Training For Descents While Hiking

Steep descents and downhills can be one of the worst parts of hiking.

Crushed toes, uncontrollable jelly legs, and, all too often, that terrible shooting pain in the knees... descents can really take their toll!

But saying this, just like many other problems on the trail, the right training and physical preparation can make a significant difference here.

And in today's presentation, we dive into the topic of training for descents while hiking in detail:

How To Train For Downhill Hiking

Inside, we cover:

• Why downhills can be SO hard for many hikers
• A few tips about strength training that can make a massive impact on your downhill sections
• A few of my favourite exercises to help with downhill hiking
• A particular type of balance training which can be super beneficial for descents 
• One simple tip about cardio that you need to be aware of

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Video Chapters:

0:10 
Introduction to Hiking Descents
1:58 
The Importance of Strength Training For Downhill Hiking
14:12 
Exploring Balance Training For Hikers
19:21 
The Role of Cardio in Hiking
25:47 
Strategies for Stair and Hill Sessions
30:09 
Summary and Training Recommendations
30:53 
Personalized Training Programs Available

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Want access to the free 'Strength Training For Hiker's Mini-Course?

You can access it here: https://summitstrength.com.au/strength-mini-course

Need some personalised help with your training for hiking?

Check out the Online Summit Program here: https://www.summitstrength.com.au/online.html

Tips And Exercises For Hiking Downhill

Video Transcript:

[0:01] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's presentation,

[0:05] we are diving into the topic around how a hiker can train for descents and downhills. And we're going to be getting into quite a bit of detail around what a hiker can do to make these sections of the trail much more comfortable.

[0:19] So to start with, when it comes down to it, descents, you know, they are just not much fun for a lot of people. You know, many people experience things like painful knees is a really, really big one and probably one of the most common issues I hear from hikers on the trail. Other things like jelly legs, when you're going down the hills and your legs getting all wobbly and jelly, crushed toes and a bunch of other things. You know, when it comes down to it, descents can just not be much fun for a lot of people. Now, for some people out there who have access to lots of elevation, lots of mountains, so you may just live near a bunch of mountains and this and that, you know, this may not be so much of an issue for you. Yes, if you have a break from regular hiking, say you've gone through the winter and all of a sudden you started hiking again, the first hike or two, you may really, really struggle with descents. But if you have easy access to elevation, maybe you can just hike more and more and more and eventually it'll get better.

[1:08] But for a lot of people, when it comes down to it, we may want to take this a little bit more seriously. A lot of people maybe don't have access to easy elevation, easy mountains. A lot of people just don't have easy access to that type of things. There's a lot of hikers out there that no matter how much hiking they do, they still find that they really, really struggle on this section. And there's probably a dozen other reasons why some hikers out there may want to take this a little bit more seriously and really consider doing some specific training as opposed to just relying on their hiking and hoping that's going to help. As much as people online love to say, hey, just do more hiking, you'll get better. You know, sometimes it can be a little bit more complicated than that. So essentially the plan for today is just dive into this subject in a bit of detail and just give you some simple ideas and simple training strategies which can make a bit of a difference here.

[1:58] So what we're going to be covering today is we're going to be diving into some strength training, specifically how that can help with descents. We're going to talk about balance training, some specific cardio training, and how all of this sort of comes into the picture of helping you on steep downhills. Now, to be clear, we won't be covering things like specific workouts or going into full training plans because that's a little bit beyond the scope of this video. This video is going to be long enough already just covering those three things. And yeah, we probably can't get into that stuff so much today. So, before we get into all the exercises and all the strategies, let's just kind of cover over why descents are so hard for people because there are a few different factors which kind of turn into making this section of the trail a little bit harder than it could be looked from the outside. Now, first and foremost is every single step you take downhill puts a hugely disproportionate amount of extra force through the joints. So, compared to when you're on the flat, every single step you take downhill puts a huge amount of extra force through the feet through the ankles through the knees through the hips as they try to stabilize you coming down now on top of that the muscles themselves put a work, over time to help stabilize you in these situations so the calves the quads the hamstrings the glutes or the adductors all of these muscles are working a lot to make sure you're not slipping down the hill to making sure you're stable and making sure you're steady.

[3:18] Now, on top of that is hikers will often reach descents already fatigued after a climb. So typically, you know, obviously going up hills and the going up portion can be really, really fatiguing. And a lot of hikers will get to the top of the hill or get to the top of the climb. And then all of a sudden, they'll be faced with a descent, depending on what trail you're doing. And that can make things a little bit trickier because we're already fatigued. We're already sort of struggling for energy. And that can make this a little bit tougher. And on top of that, there's also the added extra mental load of this. A lot of hikers out there, they do have this worry around falling, around slipping, around being unstable. Maybe they've had a bad experience in the past, which has sort of got a plane on their mind, or maybe it's just sort of something they struggle with mentally or whatever it may be. And this in itself, not just is it a mental load, but that also adds an extra physical challenge as well.

[4:06] And one thing I didn't mention as well is adding an extra pack onto the equation of this, whether we're carrying a day pack or a full pack, that's going to add even more force through the joints. And that's also going to challenge our balance because our packs are not always 100% symmetrical or whatever it may be. So ultimately, add all of this together and it can add to a serious challenge and sometimes a lot more of a challenge than a lot of people would first consider when they just think about walking downhill in quotation marks.

[4:33] So, with that being said, let's go into strategies around how we can make this a little bit better. Now, ultimately, first and foremost, strength training can be really, really, really beneficial for descents for a few reasons. And I talk about strength training all the time. But specifically looking at descents, it can be really, really beneficial for, number one, building up the muscles which best support your joints on downhills. So, a big struggle that a lot of hikers face on descents is they get that knee pain, really, really common. Some people get hip pain or ankle pain. and essentially we can build up the muscles that support these joints we can keep them a bit more comfortable. Strength training can also aid our stability and balance a big part of developing our muscles can improve our stability and balance just naturally and help us feel a little bit more solid when we're going down and also a strength training can help reduce fatigue through other sections of the hike so when we have those steep ascents when we're just going on a normal day if we have stronger muscles this can play a big role in reducing fatigue and helping us feel a bit fresh on when we're tackling these descents.

[5:32] Now, ultimately, when it comes down to it, you know, beyond training for descents, just in general, every hiker out there is going to get some really, really good benefits from just developing strength through the entire body. I'm not going to sort of say, hey, if you're looking at descents, you just want to focus on one, two or three muscles or anything like that. In all honesty, when it comes to hiking in general, every hiker will get some great benefits from working on things like their quadriceps, their hamstrings, their glutes, their calves, their upper body, their core. And making sure they're holistically working their body. and whether you're specifically struggling with descent or not, whole body training is going to be really beneficial.

[6:09] But beyond this and beyond just sort of saying, hey, get strong and hey, work on your whole body, there are a few specific tips and a few specific exercises I want to share which can help you hone in on descents a little bit. Now, the first tip when it comes down to this is focusing on what's called eccentric muscle strength. Now, basically what this is, is when we, our muscles in the body, they can contract in slightly different ways. Now, what is called a concentric muscle contraction is essentially when your muscle fibers contract while the muscle is shortening. So essentially what we look at here is if you look in the video and you imagine a bicep curl where you're up and down, up and down. Now, a concentric muscle contraction is essentially when the muscle is getting shorter and the muscle's contracting. And essentially, that's where a lot of us focus on our strength training. We think, okay, if we're doing a bicep curl, when we're lifting the weight up, we think with a squat, okay, the hard portion of a squat is when we're going from the bottom up and we're going on the hard portion. When we're looking at a deadlift, we're thinking, okay, when we're actually lifting the weight off the ground. All of these are known as concentric muscle contractions, which are really, really valuable.

[7:17] Now, on the flip side of things, an eccentric muscle contraction is essentially when a muscle contracts while it's lengthening so as opposed to the shortening while it's lengthening so in the bicep curl example it's basically when you're going back to starting position the muscle is getting longer but that muscle is still contracting now essentially when it comes down to this type of muscle contraction our muscles will naturally do this but when it comes to actually training a lot of hikers out there and a lot of people in general will kind of miss this in their training a little bit in the sense that a traditional or very very common way of people going about their strength training is they'll do really quick reps. And I think this comes out from people who maybe have a background in doing group exercise classes or HIIT training, where we just do lots and lots and lots of really quick repetitions to kind of get a good burn. But a lot of people, what will happen is if they're doing really quick reps, so they're doing squats and they're like down, up, down, up, down, up, and they're doing it like that, that'll be really, really good to work these concentric muscle contractions. And that'll get a really good burn on the quads and on the muscles. But sometimes it can be missing developing this eccentric muscle strength and essentially sometimes if we're not focusing on the lowering portion it can miss this now the tricky thing here is basically when it comes down to the sense the body and the legs are doing huge amount of work through this eccentric muscle contraction every single step we take down our quads are doing that as we're lowering ourself down our hamstrings are doing that as we're sort of slowly stabilizing ourselves and the.

[8:46] Yeah, but essentially working on this eccentric muscle strength can go a really, really, really long way of helping him. So basically, a really, really, really simple way of helping with descents is when you're looking at your typical strength training, whatever you're doing, ultimately, if you slow your exercises down and slow your repetitions down, it can really, really go a long way. And essentially, a simple way of looking at this is taking any exercise you're doing and And on the easy part of the exercise, so when you're lowering on a squat or when you're lowering on a deadlift or when you're lowering on a calf raise or anything like that, allow three to five seconds of that lowering, So essentially, when we're going on a squat, we'll basically go one, two, three, four to the bottom, and then one second up. And then one, two, three, four to the bottom, one second up. And do that every single repetition you do. Now, essentially, this is really, really, really valuable because this will train that eccentric muscle strength, which can be really, really beneficial on descents. It's such a simple, simple, simple thing that can make such a dramatic difference. Now, to give you a few sort of real-world examples of this, of how this may look like in your training.

[9:54] This is one simple exercise which puts into action. It's called the eccentric pistol squat, one of my favourites for hikers and specifically for people who struggle on descents. Now, in this particular exercise, what we're doing is we're basically going on one leg, we've got a bench below us and we're holding onto something for support. And essentially what we're doing, we're doing a really, really, really, really slow lower for like five to six seconds. Then we put both our legs down and then stand up. And the idea behind this is this is specifically working on that eccentric muscle strength where we're really, really, really really concentrating on keeping this super slow and controlled which is super specific for actually going down steep steps or steep steep hills on on the trail now for this particular exercise if you give this a go basically the way to make this harder or more difficult for yourself is you can ultimately adjust the box height and so if you do this and you're like whoa this is way too hard then just use a higher chair or a higher box and then it's demonstrated in this video alternatively if you're like this is super easy then you can use a lower one and you can keep or make it lower and lower and lower. Or alternatively, if you want to make it a little bit harder, you can put on a bit of weight, put a backpack on your back, hold a dumbbell, something like that. They're a really, really simple example of developing this eccentric muscle strength.

[11:04] Now, another example of this is a hamstring curl. So this can be a really good option to kind of work the other sides of the legs. So the pistol squat work the quads, which is the front of the thighs. This hamstring curl works the hamstrings and a little bit of the glutes. So essentially you can do this either with a couple of fitness sliders if you have one of them. If you're training at home, you can do this on a magazine on carpeted floor. So if you put your heels on a couple of magazines and slide along a carpeted floor, that works pretty well. Or alternatively you can use a towel on the hardwood floor or if you're in the gym you can use an exercise or a swiss ball or you could even use just a hamstring curl machine but essentially what we're looking at here is basically again we're really focusing on the slow well on the way out so you start in position you count three or four or five seconds on the way out and then pull in and then three or four or five seconds on the way out and then pull in and it's a really really really effective way of developing this eccentric hamstring strength which specifically looking at descents is really relevant for sort of helping you when you're stepping down and sort of preventing the legs from sliding out underneath you because a lot of the times when we're on descents if we take a step sometimes if the trail is in 100% smooth if there's little rocks there's scree there's maybe leaves on the trail our feet will often slide a little bit each step so we'll step or slide and stabilize step slide and stabilize and do that and dozens and dozens and hundreds and hundreds of that can really add up so this type of stuff can be really beneficial here.

[12:28] So next one we want to talk about sometimes, you know, the hamstring curl is really, really beneficial. If that's a little bit tricky for some people, another option is doing something like a single legged deadlift, where basically you can sort of stand on one leg, tipping over at the hips and basically, again, really focusing on the slow lower here, four to five seconds of the way down, coming on up. And if you find this a little bit too easy, you can sort of load it up with a dumbbell in one hand or hold a pack with two hands or whatever it may be. So that's an option if the hamstring curl is maybe just a little bit difficult, a little bit inaccessible for you or whatever it may be but hopefully you can kind of see this eccentric muscle strength just that really really slow lower and how that can relate to the downhills so i won't go too much further into strength training and because you know we've got a lot more to cover in this video and it's going to be a long one so ultimately if you were interested in strength training for hiking and you weren't 100 sure about how to go together putting together your own workouts making sure you're covering the whole body and making sure you're really really honed in the demands of hiking. I do have something for you. Basically, I have a free mini course all about getting started with strength training for hiking.

[13:30] Now, inside this course, you'll dive into the benefits of strength training for hiking. So, not just talking about descents, but kind of all the other benefits it brings. It talks about understanding the principles of effective strength training. So, a few key principles of how to get the most out of this type of training. And also, it'll teach you how to create your own strength workouts for hiking. So, it'll give you some templates, some examples. And basically, by the end of the course, you'll be able to put together your own strength workouts, which will help your time on the trail. Now, if you did want to sign up for this course, it is completely free. All you need to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash strength dash mini dash course. That's summitstrength.com.au slash strength dash mini dash course. You can sign up there and get access. So if you're interested in strength training, get your hands on that.

[14:12] Now, with that being said, next up, let's talk about balance training. Now, balance and stability can be really, really important for descents because obviously we're stepping, stepping, stepping, stepping. Sometimes we can be a little bit wobbly. Sometimes there can be slighty terrain. We want to make sure we're not tumbling down the hill. Now, specifically when we're looking at balance training, there's a few different aspects of this type of training. Specifically for descents, what I find can be really, really helpful for people is focusing on what's called closed eye balance. So essentially, when we're going down hills, we're not always wanting to just completely look at the trail. And we're not always going to be completely looking at every single step that we take. Sometimes we'll be looking up to talk to a friend, to look at a bird. And typically, these are the types of times when something will go wrong. We'll take a misstep, we'll get a little bit unstudy or whatever it may be. Now, the idea behind closed eye balance is essentially we're teaching and developing the body to be a little bit more balanced, to be a little bit more stable when we're not using the eyes as a visual cue, when we don't actually know where the foot is going, we don't actually know where it is in space, but try to develop that a little bit. There's lots of different ways you can develop balance, but I find this can be really, really useful and really practical.

[15:23] This may sound a little bit complicated and you're like, well, okay, how do I develop my body's ability to balance when I can't actually see? It's really, really simple. Basically, this is a really, really simple little progression scheme you can kind of fit into some exercises which can help. Now, first and foremost, basically, all you want to do is just practicing standing on one leg with your eyes closed. Do that, give that a go. A lot of people and probably most people will get 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds and that'll be a struggle. So, if you can only get 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds, this is where you want to start and just stand on one leg, close your eyes, hold that and just resist the balance. And over time, it'll get a little bit better. Now, if you can do that, let's say if you can do that for like 30 seconds quite comfortably and you're like, you know what, I can get closed eyes on one leg for 30 seconds. That's kind of okay. The next level of progression, then we want to make it a little bit harder. And essentially what you can do, you can stand on one leg, eyes closed and just stand on a pillow. And essentially what happens with the pillow is it just adds a little extra instability, a little bit extra cushion and just adds a whole extra struggle to it. So essentially you do that and you practice a week after a week until you can do about 30 seconds with your eyes closed.

[16:30] And then you can add something else and basically one another option and i'll show you a video example of this in a moment is standing one on one leg on a pillow and then essentially just getting something like get a water bottle or weight or just something and just circle it around your waist so essentially what you're doing you're not just staying completely static but basically we're just moving something around the body and that challenges things quite a bit as well um then the next challenge is basically you can do the same thing stand on one leg on a pillow eyes closed and instead of moving something around your waist you take your free leg and just kind of tap that around in different directions and essentially you're just moving that free foot around here and there just challenging the body in different areas and you'll find that's really really struggle and ultimately if you can do 30 seconds of that and not fall over with your eyes closed you're pretty good but basically that's a simple progression scheme which can in all honesty probably take you through six months of training because this stuff can be a little bit long to develop it can be a little bit tedious to develop but it can be really really effective, Now, typically when it comes down to balance training, what I usually recommend is just sort of adding it into parts of your day, into warm-ups, into your rest periods. Because this type of stuff, it's very, very slow to develop.

[17:38] It can be a little bit frustrating and really just responds to lots and lots and lots of practice. So you kind of just want to put these in little bits and pieces. So in the random parts of your day, examples of this might be when you're waiting for the kettle to boil or when you're brushing your teeth or when you're watching the TV and just doing little like two minutes here and there. Um into your warm-ups like this can be a great option if you're warming up before a strength session or warming up before a cardio session um just doing like two minutes of this can be good or even in your rest periods if you're doing strength training the typical way of you know strength training is you may do an exercise and rest and exercise and rest and yada yada yada and essentially these balance exercises are great thing just to put in that rest period just to use that dead time um, or whatever you think. But they're basically some really, really simple options. Now, to give you a couple of video examples, this is an example of that option where I was passing something around the waist. So, in this situation, instead of a pillow, I'm on like a mat, which is pretty much the same thing. And essentially, I'm on one leg and I'm circling around the waist. Now, in all honesty, most people will struggle with this with their eyes open. So, maybe start with this with your eyes open, see how you go. And then once you're kind of feeling a little bit more confident, you can try it with your eyes closed. Very, very simple, but very, very effective.

[18:46] Now, another option is the three cone balance. Now, this is one you probably can't really do with your eyes closed. So, it can be a nice thing just to sort of complement those other exercises you're doing. But essentially, what this is, is basically you're standing again on a mat or a pillow, or you can do this off the floor. It's a little bit too difficult. You got like three cones or just three somethings in front of you. And all you're doing is on one leg, just reaching out and touching the other ones. It's very, very, very simple, but you'll notice that you may be wobbling all over the shop. You've got to really, really stabilized to hold yourself and this can be really beneficial. So this is just another example of sort of balanced training. This one may not be super relevant for the eyes closed, but it's a good thing to add in as well.

[19:21] So that's balance. Now let's talk about cardio. Now basically when it comes down to it in general the more aerobically fit you are the less fatigue you will accumulate on your hikes and the easier your descents will be. Just as a general rule of thumb aerobic fitness the more that you can have the more comfortable you're going to feel on your hikes the less fatigue the more energy and the easier the descents will be. Pretty straightforward. Now basically when it comes down to it for a lot of hikers in their training a lot of hikers will really really really just get wrapped up in the whole idea of focusing on uphill with their cardio because people often think all right uphills are the struggle that's where i get huffed and puffed that's where i get really tired um and then some people will be like all right i'm gonna do lots of stuff on the stair master or maybe the the jacob's ladder or or the step machine or just do lots and lots of step ups or whatever it may be and there's nothing wrong with these things these could be really really good options for training and they're really really really valuable for uphills um but if this is kind of where you're focusing the majority of your training, it can leave our descents a little bit under-trained because as much as the Stairmaster is great for going up, it doesn't really have a downhill portion. Same thing for a treadmill and an incline. So essentially, if you do struggle with going downhill, we kind of want to think, all right, how can we expose the body to these downhills in our training?

[20:35] Now, essentially, to get a little bit more targeted with our cardio, beyond just aerobically getting fit and doing anything you can just to improve your fitness, which is going to help, to get a little bit more targeted, we want to essentially try to fit in and some specific exposure to descents in your training somewhere. So trying to give exposure to body to this particular challenge, just somewhere in your week, which isn't just your hiking, but something you can actually do regularly, slowly build up and slowly challenge yourself. Now, ultimately when it comes down to this, the easiest option is stair hill sessions. This is kind of the gold standard, which basically involves you just finding a local set of stairs or a local hill. So this is something you're doing outdoors or at least not in the gym. And essentially just going up and down, up and down, up and down. For some people, this may be super easy to find. They may be like, you know what? I have a lovely, nice, long hill nearby. I can go up. It's super steep. That works pretty well. For some people, they may be like, you know what? I can only really access like 10 steps. And that's probably the most amount of elevation I can find somewhere. In all honesty, you've just got to use whatever you've access to. Some people are lucky. Some people are not so lucky.

[21:36] And essentially, what you do is, yeah, you just basically start on a session. You say, all right, I'm going to spend 20 minutes going up and down or something like that. And that's literally it. It can be literally as simple as that. Now, basically, with whatever you end up doing, whether you do this for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it may be, a few simple rules of thumb, over time, as with any type of training, we kind of want to progress this. And we want to make it a little bit harder, a little bit harder, a little bit harder to make it more challenging on the body. So a few ways to go about this. You could literally just add a little bit extra time each week. So you could just add five minutes each week you do. You could start with 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, then 25, then 30, and keep on building up like that. Pretty straightforward.

[22:12] Or you could sort of slowly introduce a bit of pack weight. So you may just do 20 minutes every single week that you do and first week you do body weight, next week you do two kilos, next week three, four, five and slowly build that up until your actual pack weight for the trail.

[22:26] Or if you have access to lots of options, you could sort of do four weeks of doing a relatively short hill and then four weeks doing a set of stairs and then four weeks doing something super long or whatever it may be and then kind of progress like that. There's lots of different options. But the main thing is just making sure week by week by week you're making things a little bit more difficult Now a few extra tips to get the most out of these workouts.

[22:47] Now, what can be really, really beneficial when we're looking at any type of stair hill climbing is practicing on the way up is practicing both quick climbing and slow climbing. Now, quick climbing is basically just getting up the climb as quick as you can. We get quite huffed and puffed. It's a real, real big challenge. And this can be a little bit more higher intensity training, which can be really valuable just to push the fitness in a slightly different way and can be great. Now, on the flip side of that, it can also be really beneficial on these ways up to also practice slow and steady climbing. So actually teaching the body to be a little bit more controlled, a little bit steadier, which is a really valuable skill to learn. That's a really valuable aspect of fitness to develop and get better at. And essentially a really easy way to judge the slow climbing is basically on the way up is climbing at a pace where you can just breathe in and out through the nose, which a lot of people may find surprisingly challenging. And essentially getting a nice mixture of those two, whether you do half the workout quick, half the workout slow, or you do one week quick, one week slow, or whatever it may be. But getting about exposure to both of those can be really, really good.

[23:48] Now, on top of that is when we are looking at descents, because obviously we're talking about descents today, you're not trying to rush the descents. You're not trying to rush the downhills. Basically, when you're going downhills on these sessions, take it slow, take it controlled. You don't have to push these. You don't have to stress yourself out on these. Just take it slow and controlled, because we're just trying to expose the body to this challenge. Just get it a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more used to it. We don't have to absolutely race down the hills. And then if you are loading up your pack particularly when you're doing these sessions a really really really good idea is using water bottles to load up your pack now the idea behind this is when we are doing these steering wheel sessions and we've got extra weight on the back one thing that can often happen as we said before downhills can put a lot of extra pressure through the joints and sometimes if we're doing these repeated downhills again and again and again.

[24:35] We can get a little bit uncomfortable so as opposed to you loading up your pack with like rice or dog food or weights where you're kind of like well if i'm getting sore i've just got to deal with this and sort of push through it um if you're using water bottles if you get to the stage where you're like hey something's uncomfortable you can just dump some water out and continue on so it gives you a little bit more flexibility i really like this option um and then the final thing to say on this is you know if you haven't done this before and well haven't done in a while and you go out and do a stair hill session first time you do it you're calm so lower parts of your legs may get a little bit sore and they can kind of sometimes get a bit sore for the day or two after, just because those muscles are working a lot and they're quite often under-trained for a lot of people. So, if it does happen the first time around, just give it a few days, let it recover, let it chill out. And then typically the second time you do it, it's usually much better. So, if it does get sore, don't freak out. It's pretty normal. Now, when it comes down to this, some people are like, hey, should I be doing this two or three times a week, whatever it may be? Typically for hikers, I just recommend doing this once a week. You don't really need to do multiple stair sessions in a week. I would sort of say if you want to do more training and probably do want to be doing more training in a week, but do those sessions focusing on other things. Do your strength training. Do other forms of cardio.

[25:47] But just keep the stair and heel stuff to maybe once a week.

[25:51] Now, the question as well is, you know, we talked about, okay, stair and heel session is very, very valuable. but realistically, what if I have just no access to real stairs or hills? What if I can't even find 10 steps to go up and down? What if I just live in the flattest place in the world, or I'm in the middle of winter, I don't want to go outside, it's dangerous, or whatever it may be. In that situation, realistically, that happens to a lot of people, and I've trained a lot of people in that situation. Realistically, in that situation, you just need to make sure you're nailing your strength training, so you're super consistent, you've got really good workouts, and you're focusing on those key points we talked about before, and making sure you're just nailing your general cardio and your uphill cardio. So if you're doing cardio in the gym, just making sure you're nailing that. Even if you're not getting exposed to those downhills, if you're only doing the ups on the treadmill or only doing the ups on the stair climber, just make sure you're in the best physical shape as you can be.

[26:41] And on top of that is make sure all the other areas of fatigue management are under control. So making sure you're on top of your nutrition, on top of your hydration, you know what you're doing, pacing. So ultimately, we can cover all these things you can control and give yourself the best chance possible. So even if you reach those descents and you're like, hey, I actually haven't had a chance to practice the downhill hiking specifically. Okay, my legs are stronger. I'm not super tired because I've gotten to the top of the hill feeling relatively fresh. I've looked after my fatigue through nutrition, hydration, yada, yada, yada. If you can cover the controllable things, then you'll be in a much better position than if you haven't done any of those things. So ultimately, if you can't get that specific exposure, just do what you can.

[27:22] Now, a few more quick tips before I wrap up this video and before I lose my voice today. If you're not using trachopoles on descent, use them. They make a huge difference. Take a huge amount of weight, a huge amount of pressure out of the feet, out of the knees, out of the hips, on downhills. Also greatly enhance our stability and our balance if you're not using them and you struggle on descents use them i strongly strongly advocate for them um number two is make sure if you are going on one of those hikes where you just hit that ascent and then straight away on the downhill again um at the top take a second refuel a little bit have a snack at the top of hills so you're not just going downhill and you're like i've got no fuel in the tank i've got no energy at the top of your climbs take a second have a quick snack refuel um so you can be a bit happy on the downhills and also if you ever do feel like going down hills you start to get a bit anxious you start to get a little bit like you know um stressed out you're getting really tired you're worrying and this and that a couple of simple things you can do with your breathing that can often help um there's a simple strategy called three deep breaths where basically all you do if you start stressing out getting a little bit uncomfortable stop wherever you are just take one big breath in.

[28:29] Hold your breath for a few seconds, big breath out, hold your breath for a few seconds. Do that three times. So in, pause, out, pause. Really, really slow, really, really deep. Do that three times and then continue on. This is a really, really simple thing that can sometimes just sort of help us mentally, help us just sort of calm down, de-stress and can sometimes just get us back in the zone. Really, really effective, very, very simple. The other thing you can often look at is if you are going down hills, is just trying to sort of go downhill, focusing on just breathing in and out through the nose. Now, the idea behind that is if we are doing this nose breathing, it basically is just a natural way just to slow the breathing down a little bit. It's not magic like a lot of people talk about online. It's not going to do crazy dramatic things to your fitness or to your performance. But in this context, it's going to be really beneficial to just slowing the breathing down, helping you calm down, helping you de-stress and helping you focus. So, if you do feel like things are getting on top of you, three deep breaths, nose breathing can go a long way.

[29:29] So summarizing all of this and you know what we covered today strength just gets wrong you know if you're not doing strength training build up your strength in your legs it'll go a long way and also focus on that eccentric muscle strength so those lowers making sure you get like four to five seconds on the lowering portion can go a long way.

[29:46] On top of that, work on a bit of balance and proprioception where you can fit that into your week. It's slow to improve, but it can go a long way. And make sure cardio isn't the limiting factor. So making sure that you're not entering these descents absolutely exhausted. If you're not working on just general aerobic fitness in your week, something you definitely want to work on.

[30:04] And also, if you have access to it, get some specific exposure and practice to these descents. Find a heel, find a set of stairs, put that together. and ultimately if you can put those four things together strength balance cardio and specific exposure that in itself will not only be amazing for your descents but it's just general inner general ideas for hiking that's going to help you dramatically in so many other situations so very very simple but can go a long long long way so hopefully all of this does give you a little bit of an overview around how you can go about your training and hopefully a few insights on how you can specifically train for these descents but honestly as with all of these videos I fully understand if you come to the end of this, you're like, hey, this kind of makes sense, but I still don't know how to put this together. I'm not 100% sure how this all turns into a training week. I'm not sure how

[30:50] to plan that weekend out into a month or into multiple months. And I just want some help with all of this. If you did need a little bit of personalized help, we offer through Summit Strength personalized online training programs for hikers to help them get fit, strong, resilient for their adventures.

[31:04] Now, what our package is typically in cover is we will create a custom and personalized workout program to help you get fit for anything the trail map for altitude. We'll cover strength training, cardio, hiking programming, recovery, mobility, all in a way that's going to be personalized around you, your goals, your situation and your needs. Now on top of that, we also do put a big emphasis into education on all the peripheral factors we can make or break an adventure. So things like nutrition, recovery, self-care, mental strength, pain prevention and a bunch of other things. And also we'll make sure you have the coaching, support and accountability to keep you on track through all the ups and down that comes with life and make sure there's someone in your corner to help you through everything that's going on. Now, if you did want to find out a little bit more, basically, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. Now, on that page, there's a big video that talks through our program in a bit of detail. And if that does sound like something you'd like to get involved with, or at least learn a little bit more about, there is a link on that page where you can book a free call with our team. We can sit down, get to know you, learn about your situation, your needs, your hiking. And if it sounds like something we can help you with, we can talk you through one of our packages, which may fit into your life. So, if you did want to learn a little bit more, go to summerstrength.com.au slash online and we can take it from there. But with that being said, I hope this makes sense. I hope this does help a few people with the descents and hope some of these ideas you can put into action and it can make a bit of a difference for your adventures. So with that being said, thank you so much for listening. Hope you have a lovely day and we'll talk to you soon.

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