September 17th, 2025

In this video, we share a simple 5-minute 'finisher' to help a hiker squeeze in a bit of upper body strengthening at the end of a workout.

Most hikers put the majority of their attention into training their lower body (which makes sense). But the upper body shouldn't be neglected!

Putting a small amount of attention into upper body strengthening can:

• • Help lifting + carrying a pack
  • Reducing soreness when using trekking poles
  • Aiding during rock scrambling
  • General health (bone density, longevity, etc) 

The Finisher:

1. Overhead press x as many as you can
2. Bent over row x as many as you can
3. Floor press x as many as you can
4. W,y,t's x 10 slow and controlled reps

​
Video Transcript:

[0:00] In today's video, we are talking through a simple upper body finisher that a hiker can use to fit in a little bit of upper body strength at the end of a workout.

[0:10] Now, when it comes down to training for hiking, for the most part, hikers tend to focus on their lower body, which makes sense because hiking is a lower body sport, the legs are doing most of the work, and it makes sense to spend the majority of our time training that area.

[0:26] But it is a mistake if you are completely neglecting your upper body because working and developing and strengthening your upper body can have a number of really really good benefits things like it can help you lift and carry a heavy pack whether this is a day pack or full pack or anything in between and it can help reduce soreness when using trekking poles a lot of hikers do tend to get sore shoulders sore triceps sore elbows when they're using trekking poles on long with days. It can help us with rocks crambling or any type of climbing you're going to be dealing with. And also it can just be great for general health, for general bone density, for resilience, for longevity, all of that. So even though hikers should put the majority of their focus into their lower body, we want to make sure we are still getting a bit of upper body strengthening in our week.

[1:12] Now the concept of a finisher is essentially just using a very very small amount of time at the end of a workout just to squeeze in quite a bit of work to finish things off. Now the idea behind this with the upper body is if you're doing a workout and you spend the majority of time doing your lower body and you're like hey have an extra five minutes at the end this could be a really really good option to just squeeze in a bunch of low arm upper body work in a short amount of time so you can walk out feeling like you know what I've accomplished quite a bit. Now for this particular sequence and this particular initial we're going to be doing four different exercises. You can either do these with a backpack, you can train at home, you can use a barbell or dumbbells if you're at the gym or whatever you want.

[1:54] Now exercise number one, we're going to do it all nearly overhead pressed. We're basically going to be on your knees, but we're going to do the same if you want as well. And basically we're just pushing back for a weight straight above our head. Now the idea behind this exercise is going to be working the shoulders predominantly and a little bit of the triceps maybe as well. Now exercise number two, we're going to be doing it with a bent over row. So you're going to stand up, bend over, push the hips back and with a nice flat back we're going to be pulling the pack or pulling the weight up to our torso. Key to this exercise is we should be feeling it in the upper back, maybe a bit in the lats, maybe a bit in the biceps.

[2:30] Number three, we're going to go down on the ground, and we're going to be doing a floor press. And essentially, we're going to be doing just pressing straight up, straight down. This will work the chest, the front of the shoulders, a bit of the triceps as well.

[2:41] And the final one, we're going to be doing a W-Y-T, which is a slightly different exercise. It won't be quite as burning, and it's a little bit more stability and control base. But essentially, what you're going to be doing is lying straight down in a slight back extension position. You're going to start a greenish dog legs back and down. So there's a nice good contraction in your shoulder blades here. And you keep that tight through the whole mountain. And from there, we'll basically do what it says in the net. You're going to do a W position with your arms. Then you're going to push back forward wide position with your arms. Then a T position. And we're going to rope step between those three positions to keep the shoulder blades nice and hard getting.

[3:18] Now the way this is going to work, it's very, very simple. You're going to do the overhead press for as many times as you can. So get the pack up and down, up and down, up and down as many times as you can. Until the shoulders are like, I don't want to do anymore. Then we're going to do the bent over rope. We're going to do the same thing as many times as you can, up and down, up and down, up and down, until you can't do any more. Then the same thing with the floor press, as many as you can, and then the WYT is 10 repetitions. So you could probably do this all day if you really wanted because it's not super scrambling on us, but we just want to concentrate on control, and in this situation, control when we're already fatigued from the other exercises.

[3:55] You can just do that one time. it should only take you about five minutes or so now if this is taking forever and you're just going to um rep up rep up and it never really ends you just need to put a little bit extra weight in your pack just so you're not doing hundreds of repetitions but if you keep it to maybe a weight that'll take you 15 20 25 reps it works out pretty well now a couple of simple tips just to add to this for the overhead press specifically good thing that eight balls last lot so then for about three to four seconds on the weight camera which can be quite good and then for the bent over rope we just want to make sure that this is an upper back exercise some people when they're doing this they end up feeling a lot of pressure in the lower back which we don't want so just make sure we're keeping the back nice and flat making sure the torso isn't doing a huge amount of movement it's mainly just the arms and then finally just make sure your abdominals so your core squeezed on super tight throughout this and that can take a bit of pressure off the lower back itself but all in all that's a very very very simple finish shot you can throw at the end of a workout so if you've been doing the majority of your training with your lower body but you have a spare few minutes at the end of a workout we could squeeze a bit more work in maybe give this a go it's simple it's effective it's time efficient and you very well enjoy it and it could help you on the trail so give it a go and i hope you really enjoy it.

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