can get away with that, but a lot of people can't.

And yeah, it was a really big mindset shift for me because I was like, "You know what? I don't have to keep on trying to do these types of workouts and keep up with people. I'll do what I know works for me, not feel guilty about it and not run that risk of injury." And I know a lot of people are in that same situation. So rushing exercises is an issue. The other one is doing strength training under fatigue. So again, if you are doing squats, deadlifts and you're already tired, so you've done a good bit of cardio exercise, you've done a sprint, you've done a row or something like that, you're huffing and puffing then you're hopping onto a strength exercise, that's just a bad idea in any way, state or form. If you're doing strength exercises under fatigue, which hikers might do towards their muscular endurance training, you want to choose simple exercises which don't have a low risk of injury.

You're not messing around with a barbell, you're not messing around with heavy exercises, but you're doing things that even if you're tired, they're not going to go wrong. Like step ups and lunges, and body weight squats, and glute bridges and hip thrusts, and all of that jazz. And then also, the competitive edge. A lot of people just sacrifice a lot of integrity in their exercises just to get through things quickly, and that leads to a high risk of injury. Now I'll say a few of those are very box and coach dependent. So some CrossFit gyms do well of regulating people, but it is very, very difficult to do well and I'd say that's a small percentage of it. So if you are one of the people who are even slightly worried about injury, you have any history of overuse injury or acute injury, it's probably not best for you.

Another drawback is that it combines strength and insurance training at the same time. So it's pretty common you'll do a 500 meter run and then a bunch of squats, a bunch of deadlifts, or whatever it may be, and any time you do combine these two types of training, you will work on them both, but it'll never be 100% optimum. You might get 75% benefits of strength and 75% benefits of endurance. It's much, much, much better to separate these things. So either do separate strength workouts and separate endurance or cardio workouts, or at least separate them during your workout. So you do strength first and then your endurance work and then your cardio work. If you're trying to do it all at the same time, you don't get the best of both worlds and you're just missing out.

On top of that, another drawback is there's no real progression plan. Generally, the idea is just go in, do a random workout one day, smash it out as hard as you can, go home, feel good. Next week, go into a random workout again, smash it out as hard as you can and go away. Some people do track their weights, but there's no structured progression. And as I've said so many times on this podcast, progression is key to long-term results. So CrossFit will get you very, very fit in a short amount of time, maybe four, five, six weeks, and then you'll slow down. You might just say, "Hey, I'm going to just need to push myself a bit harder," and you might be able to push yourself in another couple of weeks. But then at the eight week mark, if you haven't broken down from injury, you got nowhere else to go in all honesty. It's very, very rare for the general trainer to be able to push themselves out of that.

Alternatively, if you've got a structured progression plan, you can literally progress for months and months and months, years and years and years, even decades if you are just smart with your progressions, as opposed to just going hard at every single workout. So that is a big drawback. And then a couple more, there's a very generalist approach. CrossFit prides themselves on getting you ready for anything, whether it's go for a swim, go for a run, do a weightlifting event, go play team sport. And it does generally get you ready, but again, it never gets you the whole way there. It might get you 75% to your potential fitness, but there's going to be a lot of room to completely bring it to a head and actually get you developed. For hiking, it might get you fit for day hikes, it might get you fit for a couple of overnight hikes, but you'll never reach your full potential doing this type of training.

And the last drawback, which again is pretty [inaudible 00:15:12] and coach dependent is quite often CrossFit has a very, very big philosophy around it, which appeals to a lot of people, but it's got very particular ideas around certain things. And some of them are good, some of them are not so good. And if you are part of CrossFit, in certain gyms, it's very easy to get sucked into their entire philosophy, which there are some things that aren't particularly well done. Now for example, just recently their nutrition stuff is not very good and they seem to be going backwards. They started pulling away from dieticians who are the number one people you should be getting nutrition advice from. And they're getting some very controversial people to talk about nutrition topics. As a whole, yeah, it can be a little bit worrying sometimes when people go down this route. So that can be a little bit drawback for some people.

So now that I've said the benefits and the drawbacks, you probably have a decent idea of my opinion. As a hiker, what do I suggest? Well, if you are considering CrossFit, I would say probably give it a miss if you're a hiker, unless you really, really, really need a local community biome and unless you're doing absolutely no work during the week, unless you've got a community around you. And even then, I'd probably recommend, if you struggle with this, maybe go find a local hiking group instead to start with. And then maybe CrossFit on top of that if you're in that situation where that's exactly what you need. And then if you are not doing CrossFit, just follow the approach I've described in the last 100 episodes. I've told you so much in this podcast, you should know what to do by now.

Now if you already do CrossFit, that is perfectly fine. I'm not going to say you have to 100% stop, but a few things you should be including in your week if you want to get your best results from on the trail is number one, make sure you're doing some specific strength training outside of this. So either on a separate day or at least before the CrossFit sessions start, so you can get some specific things that are going to help you exactly on the trail, and just make sure it's not combined with your cardio training. Make sure you are including some type of long duration cardio through your week. So if you're not hiking every single weekend, then making sure you're doing some type of walk or run or cycle or swim or something like that, and make sure you're taking the time to recover as well. Many in CrossFit has just missed that, they love working hard all the time and just run themselves in the ground. So make sure you are recovering.

And if you are leading into a specific adventure, I would probably say consider limiting you're CrossFit to one, maybe twice a week at max, and then focusing more on the structured and specialist approach. And once your adventure's over, you can go all out and CrossFit again. But if you're training leading up to a specific adventure, you want to do the right training to get yourself there. So I hope you got a bit of an insight today in around my opinion around CrossFit for hikers. As I said, that does have some benefits, does have some drawbacks. I would say there's probably a better way of going about preparing for the trail and preparing for adventures than CrossFit. But in certain situations, that might be relevant for you.

So I hope you've enjoyed this episode today, guys. As I've been saying recently, if you haven't joined it already, I would absolutely love if you joined up in my free Facebook community, it's called the Training for Hiking and Trekking Facebook group. Now inside this group, I'm releasing loads more content and deeper content around training for your adventures. I'm going to answer your questions specifically and directly if you do have any questions about the stuff I talk about in podcasts, and we're also trying to build a nice community of hikers who are training for adventures or at least training for the trail all around the world. So we can build each other up, share our trail, share our tips and generally have a really good time. So very much I urge you to reach out and join that group. You can find it at Facebook in the Training for Hiking and Trekking Facebook group. Alternatively, I'll leave a link in the show notes below. So thank you so much for listening. Have a lovely day and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.
 

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