Multi-Day Hikes: Setting Yourself Up For Success

​In this episode, we explore some simple strategies a hiker can use during a multi-day hike to help them recover in between days and wake up feeling fresh and ready to go! 

​Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking through some really simple tips around how you can set yourself

[0:08] up for success on a multi-day hike. And we're gonna be covering some simple things that you can do when you're actually on the trail to give yourself the best chance of bouncing back day-to-day and feeling great. Now, this is a really, really common subject which comes up because a lot of the hikers that I work with and that follow me are in a situation where they have a big multi-day adventure in their sights, but their background is they haven't really ever done a multi-day adventure, or maybe they just haven't done one in 10 or 20 or 30 years. And they've done lots of day hiking. They're pretty comfortable with that. But eyeing off this idea around going day after day after day, it can be a little intimidating. And in all honesty, you know, 90% of the, I guess, success and comfort you're going to get out of a multi-day hike is going to come from your physical preparation and your training and just making sure you're covering all your bases in the lead up. And I absolutely encourage you to make sure you're doing that. But on top of that, there are definitely a few really simple things you can prioritize when you're actually on the trail, which can make a bit of a difference. Because typically when we're looking at multi-day hikes, there's typically one of two different situations people often find themselves in.

[1:27] Now, in the perfect world, and this is kind of what we're striving for with a multi-day adventure, is we get out on the trail and the first one, two, three days, you know, they're a bit of a challenge. They're always going to be a challenge. No matter how physically prepared you are, it's always going to be a bit of a challenge because you're stretching your legs, you're putting everything into action, you're bouncing up day day after day, and this and that. Now, in the perfect world, what we want to get is in a position where day after day after day, we feel like we're actually improving. We feel like we're getting stronger. We feel like we're getting fitter. And we feel like at a point, whether it's day three, day four, or whatever it may be, where we begin to feel our trail legs, where everything just feels natural. Everything feels good. And ultimately, day after day, we're just getting better and better. And by the end of the trip, it's not a case where we're absolutely dragging our legs, we're absolutely knackered, but we're actually feeling like, hey, we could probably keep on going. Though obviously every good thing must help come to an end. That's the perfect world of what we're trying to get to.

[2:29] Now, on the flip side of things, the other situation that a lot of people will fall into is we'll start on the trail and first day will be tough. We wake up on day two, that's tough. We wake up on day three, and that's actually harder. And day after day after day, it actually gets worse and worse and worse. And instead of in between the days we're recovering and getting stronger and getting fitter and feeling like it's better and better, we go the other direction. And this can lead to more and more fatigue. This can lead to muscle soreness. This can lead to us not having a huge amount of fun. And also, it can lead to us picking up aches, pains, and even injuries. This is a situation we do not want to get into. We want to be in situation number one, where we're bouncing back, we're recovering. And as I said, the main portion of this is your physical preparation. Because if you can build up your fitness and your strength, so day after day after day, you're not using your maximal reserves of fitness, your maximal reserves of energy, you get to the end of the day and you're feeling pretty fresh, that's going to make that recovery much easier.

[3:27] But beyond that, let's talk through a few simple ideas to help you bounce back day to day, help you recover day to day, adapt day to day, get those trail legs and have the best chance possible of a great adventure. So to start with, let's talk about end of day and simple things you can do at the end of a day. When you finish up your hiking, you get into camp and there are really, really simple things that can help you bounce back. First and foremost, rehydrate as soon as possible. Hydration, very, very, very important for physical activity and also recovery. Typically, for the most part, even if we aren't drinking water on the trail, a lot of us will finish the end of the day a little bit dehydrated. It's pretty common.

[4:08] So if we are a bit dehydrated, essentially once we finish hiking for the day, we want to rehydrate as quickly as possible. Now, how do you know if you're hydrated or not? Well, probably the most simple way of doing things is as long as it's not the middle of the night when you're setting up camp, but basically just looking at your urine color. Go to the toilet, take a pee, have a look at your urine color. If it's clear to straw colored, that means you're pretty hydrated. So you're all good on that front and just drink as normal. If it is a little bit darker, that means you want to have a cup or two or get some water into you. Rehydrate as soon as possible. Not only will this help our recovery, but also on top of this, if we can make sure we're doing this as soon as possible, as opposed to doing this towards the end of the night, you know it's not going to affect our sleep so much of having to get up go to the toilet and this and that so number one end of the day rehydrate as soon as possible number two is when you are looking at your dinner you want to ensure that your dinner at the end of the day is a well-rounded meal meaning you're going to ensure your dinner has carbohydrates protein and fat.

[5:11] All of these are important for the recovery process in one way or another. And if you are planning out your own meals, making sure that each meal you have for dinner at the very, very least has a source of carbs, protein, and fat. Now, if you're in control of your own meals, this is easy enough to plan out. If you are not in control of your own meals, if you're going on a tour or whatever it may be, most of the time they should be able to sort you out, but it's always worthwhile looking in advance, maybe sending them an email and just be like, hey, what are the meals provided? What do you think we'll be eating? And if they lay out a meal for dinners, which will have a mix of carbs, protein, and fat, happy days. If you're like, ah, you know what? Actually, it's just like cheesy, cheesy pasta, which is all well and good. Then that has some carbs, that has some fat. You may need to complement it with a bit of protein. So that may be a situation where you bring your own source of protein, you bring some pouches of tuna, or you bring some protein powder or whatever may be. But just simply getting a mix of that goes a long way. On top of that, you need to make sure that you actually eat your dinner. Because a lot of people will get to the end of the day hiking and their appetite will go down.

[6:18] This happens even more in the heat, happens even more in the cold, so those extremes of weather, and it happens when we're up at altitude as well. But it can happen any time. And if you get to the end of day hiking and you don't have an appetite and you don't eat, your body's not going to have that fuel to recover. So you want to make sure you eat it. A good strategy here is sometimes if you're aware that, you know what, actually, I do have a habit of just having a hard day and just not being hungry at the end of the day. Sometimes I can eat, but sometimes not. And you're aware that that's you. And then it may be worthwhile even bringing up backup plans. And so to say, okay, best case scenario, if I don't have an appetite, I will have the full dinner. But if I do not have a massive appetite, what can I fall back on, which may be something I can still get into me and it's a little bit more doable when I don't have an appetite. In that situation, the protein powder that I mentioned before can be a good option. Simply just drinking a little bit of protein powder with some water is a lot more manageable than having a full dinner. Pair that with some chocolate or some sweets or something like that. It's not obviously a really, really well-rounded dinner, that protein powder and chocolate, but you get a bit of carbs, you get some protein, maybe not so much fat, but whatever may be. But if you're in that situation where you're aware that sometimes your appetite is affected, having some type of fallback plan, which you can go into if you need, so you still get a.

[7:36] Now to follow up with that, if you do finish up the day's hiking and you're aware that there's actually going to be a bit of a break between your end of day hiking and your dinner. So maybe you finish up in the afternoon, or maybe you've got a slow cook dinner or whatever may be, probably worthwhile pre-planning that you have a snack right at the end of the day hiking. So you get some fuel into you before your dinner. So having a snack, which has carbohydrates, which has protein, kickstart that recovery process, make sure you're getting some stuff in there. And then you can have your wholesome dinner a little bit later on. There's really, really simple stuff, but it can make a big difference.

[8:10] Next up, somewhere in the afternoon or the evening, fit in a little bit of simple stretching or rolling. Doing some simple stretching, some simple rolling can be really, really nice just to help calm the body down, help relieve aching muscles, help things feel a little bit happier. And ultimately, when it comes to recovery, anything we can do which just calms us down and helps us feel good is going to be positive so stretching relatively simple to do to come up with a five minute ten minute routine which you can do in camp covers the legs maybe a bit of the upper body for rolling obviously you're not going to be bringing like a foam roller on the trail but you can do a bit of self-massage with a water bottle and with a trekking pole you can bring a cork massage ball or whatever may be and again doing five or ten minutes can really go a long way.

[8:57] And then finally, the last thing you can kind of consider when we're looking at this recovery thing is what can you do to help your sleep? Because sleep plays a massive, massive, massive role in recovery. However, out on the trail, this can often get compromised. It can get compromised by weather, by sleep systems, by just getting to bed and having our legs really achy. And we're like, oh my gosh, I can't sleep for our getting to bed. And our mind is just going a million miles a minute. We can't sleep having insects and animals and all of that, like making a noise outside. There's so many things that can affect us. And while we may never get a perfect sleep on the trail, the more we can do to support that will help our recovery. So have a think about on the physical side of things, what can you do before bed, which will help with the sore muscles? Make sure the legs aren't aching when you're in bed. The stretching and rolling will work into this. If you do this immediately before bed, that can help. Can you bring some magnesium, some magnesium powder or some capsules?

[9:51] Magnesium is a natural muscle relaxant, can be quite nice. On the mental side of things, sometimes we get to the end of the day and our mind is, we're physically tired, but our mind is just wired and that can keep us awake. So what can you do in that situation which will help you mentally calm down? For me, I quite like bringing a pen and paper. I bring a little notebook on all my hikes and I'll just do five minutes of journaling at the end of the day. I really like that. It's just cementing the day's lessons and things have been going through my head. For me personally, that's great, but also mentally it helps calm me down. Now, if that's not realistic for you, maybe come up with a deep breathing routine. Say, you know what? When I'm lying in bed, I'm going to do five minutes of just box breathing. I'm going to breathe in for four seconds, hold my breath for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold my breath for four seconds. And I'm just going to commit to that for five minutes.

[10:39] On top of that, anything mentally calming down will be useful. And then on top of that, just think about, okay, what else can I do to help my sleep? Make sure you test out your sleep systems at home and you're aware that they're going to work for you. Maybe if you're comfortable with it, bring an eye mask. Maybe if you're comfortable with it, wear earplugs. These little things can often go a long way. But as you can see, these really, really, really simple things, if you can put them into action at the end of each day's hiking, they're going to give you those little boost to recovery, those little one or two percent increases, which can help us wake up in the morning feel a bit fresher.

[11:11] Now on the flip side of things, you know, when we're looking at the start of a day's hiking, there are some simple things we can do just to make sure we are ready for the day and we're prepared for the day and we give ourselves the best chance possible of just feeling good. So a few really, really simple things. First and foremost is pack up early. If you're going to be planning on fitting in a little routine at the start of the day, which I'm going to talk through in a second, the worst thing you want is to be a rush in the morning. And what I mean by that is sometimes people say, hey, I'm going to do a stretching routine. Hey, I'm going to do this or do that or whatever it may be. And they don't pack up their stuff. Then the people they're going with, their friends or the group or whatever it may be, is all packed up. And then you're behind, you get in a rush, you fall out, you get self-conscious, not good. If you're planning on doing things in the morning, just pack up early. Get your stuff together, get your tent put down, whatever it may be. Get done early. If you're by yourself, this doesn't matter. But first and foremost, pack up early so you're not holding anyone back. you've got plenty of time and you don't get self-conscious. Number two, what I really recommend at the start of a day is prepping your snacks and your electrolytes. Now, snacks can make or break a multi-day adventure or any hike because snacking and refueling along the trail in between your meals just plays a massive role for your energy and fatigue.

[12:25] One little barrier to snacking is quite often we'll have all these good snacks and all of this, but we'll just have them in the middle of a pack. And we don't want to take our pack off and dig around and get it and this and that. And it ended up being a little bit of a pain. And yes, we'll end up snacking during point periods where we actually stop and take our pack off, but that may not be ideal. So at the start of the day, just think, what are the snacks I'm planning on having today?

[12:51] Get them all ready and get them accessible. If you can fit them in your hip belt, great, go with that if you can't fit it all in your hip belt at least make sure you have everything at the top of your pack or at least easily accessible in a zipper and just have them ready it's such a simple thing but it makes such a difference same thing with electrolytes if you're planning on having electrolytes which i recommend to most hikers is just make sure you make them up at the start of the day in the morning while you're setting up or packing up make up a water bottle with whatever amount of electrolytes you're planning on having for the rest of the day, The reason why I say that is all too often people say, okay, I'm going to make electrolytes at lunch and I'll have them then, or I'm going to do this and we'll have it then. But then we get distracted or whether weather changes or we get in a hurry or we forget or whatever it may be, we don't end up doing it. But if you make up in the morning and just get in the routine of getting it done in the morning and then just casually sipping whatever you made up through the day, really simple, but very, very effective.

[13:47] And then finally if you are looking at a multi-day hike fitting in a short warm-up routine before you get going can often be nice now you don't have to spend a huge amount of time it's not 100% essential but if you just fit in a few little bits and pieces to get the blood moving before you start hiking just to loosen up tight joints or tight muscles can be really useful I would typically say choose two or three exercises you don't have to do a huge amount which you can do each morning before you get going. Typically something that'll loosen up the ankles, maybe something that'll loosen up the hips, and then maybe something to loosen up another muscle that you're aware that's a bit tight, the hamstrings or the quads or something like that. Five minutes doesn't have to be too much more, but have a little routine and do that each morning. And ultimately, if you can look at this list, none of it really takes a huge amount of time, but it does take a little bit of thought. But if you can set yourself up at the start of each day, Make sure you're all organized, set up for fueling properly, and make sure you're warmed up. And then have a really, really simple system of just aiding your recovery at the end of the day. This can often be enough just to help you give that boost in recovery. So you can bounce up day-to-day, feel good. You can bounce back day-to-day, feel fresh. You can roll out of your tent feeling ready to go, excited, as opposed to getting tired and sore and grumpy and all of that.

[15:03] Simple stuff, but it can make a really, really big difference. so if you do have a multi-day hike coming up and you're thinking what can i do to give myself the best chance of success write these tips down put it into action and i promise it can make a big big difference and last thing i will say is if you do have a multi-day hike coming up and you're like oh my gosh cool they're great tips but in all honesty i'm a little bit nervous about my preparation i'm a little bit nervous about being ready for day to day and i don't know really know what I need to do to be ready for this, then, you know, let's have a chat. You know, this is exactly what I do day after day, week after week. And I've helped hundreds of hikers prepare for multi-day adventures, whether it's very, very beginner multi-day hikers who are stepping into their first one or people who are stepping into quite experienced, but they're stepping into challenging terrain, multi-month adventures, or anything in between. If you're a hiker who does have a big adventure in your sights, let's have a chat. If you want to learn a little bit about our online personal training and how we help hikers in these situations, all you need to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. On that page, there's a video that talks to our program in a little bit of detail. And if it sounds like something you'd like to explore, there's a button on that page where you can book a call with our team. We can have a bit of a chat, learn about you, your situation, your goals, your hiking, and ultimately just see if and how we may be able to help you out. So if you want to learn a little bit more, go to summitstrength.com.au slash online and we can take it from there.

[16:32] So with that being said, thank you so much for listening. Really hope you've enjoyed today's episode and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

Want to get fit, strong and resilient for your hiking adventures?
Check out The Online Summit Program