Reducing Burning Calves When Hiking Up Steep Hills

​"What can I do to prevent my calves from getting tight, uncomfortable and burning when hiking up steep inclines?"

Getting tight and burning calves is a VERY common issue many hikers face. So today we explore the subject and talk through a range of areas a hiker can focus on, which can help. 

Inside, we cover:
 

• Why calf mobility is essential for uphill hiking (and how to test it)
• How to develop strength and endurance through the calves (and a couple of my favourite exercises)
• How to 'bridge the gap' between your normal training and what your calves actually need for hiking
• A simple hiking technique that can helps save the calves on steep ascents

Video Transcript:

[0:00] Hello, hello, hikers. And in today's video, we are talking through some ideas around how you can reduce burning calves when hiking up hills.

[0:10] Now, this is a question I got the other day, and someone shot me through the question just saying, look, I've been weight training for several months, mostly to improve my hiking abilities. But still, what I'm noticing is as I hike uphill, my calves are getting tight, they're getting uncomfortable, and they feel like they're the weakest lift. Should I be doing some stretches to start? Is there anything you recommend? And when it comes down to the gym, what should I be doing to strengthen this? And this is a really, really, really common situation that so many hikers fall into for a few different reasons. Number one is the cars do a lot of work on the track and a lot of people are aware of this. But one of the tricky things is training the cars is really, really boring. It's not very exciting and a lot of people just completely neglect this area of training because it's just dull. It's not exciting. So that's problem number one. Problem number two for people who do train their calves, sometimes there's a little bit of a difference between what they're actually doing in their training or what they need for their height. Because there's a little bit of a difference when we're looking at just doing 10 or 12 repetitions at a carp race, for example, and actually doing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of steps when we're going up a long steep ascent.

[1:17] And ultimately, on top of that, there are many things that can kind of go into this equation. It's usually not just one thing in isolation, which caused these calves to be so tricky. But it's usually a combination of things. So today we're going to talk through four different areas which can often go into this. And we're going to talk through ankle mobility, we're going to talk through calf strength, calf endurance and hiking technique.

[1:38] So ultimately you should have a good range of things you can work on to make a bit of a difference here.

[1:43] So first up, calf mobility. Why is this important? Calf mobility is essentially the range of motion through our ankles. If our ankles are super, super tight, and if our calves are super, super tight, what this can do is when we aren't going up steep up hills, it can sometimes force us up onto our toes. So every single step, step, step we're taking, we're kind of high up on our toes because our ankles don't really have a huge amount of range of motion. Now, this isn't a big deal day to day. This isn't a big deal if you're just climbing up a set of stairs at home. But if we're out hiking and we're doing a step up step up a step up step it can burn things out really really quickly so it can be good if we are a little bit restricted with our ankles, improving that mobility so how do you know if you're restricted or not well you want to test a really really simple way to look at this that anyone can do from the comfort of their own is essentially doing a knee to wall test now the knee to wall test it's very very simple you're going to set up next to a wall. What you're going to do is do it barefoot and you want like a ruler or a tape measure or whatever may be. Now the assessment itself, what we're going to be doing is keeping one, your heel on the floor. You're basically going to drive your knee into the floor and the idea behind this is the heel will always stay on the floor. What we're going to do is we're going to have a tape measure which is just running next to your feet and you're essentially going to drive your knee into the wall.

[3:03] See how that goes. Then you're going to bring your foot a little bit further back and then drive him into the wall see how that goes and essentially we want to keep on testing and testing and testing to the absolute furthest away from the wall we can do this before the heel starts to pop up and if you do feel like the heel starts to pop up then we need to get a little bit closer and what we're trying to do here is once we've got that measure we want to measure the distance between the big toe and the wall at the furthest it can go away now essentially with here's what you can use as a measure is.

[3:35] Typically if you are scoring 10 centimeters or more so meaning you are 10 centimeters or more between a big toe and a wall it's usually a good sign saying look the ankles are pretty you know you may you know may be worthwhile still doing a little bit of mobility but it's probably not a big deal ultimately alternatively if you're 10 centimeters or less this is a sign saying look, might be a bit restricted and you probably are going to get some good benefits from improving this mobility very very simple but it can be pretty effective.

[4:02] So, I think you'll improve this mobility. Well, stretching. This in itself can just be a great stretch to start. And you can basically do repetitions of this, where you're just riding your knee into the wall, hold for a second or two, and come back. And do 10, 12, 15 of these can be really, really good. Or alternatively, just standard calf stretches, where you're just leaning against a wall or dropping your foot off a stretch of a bench or a step.

[4:24] That could work out pretty as well as well. So that's our first point. And I would typically recommend, if you're trying to improve this, we want to do this type of stuff as part of your warm-ups before training we kind of want to filter these in somewhere in through the day and even you can do this as warm-ups before hiking and I get a lot of my hikers to do this exact stretch before their hikes because it's just a nice way to loosen up the ankles so that's number one looking at mobility first place to start number two we want to look at cast frame and endurance because building up strength and building up endurance through the cars can be really really useful now again when it comes down to this type of stuff it quite useful just to test this and see where you are right up in a grand scheme of things. Do you have really strong carbs? Do you need a little bit of work or whatever it may be? So a simple way to judge this is do a little car raise assessment, where essentially, again, you're barefoot against the wall and all you're going to do is look up. So you're going to push up, you're going to hold for like a lot of two seconds and then come down and push up, hold for one or two seconds and then come down. And just doing this without a moment, doing this without bouncing around or whatever it may be. And ultimately, that you want to do with me as you can at things.

[5:30] That's really hard to do.

[5:32] General rule of thumb of this is what we typically use is if you can do 28 repetitions or more that's usually a sign saying you know your calf strength is pretty good like not to say it won't be beneficial to continue to get it stronger but it's probably not a major issue alternatively if it's a little bit lower than that that's sort of a sign saying you know what you'll probably get some good benefits around improving that strength and bumping that up and putting a bit of focus into it really really simple test and then essentially if you end up scoring low or if just want to improve that either way then you kind of want to think about okay incorporate that into our leg. Typically with this type of thing you know there's a couple of different ways we want to look at. Generally what I get my hikers to do is a combination of both straight leg calf raises and bent leg calf raises. Now straight leg, straight leg calf raises are kind of the ones you may be familiar with where we're basically just on a step or whatever it may be. Leg is pretty straight and we're pushing up and down, up and down, up and down. Now this is a really versatile exercise. you can do this one point at a time.

[6:31] You can do it off a step, you can do it on the floor, you can use in this variation using the backpack, you can do body weight or whatever it may be. Now the idea behind these straight leg calf raises is they're very very good at working the whole calves but specifically working the side up part of the calf which is called the gastro-leaningness, that bit that you kind of notice when you're hiking. Very very simple but very very effective and as I said a bunch of different variations.

[6:53] On top of that, I quite like to balance this out with what we call bent leg calf raise variations. So in this particular version, we've got a straight leg. Bent leg calf raises are basically when we're doing a similar thing, but our knees are bare. There's a lot of different ways you can go about this, but our knees are bare. Now the idea behind the bent leg calf raises is that we're shifting emphasis a little bit away from the top of the calves to a little bit lower, into what's called the soleus. It's a little bit lower, a little bit deeper, just as a portal. So in this particular example, we're combining it with the wall stick, we're basically sitting in the wall stick, put up, put up, put up, and come down. Again, there's lots and lots of different variations of what you can do with bent leg things. You could do a very similar thing to this, but just sit in a quarter squat with your knee bent and go through it, or whatever it may be. But when we're looking at our strengthening, we want to be kind of concentrated on both straight leg and bent leg, try to get both of those in a week and build that out of time.

[7:45] Now, a few tips for this type of stuff that can be quite useful. What I really, really like with our car phrases is just adding pauses at the top. So basically, when we're doing this type of thing, instead of just going up, down, up, down, up, down, down at the top of the repetition, just add a one to two second pausing for each repetition. It takes a lot of momentum out. It sort of strengthens up that top position. It can be really good. On top of that, just concentrating on a bit of a slow lower. So we push up to the top, and then as we come down, try to count by two or three seconds. That one's probably a bit fast for this demonstration. But maybe like what it is. You can see there's very controlled all the way down. So that's the tool. I think it's right to down. Go to keep it in control.

[8:24] Just those two little tips can just get a little bit more out of every repetition you do. And then finally, when it comes down to it, I would definitely recommend when you're looking at strengthening, getting a mixture of doing some things which are a little bit higher repetition. So working at 15 repetitions, 20 repetitions, where you're getting lots and lots and lots of doing, doing, doing. and also doing some where you're doing it a little bit heavier, a little bit more resistance. So doing eight repetitions or seven repetitions or six repetitions with a bit of extra weight. Getting the combination of those two things can really go a long way and can be very, very beneficial.

[8:58] So calf mobility, calf strength. Next up, we want to think about calf endurance. Because as I said before, there can be a little bit of a difference between, okay, I'm doing 20 repetitions in a gym, a little bit of a difference in between the knees of us on a trail between doing that and actually doing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of steps on the trail. So the way that we deal with this and the way we practice this is we practice this in our training.

[9:22] A very simple way of going about this is just incorporating some stair or heel sessions in your week where basically you find a local set of stairs or a local hill and you just practice going up and down up and down up and down it's a very common uh common session for a lot of hikers anyway but in this particular situation we are exposing the calves to this stress and then week by week by week you can either add a little bit longer time so you might do 20 minutes and 25 minutes and doing this whatever it may be or you can add a bit of weight and do start with body weight and put a few kilos in your pack and another couple of kilos and another couple or whatever it is and this is a really really good way of kind of bridging a gap between the very general training related job um in the gym or at home and the more specific stuff we need on the trail and then finally hiking techniques as we said as said one of the things that can often burn out the calves is if we are just up on our toes and we're stepping stepping stepping stepping on the hills a really simple way of taking pressure away from the calves is essentially looking what we call a heel push technique well when we're going up hills or when we're going up steps, trying to plan our foot and trying to put a bit of pressure through the heel. It's not all your weight, but trying to put a bit of weight. The idea behind this is if we can plan our foot, put a bit of weight through our heel as we're going up hills, this will get the hamstrings and the glutes doing a little bit more. This will take a little bit of pressure out of the calves and also out of the knees can be quite useful.

[10:45] It's not always practical. It's not always realistic, specifically as you get steeper and steeper. And as we said, if you have really tight calves this can be a little bit tricky so it'll get easier and easier as you mobilize your calves over time but that can be very very simple ultimately if you are in the situation where you are constantly getting the earning calves going like yours um have a look at these different areas look at your calf mobility if it is tight put a bit of attention to it make sure you are being consistent with some calves front and you're getting exposure to the bent leg and calf straight leg stuff and also doing some fettier stuff and some more endurance based things Make sure you're filling the gap with something specific, stairs or hills or whatever it may be, and then just see if you can pay attention to planting the feet a bit more on the floor. Put those things all together and be consistent with the train, and it can make a really, really big difference when it comes down to these cars on the trail. So I really do hope this helps a few people. I hope it gives a bit of insight, and I hope it can make a bit of a difference for your hiking in the future.

Want to get
fit, strong and resilient
for your hiking adventures?

Check out
​The Online Summit Program