How To Prevent Neck And Shoulder Pain When Hiking With A Heavy Pack

Sore necks and shoulders when pack hiking is a VERY common issue many hikers face.

But the good news is, there are many things you can be doing in both your preparations and during your time on the trail, which can make a significant difference here.
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In this video, we explore some strategies and ideas on how a hiker can prevent sore necks and shoulders when hiking with a pack.

Preventing Neck Pain While Hiking, Backpacking And Rucking  
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Inside, I cover:
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• A few simple areas of gear that you should consider to help your neck (common sense, but it needs to be said!)
• How upper body strength training can help support you during pack hiking (and a few great exercise examples)
• A simple mobility exercise that can help the neck and shoulders
• How to approach 'specific exposure' for hikers with this issue
• A few simple strategies you can apply ON the trail, which can often help​

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Video Chapters:

​0:06 
Common Hiking Ailments
0:23 
Addressing Neck and Shoulder Pain While Hiking
1:49 
Equipment Essentials for Comfort
6:05 
Building Strength for Hikers 
11:11 
Enhancing Mobility and Flexibility While Backpacking 
13:03 
Exposure Techniques for Pain Relief
14:54 
Effective On-Trail Tips

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Want to get fit, strong and resilient for your hiking adventures?
​
Check out the Online Summit Program: https://www.summitstrength.com.au/online.html

Video Transcript:

​​[0:00] Saw necks and shoulders when pack hiking. This is a really, really common issue

[0:04] that a lot of people get out on the trail. And it's something that we work with a lot of hikers to help with.

[0:10] Essentially, the typical question I get around this and what has come up this week is, I go out and I pack hike. I carry a day pack or a full pack or whatever it may be. And I always seem to

[0:20] get a sore neck and shoulders. What can I do?

[0:23] You know, this is a really, really, really common situation. because you know logically wearing a pack while we're exercising is going to lead to this there's going to be more pressure through the chest more pressure through the shoulders whether it's a day pack whether it's a full pack or anything in between because we're always going to be carrying extra pounds extra kilos or to make beef and simply just put a pressure on there now if we just do this for 10 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes an hour doesn't really matter for a lot of people it's usually not that big a deal but if we start doing this on our hikes two hours three hours four hours five hours six hours seven hours multiple days in a row or whatever it may be you know this can lead to a little bit of muscle soreness now if you're doing a day hike this is bad enough because you know you can get sore during the day hike and sort of deal with it as you go through you may get sore the days after and wake up in the morning like perhaps and all my neck's really tired this could even affect your sleep you might go to bed and just cross and turn and every time you turn you're like oh my gosh my neck or my shoulders are so uncomfortable not much fun on multi-day hikes this can get even worse because if you're waking up in the morning on a multi-day hike and your neck's crinked the shoulders are all upset not much fun and it can really really just take a lot of enjoyment out of these hikes and it can be a little bit stressful so i want to talk you through some really really really simple things you can be doing as a hiker which can take a bit of pressure out of the neck and shoulders help you feel a bit more comfortable will help you get through these ventures a little bit higher.

[1:49] So essentially we're just going to talk through three simple areas we're going to talk through equipment training and on trail tips now first and foremost the first place you should always look when it comes down to this is your backpack you know this is the simple basic stuff but it does need to be said first and foremost is your hair fitted to your bow have you just bought the pack and just wear it you didn't really know how to adjust it or have you actually gone through and adjust the straps and make sure it fits your body properly on top of that is if you've got your pack fit six months ago 12 months ago what it may be when's the last time you actually went through and readjusted it because straps do come loose and things change first and foremost you should be getting the right pack fit because this can make such a massive difference to making sure the weight sits correctly and it's not too uncomfortable so if you know how to do this make sure it's all fit properly, make sure it's all sorted. If you don't know how to do this, option number one is you can quite often go down to a local Q store if you have access to one of those, bring your pack down and say, hey, can you give me a bit of help with this? Quite often people will help you there.

[2:58] Alternatively, if you don't have access to one of those or you're not comfortable with something like that, you can look up tons of tutorials online and just say, how do I get the right pack to make sure it's full in the line? Now, this also goes hand in hand with making sure you load your pack up correctly because if you've got all your weight in weird positions, not quite sitting properly, may add to it as well. So make sure you're tug-huntering that. Now, number two, and this.

[3:23] It is kind of common sense for a lot of people but i tell you what this is one of the biggest things that i often see from people they just forget about if you are doing training with a pack if you're hunting with a pack whatever it may be please please please make sure you are doing this with a pack which has a hip belt and not just a little hip belt but a proper hip belt because a lot of hikers will go out there and they'll just wear any old backpack when they're hiking if they're training they're just going out for the day part and while this is fine going day to date, a normal backpack without a hip belt will rest all the weight on your chest and shoulders. It will be uncomfortable. They're not really designed to hold a huge amount of weight.

[3:58] On top of that is if you aren't going out and you're intentionally loading up your pack, you're trying to do training bikes, or if you're actually going out on adventures and you don't have a pack which properly sits that weight, again, you're kind of like you're not really shooting yourself in the foot in a sense. So make sure if you are doing any loaded pack work that you at the very least have some type of hip belt and hopefully have a pack which has a robust hip belt. Now on top of that please make sure that whatever pack you're using that you're kind of sitting within the weight limits because we often see people in two different situations where this can trip you up. Number one is if someone is building up to a heavy pack height and they're going through their loader pack training sessions and bit by bit by bit they're increasing their pack weight and the first few weeks it kind of goes okay and then it comes a point where all of sudden i'm getting this chest and shoulder pain and this will often happen when we get to this point when we're around about maybe seven eight kilos in our pack and we're using a day pack and this might be if you earn pounds that's like 15 pounds or something like that but either way day packs themselves will typically have a bit of a range where they kind of top out of how much weight they can comfortably carry and technically you may be able to carry that weight but it's probably not designed for it. So if you are intentionally building up the pathway, you could get in that point and at some stage you're planning on transitioning from a day pack to a full pack, maybe transition to that full pack sooner rather than later because that will better hold the way.

[5:27] Now the other situation here is when people often go down the ultra lightweight group, and again they kind of get their pack packed on um weights a little bit out of whack because ultra light packs are great they're really really light and this and that but many of them are just not designed in a way to hold excessive weight or hold heavy weight so if you're intentionally loading up this pack for training trying to get a little bit heavier it may end up going over the weight levels so just do a little bit of research see what packs you have and see what the weight weight limits are. And if you feel like you're going over them, maybe consider a bit of a good path. So equipment, pretty straightforward, pretty basic, but doesn't need to be set.

[6:05] Now on the training side, we essentially want to be looking at, okay, if we are struggling with.

[6:12] Pain or discomfort in the neck and shoulders, building up strength, building up endurance, building up resilience through these areas in our training, it can go a long way to revenge. Essentially, three areas we want to be looking at with our training in this particular subject are strength, mobility, and also specific exposure. So essentially strength. A lot of hikers, when they're doing their training, they'll focus on the legs. They'll do lots of quads, lots of hamstrings, lots of glutes, which is great. But a lot of hikers end up completely neglecting their upper body. And while hikers don't need to be doing a huge amount of upper body training in their week, doing a small amount is pretty important. and it can make a bit of a difference on this type of situation. It can build up the muscles, improve their resilience, improve their tolerance, so it can handle these forces a little bit better. Now, if you are looking at... Hold on, let's see if I'm going to close my window.

[7:07] Now, if you aren't looking at an upper body strength for your hiking, typically what we want to be looking at, as with all of our training, we want to get a nice balance between the front and back of the body. We want to get a balance between making sure all the muscles in the upper body are getting worked in one way or another. And an easy way to sort of look at this is balancing out what we call pushing exercises and pulling exercises. So essentially, pushing exercises are exactly what they sound like. Pushing a weight away from you or pushing a weight straight above you. Those are pushing exercises. Pulling exercises are, again, the same. Pulling a weight towards you or pulling a weight from above towards you, either vertically or horizontally. So we want to kind of get a nice balance of that. So to give you a few exercise examples of what I typically get my hikers doing, first and foremost, I'll get all my hikers doing some type of pressing motion. So this is an example of a pressing exercise called a floor press. Very, very accessible for a lot of hikers. You can do this at home. You don't really need any equipment. You need to use dumbbells or even a load of pack with this. The idea behind this exercise is working chest, the front of the shoulders, a little bit of the backs of the arms. Literally, all we're doing is just straight down, straight up. Very, very simple. Now, you can do this off the floor. Very, very simple. You can do this off a bench and make an increase of range of motion a little bit. You can even replace this with a push-up. It's pretty much the same thing as a push-up in regards to muscles work.

[8:25] Now, you may be wondering, okay, why are these hands pointing like that? If I've done this in the gym before, maybe I have my pants pointed the other way, like parallel. I quite like this neutral grip because it can be quite nice on the shoulder for a lot of people. Also, it can be quite nice for specifically the trekking poles. Some people like when they're trekking poles, certain muscles can get sore. This is a nice starting point for a lot of people. So this is sort of the first thing. Most hikers, I should say, will be doing something like this once in a week, somewhere.

[8:51] Now as we said before we typically want to balance this out with something for the back of the body. So a second option is doing something like a three-point row which is basically involved leaning on a chair or bench or something like that and all we're doing is basically pulling the weight up, a little squeeze and then coming down. Now the intention behind this is working a bit of the biceps but predominantly the upper back or working through here. Again you can use a backpack in this demonstration, you can use the dumbbells, very very versatile exercises.

[9:17] So, both of these movements, they are what's called horizontal exercises. This one is a horizontal pushing exercise because you're literally pushing in a horizontal movement. And this one is a horizontal pulling exercise because you're pulling horizontally. And that can work out pretty well.

[9:32] Now, if a hiker is sort of just doing a couple of strength workouts in a week, in all honesty, you could do one of these on one day, one of these on the other day, and then the rest of your training end up doing legs and core and all that. Works out pretty well. Now, if we did want to add in a little bit more, then you may consider doing some vertical stuff. So basically, this is an example of a vertical pushing movement, where we're basically going to dumbbell, or again, you can do this with a pack, and you're literally just pushing it straight above your head. These ones predominantly work in the shoulders, maybe a little bit with triceps, and this is what we call a vertical pushing movement. Very, very simple. And then the third one, the last one, I should say, to balance all of this out, we've got a horizontal pushing movement, a horizontal pulling movement, a vertical pushing movement. Then we want to balance it out with a vertical pulling movement. So this particular one is an example. This is my video. This is Coach Josh. Josh Wood, he's awesome. Check him out. Follow this stuff on Instagram. He's really, really good. But basically, this is an example of a vertical pulling movement. This one can be a little bit tricky to set up if you're doing it at home. This is an option where you can kind of get a band and you can like attach it to something up here or you can loop it around a door frame or something. And basically what you're doing is pulling down and coming up and pulling down and coming up. And this can be a vertical movement. If you're in a gym, you can kind of use like a pull-down machine. They're typically a little bit better or a table machine where you're pulling weights down. Or you can even do pull-ups or assisted pull-ups or something like that. But that works out pretty well.

[10:53] So on the strengthening side of things, for this specific thing, if we build up strength through the upper body, that can be better efficient. So, I would typically do two, three, four of these exercises in the loop, depending on what you know. You don't really need to do loads and loads and loads of this, but you know, you get some exposure.

[11:11] Now, number two is mobility. So, we're talking about strengthening. Another aspect that can kind of go into this is sometimes if we're very, very tight across the chest and the shoulders, we're very, very restricted and we feel like those muscles are really, really tight, this can lead to pain.

[11:26] Incorporating, not incorporating, but making that soreness a little bit more uncomfortable.

[11:32] So doing a little bit of mobility work, a little bit of stretching work can be quite nice. So to give you a few examples of here, realistically, any stretch which stretches your shoulders or your chest can work out pretty well. This is one I quite like for this particular situation. It's basically called a single arm doorway slide. So what you're doing is you're basically finding like a doorway or or or yeah and you're lining up your shoulder here shoulder back and down elbow against the wall and what we're going to do is we're going to lean a little bit of weight into it and then all we're going to do is basically just slowly slowly slowly push the arm up and down like you'll probably notice there's probably going to be a bit of a stretch in front of the shoulders a bit of stretch in chest this can work out pretty well and we're essentially just trying to go up and down up and down up and down on top that as we're going through we're just trying to make sure we're not taking too much tension in the neck which is quite often a something people will do but basically keep this nice and nice and relaxed in the neck so this is an option you can also do this with two arms and basically have one arm here one arm on the other side of the doorway and do both arms at a time that works out really well but realistically anything that is going to be stretching the front of the shoulders and the chest can work pretty well also anything that's going to be stretching the laps as well can also be quite massive.

[12:48] And what I would typically do is I would usually load in my mobility stuff as part of my strength workouts. And I like to use my mobility stuff in my rest periods. So I'd do a strength exercise and instead of resting and sitting around doing nothing, I would do a bit of mobility so you can make good use of that time.

[13:03] And then next up is exposure. Typically, when we deal with aches and pains, one of the best things we can do is take the thing that actually causes that ache and pain and then slowly expose the body to it in a controlled way. So we can slowly expose it to it so it can get a little bit more comfortable, it can adapt, it can deal with it and be a little bit happier. So in this particular situation, if we're aware that, okay, I get a sore neck and shoulders when I carry a pack while I'm hiking, there's two ways that I quite like to go about this exposure. Number one is doing loaded pack walking. So this is simply doing anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes, putting on a pack, walking around the local neighbourhood, walking around a park, or even walking on the trip. The intention behind this is we start off with a reasonable amount of weight, something that doesn't cause us pain, doesn't cause us discomfort, and week by week by week we make it a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. The idea behind this is because this walk is a little bit shorter, it is a little bit quicker, it's a little bit more, you're not in the middle of nowhere, where you can probably use a little bit more weight than you may use on hiking because you're doing shorter. So you can expose the body and you can expose the neck and the shoulders to this type of stress in a short period so it can be a bit more comfortable. So that's number one.

[14:15] Number two is without hiking, if we're aware, okay, I get a sore neck and shoulders when I hike, when I carry a pack, ask yourself, okay, what weight typically triggers this? Is it four kilos, five kilos, six kilos, seven kilos, whatever it may be? Then what I would recommend is basically just stripping back your pack weight a little bit if you're aware that a fine kilos are typically down comfortable pull back your pack weight to maybe three kilos do that for a couple of weeks while you build up the exposure through those shorter lock control works and then slowly but shorter build up and if we can do both of these things the shorter slightly heavier pack walks and then the hiking and build them both up gradually at the same time, this could work out really well.

[14:54] And then finally, just to cover a few on-trail tips. So specific things you can kind of do.

[15:01] Before you're hiking if this is all going on. Now, number one, a little bit of a walk. A couple of quick stretches before hiking can go a long way. Typically, just releasing the chest, the shoulders, doing like that slide, if you can, as a trailhead, if there's like a pole or something, even just doing like a chest stretch and just leaning against a car or a tree and you've got your arm up against it and you're leaning in and just stretching that out for like two or three minutes before you start going. Sometimes that's enough for people to kind of feel a bit more comfortable. The second technique which can be quite useful is aiming for belly breathing or diaphragm breathing while we are hiking.

[15:36] So a little bit of thought that goes behind this is essentially one tendency for a lot of people when we are a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit tired and we're getting like you know working relatively hard while hiking. Essentially what can sometimes happen is we end up breathing through our chest and our neck which is sort of you know, just a way people breathe when we're working hard. And what ends up happening is we're breathing through our chest and our neck and we're doing, and we're kind of up and down, up and down while we're breathing. If we are carrying a pack, this can end up us doing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, just little repetitions because we've got the pack on our neck. We've got the pack across our shoulders and we're just doing little repetition, little repetition, little repetition. This type of thing is not a big deal day to day. Like it's not going to be the end of the world day to day, but it does show up when we're carrying a pack. So one thing that can take a little bit of pressure out of this area is as you are hyping along, really, really concentrating on, okay, when I'm breathing, I'm going to feel my belly expand. I'm going to breathe in deep, feel my belly expand, and try to keep not too much movement through the chest and the shoulders. Now, this particular breathing technique, diaphragm breathing or belly breathing, is a really effective and efficient method of breathing. It's something that a lot of hypers, I would say, should aim for anyway. But in this specific context, it can take pressure out of here. It can help those areas feel a little bit more relaxed. It can be really cool.

[16:55] Um next up is use a water bottle trick this is specifically for people who are going through this training process and slowly trying to load up and expose the body to it with your hiking or your load of pack walking what i typically recommend is if you aren't doing this and you're intentionally loading up your pack make sure at least 50 percent of your pack weight is made up in water bottles and when you go out on your hike when you go out and walk walk for as long as you can until you start to feel that discomfort until you start to feel that pain and once you do start feeling that as opposed to just pushing through and dealing with it take some water and dump it out and maybe even dump out all your water except your actual drinking water now i personally really like this because as opposed to you getting uncomfortable and just pushing and pushing pushing and then you end up really sore neck at the end this gives you a little bit of variation this can actually give you opportunity to expose the body to heavier pack weights and challenge yourself slightly but also just do it in a way which isn't going to overworked things too much. And then finally, just stretches and needles. You know, if you are hiking and going along and that's getting uncomfortable, take a moment here and there, do some stretches, do a little bit of self-management, stretch out the chest or stretch out the neck, do some little neck stretches, stretch out the back or whatever it is, and just do little bits and pieces of that through the day. You can go a long way. So when it comes down to getting a sore neck and shoulder as well while pack hiking, it's pretty common. A lot of people deal with it.

[18:18] Definitely make sure you're on top of your equipment definitely make sure you're doing some things and you're trying to help build up your resilience your tolerance to this and when you're on the trail hopefully there's a few tips which can make a bit of a difference there.

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