How To Improve Balance For Hiking

Balance is a major concern for many hikers. If our balance isn't great, it can significantly reduce our comfort, enjoyment and safety out on the trail. 

To help, this video dives deep into the subject and explores a range of different exercises and workouts a hiker can use to improve their balance while hiking. 

Inside We Cover:

•  Why balance is such an important aspect of fitness for hikers (and a few different types of hikers which it is even more critical for)
•  The two most common mistakes I see from hikers trying to improve their balance
•  How to improve general balance (including a range of balance and strength exercises that you can use)
•  Creating hiking-specific balance (and a series of workouts you can use to ensure you are improving for the actual demands of the trail)

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Learn about our online personal training for hikers here: https://www.summitstrength.com.au/online.html

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Video Chapters:

0:09 
Introduction to Balance in Hiking
1:24 
Importance of Balance for Hikers
4:26 
Common Mistakes in Balance Training
7:53 
My Approach to Balance Training
8:38 
General Balance Training Techniques
14:57 
Single-Legged Strength Training
20:01 
Hiking-Specific Balance Training
23:35 
Bridging the Gap for Hiking
34:22 
Extra Considerations in Balance Training
36:01 
Summary and Key Takeaways
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Video Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. And in today's presentation, we are talking all about how to improve your balance when hiking.

[0:09] Now, as hikers, we all know that balance is a pretty big deal. And there's a lot of hikers out there who genuinely do want to improve this. They find it's a bit of a limiting factor in a number of situations, causes them a bit of stress, maybe a bit of anxiety. And there are many, many people out there that want to improve that.

[0:27] However, you know, like so many things out there in the training for hiking community, the quality of information on this subject isn't particularly amazing. You know, there's a lot of stuff out there which, you know, does tend to get a little bit overly complicated, a lot of stuff out there that maybe not be super relevant for hikers, and a lot of information out there isn't amazing. So the idea for today's video is to get a little bit deep in this subject and really, really dive into the info that you need to help feel stable and balanced and confident in any situation. Now, this isn't information I'm just making up, but this is the ideas and the strategies and the training that I use with my hikers and I've used with many, many hikers over the years to really, really good success. Now, what we're going to be covering today is number one, why balance is so important for hikers. Number two, common mistakes we often see when hikers are looking to improve

[1:22] their balance with their training. And then we'll explore my approach to balance training for hikers, which will cover some general balance training, some hiking-specific balance training, and also some extra considerations, which a lot of people overlook, but do definitely do affect balance on the trail.

[1:40] So to start with, why is balance important for hikers? As a general concept, a lot of people are aware of this, but it's definitely worthwhile covering initially. At the surface level, hiking obviously puts us in many uneven and unstable situations. Rock hopping, uneven steps, traverses, rough terrain, potholes, slippery surfaces, snow, sand, whatever it may be, all of these definitely do add a balance component to our adventures. And if we struggle with balance in these situations, obviously it can be a bit stressful, it can be a bit uncomfortable, and potentially lead to accidents. Now, feeling comfortable in any of these situations is important because when we're going out on adventures, whether it's a simple day hike or a massive multi-month through hike, we want to be having a good time. We want to be enjoying ourselves. And if we are struggling in any time that our balance desk does get challenged, you know, that can suck a lot of the enjoyment away from these types of things.

[2:34] Now, beyond that, you know, beyond the surface level, there are a few types of hikers where this actually does get even more crucial. It's not so much of a case of staying comfortable and staying like, you know, happy in these situations, but it's actually a really, really, really crucial thing we need to be on top of. You know, number one is a hiker who does have a history of trips and stumbles and falls. If you've had a bad accident in the past and you're aware that you don't want to have that happen again, balance can be a major consideration.

[3:01] If you're a hiker who has some bone density issues, there are a lot of hikers out there who may be worrying about bone density, maybe they're in the early stages of osteopenia, osteoporosis, or whatever it may be. And in day-to-day life, this is obviously consideration, but if we're out on the trail and we're in these situations where we're dealing with uneven terrain and we don't have great balance and we happen to fall, well, if we have bone density issues, that can obviously be slightly more serious and have that risk of breaks and fractures and all of that, which we don't want. Number three, remote hiking. If you're going out somewhere where it doesn't have easy access to get rescued, it doesn't have easy access for you to step away from the trail, and you're just in the middle of nowhere, balance is pretty important. And also nervousness and anxiety. Some people are aware that, hey, balance is a bit of a struggle, and that's fine. But there are other people out there that it gets a little bit more than that. It ends up being this anxiety almost, like they stress about it, they worry about it, it's in the back of their mind all the time. And if that's you, not much fun. So definitely improving in this situation is a really, really valuable thing. So it definitely might make sense in many situations and for the majority of hikers to put a little bit of time and attention into improving balance with your training.

[4:18] Now, when it comes down to improving balance, you know, over the years, I've talked with so many hikers out there who've gone down this route and they

[4:25] say, I want to improve balance. But as I said, the application of this type of training isn't amazing. And there are a couple of common mistakes, which I just see over and over and over again when it comes down to this subject.

[4:36] Number one is when doing balance training, we end up compromising other areas of our training. Now, what I mean by that is when we look at our training, when we look at going out and hiking, when we're looking at doing strength training, when we look at carrying a pack or going up and down stairs or whatever it may be, every single type of training we are doing, every session, every exercise we're doing has a primary outcome. Meaning there's one main thing we're looking at getting out of that session. And yes, there may be secondary and third things and all of that. There may be a trickle-down effect of other things that we're getting out of it, but there is always one main outcome.

[5:11] So for example, if we're looking at balance training, the main thing we want to get out of balance training is improving our balance. Makes sense. The same thing with strength training. If we are doing strength training, the main thing we're trying to do in that type of training is improve our strength. Yes, there may be other benefits. Yes, there may be trickle-down things, but that's the primary reason why we're doing this. You know, all too often when we look at balance training, and balance training specifically has a bad habit of this, is we end up turning everything into balance work. And we end up increasing the demands of balance on something. We're like, hey, this would be really good to add in. This would be really good to challenge my balance, which ends up being great for that, but it reduces the effectiveness of the actual primary reason while you're doing it. So for example, if we're looking at strength training, like if you did a single-legged deadlift, a pretty typical move for a hiker, really, really good for developing strength through the hamstrings and the glutes.

[6:05] Fantastic. But then some people might think, okay, cool, there's a little bit of balance in that, but maybe I'll take that a step further. Maybe I'll do a single-legged deadlift and I'll stand on a BOSU ball or stand on a pillow or stand on a stability disc or whatever it may be. And that ends up being a really big balance component and it can be a very challenging balance exercise, but then you don't end up actually doing anything to work your strength. So we lose the primary aspect, primary benefit or outcome of that original exercise. It's not to say you can't turn exercises into balance, but we need to be aware that we're not just butchering other areas or cannibalizing other areas of our training, but we're still getting the desired effect on all the different aspects of fitness that we want. And I'll explain how to go about that in a little bit.

[6:47] But sake number two, and this is something that, yeah, a lot of hikers just miss out on, is just not bridging the gap for the trail. So, what I mean by that is when it comes down to balance training and a lot of training in general, a lot of balance training when you're doing it at home or in the gym or whatever it may be is general in nature. We are generally trying to improve our balance. We are generally trying to improve our ability to balance and stabilize in very simple situations and day-to-day situations, which is absolutely fine and that is great. However, we do need to be aware that there is a little bit of a difference between, the balance component that we get from general training and from day-to-day activities and the actual balance we need when we're out on the trail, when we step in a pothole, when we step on a loose rock, when we're a traverse or whatever it may be. There is a bit of a difference. And essentially what we need to just be aware is when we're looking at our training that we're not, that we are respecting this difference and that we are, yes, building up a general balance, but also thinking how can we link this into our hiking so the body will have a better chance of actually applying this when we're actually out hiking. So we need to be aware of that in the hiking context.

[7:54] So what we're going to be talking through today and what my approach for balance training for hikers is, is yeah, we're going to talk through what I use. Now to be clear, this isn't the only way. There are many, many different ways you can go about this, but this is an approach that I find works pretty well. It's very, very beneficial, kind of covers all our bases and it's relatively simple. It may not be quite as simple as just going and doing one or two random exercises, but it kind of covers all our bases in the most simple way. What we're going to be covering is general balance training, which will cover specific balance exercises and some single-legged strength training. Both of those very valuable. Number two, we're going to be doing hiking-specific balance training and just cover a range of different workouts, which can bridge that gap, which I mentioned before, for your needs on the trails.

[8:38] So let's start with general balance training. Now, ultimately, general balance training, what I'm saying here is just doing some simple exercises, which are directly going to target your balance. They're very, very specific. They are literally balance exercises. That's the main outcome, and that's what we're looking at. Now, for this type of training, there are a million and one different exercises you can go about this, and there's a million and one ways you can go about that.

[9:00] One division I quite like, and one thing that I quite like to include in all of my training is incorporating both opened eye balance and closed eye balance. Now, what I mean by that is opened eye balance exercises are literally what they sound like, doing some type of balance exercise with your eyes open. In that situation, this is typically what we're doing in day-to-day life. If we get into a situation where we need to stabilize, our body will try to stabilize and we'll use vision as a component of that. We'll use our different aspects of balance, but also use our vision to be like, okay, this is where the body's going, this is where we need to go, and that'll be a major factor. And that's definitely worth training. Now, closed eye balance essentially takes that vision out of this equation. So we can't actually use our eyes and our vision to determine where our body is in space. So the body has to rely on other aspects of balance, other things. This significantly make things way more difficult. And if you want to test this out now, literally stand on one leg with your eyes open, then close your eyes. And you'll notice it is significantly more difficult. I find it really, really useful to train both of these things for hikers. Now, obviously, when we're hiking, we don't typically have our eyes closed on the trail, so it's not exactly what we're doing on the trail, but there are situations where maybe vision isn't going to be a massive complaint.

[10:12] Say we're walking along and we step in a pothole and our foot just slides out and we're looking the other way. Or say we're hiking along and yeah, we just sort of slip on some mud or whatever. And again, we're not looking. It's not exactly the same thing because yes, we still have our eyes open, but there is a bit of carryover and it can be quite effective. So I like working open eye balance and closed eye balance. Now, as I said before, balance training, it can get very, very complicated and there are a million and one exercises out here. In all honesty, when we're looking at this general balance training, I personally say, keep it simple. You can get a lot, a lot, a lot of benefits of just nailing a few very, very basic exercises. So I'm going to demonstrate four really, really simple balance exercises that I quite like for my hikers. And I'll talk you through various ways that you can actually progress these. So the first one is the simplest place to start. And this is literally what I said before. It's a single leg balance. Basically all this involves is you're on one leg, bare foot, and you literally just stand there.

[11:11] Hold that for as long as you can. This is very, very, very, very simple, but it's a really great place to start. Some people may do this and they can last all day. They can last a minute or two or whatever it may be. That's fine. Some people may do this and they're like, I can only do 10, 20 seconds. There we go. But either way, it's our most basic starting point. Now we can start with this with our eyes open. That's level one. You're like, give that a go, how that goes. If that does feel a bit easy, say you can do 30 seconds or 60 seconds pretty comfortably, then close your eyes. Give that closed eye balancer go and see how that goes. You'll notice that is significantly more challenging and that's your next step up.

[11:46] Once you're feeling confident with that, then we can go back to our open eye balance. But what we can do is we can do this same exercise, but you stand on a pillow or you stand on a folded up mat or you stand on a stability disc. So something underneath your foot, which just gives a little bit of instability. You will notice that this is very, very different. It's an extra challenge, but we're just adding on that component of stability. So you do that for a little while. And then the next step, you can do the same thing, standing on whatever you were standing on, but have your eyes closed. That's one exercise, but four different levels, which if you work through, that's going to significantly help. So that's level one, single leg balance. The next exercise I quite like, which we walk into is around the world.

[12:26] So this is very, very similar to the single leg balance, but what we're doing here is basically just passing a weight or passing an object around our body, which is just going to put a little bit of dynamic movement in, a little bit of change and a little bit of extra challenge. So in this particular exercise, very, very simple, start on one leg. In this situation, I've got a weight and we're literally just passing it around the body. You'll notice immediately this is significantly more challenging because the weight is pulling us to one side, pulling us to the other. We need to stabilize. Again, you can work through a nice progression here. Start with your eyes open. Go with that. Next one, go up to standing on a pillow on a mat or a mat or a stability disc with your eyes open. That is really, really difficult. Then go back to being on the floor, but try with your eyes closed. You'll find that's really hard. And then once you're comfortable with that, go to standing on a pillow or a mat with your eyes closed. Again, four levels of that particular exercise where you can work through some extra levels.

[13:18] The next exercise, which I quite like, is a three-cone balance. So this one, again, we're just moving into some slightly more dynamic movements. So we're not just standing upright, but we're changing the posture a little bit. In this particular exercise, what we're doing is we're getting like three cones or three somethings just in front of us, standing one leg, and all we're doing is basically just reaching down to each cone with one arm. And we reach down.

[13:40] And work through it. Then once you've done one arm, then we go to the other arm. And what we're doing is just challenging the body in different postures and different movements. Obviously, when we're hiking, we're not always upright. There will be situations where we're a little bit awkward. So this can be quite useful. Now for this particular exercise, you can't really do the closed eye balance very well with this. So typically what I say is just start with your feet on the floor, do that with your eyes open. Once you're comfortable with that, then you can stand on like a pillow or follow it up mat like in this example. And then the last one, this is kind of the more advanced thing. This video is really, really rough. It was filmed very, very long ago in COVID. And so bear with me with the quality here. But basically this is called the star balance exercise. So this one's kind of building off that three cone. And what we're doing here is we basically got, I think it was like seven or eight different sort of points around us in a star. So in here, I've got my flip-flops. Obviously you can use whatever may be. And what we're doing is we just got one leg. And what we're doing is just with the other leg, just slowly pushing out and trying to touch each of those points. We're going through different areas, different movements, different postures, and it can be very, very challenging. Now, this does take a little bit of setup. Obviously, you've got to set up eight things around you, but it's really, really useful. Again, you can start feet on the floor and just go with that. And then once you're comfortable with it, you can stand on a pillow or a mat. And again, really, really, really good.

[14:58] So, that's basically four very simple basic balance exercises. So how this may actually look like in a plan. If you were like, okay, cool. I want to incorporate this into my training. How does that actually look? Well, this is a really, really simple 12-step plan.

[15:13] Number one, you can start single leg balance, eyes open. Do that till you can do that comfortably with, say, 60 seconds or 40 seconds, whatever it may be. Next level, close your eyes. Next level, open your eyes, but be on a mat or be on a ball or whatever it may be. Next level, be on the mat, but have your eyes that should read eyes closed. So you go on to that next level. Next one, go to that round the world with your eyes open, then round the world with your eyes closed, then on the mat with your eyes open, on the mat with your eyes closed, and that should be closed as well. Three cone drill on your floor, three cone drill on the mat, star balance drill on the floor, star balance drill on the mat. 12 different levels of exercises based off those four, but if you work through this, this is going to be really effective. And if you ultimately did each variation, say you did two or three times a week for two weeks, that's literally a six-month balanced training plan there. It doesn't have to be too much more complicated than that, but that's really, really useful. So that's the first thing we want to talk about. Now, where to actually use these balance exercises, realistically, balance, and especially that closed-eye balance, it can be a very, very slow aspect of fitness to improve. It can be very, very stubborn. It can be very, very frustrating. So if you're just doing this once a week or twice a week, sometimes it can just not really feel like it's shifting. So because of this, what I this type of stuff in our week. It's not very strenuous. It's not going to get us really tired. It will be mentally frustrating.

[16:35] But we want to expose the body to lots of bits and pieces. So the best way to do this is essentially... Try to just incorporate in periods of dead space in your week. Because as we said before, we don't want this balance training end up taking up all this time, which compromises our other areas of training. It's hard enough fitting in minutes of normal training in our life. And I see a lot of hikers, they're like, I could work strength, I could work cardio, I could work balance, and they end up just wasting, not wasting, they end up dedicating a lot of time to balance, but missing out on these other areas, which we don't want. So the best place to do this is in our dead space, in periods in our week, in periods of our training when we're not really doing anything already. We're just sitting around or waiting around and we can really fit in some good balance during this. Now, in our training, this may be in our warm-ups. When we're going through a warm-up routine, if we're doing some mobility exercises or stability exercises, just doing a balance exercise. This can be a really good way of warming the body up before you get into other things. On top of that, I really like this in a rest period of strength exercises. If you're doing strength training, typically we'll do a set. We'll do 10 or 15 reps, have a rest. Then do 10 or 15 reps, have a rest, 10 or 15 reps, and then move to the next exercise. Those rest periods are really, really good periods where you can fit in balance exercises. When you're just standing around or singing around, it works out really well.

[17:48] In your day-to-day life, you can think about, okay, what are periods in my day where I'm not really doing anything? If I have a tea every single morning and I wait for the kettle to boil, or if I make for the coffee to make, you could literally use those 20 seconds, 30 seconds to do a bit of balance. Do that five or six or seven days a week, there's a lot of balance training. You could do this while you're watching TV and just say, you know what, five minutes a night, I'm going to do this while I'm watching TV. You could do this while you're waiting for the bus or brushing your teeth. Obviously, not all of the exercises are going to be practical in this situation, but you can kind of see the idea of how you can just layer this into your life. So that's our general balance exercises. Have a think about that.

[18:24] Now, the next level to this and the next sort of level of this kind of general training is single-legged strength training. Now, strength training as a whole, without even getting specific about, but strength training can make a dramatic difference to balance for hikers amongst many, many other benefits. At the most basic, basic, basic level, just building up general strength and general endurance in the legs will help your stability, reduce fatigue, and directly aid your balance. All of these things are really, really beneficial. So if you didn't put any thought into your strength training, if you said, I'm just going to go and improve my strength and endurance, it's going to be beneficial. But we can take this a little bit of a step further by looking at what we call single-legged strength exercises, which is literally what they sound like. Strength exercises on one leg at a time. Now, the reason why this can be really good for balance is standing one leg pretty obviously increases our balance requirements. The difference between squatting up and down on one leg and then squatting up and down on two legs, very, very different. On top of that, But single-legged strength exercises will add ankle stability to the mix. Ankle stability, our ankles building up the stability and ability to balance around the ankles, very, very beneficial. That is a big component for balance. And these single-legged strength exercises, for the most part, will be quite useful for that.

[19:41] And also can increase the relevance and specificity. So when we're looking at hiking, obviously there's many situations where we are on one leg at a time. If we're going up a steep set of steps, we're pushing up one leg, that's pretty relevant. Doing this in our training can be quite useful. You don't have to do all your strength training like this, but a portion of it can be quite useful.

[20:01] Now there are again, countless, countless, countless different options for this, and there's so many different single-legged strength exercises here, but I'll share two of my favourites, which are really, really good, not just for balance, but for a variety of other things for hikers.

[20:14] The first one, probably my favourite, is the step down. Step down is a great exercise to work quadriceps and glutes, so the front of the thighs and the bum, but also in this situation can be quite useful at helping improve stability and balance in a number of situations. Here, what you're doing, standing on a small step, basically one leg on the step, one leg on the air, and basically push slowly, slowly, slowly, lowering yourself down. You'll notice this may look pretty simple but it can be significantly quite a big challenge and you will notice that as you go through this it will be very very uh yeah still have a lot of stability requirements for this exercise you can start with a really really small step you can start small and this step i'm demonstrating here um or build it up a little bit more and then as you're getting used to this you could progress to a higher step or you can add some weight you could wear a backpack on your back you can hold a couple of dumbbells or whatever may be this is a standard exercise i get pretty much all my hikers to do regardless if they're first time hikers or hardcore mountaineers they will do a level of this because it does have so many benefits now another example of this um single legged strength is a single legged deadlift so the the step down was working the quadriceps and the glutes so the front of the thighs and the pump the single legged deadlifts is kind of working the opposite of that the hamstrings so the back of the thighs and the glutes now in this situation what we're doing standing one leg and we're basically tipping over at the hips.

[21:33] Little pause, and then coming up. Again, really, really good strength exercise, very, very beneficial, but in this context, there's a lot of balance requirements, a lot of stability requirements, very, very useful. Now, in this exercise, it can often be good, like in this video, to start with a little bit of support, so just holding onto something just to make sure you're not completely falling over, and then as you progress, you can take that support away, just do a purely body weight, and then you can add a bit of weight. You can hold a dumbbell or a pack in your hands in front of you and load that up. Very, very simple, but very, very useful. but you can kind of see there's a little bit of a difference between those specific balance exercises where we're like hey that is purely balance and these strength exercises the priority for strength is to push the strength forward but you can see there is still a bit of a balance requirement here so those are two very very simple options now a couple of important notes um with the single-legged balance strength single-legged strength exercises these are a great addition and they can absolutely give you some extra stability balance and challenge but just be aware that we just do still want these stable enough for a good strength stimulus so what i mean by that is with this single-legged deadlift you know what that's cool we're going through this exercise but if you try to do this on a bosu ball or a stability disc it's going to be too unstable it's going to turn into one of those balance exercises which is fine if what you're using for that is but just make sure keep in mind strength exercises are meant to develop strength there's a component of balance and stability but don't get don't get too carried away with it is what I'm trying to say um.

[23:01] On top of this, you know, if this type of stuff is a little bit too difficult initially, say you really struggle with balance and you're trying one of these exercises, you're like, oh my gosh, that's just way too much. Then you can add extra stability to work up to these things. You could start that step down with two trekking poles, one pole, one pole, balance yourself there, go through the movement, totally fine. Do that for a couple of weeks, then just go down to one trekking pole. Do that for a couple of weeks and go down to one trekking pole, but instead of holding it, just hold your fingertips on the top and then move on to no support. That is a perfectly legitimate progression of improving your stability, improving your balance works out very well.

[23:36] So next up, let's talk about hiking specific balance. Now, ultimately this hiking specific balance, it sounds fancy, but all it means is just finding some training where you can bridge that gap between the general balance training we were just talking about and the specific demands when we're faced while hiking. Now, obviously, if you just get out and hike every single week or multiple times a week, you'll get a lot of exposure to this type of stuff. But when we're talking about this balanced training, it's not so much just getting out on the trail, but dedicating training to help this. Now, the key to this sort of idea behind these sessions is we want to expose the body and the mind to the very, very, very particular challenges that we're faced with on the trail in a controlled environment. So what I mean by that, and again, as opposed to just going out on the trail and saying, I'm going to do this really rough trail, I'm going to really struggle in what it may be. You may get through that, you may not have a good time or whatever it may be, But if we can do this in a controlled environment, somewhere where it's not in the middle of nowhere, somewhere where you can just stop if you want, somewhere where if you can have a bit of a breather if you want, somewhere where the risks aren't high, where you can actually practice this and think about this and develop this, that's the idea behind these sessions. On top of that, when we're looking at this type of training and this hiking-specific balance...

[24:48] This is a good opportunity where we can create workouts, which is not only going to improve our balance and stability, which is great. That's what we're trying to get out of it. But we also want to double up these workouts where you will help various aspects of fitness by hiking. So we can improve our aerobic fitness. We can improve our muscular endurance. We can improve our ability to carry packs. We can improve our ability to go up hills or whatever it may be. So this is a really good opportunity where you can still get a really good hiking session for developing your fitness, but we can also add that balance component.

[25:17] So there's again, many ways you're going to approach this, but I think probably the best way here is just ask yourself, what specifically do you struggle with on the trail? And not just saying, hey, my balance is bad. I struggle with this. But think back to the last hikes where you've really felt this as a struggle and think about what specific types of hiking do you want to improve on? Is it carrying a pack? Do you just generally feel when I load up a pack, I'm just really unstable, really unbalanced? That's fine. Is it when you're going up steep inclines and steps, when you're stepping up on a high step and you sort of like slightly don't have that base of support and you're a little bit wobbly there? Is it steep descents? And you're like, every time I step down, I just do not feel good. Is it rock hopping or river crossings or just more unusual terrain? Have a think about this because if you can think about this, then we can reverse engineer specific sessions, which will help with this. This is where we get the specificity of it. And we're not just saying, hey, this will improve you in every situation, but we're trying to dial in on this a little bit. So to give you a few examples, I'm going to talk you through four different potential workout options, which can work in these different situations. To either give you examples, you can literally just copy and paste and use, or at least get your mind thinking about how you may be able to incorporate this yourself. So let's talk about the situation where you just struggle in general with balance, with pack on the back. You know, like anytime I put on a pack, which has like four or five or six kilos, or maybe it's a full pack, I just feel really unstable. In this situation, the most simple way you can approach this is just doing some load of pack walking in your week.

[26:46] So essentially around the local neighborhood, loading up a backpack with the amount of weight you need and then walking around. First level, that could sometimes be enough for a lot of people. Now on top of this, if you're walking around the local neighborhood, instead of just being on the footpath, think about how you can vary this a little bit. Try walking off the footpath on the grass. Try walking up on the curbside and going up on the curbside, carrying that and doing step up, step up to step and try to balance there. And then just vary that around a little bit. In 40 minutes, you could spend five or 10 minutes of just doing this slightly more unusual walking. It may sound simple, but sometimes this is enough to really, really get the body moving forward.

[27:23] Then, you know, that's the most basic level. Then you can think about how am I going to progress this? You could basically over time, start with a light pack, build up to your full pack weight that you need. Very, very simple.

[27:33] The next level from here is you can start incorporating a little bit of moving weight. So, what I mean by that is opposed to just loading up your backpack with rice or dog food or whatever it may be, a really good thing for balance here is essentially get a dry bag. So, like, you know, something that will hold water in it, or you can get a big water jug or whatever it may be. And essentially what you want to do is fill it up with water about three quarters of the way. So it's not all the way, but it's about three quarters of the way. So there's a bit of good water sloshing. There's a bit of movement. And the idea behind this is you would do this load of pack walking. You would walk up and down on the curbs. You would walk around the glass. You would have this dry bag, three quarters full of water, and then it would just pull you in slightly different directions. It's not going to be dramatic, but it's just going to add that extra component. It's a really, really, really simple tip, but it can definitely add that extra balance. You may do that for a couple of weeks and be like, okay, what do I want to a bit more challenge here? And then you may say, all right, I'm going to do the same thing, but what I'm going to do instead of just carrying the pack on my back, I'm actually going to carry it in other positions. So I might do five minutes with a pack on my back. Then I might do five minutes with the pack on my shoulder, then five minutes with a pack on my other shoulder, then five minutes holding at my belly, then five minutes holding onto one arm, then the other arm and at your chest and just holding in different positions. Again, with that moving water, that will significantly and they increase the challenge. So all of a sudden, we've gone from this very, very basic low to pack walking session, which is going to be great for your fitness in general, but we just slowly and progressively added more and more balanced components.

[29:00] Very, very simple, but hopefully you can come to that. That sort of gets your mind going.

[29:04] Now, the next situation is balance on steep inclines or steps. This is probably one of the more significant situations a lot of people struggle with.

[29:11] And yeah, how can we approach this? In this situation, a really simple thing that's accessible for many people is doing a box step session where you're basically at home, at the gym, in a park, you find a box, a step, a bench, something you can literally just step up and down, up and down, up and down. Now, essentially what we're going to do here at the most baseline is you're just going to extend, do extend a period, it's going up and down, up and down at a steady pace. You may do step ups for three minutes or four minutes or five minutes at a time, have a minute off and repeat that. At the most basic, basic, basic level, just in getting exposure to this in your training can be enough for a lot of people to get this balance kick started. But then again, we can progress this and make this a step further. You know, you may sort of start with a box that you're a hundred percent comfortable with, then you may just step it up to a slightly higher step. It doesn't have to be like tremendously, completely uncomfortable, but something that just feels a little bit unnatural, a little bit unbalanced. You can practice on that. You'll notice all of a sudden I'm wobbling around. All of a sudden I feel a little bit in the air and practicing this can go a long way.

[30:11] And then you can sort of look at saying, okay, I'm going to do step ups, but I'm going to have a high knee. So instead of just stepping up and up, up and down like a normal one, you would step up and then raise one knee. All of a sudden we're up, we're off our basic support, we're slightly out of posture. That's going to add extra challenge. And then each time you step up, you add that high knee. Then you can add a pack. Then you can incorporate that dry bag of three quarters of water. And then you can carry in other positions. And you can kind of see if you did two weeks of normal stepping, two weeks slightly higher stepping, two weeks with high knees with a pack, dry bag, this, that again ends up being a very, very long and consistent workout plan. But you can see step by step by step, you add extra balance components and it will be tricky. At the same time, this will be improving your aerobic fitness. This will be improving your masculine endurance very very effective.

[31:01] Now, on the flip side, we can kind of think, okay, what about going down hills? In this situation, you know, you could look at doing some stair or hill repeats, basically locally just finding a set of stairs or a hill nearby. If you're lucky enough to find something, that's great. If you can find something that's a little bit rougher or the steps are uneven or something like that, even better. You can do extended periods of going up and down at a steady pace. Again, you can put a timer on for 20 minutes or 30 minutes and literally just go up and down for that period. At the most basic level, just getting exposure to this can go a long way. Again, we can progress this. We can go from body weight to adding a pack. All of a sudden, with the pack, it throws our center of balance out a little bit more, adds a bit more challenge. Incorporate that dry bag three quarters of water, carrying other positions. You'll notice if you're going down a hill and you're carrying a pack on your shoulder, or if you're carrying a pack at your belly, all of a sudden, it's way more difficult. It can be really challenging.

[31:53] Very, very simple, but again, you can kind of get the idea of this will very much be very specific. If you did not have access to stairs or hills and you're like ah you know i live somewhere really flat or the weather's really bad or whatever it may be what you can basically do is you could do the same thing as the last one the box step session and where you're going up and down up and down on a box but what you could do as opposed to just going step up and then step off backwards you could do a step up and over so you step up onto a box and then you keep on stepping forward over then you turn around step up step forward turn around and go like that um it's not exactly the same as going downhills, but again, it will give you some good challenge. It will sort of expose the body to slightly different things, get you a little bit more comfortable with that, and you can progress that. Add a pack, dry bag of water, carrying different positions, very, very simple. And then, you know, if you're looking at like, say, balance on rock hopping or river crossings or unusual terrain or whatever it may be, again, you can kind of think about how you can expose the body to this.

[32:51] One option here is literally just getting some exposure to this type of stuff. If you struggle with rock hopping, you could think locally, where can I find something that has a little bit of similar terrain? Again, it's not in the middle of nowhere on a big old hike, but somewhere where you can find a bit of similar terrain locally. If you live near the coast, maybe a headland on a beach. You can go down a beach and walk around that headland. Maybe there's a dry riverbed near you. Maybe there's just a really, really close local trail, which is easy to get to and easy to leave, but there's a little section where you can repeat. And essentially here, just to extend a period of repeating this at a steady state, you may go around that headland and just do that for half an hour. You may go up and down that riverbed for half an hour or whatever it is. And again, we want to progress it over time. Start a body weight, add a pack, incorporate that dry bag, carry in other positions. Very, very simple.

[33:37] If you didn't have the opportunity to get to something like this, because I fully understand it may not be super doable, then again, you could lean back on one of those box step sessions, but you may sort of look at doing just different variations of stepping up and over. So you may sort of do something like a crossover step up where you're stepping out with your outside knee and you're kind of crossing over and doing a little bit of a weird thing. And then you may look at it like a step up and over where you step literally stepping up and over. And essentially what you could do is you could do a box step session, but you may do four minutes of high knee stepping, then four minutes of the up and over stepping, then four minutes of the step overs and four minutes of the crossovers and just getting different exposures to different movements. And again, over time you would incorporate the pack and the dry bag and the

[34:20] carrying other positions and all of that jazz. So hopefully that just gives you a few ideas in regards to how you can sort of bridge this gap where we're not just doing general stuff, which is good, but we're sort of thinking, how can we actually apply this in a controlled environment, which may be a bit more relevant for the trails?

[34:37] Now, that's the main crux of everything. There are a couple of extra considerations you definitely want to keep in mind. If improving balance is something that's very, very important for you, there are other things that definitely can affect this. One thing that we haven't talked about is what can make a dramatic difference to balance is your levels of fatigue. Basically, the second your legs start getting tired, or the second your energy gets low, or the second you start huffing and puffing, or the second you're just like, oh my gosh, I just cannot concentrate, your balance will be compromised. It will affect your balance. We'd often think about that, but it is a significant thing. To combat this, we want to make sure you're doing everything you can to minimize fatigue on the trail. If you are worried about balance, if you're worried about falling, if you're worried about bone density, fatigue is your worst enemy.

[35:27] So to be beyond this, we just want to think about, okay, are you working aerobic fitness? Are you building up your fitness in different cardio sessions? Are you building up your hiking? Are you working on your strength and endurance? Are you nailing your nutrition and your fueling? Are you nailing your pacing? All of these play a significant role into your fatigue and energy levels, and all of that will play a significant role into your balance as well. So I'm not going to go into all of that today because obviously that's loads and loads and loads, but it is definitely worthwhile considering. So summary, this all may seem like a lot. I fully understand.

[35:58] I spent, what, 35 minutes talking about balance and all of these different exercises. But to break it down really, really simply, if you're looking to improve your balance number one add in some specific balance exercises into your week number two when you're doing strength training which i hope you are as a hiker work in some single-legged strength exercises you don't have to do everything single-legged but maybe at least one in each workout can go a long way number three choose a hiking specific workout to practice for your particular challenge you don't have to do multiple of those a week but do one of those a week you can vary them you can change them but just progress over time and of course get out and hike where you can. The more you can hike, the more you'll be exposed to all of these different things and utilize all this stuff you're developing in your training. That's the summary and that's kind of what we're looking at there.

[36:43] So hopefully that does give you a bit of an overview around how to improve your balance while hiking. And hopefully that just fills a few gaps and opens a few ideas and gets your mind turning a little bit around this subject. Now, I fully understand though, you know, if putting this all together and getting this all in as part of a training program can be a little bit overwhelming. If you were looking for a little bit extra help putting this together, I would love to chat with you. You know, what I do all day, every day is we do online personal training for hikers to help them get fit, strong, and resilient for their adventures. What our packages typically will include is we will create a custom and personalized workout program to get you ready for anything the trail may throw at you. Covering, strength, balance, mobility, cardio, hiking, everything you need and in a way that's going to fit around you and your life and your needs.

[37:28] Number two, we do put a big emphasis into educating you on all the peripheral factors which can make or break an adventure. Things like nutrition, recovery, self-care, mental strength, a bunch of other things. And we also give you the coaching, support, and accountability to keep you on track. to make sure everything is coming together as a whole to make sure you have the best chance possible of getting the best position for your adventures. Now, if you want to learn a little bit more, you can basically go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. On that page, there's a big video, talks through our program and a little bit of detail around what it's all about. And if you did want to explore things a little bit further, you can basically book a free call with us on that page as well, where we can have a bit of a chat, learn about you, your situation, your goals, your hiking, and see if we might be able to help you out. So if you want to check it out, go to summitstrength.com.au online and you can take it from there.

[38:15] So with that being said, thank you so much for watching today. I really hope this has been useful. I hope it helps a few people out and I hope it expands your ideas around this whole concept of improving balance for the trail. So thanks for watching. Have a lovely day and we'll talk soon.

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