Different Pacing Strategies For Uphill Hiking

In this episode, I explore three different pacing strategies a hiker can take for steep uphill hiking (and what my recommended approach is in most situations).

Episode Chapters:

0:10 
Introduction to Uphill Hiking Strategies
1:10 
Three Pacing Approaches Explained
2:57 
The Start-Stop Approach
5:04 
Dealing with Breathlessness
6:47 
The Steady Breathing Strategy
10:00 
Recommendations for Effective Hiking
12:26 
Wrapping Up and Next Steps

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] Right. Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode,

[0:04] we are talking about three different pacing strategies that you can use for uphill hiking. Now, the reason why I'm talking about this is I feel like I've had quite a few conversations with different hikers recently around pacing on uphill hiking, because a lot of hikers out there do struggle with uphills and specifically do struggle with getting out of breath going uphill. And a lot of conversations I have is around training to help improve this and different things you can do. And one of the recommendations I often have is really nailing your pacing in regards to being intentional around what speed you're going uphill, being intentional around how you control your pace going uphill, and that can really make a big difference. But sometimes when I do talk about this and I advocate for certain approaches to this, I can kind of, you know, I guess almost hear people clocking off. And they're like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. But maybe my explanation kind of misses the mark for them a little bit.

[1:07] Or maybe they just take something out of it, but kind of miss the whole picture. So today I'm going to be talking through three different pacing strategies that you can use for uphill hiking and kind of, I guess, explaining it in maybe a slightly different way, which maybe help a few people or just give you a bit extra context or whatever may be.

[1:24] Now, typically when it comes down to uphill hiking, it doesn't matter how long the hiking is, whether it's just a hill that takes you 10 minutes or a mountain that takes you multiple hours or whatever it may be, there's probably like three main pacing approaches that you can take.

[1:41] Three main approaches that like, you know, not a lot of people would naturally fall into. Now, the first approach, and this isn't one I recommend, but this is one that a lot of people fall into, is the start-stop approach. In the sense, you come across a hill, you start climbing. You climb and climb and climb. After a few minutes, your breathing starts getting quicker, your legs start burning, but you kind of ignore it. And you work and climb and climb until you're like, oh, I feel rubbish. I need a break. So, you stop. You take 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes, whatever it may be, catch your breath and go again. And the same thing happens. You climb. Initially, it's fine. Breathing gets quicker. Breathing gets quicker. Breathing gets quicker. We have to stop.

[2:29] Start, stop, start, stop. And we do that the entire hill. And we can often do that, end up doing this the entire day and the entire trip. Now, this particular approach to pacing up hills, a lot of people do it. And it's one of them a lot of people naturally fall into. It's not something that I would personally recommend because it can just be really, really, really tiring. When we're getting to those points where we're just getting absolutely huffed

[2:54] and puffed, our heart rate's through the roof, it can churn through fuel. On top of that it can be just really mentally disheartening and mentally draining in the sense that we just lose all our momentum we kind of feel like the hill is defeating us it's not much fun so that is an approach a lot of people take and that is one of the strategies you could take not something i'd really recommend now the second approach to uphill hiking and i have seen, more people, I guess, advocating for this lately. And I've seen a few people saying this is kind of how you should just deal with it. And the second approach is basically when you are climbing up a hill, you are going to get out of breath. You're going to get huffed and puffed. But what you want to do is just deal with it. And you just keep on going and going and sustaining it, being out of.

[3:51] And you just keep on climbing till the top and then you can survive. Now, this approach, it can work, but it does require an approach to make it doable. It does require you to practice this in your training because if you just went out and did a hill and you tried to get to that out of breath stage and just deal with it and push with it, and you just did that without any preparation, you would probably just instantly fall into that start-stop. You wouldn't feel great. You would feel nasty. The legs would get burnier, get nauseous, and it would just be horrible. But it is perfectly possible to train yourself to deal with this.

[4:29] You can go out and do certain sessions on certain cardio where you jack up that intensity. You really, really push it and you sustain that. And you create certain adaptations in the body to actually handle that type of intensity better. You create certain adaptations in the body to handle, like reduce that burn at that speed, to reduce that feeling of nausea, to reduce like, you know, you feeling nasty when you're huffing and puffing. It's perfectly possible for you to train that. And a lot of people who are doing sports where you have to do that type of stuff, if you have to do high intensity and sustain it, people will literally train for this. It is perfectly possible to train for it.

[5:05] Just requires a very particular approach. Now, on top of this, if you are going to take this type of strategy for going up hills, and that's how you want to approach your hills on the trail, you do need more attention to your fueling. Because one thing that does happen is when we are exercising, our body will use both carbohydrates and fats to fuel our energy. What will happen is the higher and higher and higher intensity exercise we do, body will rely more and more and more on carbohydrates. It'll pretty much always use some carbohydrates, but it will use more and more and more the higher intensity we go. I'll see you next time.

[5:46] Now, the tricky thing with this is the body only can store a certain amount of carbohydrates at a time. On the fat side of things, we can store endless amounts of energy in fat. We don't have an issue there. But for carbohydrates, we can only store a certain amount of carbs. So this particular approach of just getting out of breath and pushing and sustaining, you can do it, but it will burn through those carbs very, very quickly. So you do need to be very intentional about refueling and replenishing. Now, I always advocate for hikers to be intentional about this regardless, because this is one of the best things you can do to help improve your performance. But in this situation, you absolutely 100% need to be on top of it. Because if you are pushing up hills and pushing intensity and sustaining, and you're not replenishing your carbohydrates, well, you have a very, very, very high likelihood of just hitting that point where you completely deplenish carbs and you hit that wall and you're like,

[6:44] oh my gosh, I feel rubbish. So you need to pay attention to that. So that's strategy number two. I do see people advocate for it. I do see people talk about training for it. I do see people saying, look, this is just how you should go as you're hiking.

[6:57] It can be doable. Probably not my favorite thing. The third strategy for uphill hiking is essentially when you are climbing up hills, your priority is to keep steady breathing. So as opposed to hiking, hiking, hiking, and your breathing gets quicker and quicker and quicker, and then you have to stop and start, stop, start, stop. And as opposed to hiking, hiking, hiking, your breathing gets quicker and quicker and quicker, you're huffing and puffing, and you just deal with it. Approach number three.

[7:32] Involves you just keeping steady breathing. You never let your breathing get out of control. You always stick to a pace where you can carry a conversation without huffing between words, or always stick to a pace where you can constantly breathe in and out through your nose. Steady breathing. And essentially what you do is if you do feel like your breathing is kind of challenging you and wants to get out of control, then you adjust your speed to compensate. So if you feel like you can't maintain that steady breathing you slow down if you're going up a hill and hit a steeper section you slow it down and the idea behind this is for the majority of the climb, you're sticking to that steady breathing now for this approach this is awesome awesome awesome in theory if you can nail this this is awesome in regards to energy efficiency this is awesome in regards to managing fatigue. This is awesome in regards to getting a good training effect and developing your aerobic energy system, which is what we want as a hiker.

[8:37] But it can be tricky because this can be really, really, really hard to do at first. This requires you initially when you are practicing this to significantly pull back your speed, significantly pull back your climbing. Because even people who find themselves pretty fit, who may do that start-stop approach, If you just try to do your normal speed, your breathing is going to get out of control. So you have to pull it back. And it feels like sometimes you're kind of going backwards because you're going so slow to maintain this, you're not really getting anywhere. But it's kind of the case of one step forward, two steps back. If you can be patient with this and you can practice and learn this and develop this and learn how to actually do this steady breathing and sustain it going up hills, this can just be so, so, so powerful over the long term. On top of this, this dance requires a decent training commitment in the sense that what we are trying to do with this steady breathing is really, really, really rely on our aerobic energy system predominantly and not push to those intensities where we're using our anaerobic energy systems. So we need to train and develop our aerobic energy system as much as we can. We need to be making sure we are doing long, slow, steady cardio in our training, regular hiking, walking, pack walking, stair and hill climbing, whatever it may be, but sticking to that more sustained training. And that in itself does require a decent amount of commitment.

[10:01] So there are kind of three different strategies, which a lot of hikers will fall into. We've got our start-stop. We've got to get out of breath. Don't worry about being out of breath, but just deal with it and push through it and sustain it and keep on going. Or we've got our steady breathing, our conversational pace, our nose breathing pace, and just adjusting speed to compensate. For me, my personal recommendation is two things when we're looking at the perfect pacing, I guess, approach for hikers. Number one, I strongly recommend striving for number three. Practice this steady climbing. Practice this slow climbing. Train it, develop it, learn it. It is one of the most powerful skills you can learn to reduce fatigue on the trail, help you feel more comfortable on hills and help you just feel really, really good. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of dedication, but it can go a long way.

[10:56] But on top of that, what I probably recommend is not just training for number three and doing that, but also somewhere in your training, develop the ability to tolerate number two.

[11:08] So if you are in a situation where, you know what, you just hit a hill and you're like, oh my gosh, this is way steeper than I need to be. I am out of breath and I want to keep climbing. Or if there's a weather window where you need to push the speed and kind of get out of your normal pace, or if you're with a quick hiker, then it's not quicker than normal or whatever may be then you do have this ability to kind of push through how do you develop this well practicing some cardio where you are pushing speed for minutes at a time two three four minutes at a time climbing up a hill climbing upstairs on a bike or whatever may be where you are literally getting huffed and puffed and sustaining that it doesn't have to be a huge portion of your training but small bits and pieces can be really really good both to be get prepare you if you do need it but also just as a training effect this would kind of be beneficial in other ways, so that's my recommendations for the most part training for that slow steady breathing that climbing do your long slow cardio practice climbing slowly do all of this and apply it on the trail but also when you're training develop that ability to tolerate number two do some longer intervals do some climbs occasionally quicker every once in a while once in the while on the trail just choose a hill push that out of breath and try to sustain it all the way to the top. You don't have to do that all the time or even too commonly, but it can be a nice training effect.

[12:26] So with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up there. Hopefully that kind of gives a little bit of food for thought and maybe just taking a slightly different approach to an explanation can help a few people. Last thing I will sort of say is if you are listening to this and you're like, cool, Rowan, this kind of makes sense. You know, heels are always a struggle for me and it does make sense to try to get to that sort of long, slow, steady pacing. And I would love to train for that. But it also makes sense to be able to be in that situation where I can tolerate that out of breath a little bit more comfortably. And I'd love to train for that as well. If you want a bit of help with this, I would love to chat with you. If you want to learn a little bit more about our online personal training for hiking, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. Now on that page, there's a big video, talks a lot about our program. And if it sounds like something you want to explore a little bit more, there's a link where you can book a free call with our team. We can have a chat, learn about you, your hiking, your situation, and ultimately just see if and how we may be able to help you out. So if you want to find out more go to summitstrength.com.au slash online and we can take it from there so with that being said thank you so much for listening hope you've enjoyed it hope you got a bit out of it and we'll talk to you very soon bye.

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