How To Train For The Camino

Dreaming of hiking the Camino? In this video, we'll talk you through the proven training process to build endurance, strength and stamina to conquer this adventure of a lifetime.

Fitness For Hiking The Camino 

Inside this video, we cover:​

• The biggest challenges hikers need to get ready for when preparing for the Camino
• The most common mistakes hikers make when training for the Camino
• The training approach I recommend a hiker use to best prepare for the Camino 

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Video Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. And in today's video,

[0:03] we are talking all about how to train for the Camino. Now, the Camino, the various different routes of the Camino are very, very, very high on the bucket list for so many people out there. And as much as so many people dream and aspire to these different adventures, the information out there around training and physical preparation for these types of trails, you know, isn't particularly amazing. So the idea behind today's video is we're going to be getting into a little bit of detail around the training that I recommend hikers do when they're leading up to one of the Caminos. So to start with, let's just cover why actually think about training for the Camino. A lot of people don't really consider this trail something that they need to train for, but it is definitely something I strongly urge you to do. Now, the Camino in its many shapes and forms, as I said, is an amazing adventure that so many people aspire to. Now, there are two big reasons that I recommend you take your training seriously.

[1:03] Number one, it will give you a better chance of success. You know, after committing all this time, this money, this effort, after telling all your friends and family you're going to go do this thing, no one wants to drop out halfway. And there are so many people out there who go out on these adventures, they're underprepared, they don't take it seriously, and then all of a sudden they get themselves into trouble and they have to step off the trail and it's

[1:26] something they regret for years and years and years. And even doing a small amount of training and a small amount of physical preparation can make a dramatic difference to your chance of success.

[1:38] Now, on top of that, to take that a step further, training will give you a much better chance of enjoying the experience. Because again, there are a lot of people out there who step out on this trail and they may survive it. They may get through end to end, but they're just miserable. Their bodies are sore. They have no energy. They go to bed dreading the next day. They wake up and they're achy and sore and all of these things just get in the way of them enjoying the experience.

[2:06] But training, if you take it seriously, will give you a better chance of actually having a good time, being able to look up from the trail and take in the scenery around you, being able to wake up in the morning feeling fresh and ready to roll, get to the end of the day and actually have some energy to socialize and chat to other hikers, and ultimately just be able to have this as a wonderful experience that you will treasure for years and years and years. And ultimately, most people out there, you're not doing the Camino just to complete it, just to tick it off as a list. it does mean a lot to a lot of people. And we want to make sure this experience is as positive as possible. And training plays a massive role in that.

[2:44] Now, ultimately, when it comes down to preparation for something like the Camino, there are many, many, many different ways of preparing for something like this. There's ultimately endless different ways. But what I'm going to be talking you through today is what I get my hikers to do, what I use for my hikers preparing for trips like the Camino and other longer walks like this, which I personally believe is going to give you the best results to best experience on this trail in the least amount of time and effort invested. And that's really, really significant because a lot of people out there, when they come to training and physical preparation, a lot of the recommendations kind of lead to almost a full-time job. They ask you to hike and walk for hours and hours and hours and put all this time. And some people can do that, but a lot of people is just not realistic. So what I'm going to be talking you through today is what I believe will give you the best results with the least amount of time and effort invested.

[3:41] Now, before we get into the specifics, what we want to dive into and what we want to identify are the specific challenges for the Camino. And we want to be upfront, very, very clear about what are the main challenges you're going to be facing on the trail, the main challenges that often trip a lot of hikers up, so then we can reverse engineer your training to prepare for these things. So, specific challenge number one is long walking and hiking distances. You know, this is a lot of people are pretty aware of it, pretty common sense, but it needs to be said. Purely getting your body to the point where you can get through these longer distances of being able to get through a certain amount of kilometers, a certain miles a day, for day after day after day, that in itself, it may sound simple. It may sound like just walking, but it does have its particular demands on the body. And being able to back this up day after day after day and potentially week after week, this is really, really, really important to be aware of because so many of us can go out and we may be able to do a hike for a day and be good with that but then we wake up and we're sore and we're tired and fatigued the next few days and we can't afford that when we're on the trail so specific challenge number one is purely just getting your body and your mind ready for the longer walking and longer hiking distances.

[4:57] Now, specific challenge number two are overuse injuries. And in all honesty, this is probably the number one reason why people fail when it comes to the Camino. The number one reason why people have to step off the trail, they don't complete it, and it is just sad.

[5:13] Now, essentially, overuse injuries are those things like foot pain, where you get pain in your feet after creeping up for days and days of training or walking, or shin splints, or plantar fasciitis, or ankle pain, or hiker's knee, or hip issues, or whatever it may be. Overuse injuries tend to happen from just doing lots and lots and lots on certain areas which we get when we're walking when we're hiking now people when they're looking at the camino this can happen in two situations number one as i said when you're actually out on the trail day one day two day three may be okay then day four you're like oh my gosh my feet are really sore and they get worse and worse and worse and ultimately people have to step off but this also does happen in people's training and preparation. So many hikers, when they're leading up to something like this, they're dedicated with their training, they're dedicated with their walking, they're dedicated with their hiking, but they end up just doing too much too soon and pick up these aches, pains, and niggles in their training. And that ends up being a bit of a tricky situation because either if it's really, really, really, really bad, then it can put the question mark around the viability of this trip itself. But more usually, you pick something like this up, It doesn't stop the trip, but then every single day on the trail, it stresses you out. It worries you. It makes you uncomfortable, and we don't want that.

[6:29] And then number three is hiking pace. Now, this doesn't apply to everyone, but it needs to be said because it does catch a lot of people off guard in the sense that some hikers out there and some walkers out there are quite comfortable going at their own pace. They're quite comfortable going at whatever's natural to them, and they can go and go and go.

[6:49] However, in the Camino, sometimes this can trap a couple of people up because number one, we've got daily distance. We have long distances and some people, their natural pace may not be quick enough to get through some of the longer days. So they need to walk at a slightly quicker pace than they used to and that can sometimes trip people up because when we're walking at paces we're not used to, that the body's not prepared for, this number one can burn a lot more energy leading to fatigue and not having a good time. And number two it changes the forces that the body is used to so this can increase the risk of aches and pains creeping up so that's number one also if you're going out with groups or friends if it's not a solo experience but with someone else if you are a bit of a slower hiker a bit of a slower walker and you're going out with someone who's a bit quicker than you again this can force you to push a bit quicker than you used to which can trip us up so when we're looking at the camino these three things are very, very, very apparent. Now, on top of that, obviously, there's a bunch of other things we need to get ready for, like carrying a pack, whether it's a heavier pack or a day pack or whatever it is. We need to get ready for sleeping wherever we're sleeping, whether we're having nice accommodation or a bit more budget accommodation. We need to be ready for weather concerns and all of this. All of that stuff is definitely, definitely relevant for the Camino, but these three things I'm about to talk you through, You know, they're kind of what we're going to dive into today.

[8:13] Now, when it comes to preparing for the Camino and training for the Camino, there are a few common mistakes I see from people very, very often. And these are typically things that people will go through this period, they'll try it themselves, they'll fall into one of the mistakes, and then I end up having a conversation with someone and they're six weeks from their trip and they're like, oh my gosh, what do I do? And I kind of help people out. So these are some common mistakes that I see again and again and again when it comes to this. Number one is so many people just end up walking and hiking in their preparation. And you'll see this on a lot of recommended training plans out there on the internet. You'll go into Google, you type in how do I train for the Camino, you'll see a bunch of websites that recommend going out and walking and hiking two or three or four times a week. And there is nothing wrong with walking and hiking. And this is definitely something you need to be doing in your training. But if this is just what you were doing, it can be a little bit tricky. Because number one, if you're just hiking and walking, this can put us a bit of a risk of overuse injuries, if we're just doing too much too soon, the body doesn't have enough time to adapt, this can be a little bit tricky. On top of that, this can be very, very time-consuming. And a lot of us have full-time jobs, have families, and so having to be able to go out and hike for multiple hours, multiple times a week might not be realistic.

[9:28] Now, the other mistake I often see from people is listening to people online. And I'm fully aware that I am talking about this online and it's a little bit funny. But what I mean by this is you'll often see people going to community groups or Facebook groups or whatever it may be. And they'll say, hey, I'm training for the Camino. I'll lean up the Camino. What should I do with my training? And people, you will always, always, always see a few statements. You'll see people who say, hey, just go out and walk and hike. That's all I did. And I was absolutely fine. And you'll see people who say, hey, I didn't do any training. I didn't do any preparation. It's easy. Just go out and do it.

[10:04] And I'm not saying these people don't exist. I'm not saying these people don't see success like this. But the thing is, it all comes down to survivorship bias in the sense that the people who take these approaches, they don't do any training or they only walk and hike. And the people who take these approaches and succeed, they love to talk about this. They love to kind of toot their own horn. They love to sort of share this information around.

[10:27] But you never hear from the people who take this approach and fail. You never hear this from people who take this approach and pick up the overuse injuries during their training. You never hear from people who do this and all of a sudden halfway through the adventure, they just can't get through it. There are so many people every single year that fall into this, but you never hear from them. So just listening to general hikers and general walkers online isn't amazing.

[10:53] And then also on top of that, the other mistake I often see from people is what we call the traditional fitness approach. In the sense if you just go down and do to a local gym and do HIIT classes and do 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off and do that high intensity interval training or people who do boot camps or people do just traditional strength training and kind of train like a bodybuilder. Like all of these things, there's nothing like, it's better than nothing, absolutely. But all of these things, it kind of falls a little bit short in regards to the demands of the Camino because 99% of the fitness industry HIIT, boot camps, traditional strength training, anything you do when you go into a local gym, 99% of that is just centered around general fitness and weight loss because that's what most people want when they're just looking at training. But when we're looking at training for a long distance walk and a long disadvantage via the Camino, there is a bit of a difference between what we need for general fitness and weight loss and what we need to survive for day after day and hour after hour on the trail. So all too often we see with this traditional fitness approach, that it is definitely better than nothing, but it does pull people, pull short for a lot of people.

[12:01] So with that being said, with these common mistakes, I'm going to talk you through a simple process that I recommend and simple inclusions that I recommend you follow to get the best results for the Camino.

[12:12] Now, first thing we want to consider and we want to make sure we're getting ready for is those longer walking and hiking distances. As I said, that is the number one thing we need to get ready for. Now, this is essentially where it comes into our hiking and walking training. As I said, it is a mistake if this is all we're doing with hiking and walking, and I'll talk about other things in a moment, what we want to do, but there can be no denying we need to be doing some of this because there is no substitute for just getting that specific moving for hours and hours and hours, teaching the feet, teaching the shins, teaching the knees, teaching everything in the body to get used to this. So we need to do some of this in our training.

[12:51] What I strongly, strongly recommend for anyone leading into the Camino is spending a little bit of time planning this out, in the sense of when we're looking at hikes or longer walks, if that's what you're doing, as training.

[13:03] So many hikers out there will just go out and just do random distances, or go out and do random times, or go out and just do random things. That's better than nothing, but it does have a couple of drawbacks. Number one, it does put people at risk of just doing too much too soon, and the amount hikers I speak to who just jump into things they're not ready for and either have a bad hike and they don't enjoy it and crush their confidence or they pick up aches and pains, not so great. On top of that, a lot of people, if they're doing random hikes, they're never really sure if they're going to be ready. There's always a question mark like, am I going to be okay with this or the adventure? So what I strongly, strongly recommend is sitting down and putting together a hiking plan, a walking plan and having a bit of a rough plan between now and your trip around how you're going to build up. And I'm going to talk you through a really simple process for this. Now, what I recommend, first and foremost, is determining what your longest day on the trail is going to be. So look at your trip itinerary, look at your route, look at your notes, and just see what is your longest day on the trail going to be. I typically recommend use this as hours as opposed to distance. So have a rough estimate. How many hours is your longest day going to be? Is it going to be six kilos, seven kilos, six hours, seven hours, eight hours? What's it going to be? On top of that, figure out what your heaviest pack weight is going to be for the trip. Are you going to be doing a pack moving service where you're just going to have five kilos or six kilos? Are you going to be carrying a bit heavier? What is your heaviest pack weight? There are two things we want to figure out right away.

[14:33] Next up, you want to ask yourself, how often can you commit to longer walks and hikes between now and your fly-out date? So if you're leaving in six months, or if you're leaving in four months, or if you're leaving in three months, how often between now and then do you think you can go out and hike? Can you commit to this? Is it once every single week? Is it once every two weeks? Once every three weeks? Whatever it is. Be realistic here. Don't bite off more you can chew. Be realistic because we're trying to come up with a plan. And then if you end up getting more on top of what you originally planned, that's fine. But that's what you want to figure out. Then essentially from here, you want to get out your calendar. In your calendar, two to three weeks before you fly out, you want to put a big X in that calendar and you want to schedule in your last training hike. And two to three weeks before you go, you want to schedule in a day hike, which is the equivalent to your longest day on the trail, plus your heaviest pack weight on the trail. So if your longest day is going to be eight hours and you think your heaviest pack weight is going to be seven kilos, then two to three weeks before you go out, you want to schedule in a day hike, which is going to take about eight hours and it's going to be seven kilos in your pack. That is your end goal for your training. That's what we're trying to build up to. And ultimately, if you can hit this in your training, then that's typically a sign of like, hey, you're ready to roll.

[15:55] Now, from there, once we've got that final hike built out, we want to work backwards in your calendar and essentially we want to fill out the calendar with some rough distances and rough times for your hike and slowly slowly slowly build things up so we've got that last one there then you want to think week by week by week how can i ramp things up in a slow and gradual process ideally what we want to be making sure is we take the slowest possible approach in regards to increasing your hiking time and increasing your pack weight which will still get you to that end point. Because the slower we can go and the more gradual buildup we can do, the less likely you're going to bite off more you can chew and pick up aches and pains and injuries. But as long as we hit that end point, so we can be confident that we're ready. Now, this can take a few goes. For me, when I do it with my clients, I can sit down and it may take me three or four goes of coming up with potential plans to get it right. And I do this every single day. So for you, it may take a little longer, but think about that. Two to three weeks before you go, have that longest one there, and then slowly but surely work backwards.

[16:59] Now, if you are a bit limited on hiking time, as I said, ideally will get you up to your longest day on the trail. But if you're in a situation where you're like, well, I can't really get out for eight hours hiking or seven hours or six hours or whatever it may be. Maybe I'm limited from time. Maybe I'm limited through weather. Maybe I just don't like going out by myself and I can't find enough friends to hike with or whatever it may be. If you are limited on hiking time, then we want to think about, and we can't quite reach that time spent hiking. how can we make the hike a little bit more difficult to challenge ourselves? So in this situation, you may train a little bit heavier pack weight than what you need on the trail. If you're going to be carrying seven kilos on the trail, but you can only hike three hours at a time, then maybe you'll end up training up to 10 kilos and have that. It's not exactly the same, but it can often help. Or you may look at more elevation. You may say, okay, Camino, there's going to be a certain amount of up and down. Maybe I can't actually do super long hikes, but I can go out and do hikes which have much more up and down, much more up and down that I kind of need. Or even speed. You can say, you know what, actually, I'm going to do a relatively short hike, but I'm going to try and go a little bit quicker. We always want to make things a little bit more difficult over time, and there are a few other options there.

[18:10] Now, on top of that, if you haven't done it before, if you're a little bit worried about this, sometime over the months, you probably want to plan out a back-to-back hiking weekend. And what I mean by that is if you're hiking on your weekends, do a hike on Saturday, then a hike on Sunday, just see how the body responds. You don't have to do this all the time. It doesn't have to be a full-blown overnight hike unless you don't want it, but just getting used to, okay, this is how my body feels the next day. This tends to work well. But if we can hit this longest one, happy days. So that's our longer hiking and walking. Typically for my hikers, I wouldn't say you do a longer one any more than once a week. Most of my hikers are doing once a week or twice a week, once every two weeks or once every three weeks for the longer stuff um.

[18:54] Typically, that's what I'm looking at. Now, beyond that, obviously, we want to fill out the rest of our week with other types of training. So what can we do? Well, next up, we want to talk about hiking-specific conditioning. Now, hiking-specific conditioning is just a fancy way of saying cardiovascular training and cardiovascular sessions, which you do off the trail. So this doesn't involve hiking. This doesn't involve having to find a trail and get out there and spend hours there. But these are cardio sessions you do off the trail, which will ultimately help you on the trail. So what I mean by this is basically we're not just going out and doing a fitness class. We're not just going out and doing a run, but we're thinking, okay, what are things that I need to prepare for on the trail and how can I prepare for that in this training? So an example of this might be some load of pack walking. Very, very simple, but this just involves putting on a pack, walking around the local neighborhood for 20, 30, 40, 60 minutes. Very simple, but very, very effective.

[19:46] Now for these types of sessions, I typically recommend try to fit like one to two of these in a week between 30 to 60 minutes so we're doing our longer stuff we're doing that no more than once a week you can do more but typically i say once a week and then we're doing lots of shorter sessions as well now examples of this as i sort of said you know load of pack walking this can be really really beneficial even if you're only carrying a day pack it may be stair or hill climbing finding a local set of stairs or a hill going up and down up and down for a period of time this might involve you know going to the gym and hopping on a bike or a rower or a stepper and doing intervals of four minutes or five minutes or six minutes at a time and getting exposed to that. This might involve finding a step and doing a box step session where you're just going up and down an aerobic step or a bench for periods at a time.

[20:33] Realistically, any type of cardiovascular exercise which is going to be relevant for hiking can fit into this. You can also fit in like running. If you're a runner, you can go out and do running sessions or run up and down a hill. If you love swimming, you can probably go out and do a few swimming. I wouldn't do all of our training of swimming but it can sort of fit in but we want to think about shorter sessions relevant for hiking fit that in. So that's how we prepare for the longer walking and hiking distances. Longer walking and then shorter specific conditioning sessions. Next up let's talk about overuse injuries. As I said this is one of the single

[21:08] if not the most significant reason why people step off the trail and don't complete their adventures. So we want to be making ensure our training is helping reduce this. Now, strength training is kind of what we want to be looking at here. And strength training is one of the best things a hiker can do to prevent overuse injuries and also acute injuries. So, overuse injuries are those things that slowly creep up on you, things like plantar fasciitis and shin splints and hiker's knee. Acute injuries are things that happen all of a sudden, like you sprain your ankle or you twist your knee or something like that. Strength training can play a massive role in reducing these things.

[21:46] On top of that, strength training will be very, very useful at helping prepare your body for going up and down hills, reduce those leg burn on the way up, reduce jelly legs on the way down. It will play a big, big role in making pack carrying much more comfortable and can also help us with our pacing as well. Strength training is something that so many hikers neglect, but it can be so, so, so useful.

[22:08] Now, I'm not going to get too much into detail on exactly how to go about this because we'll be here for hours and hours and hours, but a few rules of thumb when we're looking at strength training. Number one, when I say strength training, I'm not talking about, hey, just go and do a few random exercises, do some squats, do some lunges, do some step-ups. That's what a lot of people fall into, but it's not something I recommend. I typically recommend with your strength training, trying to have some type of structure around and also having something that's specific. So we're not just going in the gym, doing a few random exercises, hoping that's going to work, but we're going in with an approach which is structured. So there is a plan and the plan is designed to help you with hiking. Number two, we want to make sure when you're doing strength training, you're working the body as a whole. The typical approach hikers take with this is, as I said, squats, lunges, step ups. So many people do that. They're great exercises, but they're all working the same area. They're all working the quadriceps, a little bit of the glutes. As a hiker, the body is working as a whole. The quadriceps work, the glutes work, absolutely, but also the hamstrings, the calves, the upper body plays a role when we're using poles, when we're carrying a pack, when we're preventing injuries if we trip over. We want to work the body as a whole, so making sure we're following a full body program.

[23:20] Also on top of that, don't neglect the lower limbs. As we said before, foot pain is one of the most significant things on the Camino. Training the lower limbs, and what I mean by that is the calves, those muscles below the knees and between the knees and the ankles, we want to make sure we're training them. They are a little bit boring, they're a little bit dull, but very, very, very important. And also on top of that, we want to make sure whatever we're doing, it is progressive in the sense that the body gets used to things relatively quickly. If we're just doing the same exercises, the same routine, week after week after week. At first, it'll be really useful, but then over time, it'll stagnate. We want to be slowly but surely applying more and more challenge over time. We want to apply what we call progressive overload.

[24:00] Now, typically with our hikers, I recommend doing, most of my hikers are doing two sessions a week, anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes with this. Now, obviously, I haven't gone into the details around how to go about this, and this has been just an overview here. If you were interested in learning a little bit more about strength training for hiking, I do have a free mini course, which is all about getting started with strength training for hikers. Now, inside this course, it'll go into a little bit more detail around the benefits of strength training for hikers. It'll talk about understanding the principles of effective strength training, so how to get the most out of this type of training. But most importantly, it'll actually teach you how to create your own strength training workouts to help with your hiking. So it'll help you create workouts which are structured, which are specific, which will train the body as a whole, which will not neglect the lower limbs and will teach you how to progress things over time. Now, if you did want to get this, get your hands on this course, it is completely free. All you have to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash strength dash mini dash course. I'll leave a link for that in the video notes below. But it can be really, really, really useful. And anyone going on the Camino, if you're not doing strength training, this is a great place to start. So, strength training, very, very important for preventing overuse injuries. Now, another thing that can be really, really useful for preventing these overuse injuries is what's called off-feet conditioning. Now.

[25:27] As we said before, a lot of hikers will just do a lot of hiking and walking. We do want to do that in our training. And that hiking-specific conditioning is very, very useful for also helping explore different ways of training this. But all the things I mentioned before, hiking, low-to-pack walking, stair and heel sessions, even step sessions, all of those are very similar in the sense they put pressure through the feet, they put pressure through the lower limbs.

[25:52] Sometimes, if you do have a history of overuse injuries, say you have the Camino in your size and you have a history of plantar fasciitis or shin splints, or maybe you get four weeks or five weeks or six weeks into your training, you begin to feel something like this coming on, then this off-feet conditioning can be really, really, really useful. Now, essentially what off-feet conditioning is, is it involves doing cardio sessions, which don't put stress through your feet. So essentially you can build up your fitness and your aerobic fitness is what we want for our hiking. You can work the muscles of the legs, but it doesn't put stress through the feet. So we can control how much stress is going through the feet, make sure it doesn't get overloaded and turn into pain or injury while still moving you forward. Now, important points for this type of stuff, ideally you want to do something which works similar muscles for hiking. So when we're looking at off-feed conditioning, you know, great examples of this might involve cycling, whether it's a stationary cycle at the gym or hopping on a road bike. It might involve the elliptical, it might involve rowing. All of these things are working very similar muscles to um to hiking but it doesn't put stress through the feet alternatively if you went and did like the ski erg say in the gym or you went and did um let's say the battle ropes or whatever it is that stuff yeah it can be good workout but it's not really working similar muscles to hiking so we kind of want to get this relatively close.

[27:14] Number two, when we're choosing this type of stuff, we want to choose something that we can sustain for a longer period of time. So what I mean by that is if you choose a form of exercise and you're doing it and after a minute or two, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't move anymore. I'm absolutely gassed. May not be a great option. If we're on the stationary cycle, we can kind of do that for a long period of time and we can moderate our intensity. If we're on the elliptical, if we're on the rower, all of these things, typically we can sustain. But if we're doing something and we're after 30 seconds or 60 seconds, we're knackered, may not want to do this. As I said before, examples of this might be cycling, rowing, the elliptical, or whatever it may be. If you're in the situation where you have a history of overuse injuries or you feel one coming up, this is typically what I would use to either replace a hiking-specific

[28:01] conditioning session or supplement your hiking. So if we're going down the replacement route, maybe you're like, hey, I've been doing stair and hill climbing for a while and you know what? My knee's starting to get sore, maybe for two or three weeks, you'll swap that out for some cycling sessions. Give the knee some time to recover, help build up your fitness, and then go back to that stuff once you've recovered.

[28:22] Or if you're like, hey, I've got a bit of a history in regards to plantar fasciitis, okay, I'm going to do my hiking. I'm going to follow the plan I'm doing, but I'm a little bit worried about putting too much stress through the feet. So maybe alongside my hiking, I'm going to do some nice long cycle sessions, or I'm going to do some intervals on the elliptical or whatever it may be. There's a bunch of different ways of going about this, but this off-fit conditioning can be so, so, so useful for minimizing the risk of these overuse injuries.

[28:49] Next up, hiking pace. Let's talk about that. As I said, this does trip a lot of people up. Now, if you're in a situation where you've got the Camino on your sides and you are confident that you can actually just stick to your own pacing, if you're a naturally quicker hiker, or if you're just solo hiking on the trail, then you're going to ignore this section. You probably don't really need to worry about it. However, if you're in a situation where you may be a little bit of a slower hiker and you're going out with a friend or a group, or maybe you're looking at the daily distances and you're like, you know what, I kind of need to push the pace a little bit more. Then in that situation, incorporating some quicker walking workouts into your training is probably a good idea. The idea behind this, it will expose the body to this quicker walking. As I said before, quicker walking does have different forces that it puts through the body. It can fatigue us early, make things achy or painy or whatever it may be. So we want to slowly but surely expose the body to this in our training. So if we have to do these quicker paces on the trail, it's kind of familiar with it. Now, a few examples of this, really, really simple. You might do something like tempo walking, where you're just walking around the local neighborhood and you're doing quick and slow walking. So you may go slow walking for a minute, just a normal pace. And then for a minute, you may go quicker walking and slow than quick and slow than quick and literally like that. Or you may do, this can count as a hiking specific conditioning session. You may do this for 20 minutes or 30 minutes or 40 minutes, can be really effective.

[30:12] Or you may sort of do some timed hikes. You may say, okay, it's part of my hiking plan. Every once in a while, I'm going to choose a hike in my plan. I'm going to put it in there. It's going to be a little bit shorter. It's not going to be super, super long or whatever it may be. But my plan is here. I'm actually going to go out and push the pace a little bit more. I'm going to intentionally go quicker than I'm used to so I can expose the body of this and see how it feels. Now, if you're doing this, I would not recommend choosing a technical trail or having an outrageously heavy pack or anything like that. Make it simple, but exposing the body to this. Even doing a small amount of this in your training and preparation can pay off massive dividends if you do end up having to go quicker on the trail.

[30:54] Strongly recommend it. So, putting this all together. You know, looking at all that, you might be like, okay, Rowan, that's fine, but that starts to sound like a lot. You said before this is not turning into a full-time job. Like, how does this actually all come together.

[31:09] This is a bit of a rough idea on how this may come together. When it comes down to it, everyone's going to have different schedules, different situations. So there will be a lot of variance in between person and person, but it's a bit of a rough idea. In the week, you may do two strength sessions, anywhere from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. You can get a lot of work done in that. You may do one hiking-specific conditioning session. You may start off with load of pack walking, do that for four weeks, then do some stairs for four weeks, then do some hills for four weeks and slowly rotate between that. And you may do one longer hike. Once a week, you get out and do a bit of a longer walk, following that plan, slowly building up over time. That in itself, it's not crazy amount of hours you have to dedicate to, but it can be really, really effective. A lot of hikers may look at this and be like, hey, that's way less than I was kind of originally planning. I was kind of planning on doing hikes three times a week. This will be much more time efficient. On the flip side, some people might be like, oh, I was only actually going to do one hike a week and kind of hope I'll be ready, well, this will probably fill in a few gaps and make sure you're really, really ready. Typically what I recommend. As I said, there's some variance. Some people do more conditioning. Some people do more strength. Some people do less or more, more and more, whatever it may be. Now, on top of that, that's kind of training.

[32:21] Basic overview. There are a lot of other factors that you want to consider when you're looking at training and actually hiking the Camino. I'm just going to zip through these really, really quickly just so you kind of have an awareness of these. And these are things you probably want to note down that you want to think about, you want to put a bit of thought behind because they can play a big role. Number one, nutrition. The majority of hikers on the Camino or longer hikes tend to under-eat. That's fine, you can survive no matter how much height of food you eat, typically.

[32:49] But what you eat plays a massive role in your energy. And if you're under-eating, you're going to be compromising your energy, compromising your recovery. Making sure where you're eating enough of the right things is one of the best things you can do to help your energy, help your fatigue, help your recovery day to day. So if you're not thinking about nutrition and how you can actually snack on the trail and refuel on the trail, definitely worthwhile thinking about. Self-care on the trail. So what are the things you're going to do at the end of the day to help the body recover? If you get an achy knee, if you get sore feet, what types of stretches, what type of self-massage are you going to do to help things feel a bit more comfortable?

[33:25] Protecting sleep. A lot of people in the Camino, particularly if you're going to stay in dorms or guest houses or whatever it may be, maybe snoring, maybe uncomfortable environment, maybe this and that. So how are you going to protect your sleep? How are you going to make sure you get relatively good sleep to help with your recovery? Are you going to bring earplugs or an eye mask? Are you going to have sleep ritual? Are you going to use sleep aids? Have a think about that. Mental strain. A lot of people say this longer distance walking, a lot of it comes down to mentality. What are you going to do to keep yourself positive? What are you going to do to keep the mute up? What are you going to do when things get tough? What can you repeat to yourself during those things to keep mentally strong? Definitely worthwhile thinking about um and then also on top of that like recovery mobility during training one thing we haven't mentioned today flexibility mobility a lot of hikers will get a lot of benefit from working on these things ankle mobility hip mobility um these things play pretty big role if you're aware that you're quite tight you know maybe a little bit inflexible maybe a little bit like you know more restricted than you used to be where how maybe think about how to fit this into your week as i said just zip through those areas but they're definitely worthwhile putting a bit of tension into because when it comes down to the Camino, each of these can play a dramatic role in regards to your energy, your mood, your recovery, and ultimately your best chance of success and enjoying your adventure.

[34:44] So obviously that's a bit of information to digest, but I really do hope that's giving you a little bit of an overview around how to go about your training. Now I fully understand when we're in this situation when we're talking about this, you might be like, hey this makes sense, but I kind of need some help putting this together. I'm not 100% sure how to put together that hiking plan. I'm not 100% sure how to go about the strength training. I'm a little bit nervous about the hills. I'm a little bit nervous about my pack weight or whatever it may be. If you do need a little extra help putting this together, I'll, I would love to have a chat with you. What I do through Summit Strength is we offer personalized online training programs for hikers to help them get fit, strong, and resilient for their adventures. And every single year, we help loads and loads of hikers through the different caminos. Now, what our packages include is we will create a custom and personalized workout program to help you get ready for anything the trail may throw at you. Covering everything we mentioned today, the hiking programming, the hiking-specific conditioning, to strength training in a way that's going to be personalized around you, your life, your needs, and your preferences.

[35:44] On top of that, we also just put a big emphasis around the peripheral factors that can make or break an adventure. We'll teach you about that nutrition. We'll teach you about recovery, self-care, mental strength, gear options, and a bunch of other things. And on top of that, we will give you the coaching, support, and accountability to keep you on track. And if issues come up, if motivation dips, if your situation changes, you will have someone in your corner to help work around that. If you did want to learn a little bit more about all this, what you can do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. Now on that page, there's another nice video which talks a bit of an overview around our program, talks about how we go about it, what it's all about. And if it is something you want to explore a little bit more, there's a link on there where you can basically book a call with our team, you can sit down, we can learn about you, your needs, your situation, your goals, and just chat through everything and see if we may be able to help you. So if you want to check it out, go to summerstrength.com.au slash online and we can take it from there. So with that being said, I really do hope you've enjoyed today's video. I hope this will help a lot of people stepping into their Camino adventures. Any questions at all, please drop a comment below. But aside from that, hope you enjoyed it and we'll talk to you very soon.