Strength Development And Hiking

If you are wanting to unlock all the amazing benefits strength development can have for your hiking, please make sure you are doing the right things!
In this episode I explore a few different areas of training which people often say are 'strengthening' and weather they can actually count as 'strength training'

(To be very clear I LOVE all the types of training I mention in the podcast, for various reasons. But we need to be clear about what they are actually doing!)

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: 

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So today we are talking about

[0:04] strength development and hiking. And this is a topic I've covered a few times on the podcast before, but recently it's come to my attention that we need to do a deep dive on this. And I wanna explore how a hiker can best develop strength to help them on the trail. Now, this episode was inspired by a recent video I put up on Instagram and YouTube. And it was just a short little 90-second clip. And inside, I was talking about strength development and hiking. And essentially, the basis of this video was what I said was like, look, strength is really, really beneficial for hikers. But a big mistake I see from people, hikers, is they're doing certain modes of exercise thinking that it counts as strength training when actually it doesn't really. And while these types of exercises may be great for certain reasons, and I'm not saying not to do them, if you're really trying to unlock the best benefits of strength development for your time on the trail, you probably want to be doing some specific strength training. And the types of exercises I listed was yoga and Pilates and cycling and I think running maybe and loaded pack walking. And I said, look, these things are great. There's nothing wrong with them, but they don't count as strength training.

[1:21] And that was the gist of the video, 90 seconds. And I put it up on Instagram on YouTube. And the funny thing about YouTube is that on the back end, you may not be able to see this as a viewer, but as a person who creates those videos, it's possible for me to see both the likes and the dislikes of the video because there's an option on YouTube to actually dislike videos. And funnily enough, there's something which I didn't think was very out there, very controversial. This particular video had more dislikes than anything I've ever put up. Which is really funny to me because i know exactly who disliked these videos not the actual person but i know exactly who it was and it was the video the people this video was actually for and it was the people who were doing yoga and counting that as strength training the people who were doing pilates and counting that as strength training or whatever it may be um and i know exactly who it was. Because in all honesty, and we all do this, sometimes when people give you information that challenges the beliefs that you currently have, our first thing is to sort of not think about it, better get angry at it or get upset about it or completely disregard it or whatever may be.

[2:36] So with that being the basis of today's episode, I thought, you know what, today I kind of want to break this down in a little bit more detail.

[2:44] For maybe if you've heard me talk about this before and you still don't really agree with me, you don't really understand why I say this, or maybe you are in this position where you're like, you know, I'm doing all of this good stuff, but maybe I haven't explored traditional strength training before. Or maybe you're just one of the people who just liked the video and you're like, you know what, let's just see what Rowan's on about and just laugh at him as he's talking or whatever. And today I want to break it down. So essentially I was thinking of how can we talk about this in a way that's going to be logical, going to make sense. And essentially how we're going to be breaking it down is, first of all, I'll do a quick little recap in regards to why we often talk about strength training for hiking. I've talked about this a million times in the podcast, but we'll do a quick little recap.

[3:28] Number two, we're going to cover the particular things that you need to get out of your training in order for it to be effective for strength development over long-term. And I'm going to talk you through three things we really, really, really want to make sure is on top of. And then we're going to break down a few common different areas that hikers often use and they classify it as strength building and just see if it kind of lands out in those areas. And we're going to break it down like that.

[3:53] So first of all, let's cover the benefits of strength training for hiking. Why should a hiker be worried about strength development? First and foremost, number one, effective strength training can be one of the most significant things you can do to prevent the risk of pain and injury both on and off the trail.

[4:12] Now, this isn't me just saying this. This isn't me making this up. There is so much evidence, so many studies, so many long-term studies that have looked at these types of things. And generally, just strength training can reduce the risk of acute injuries coming up. So things like rolling our ankle, twisting our knee, throwing out our back. If we are stronger, we have less risk of these things coming up. It's not the only factor, but it does help. Strength training can also reduce the risk of overuse injuries, things like plantar fasciitis or shin splints or knee tendinitis or whatever may be. And if it's done in the right way, it can help those. On top of that, going out of just injuries and talking about just general pain, I get achy knees, I get an achy back, I get sore hips or whatever may be. Again, strength training can play a significant role in reducing these things. And that by itself should be a reason to consider this.

[5:05] Number two, strength training can play a massive role in helping you with elevation gain and loss. Obviously, hiking, a lot of up and down for a lot of people. So going up hills, the stronger your legs, the easier every single step is going to be on the uphill. The same thing on the downhill. The stronger your legs, the less likely you're going to feel unstable. The less likely you're going to feel really weak. The less likely you're going to get those jelly legs.

[5:29] Strength training can play a big role in movement efficiency meaning every single step you take on the trail if you are stronger it can use a tiny little bit less energy which over the course of hours and potentially days or even weeks that can add up strength training can play a big role in improving your movement speed and helping you sustain quicker speeds whether you're just trying to keep up with your friends or your group whether you're trying to beat a weather window or whatever may be strength training can make carrying a pack way way easier and significantly reduce the effort for that and a bunch of other things. Strength development and specifically building up the strength in your muscles and exposing your joints to these type of stimuli can be really, really, really valuable.

[6:10] Now, when we are talking about strength development, there are many different ways you can go about developing strength in the body. But essentially, if we are looking at all the different types of exercise, all the different types of things, realistically, for us to actually unlock these benefits of what we consider strength development can directly link to, the injury and pain prevention or reduction, the improved efficiency, the easier up and downhills, whatever may be. To unlock the specific benefits of this strength development, we essentially need to be doing three things.

[6:46] Number one, we need to be applying sufficient even stimulus to the muscles and the connective tissues. So what I mean by that is our muscles, our body is relatively strong.

[7:00] Our body and our muscles don't really like changing. And our bodies and muscles will only change if we apply stimulus to it, which makes it uncomfortable enough and stresses it out enough that it's like, hey, no, I didn't like that. I need to adapt and get stronger. And depending on the type of stimulus that we apply to our body and apply to our muscles will depend on the type of adaptations we get. Because it's a very, very, very different adaptation we get from just walking around and doing a million steps, which is good in its own right, to lifting a weight that you can only do four or five or six times.

[7:35] As much as they're both good in their own right, it's very, very different. And when we're looking at this strength side of things, and we're like, hey, we want to develop strength to unlock these benefits. We need sufficient stimulus to unlock strength development. It's pretty straightforward. Now, what is sufficient stimulus? Well, when you're looking in a gym environment. And say, well, let's use squats for an example. And say squats, everyone's familiar with squats. Realistically, for a beginner who's trying to unlock strength, typically what we want to be doing is finding a weight, which we can tend to do 10 repetitions or less before we start to get pretty tired. So what I mean by this on the scale of things is like, you might choose a weight and you do squats and you choose a weight, which, you know, you do the first four or five or six, you know, relatively easy. Then seven and eight, you know, it starts to get a little bit tired. And then nine and 10, you're like, oh, you know what? That's actually quite a bit harder. And it may not be to your absolute limit and your absolute maximum, but roughly around that.

[8:40] Now, strength is typically developed best through 10 repetitions or less. So people on the very, very far end of things, if they're really, really experienced in the gym and they're trying to get the best results from this, They may choose weights and exercises, which they can do only one at a time. So you literally can only lift something once, and then you need a rest for like two or three minutes, or maybe two or three or four or five, that end of the spectrum. You know, for beginners who may not be super used to strength training, you can kind of be a little bit higher. So you can sit around that eight, that nine, that 10, maybe 11 and 12, or whatever it may be. And that tends to be kind of the best range for strength. We need to apply sufficient stimuli. Yes, there is a lot more that goes into that, and it's not quite as black and white as I'm putting it out there, but what I'm trying to say is you need to be choosing activity which has sufficient stimuli so you can challenge the muscles in a very similar way that once you've done 10 movements of something or roughly about 40 seconds of something of high output, it's pretty tired and needs a rest.

[9:44] That's what we need. We need sufficient stimuli. If not, then it may be beneficial in other areas, but it's probably not going to unlock these specific benefits of strength. So that's number one. Now, number two, if we want to get the best results from this type of thing, we need a well-rounded stimulus or a well-rounded stimuli. So what I mean by that is if we're truly trying to use strength training to reduce our risk of pain or injury, or if we're truly trying to use strength development to improve our performance going up and down hills, we need to be aware that the body doesn't work in isolation. Muscles don't work in isolation. When we're going up and down hills, yes, we feel it in the quads and that's doing a lot of work. Yes, we feel it in the calves and they're doing a lot of work, but other muscles are doing a significant amount of work. The hamstrings, the glutes, the adductors, and a bunch of other things, they are contributing. Same thing with strength training. It's like, yes, if we want to improve our injury prevention if we want to support the um the knees and reduce pain from that yes we want to build up the strength in the quads because that directly is right there but we also want to build the hamstrings the glutes the calves or whatever may be so when we're looking at this strength development it's not only getting enough stimulus but it's making sure that we get the stimulus in all the areas that needed that's well-rounded it's not just isolated parts of the body, but we're really tackling this.

[11:08] And if we really want to unlock the benefits of strength development, a well-rounded stimuli is essential. And then number three, a necessity for the best results from strength development is progressive overload. In the sense that the body gets used to things pretty quickly. The body doesn't like being uncomfortable. So when it gets uncomfortable, it will adapt it will grow it will change so that that particular stimuli doesn't cause it to be uncomfortable in the in the example of strength training it will literally get stronger and in order for us to continually get stronger and stronger and stronger we need to continually apply more and more and more load so it keeps on getting challenged it keeps on getting stressed and we continually get stronger because if we don't you'll see those initial gains in strength and then nothing will happen.

[12:02] You'll still be better than where you were, but you won't improve over the long term. So realistically, when we're looking at those specific benefits of strength development that we were talking about, to best unlock them, we need to make sure we have sufficient stimulus. We need to make sure we have a well-rounded stimulus, and we need to make sure we're applying progressive overload. So they're the three key things.

[12:24] So with that being said, let's now go down the list and break down those common forms of exercise I was talking about before and just see how they line up. Now, first of all, let's just get this out of the way. Let's talk about strength training. Literally going to the gym or at your home following a strength training program. Applying load through body weight, through dumbbells, through barbells, through machines, through bands, through holding a pack or whatever may be. And you turn up, you do a session. You apply load through certain exercises. You put a certain amount of weight on.

[12:57] You do it. You cover the whole body. You make sure there's that sufficient stimulus so it's relatively heavy, you challenge yourself. And then week by week by week by week, you make that a little bit harder. You make that more challenging. This is traditional training in a nutshell. It's traditional strength training in a nutshell. And this covers the three things. Sufficient stimulus, because you load it up with weight or with your body weight or whatever it may be. A well-rounded stimulant, because you work the entire body. You make sure you're choosing exercises which work this. And you can do pushes and pulls. You can do squats and single-legged deadlifts or glute bridges or whatever it may be. You can work it around. And progressive overload, week by week by week, you make it a little bit harder.

[13:35] Traditional strength training covers all those things. But let's break down the other ones. First of all, yoga. Let's talk about yoga, because this one always comes up and people are always like, hey, hey, hey, I do so much yoga, like it's really good for strengthening and this and that. And don't get me wrong, I love yoga. I think yoga is a great addition to people's training. I think it's a great addition for the week. And I know there's a million and one different practices out there with different levels of intensity and different certain movements.

[14:04] But let's have a think about that checklist. Sufficient stimuli in your yoga practice. For some people, for a period of time, certain movements may be really challenging. You may get the muscle shakes. You may get wobbly or whatever it may be. And certain movements may be challenging for strength. But I would argue a lot, and again, depends on the practice, but I would argue the majority of yoga is more towards, okay, balance, more towards mobility, just holding certain positions, maybe a little bit of endurance or strength if you're just holding stuff and some muscles are burning, but it's not like every area of the, you know, it's not like you're applying that sort of load because you might be holding a certain pose for 10, 30, 40 seconds, but it's not like you're really getting to the point where that's all you could do. It's not like the maximum point.

[14:55] Personally i believe most yoga practice and i would say 99% of yoga practices probably aren't going to give you sufficient stimuli to unlock those potential benefits of strength not to say it's not good not to say it's beneficial but i don't think it's enough stimulus next well-rounded stimulus obviously you do a lot of poses a lot of moves in yoga and again practice practice will we differ but typically yoga will tend to be you know emphasizing the front of the body in the sense we sort of think about okay a lot of the poses we're holding ourselves up with our arms and we're facing down on the floor and the chest and the shoulders and maybe the triceps get a bit of work but for us to actually work the back of the upper body typically we need to be doing some type of rowing movement or some type of pulling movement from the top and that is pretty hard to access in a typical yoga class. And I would say, again, 99% of yoga practices probably don't get enough well-rounded stimulus. It'll work a good portion of the body and you'll get a nice well-rounded workout, but there are going to be certain things which may not get as much emphasis as they could need. And then progressive overload. This can be really tricky. If you're working with a yoga practitioner one-to-one or in a small group with one, two or three people, you see them every single week, they may be able to apply enough progressive overload. They may be, say, weak by week, by week, when we're going to make things harder, we're going to make things more challenging, we'll make sure we're applying challenge.

[16:19] But if you're doing yoga in a class environment with more people, if you're just doing online videos, if you're just doing your own practice and you're not really sure what you're doing, a lot of the time you'll just turn in and they'll just do random classes or they may say, hey, we're going to build off last week and do a little bit harder and harder and harder. But it's probably not progressive enough. You will get better over time, but I'll give it like a six out of 10. personally. So all in all, yoga is a great form of exercise. I love it and I fully encourage my hikers to do it, but I don't think it really lines up with any of those things that we need for that strength development.

[16:57] Let's talk about Pilates now. Now, Pilates, again, it can change variously. It can be really, really, really, really change, depending on practices, depending on teachers or whatever it may be. But let's break it down. Sufficient stimulus. In Pilates, Pilates is great for core development. You'll get enough core stimulus through there to classify as your core training. In Pilates, you'll probably do a bit of glute work. Depending on the practice, you may get enough sufficient stimuli from the glutes because you're doing a lot of bridges, a lot of hip thrusts or whatever it may be. That may be sufficient stimuli.

[17:27] But then we look at other areas and like depending you might do a few push-ups maybe that's enough for you there are you doing any rowing probably not are you doing a huge amount of the other areas of the body potentially not i would sort of say maybe reformer pilates can probably get a little bit closer to that because you can apply load but outside of that you know i would say stimuli is a little bit lacking in certain areas if we're looking at i'm not saying it's not hard. But if we're looking at that, hey, we need to apply 10 repetition maximum or less, probably not. A well-rounded stimuli. It's very, very similar to yoga in the sense that I think, you know, Pilates, you'll get a lot of stuff on the glutes, maybe a little bit on the hamstrings, a lot of stuff on the front of the upper body, maybe not so much in the upper back. There's a few movements, but it's a little bit tricky. Maybe not a huge amount on the quads in that, depending on the practice again. Again, reformer Pilates probably gets a bit closer to that, I would sort of say it's kind of well-rounded, but there may be still a few things you're missing.

[18:27] If you're a reformer, I would sort of say it's well-rounded. And then progressive overload. Again, same sort of situation. If you're working one-to-one with a Pilates instructor, you could really, really progressively overload this. They really take care to step-by-step make it harder and harder and harder. Again, if you're in a class environment, it's probably not really going to work super well because for you yourself, you don't really know how to quantify this. If you're going and doing a class thing with like weights and you're like, well, this week I did 10 kilos, next week I did 12 kilos, next week I did 15 kilos. That's pretty easy to quantify. But when we're in Pilates and we're like, well, you know, I did this movement and I held it for, I'm not sure how long before I need a rest. And then next week I held a little bit more, but I'm not really sure how long that was. It's very, very hard to quantify. So yeah, Pilates can kind of be a bit better, but, and again, I love Pilates, don't get me wrong. I think it's a great addition for people, but I don't think it's going to cover those boxes.

[19:19] Next up is load of pack walking. Now, I love load of pack walking for hikers. I think every single hiker should be doing load of pack walking in one way or another. But some people are trying to classify this as strength training. Number one, it's definitely not, never, never, never going to be sufficient stimulants for us because typically, as we said, 10 repetitions or less before you fatigue, load a pack walking, even with the most outrageously heavy pack, you're going to be doing hundreds of steps. Definitely not enough sufficient stimulus. Well-rounded stimuli, again, no. You're going to be walking. You're going to be using the muscles that are walking. But again, it's not going to work certain areas of the body. You're just walking. You're not working the upper body, not working the upper back, not working the front of the thing, not doing a huge amount on the hamstrings, not doing a huge amount on the glutes. It's a great thing, but it's not really going to line up with this well-rounded stimuli. And progressive overload, you probably can progressively overload this very easily, just a bit more weight, bit more weight, bit more weight, but it's not going to be enough stimuli.

[20:16] Low-to-pack walking counts as cardio, doesn't count as strength.

[20:19] Now let's talk about cycling and running. Pretty much the same thing. Cycling and running, no matter how hard it is, no matter how difficult it is, it's not going to be a strength stimulus. Cardio, cycling, and running is cardio. You will get a bit of endurance through the legs, absolutely. That's different to strength. Well-rounded stimuli. Again, running and cycling will be working in certain areas. It's not well-rounded. It's not going to cover all your bases. And progressive overload. Yes, you can make these things progressively overload these things, but not in a way that's going to be strength-inducing. Cycling running is great again not really strength training so all in all when it comes down to these things and that's probably going on and on and on and on but realistically yoga pilates load of pack walking cycling running this stuff is great i love this stuff most of my hikers are doing one or two or three of these things in their week maybe not so much running um but whatever it may be but in all honesty it doesn't line up with what we need from strength development, if you really want to unlock the best benefits of this type of stuff. A lot of people will do this stuff and not do strength training. It'll be fine. But I'm just saying if you want to unlock these benefits, you probably want to be doing strength training. Now, the last thing I'm going to cover with this is, you know, some people might be thinking, oh, Rowan.

[21:34] You're talking rubbish. You don't know what you're talking about because I did this. I just did yoga and I felt we're stronger. So you're lying to me, Rowan. And there's one big caveat to all of this.

[21:48] Realistically, for anyone who is out of a routine of training and just starting with something, the initial gains of strength, the initial development of your strength is super easy to develop.

[22:05] And going from zero of just sitting on the couch, barely doing anything, or just walking around to doing something, which applies a little bit of stimulus, you'll develop strength initially. It doesn't really matter what you do. It doesn't really matter whatever it is, as long as there is a bit of load, as long as there is a little bit of challenge, because you're going from nothing to something. In the gym world, this is called newbie gains. And it's just a recurring thing that new people come into the gym, they do their first four, five six weeks they're like oh my gosh i feel amazing i feel super strong um and they'll start telling everyone this is the best thing you should be doing but they're all doing different stuff, it's just a recurring thing everyone will get stronger at the start of things no matter what you're doing but after about four weeks five weeks maybe six weeks you may feel different than what you did before because obviously you've gotten a little bit stronger you've gotten moving you probably feel great but after this initial period if you're not doing the right things that progress is going to slow down dramatically. You'll still be better than where you were before and you probably will still feel stronger, but you're going to be limiting yourself. I much prefer if you are getting into your exercise, whether you're just starting, whether you've been doing it for a couple of months, whether you've been doing it for years, spread out your training. Do some cardio so you get development there. Do some strength training so you get the best development from there. Do the other things you want to do so you get development from there. Don't fall into this trap of just thinking something's getting you better in certain areas which is not designed to do.

[23:33] So that's 25 minutes of me talking about this subject. I'm sure you've had enough of this by now. So I'm going to wrap things up.

[23:41] Realistically, when it comes down to this, all of these things I mentioned before are amazing. They're great in their own ways for so many different reasons, but strength development and specifically developing muscular strength to unlock those particular benefits we're talking about, all of them probably fall a little bit short.

[24:01] Fill them out with some traditional strength training doesn't have to be complex doesn't have to be crazy don't have to be lifting super heavy weights but you need something that's going to give you that stimulus going to be well-rounded and going to give it and be able to apply progressive overload consistently week after week and if you do those things and add on that on top to whatever else you're doing i promise you it'll make such a difference so with that being said i'm going to wrap up today i doubt i've changed anyone's minds but hopefully people listening, if you do get in this conversation or someone's trying to talk to you. Maybe, maybe, maybe you have a bit more information now just to make your own decisions. So thank you so much for listening. If anyone was listening and they're like, you know what, Rowan, actually, you convinced me. This makes sense. I want to do some strength training. I want to unlock these benefits. I want to get in the best possible position for my hiking. If that's you, then I would love to talk to you. All you need to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. On that page, there's a big video talks about our online personal training for hikers in which we incorporate all of this stuff we talked about today and so much more. You can learn a little bit about it and if it does sound like something you want to get involved with, there's a link below. You can click onto it, book a call with our team. We can have a bit of discussion and see if we might be able to help you. So if you want to learn a little bit more, go to summitstrength.com.au slash online and we can take it from there. So thank you so much for listening. Hope you've enjoyed today's episode and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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