Rucking For Hikers: Myths vs Facts

In this episode, we explore the idea of rucking for hikers (e.g loaded-pack walking). And we give a bit of a nuanced take on this subject (to try and balance out a lot of the exaggeration that is seen online with this subject).

Inside, we answer the questions:

• Is rucking an effective way to build muscle strength?
• Is rucking useful for improving or maintaining bone density?
• Can rucking help with weight loss?
• Is rucking beneficial for the immune system?
• Can rucking help with longevity?

Episode Transcript:​

[0:00] Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. In today's episode, we are talking about rucking for hikers. We're going to be exploring a few, I guess, myths about this type of training and just getting a little bit of context, a little bit of nuance, and a little bit more factual information around where this type of training fits into the grand picture. Now, if you haven't heard of it before, rucking is literally walking with a weighted backpack. In the hiking context, we often call this load a pack walking or literally hiking with a pack. And in all honesty, when it comes down to training for hiking, training for backpacking, training for mountaineering, this is a staple for most people. At some stage, we're going to be doing this in our training, whether it's walking on the treadmill, walking around a local neighborhood, or just doing this when we're hiking, because it's pretty much the most specific thing we can do for our hiking.

[0:51] But in recent times, Outside of the hiking context, this is going to be gaining more and more and more popularity in the world of just general fitness and general training. And many people out there are recommending it. Big influencers, big coaches, big names. Lots and lots of people are talking about this online. You'll go on Instagram, you'll go on YouTube. People are talking about rucking, rucking, rucking, rucking, rucking. Heck, even some coaches I've seen popping up are coming out and saying they're rucking coaches and this is all we do with our clients. or this is what 90% of what we do. And rucking is the way to go. And it is cool to see because, you know, it's always interesting seeing other areas of training come out and get promoted and give other people different options and this and that outside just the normal go lift weights and go for a run or whatever. But the tricky thing here is, is anytime something gets popular and this type of training has been around forever, but when it gets popular and people start talking about it.

[1:50] People start taking this particular thing. At first, they're like, hey, this is pretty good. Hey, this will do these things. And they'll get more and more and more. And people will get more overblown and more overblown and more overblown. And all of a sudden, they'll start promoting it and saying, this is the best thing since sliced bread. This is the most amazing thing. This will replace all these different types of training. This is the best thing you can do for your workouts. And then it gets a little bit overhyped. And the trouble is for hikers, if you're interested in hiking, you're going to get bombarded with this information. Because the way social media works, the way the internet works is if you show interest in something, you get bombarded with videos and posts around it. And so a lot of hikers are getting this information from the general population about rucking. And they're like, well, I'm training to carry a pack. This is all going to apply to me.

[2:40] So today, we kind of want to dive into a little bit more. Now, on the whole load of pack walking for hikers, I've talked about this a million times on this podcast, and I often talk about load of pack walking as just an essential area for training for hiking. Whether you are training for a full pack hike, a day pack hike, or anything in between, I really do believe every single hiker should be doing this at some time in their training. It can be absolutely amazing for developing aerobic fitness. It can be amazing for just adding extra challenge to certain workouts. If you're doing stairs or hills or tempo walks and you need a way to progress, this can be great. It can be really, really good for loading up the muscles and the joints in a really, really hiking-specific way and just getting them used to carrying these types of loads for long periods of time. And it is one of the most relevant and useful methods of training for hiking. But I've talked about that stuff loads. I'm not going to be diving into that all today because hopefully as a hiker, you already know that. Instead what we're going to be diving into today is some of the more popularized claims that i've kind of seen about rucking in the general fitness world that have kind of popped up more and more and more which i know hikers are seeing more and more and i just want to dive into some of these more popular ones to just give you a bit more clarity just so if you see it you can be like cool that makes sense but i kind of understand the context or maybe you know that doesn't really make sense and someone's just been a bit overblown just so you can have that information to make your decisions, and just not going to get overblown with the hype.

[4:09] So today, yeah, we're just going to be diving through a few things and one, two, three, four, five, five of the biggest claims I see and just give you a bit of clarity. So the first claim and the first kind of myth, I suppose, is rucking will develop strength. And the way I've seen this talked about is people say these will give you the strongest thighs and glutes you've ever had. Rucking will be amazing for developing that leg drive going uphill. The rucking would be awesome to build rock hard, strong legs, stuff like that. People just absolutely pump it up. To be incredibly clear, rucking or load a pack walking is never going to be an effective strength stimulus. If someone's telling you this is a good way to develop strength, they're not really being very honest. To be clear, rucking, no matter if you can't load up your pack or your vest to the absurd amount of weight where you can just hobble around like a turtle, it's never going to be enough load to be an effective strength stimulus. Now, when we're looking at building muscular strength, if you look at strength training.

[5:20] Generally what people are recommended for strength training, and if we want to develop strength and the specific aspect of fitness called muscular strength, we are recommended to do sets of 10 repetitions or less at a time. Now, if you're a little bit more experienced, you may have to go less even more. You may have to do eight or less or five or less or whatever may be. But generally, just talking about the general population, we want to be doing 10 repetitions or less, which means you're going to find a resistance on an exercise or a weight on an exercise where after doing 10 repetitions of a movement, after doing 10 squats or whatever may be, you kind of need a rest and you need to rest before you do any more.

[6:05] Pretty simple. Now, if you look at this, and if you count out how much time you're spending here, if you look at repetitions, you may say a normal repetition in strength training would take about five seconds. You do four-second lowering, one second up. If you're doing 10 of those, that means 50 seconds per set, which means after 50 seconds of doing something, you kind of need a rest. That is an effective strength stimulus. Go back to rucking. No matter how heavy you load up a pack or a vest, you're never going to fatigue after 50 seconds. It just doesn't line up.

[6:39] Rucking is not an effective strength stimulus for 99% of people. The only people who are going to see genuine strength increases from rucking is someone who is outrageously deconditioned, someone who just hasn't done any exercise in forever.

[6:58] And that type of person, they can literally do anything and increase strength. They could go kayaking and increase strength. They could go cycling and increase strength. Rucking isn't magical in that situation. It's just an extra load. And this will only last for so long. And then eventually, or not even eventually, after a few weeks, you need to apply more. Rucking as a whole can be a really, really good muscular endurance stimulus.

[7:21] And that can be very, very effective. That is the fact. That is the truth, that it's not effective for building strength. And if someone's claiming that it will build strength, they're either just being confusing in the way they're phrasing things, they don't really understand strength development, or they're lumping in muscular endurance and muscular strength as the same thing when they are different aspects of fitness. So that's number one, rucking is not going to develop strength.

[7:50] Number two rucking is amazing for bone density and again the way people phrase this is like rucking will build the strongest bones you've ever had or get you feeling i can't remember exactly what someone phrased it as but get very very hyperbolic of it now for hikers and a lot of people in general we worry about bone density a lot of people are concerned about reducing bone density during our age or are concerned about osteopenia and osteoporosis and something as a hiker we really want to avoid. And when it comes down to reducing bone density loss or increasing bone density, we, general rule of thumb, is we want to apply stress to the bones. We want to apply stimulus to the bones. And if we can apply stress and stimulus in a good way, which isn't too much, this can be beneficial. This can reduce the risk or reduce the rate of bone density loss and potentially increase our bone density. Now, we often get recommended as a doctor, like we want to do weight-bearing activities.

[8:53] At the very, very lowest end of the spectrum, if someone is quite inactive, just doing some weight-bearing activity, just going out and walking on our own two feet can be beneficial for bone density, which is true. But for a lot of people, this isn't quite enough. Maybe they just walk around all the time and they still have bone density issues. So we need to apply more stimulus to the bones. And this is where rucking can come in. It can be a nice step up because rucking, we will put extra weight on our body. So therefore, when we're walking around, we will apply more stress and more stimulus to the bones, which can be good for bone density loss. It can be good. It can be effective. It can be a step up from walking. Great.

[9:35] To be clear, and just to separate the myth from the fact, rocking is not going to be the best thing for bone density, and it's definitely not something you should rely on completely for bone density if you have issues with that. As I said, stimulus is important. Stress is important. And rutging will give you a decent stress. But the gold standard for applying stress to your bones in a good and controlled way is strength training. Because with strength training, again, we can apply a lot more load. We can apply a lot more stress. And we can really, really, really challenge the bones. And the majority of research out there looking at bone density prevention comes from strength training.

[10:19] And on top of that, rucking probably isn't going to give a massive stimulus to upper body. Even though we're carrying a load on our upper body, it's probably not going to do a dramatic change for that. But with strength training, we can really target the upper body as well. So when it comes down to the whole bone density picture, rucking can be a nice addition. If you've been doing lots of walking and you step up to rucking, this can be a nice progression. This can definitely help, but don't get swept up in the hype and think it's magical for bone density. Don't get swept up in the hike and think it can replace strength training for bone density. Just think of it as a nice addition, a nice upgrade, but don't get too carried away in the grand picture.

[11:04] Number three, rucking is amazing for weight loss. And rucking will burn off those flappy thighs, I think I read somewhere, or it will melt that body fat or whatever it may be. You know, all that really interesting verbiage around weight loss. Now, I don't often talk about weight loss. I don't particularly love talking about it. It's not an area that's close to my heart or anything like that. But I know a lot of hikers are going through this journey. so we do need to talk about it. The claim here is rucking is amazing for weight loss, that it will burn that fat off. It is the best thing you can do or one of the best things you can do for weight loss. Now, weight loss as a whole, as we know, is a pretty big, complex subject. There's a lot of things that goes into it, a lot of different opinions, a lot of different nuance or whatever it may be. But if we're really, really simplifying things to the most simplified way, I'm sure you've heard the idea of calorie balance in the sense if we want to lose weight, we need to take in less calories than the body needs, meaning the body has less energy than it really needs, and therefore we will lose weight over time. Obviously, there's a lot that goes into that. Obviously, there's a lot of nuance, but if we're getting the most simplified way, that's kind of what we're looking at for weight loss.

[12:23] Now, if you're using exercise or training as a tool for weight loss, and that's like you're trying to lose weight and that's why I'm training. Really, the main thing we're looking at with our training is calorie burn. In the sense, if we can burn more calories via exercise, it will contribute to that calorie balance. It will mean we're burning more. So therefore, we can maybe have less calories again, or whatever it may be. And it will usually be beneficial. Now, at one end of the scale, when it comes down to the weight loss journey, this is one of the reasons why high-intensity interval training is so popular. Because you can go into a high-intensity interval training session, you can wear a heart rate monitor, and you can see, oh my gosh, look at all these calories I'm burning, and I'm pumping it, I'm pushing it. And compared to other types of training, if you're just walking or whatever it may be, HIIT can burn a lot of calories. Some people love this. Some people see good results from it, whatever it may be. But again, in the weight loss context, a lot of people really struggle with HIIT. Maybe they don't enjoy the format. Maybe they're just like, hey, having to be really high intensity for multiple times a week ongoing is a real struggle because if I'm losing weight, I'm already low energy. And if I'm really, really working hard, plus I have a busy job and a busy family or whatever it may be, that can be really tough. Or some people, it just gets ground up by this type of training and it's just like high impact, high intensity, they get sore joints or whatever it may be.

[13:47] So coming back to the original topic, a lot of people will sort of say, okay, HIIT just doesn't work for me. So what I'm going to do instead is with my training, I'm just going to do like lower intensity stuff. I'm going to do walking and do cycling. It doesn't really affect my energy so much. It's a little bit more gentle and I'll focus on my nutrition and that can be a nice balance people find. So where rucking can come in here and then this type of person, if we're doing lots of walking and all of a sudden we replace that with rucking, we will burn slightly more calories.

[14:16] And also, it doesn't come with those barriers of HIIT. It won't burn that so much energy and make us feel nasty. It's approachable. If we're not really feeling amazing, it's not going to grind us up or whatever it may be. So it can be effective on the weight loss side of things by just burning more calories than normal walking. Effective but not magical now final note just to be clear on this like anytime we're talking about weight loss just to be clear 95 of your weight loss is going to come from nutrition exercise very very very very small part of you so when people say hey rucking will burn that fat off, well and they're not talking about nutrition well yeah come on don't expect to just start rucking and things to change we need you know the full context there the next claim we often see about rucking or i often see about rucking is rucking is amazing for your immune health rucking is amazing for your immune system realistically without going into too much detail any type of lower intensity exercise is good for your immune system.

[15:23] Walking, cycling, hiking, all very, very good for your immune system. Rucking falls into that. So yes, if you're not really doing much lower intensity exercise, you start rucking, that can be good. Pretty simple. I would sort of say that's great, but it's not like it's magical and different to other types of training or other types of lower intensity exercise. It kind of falls into that bucket. Not much more needs to be said about that, but just like if someone says, hey, this is amazing for this, just know there's lots of other options. It can be good, but it's not the only thing.

[15:54] And the same thing for the last claim here as well. Rucking is amazing for longevity. Longevity is a big subject at the moment. In all honesty, when it comes to training, there's a lot of things that are going to be beneficial for your longevity. Strength training, beneficial for your longevity. High intensity training, beneficial for your longevity in certain ways. Lower intensity training, beneficial for longevity in certain ways. And one of the ways that we kind of look out for longevity is if you can find some type of lower intensity sustainable exercise which doesn't cause you pain this can be good for certain things for longevity as a hiker if you're doing lots of hiking boom cool we've already got that covered um rucking can kind of fit into this as well um so when we're looking at longevity it's not like hey rucking is amazing in itself it is just an option for lower intensity sustainable exercise that doesn't cause pain, which can give certain benefits, which as a hiker you're probably already going to be getting.

[16:50] So when it comes to longevity, good, not magical, just another tool.

[16:55] So in summary, I'm going to wrap things up here. You know, rucking in the hiking context, low-to-pack walking is an amazing form of training. And every hiker should be doing it at some stage in their training. And for hiking specifically, it is very incredibly specific. It's very incredibly beneficial. It's very, very honed in towards your needs. Very accessible. It covers all your bases. No, it covers a lot of your bases that you want as a hiker.

[17:20] But if you're interested in this type of training if you start getting bombarded with the general discourse around this and you see the big influencers the big coaches the podcast hosts the videos talking about these things just remember rucking is not magical it can be very very specific and effective for hikers needs but when we're looking at general training health outcomes a lot of information out there may be true but it's a lot of it overblown and most of the things we're looking at can we can get from other types of training and really rucking is just accessible and enjoyable for a lot of people.

[17:55] So what does this mean? Well, do your rucking. Go for it. Absolutely. As a hiker, you should be doing it. But no, it's just, just no, it is not, never going to be the sole aspect of your training. Don't get swept up in the hike. Don't replace things with it. Keep up your strength training. Keep up your other types of cardio. Keep up whatever else you're doing. Just don't get swept up in the hike. It's great. It has a place. Not the whole be all end all. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up here today. I hope that makes sense. I hope that was useful for you people. I hope it gives a little bit more context. Last thing I will sort of say before I wrap things up, as I always say on these episodes, if you were a hiker and you're interested in getting a little bit of help with your training, if you're interested in load-a-pack walking, building up to a full pack carry, just general training over the long term, whatever it may be, and you want a bit of a personalized help with that, I would love to talk with you. If you want to find out more, go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. On that page, you can learn about our online personal training for hikers, learn a bit about our process, how we go about helping people. And if it sounds like something you want to get involved with, there's a link on that page. You can book a free call with our team and we can have a bit of a chat and see if and how we might be able to help you out. So if you want to learn a bit more, go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. We can take it from there. So with that being said, thank you so much for listening. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

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