Understanding Energy Systems For Hikers

When it comes to training for hiking, not all cardio is created equal. And if you want to see the best results for your time on the trail, you want to ensure that the cardio training you are doing is targeted to your specific needs as a hiker.

And one of the major factors which affect this is energy systems. So, in today's video, we explore this subject in a bit of detail.

Inside, I cover:

• The different energy systems our bodies use during exercise
• Which energy systems are most relevant for hikers
• How a hiker can structure their training to ensure they are hitting the right areas of energy system development

Need some help with your training for hiking?

Learn about the Online Summit Program here: ​https://www.summitstrength.com.au/online.html
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Video Chapters:

0:08 
Understanding Energy Systems for Hikers
2:04 
Importance of Tailored Cardio Training
3:11 
Overview of Energy Systems
4:54 
The Three Energy Systems
6:15 
Anaerobic vs. Aerobic Energy Systems
11:53 
The Aerobic Energy System Explained
14:29 
Focus on Aerobic Training for Hiking
17:00 
Practical Training Considerations for Hikers
21:34 
HIIT and CrossFit for Hikers
23:32 
Summary of Key Takeaways

Video Transcript:

​[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. In today's video,

[0:03] we are talking all about understanding energy systems for hikers. Now, when it comes down to energy systems, you know, this typically lines up with your cardio training for your hiking. And when you are developing fitness and doing your cardio training to best help your hiking adventures, having a basic understanding of energy systems is pretty valuable. Now, realistically, when you're just training for general fitness or if you're just training for weight loss, say you don't even care about hiking, but that's all you're doing, and you're just looking at these things, it doesn't really matter what you do with your cardio. And most of the information, most of the training you'll find in the world is just based around general fitness and weight loss, which is fair enough. And in these situations, it doesn't really matter what you do with your cardio. As long as you find something that you can be consistent with, that doesn't cause you issues and something you enjoy, you can probably be fine. But when it comes down to training for hiking, and if the training you are doing is really trying to improve you on the trail, you want to put a little bit more thought behind this. Because when it comes down to it, not all cardio is equal.

[1:13] It's not a case of, hey, I'm just going to go do a run. I'm going to do a HIIT class. I'm going to do a walk. And it's all going to be pretty much the same thing. Different ways of going about your cardio are different, basically. And when it comes down to improving your performance, we need to be aware of this. Depending on the specifics of your cardio workouts, of how they're built out, what you're doing, how you work, will depend on the specifics of how it actually trains your body. There are different elements of your fitness that you can improve. There are different adaptations that you can create through the body, depending on how you approach your cardio. And it really, really is important to understand this distinction.

[1:52] As hikers in the hiking context, we want to ensure that when we are doing cardio, it is going to give us the best benefits for the trail. If that's what we're trying to improve, we want to make sure things are honed in.

[2:05] Because if we're doing all this hard work and we're taking the time, the attention, the effort, the energy to train, we want to make sure it's giving us the best results on the trail. And that's what we're talking about today. Now, one of the main differentiators when it comes down to different cardio workouts, and there's a lot of different ways you can break this up and a lot of different ways you can apply things. But one of the main differentiators and probably easiest thing to wrap your head around are energy systems. Now, the concept of energy systems, really, really simple. Essentially, the body, every single person's body has a range of different systems that it uses to produce energy. It's in the name and a range of different systems it uses in different situations to produce energy. Now, when we are doing cardio training, as a general rule of thumb, we want to ensure that the training we are doing is targeting the energy systems we want. And in this context with hikers, we want to ensure the training we are doing is targeting the energy systems which are relevant for our hiking. If we want to get the best results, we can do training which target other areas and it'll still give us some results. But ultimately, if we want to get the best results, we want to make sure we're

[3:10] targeting the right things. And essentially, that's what we're going to be exploring today. Now, a little preface before I get any deeper into all of this, I just want to say a few key points. You know, with this type of topic, whenever we're talking about this science-y stuff or the sports science, whatever it may be, there's lots and lots and lots and lots of different layers we can go with this. And very, very, very many layers we can get deeper and deeper and deeper. And energy systems falls into this. In the hiking context.

[3:35] I feel it is important to understand the basics of this and just having a bit of an understanding around the basics of what's going on, but we don't need to get into layer number two, layer number three, layer number four, and keep on getting super, super, super deep. If you were training for professional sports, if you were training for sports that was doing a bunch of crazy things or whatever it may be, yeah, you may want to get deeper and deeper and deeper. For hikers, we can keep things relatively simple. For this reason, what I'm going to be trying to do with this presentation is I'm going to try and get as deep as we need for you to see the results you want from your training while also keeping it as simple as possible and find that balance there. Now, if you've never really learned about anything like this before, you've never heard of the concept of different energy systems and you've never heard of the concept of training for energy system development, this simplified version may be complicated enough. And you may, in all honesty, need to watch things a few times for it to kind of click into place. I remember the first time I learned about this stuff, it did take a little while to sink in and maybe that's enough. Alternatively, if you are already a bit knowledgeable on this, you've done some reading, done some learning, maybe a background in training, whatever it may be, and you're wondering why I'm not going deeper and not getting into more layers of this, this is why. We're going to try and get things as deep as we need, but keep it as simple as possible. So keep that in mind as we go through.

[4:52] So what we're going to be covering today, very, very straightforward. Number one, we're going to be going over the different energy systems in the body. Number two, we're going to be talking about what is most relevant for hikers. And we're going to talk number three, practical training considerations for hikers. So how you can actually take this science and actually turn it into your actual training.

[5:09] So let's start with the different energy systems. In the body, as I said, many different ways of creating energy. There are three main energy systems that our body uses to create energy. Number one is the phosphagen system, also known as the ATP-PC system. Number two is anaerobic glycolytic system, also known as the lactic acid system. And I'm going to explain all of these in a moment, so it makes sense. And number three is the aerobic energy system. Three different energy systems we use. Now, these are really, again, keeping things simple, broken into two big divisions. Number one, we have our anaerobic energy systems. These energy systems, which fall under this category, essentially don't use oxygen as part of the process to create energy. That's the distinction. They will create energy without oxygen as part of the process. And that will be that phosphagen system and the anaerobic glycolotic system, the ATPPC system and the lactic acid system. They're our anaerobic energy systems.

[6:11] On the flip side, our aerobic energy system uses oxygen as part of the process. So as it creates energy, oxygen is used as part of that process and that in the name aerobic energy system that's the two big divisions for us that we want to keep in mind as we're going through this now let's break each of these down briefly and just so you understand what they do what they're all about and kind of how it comes into the context what we're looking today.

[6:36] So let's start with this ATP-PC system. Essentially, this particular system is anaerobic. It doesn't need oxygen. What it is, it is very, very, very fast to produce energy. This is our fastest energy system. And when we need energy very, very, very quickly, this is what kicks into effect straight away. Now, this particular energy system, to fuel it and to actually create this energy, it uses something called creatine phosphate. We don't need to go into this. This is just something that's in the body, that's as deep as we need to go. This particular energy system, it's very, very, very quick, but it's very, very, very short. It will typically only last for about 10 seconds of heavy exercise. It's not something we use for long periods of time. It lasts for about 10 seconds or less. This is typically used, probably pretty obvious, for short, intense bout of exercises. So for example, if you needed to sprint, if you need to sprint for five or six or seven or eight or nine or 10 seconds, you're probably using this predominantly. Or if you need to jump or if you need to throw or whatever may be, this is what's used for these short, intense things. The ATP PC system, number one.

[7:44] Number two is we've got our lactic acid system. This one is also anaerobic. It doesn't need that oxygen as part of the fuel source. This one is still fast to produce energy. It's not quite as fast as the last one, but it's still very, very fast to produce energy. And the process it uses produces energy quickly. This particular system pretty much only uses carbohydrates as fuel. So stored carbohydrates in our body, it uses that as fuel to create energy.

[8:12] This particular system, in the grand scheme of things, compared to what we're going to talk about in a moment, it's not outrageously efficient. Meaning for the amount of units of fuel it uses, the amount of units of carbohydrates it uses, it doesn't create a huge amount of energy.

[8:30] This is, doesn't mean it's bad because, you know, it is designed to be like this, but essentially this particular system, it sacrifices a bit of efficiency for speed. This one was thinking about quick energy, but it's not thinking about efficient energy. You know, again, you can get deeper in this and whatever it may be, but that's kind of what we're thinking. It produces energy fast. It's not outrageously efficient in regards to how much fuel it's using. This particular energy system will last anywhere between about 10 seconds to two minutes of maximal effort. So if you're going really, really, really quick, this will probably sustain you for anywhere up to about two minutes of effort.

[9:04] So through this process, typically what it will do, it will produce energy and then also alongside that, as it goes through that process, it will also produce lactic acid and hydrogen ions as byproducts. You've probably heard of lactic acid before and you probably thought, okay, that burning, nasty feeling I kind of get, that's the lactic acid building up. So it's not quite as simple as that, but also we also get what's called hydrogen ions that build up as part of this process. They're probably the things that kind of make us that nasty, gross feeling, but you know what I'm talking about. You probably felt that before. We probably thought about that lactic acid. That's kind of what's going on with this system. It produces energy quickly, but it does have these byproducts and it fatigues after about two minutes, if not earlier. Now, this is typically used, as you probably guessed, for higher intensity, short duration exercise. So, things like soccer or football, where you're kind of doing, you know, sprinting up a pitch for 20 seconds or 30 seconds, or basketball, where you're going up back and forth and being, you know, quite active, or 400-meter sprints. Like, for professionals, they're doing this in, like, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, whatever it may be, and we're using this predominantly. So, that's kind of where it falls into.

[10:11] And then finally, we've got our third one, our aerobic energy system. Now, this particular system is aerobic. It's in the name. It uses oxygen as part of the process. This particular system, it is quite slow to produce energy. It's not fast. It's not one of those fast ones. It's relatively slow to produce energy. This particular system will use both carbohydrates and fats for fuel. So we'll use carbs and fats to create fuel. In the absolute extremes of exercise, it may use protein as well, but that's more when you're getting to the stage where your body's falling apart.

[10:46] No hiker's really going to do that unless you're in an emergency situation, but predominantly carbohydrates and fats for fuel. Now, this particular system, it is slow, but it's very, very efficient. So for every energy of every unit of fuel it uses, it produces quite a bit of energy. Compare that to the lactic acid system, it produces much, much, much, much, much more energy per unit of fuel, but it's much slower. That's kind of the trade-off there. But this particular system, the other ones had that sort of limit in regards to duration. For this one, no real limit or duration. There's no real limit beyond you just getting tired. This can kind of go for over and over and over and over. If you're walking around all day, this could go for 24 hours or whatever may be. It has no real duration. It's probably doing this all day, every day, basically. This particular system doesn't have any major byproducts, anything that's really going to accumulate that's going to slow you down. It produces carbon dioxide, produces water, produces heat.

[11:44] They're not too scary or anything like that, but it doesn't have any major byproducts. This particular system is basically used for lower intensity,

[11:52] longer duration exercise. So it's not very quick, so we can't really use this huge amount for our high intensity stuff, but it's typically more lower intensity, longer duration stuff. So this might be cycling, swimming, walking, anything you need to sustain for long periods of time, this is going to be doing most of the work.

[12:11] Those are the three energy systems. We've kind of broken them down, one, two, three, sort of said, okay, this is what they do. This is what they use for fuel. This is how long they last and this and that. To be very, very clear, that all sounds neat and tidy. Energy system contribution is not quite as cut and dry as this. It's not quite as black and white, as simple as this.

[12:31] Systems realistically will interchange and contribute at different levels and intensities and how hard you exercise will affect this. And you can get really, really deep into this and a lot more layers you can go into it. But again, we're kind of keeping things simple. So to give you just a bit of an insight to how things look, and again, this is a simplified version of what's going on, but this will give you a little idea. In this little graph, we want to look at the blue, the green, and the orange line. The blue line is that ATP-CP system, that first one. The green line is our lactic acid system. the orange line is our aerobic system. We can sort of see, this is the amount of time of exercise we're looking at. And we can sort of see here, this is the percent of energy production. So how much it is creating energy comparatively. As we can sort of see from zero to 10 seconds, that ATP P system is doing most of the work. It'll kind of peak up around here, slowly taper off. And by after 10 seconds, it's kind of done. It's not really going to come back. The lactic acid system Initially, it starts a little bit, gets more and more and more and more and more and more, about a minute and a half or something like that, starts to go down. And then again, by two minutes, it's kind of done. And then finally, the aerobic energy system starts pretty slow, slowly creeps up, slowly creeps up, slowly creeps up. And then around again, around about the two minute mark, it kind of is doing most of the work.

[13:55] Again, you can get deeper than this, whatever it may be, but you can kind of see this is the interchange. If we're working really, really hard and we're pushing for these durations, this is kind of what's going on.

[14:06] Coming back to the hiking context, you may be going a bit cross-eyed already, like, oh my gosh, Ron, like, this is just, do I really need to know about this? Let's talk about hiking and where this comes in. Hiking as itself is predominantly an aerobic activity. It is a low-intensity activity relatively. We go for long periods of time. We go for hours and hours and hours at a time. It is predominantly an aerobic activity. There's no debate around that.

[14:30] Therefore, the aerobic energy system out of those three is going to be the main priority for hikers to develop and improve because if we want to get better at hiking that's kind of the main thing we want to hone in our training to develop that if we can build this aerobic energy system up if we can create adaptations are going to be advantageous for that energy system if we can develop it to get better and better and better what we can do is we can reduce fatigue while we're hiking and allow us to actually work harder and faster while we're actually out on the trail while relying on this energy system. As we said before, this is a very efficient energy system. As I said before, this doesn't have a huge amount of byproducts. So if we can use this more and more and more, even on more difficult sections of the trail, that's a really good thing. So the majority of our training wants to go to develop this. Now, you may be asking, like, okay, Ron, that makes sense. Like, okay, hours and hours and hours of hiking, aerobic energy system. What about hills? What about tough sections of the trail? I know there are certain sections of the trail where my heart rate just shoots up. I know there are certain sections of the trail where it's really, really difficult and there are periods where it's really, really tough. What about them?

[15:39] For the most part, when it comes down to hiking, even on most tougher sections, if we're looking at a really steep climb, whatever it may be, we're usually sustaining this for more than just a couple of minutes. It's usually not just 60 seconds of climbing and then you're done. It's usually a little bit more extended. There are periods of that, but yeah. So for the most part, even with your higher intensity sections, when it comes to hiking, there is still going to be a large part of aerobic contribution. If you're climbing up a big old hill for 30 minutes, mostly aerobic. Even if you're doing like little two-minute spurts, mostly aerobic. Plus, on top of that, as we sort of said, all of that stuff I was talking about was when we're really, really pushing very, very quick and this and that. For hikers, we're never really going to be pushing to that maximal effort where we have to rely on that quick producing energy. We're usually, even in the tougher sections, going to be a little bit lower intensity, relatively.

[16:30] There will likely be certain situations, some anaerobic contribution from that lactic energy energy system, potentially the ATP P system when we're doing big step ups or whatever it may be. And when we're looking at our training, it is worth getting some exposure to these types of things. So, it's not like, hey, 100% of my training has to be purely aerobic, but it's never going to be the priority to look at these other energy systems. They can be worked on, they can be developed, they can be trained, but we still want to keep in mind, aerobic energy system is the main priority.

[17:00] So, coming into practical training considerations, how does this actually go into effect when you're can make a training? Well, when we're looking at our cardiovascular training, so ignoring your strength training, but looking at your actual cardio training, the majority of your cardio hours should be aerobic based, low intensity, sustained duration. So things like hiking, pack walking, steering, hill climbing, cycling, that type of stuff. If you're looking at your training week and you're like, you know what? I actually do six hours of cardio a week. I don't know, random number, pull that out. The majority of those hours should be this lower intensity stuff.

[17:34] Now, to add to this, if you do want to manage intensity here, so when you're looking at these sessions, you're like, okay, I want to be really, really, really, really aerobic. I want to make sure that I'm not going to intensities, which maybe pull from that aerobic energy systems a little bit more. Then we can manage our intensity by doing things like sticking to nose breathing. So if we're hiking or if we're walking or if we're stair climbing, stick into a pace where you can constantly breathe in or out through your nose or stick into a conversational pace, which is a pace where you can comfortably carry a conversation as you're just walking along. Managing that intensity, if we're working at those paces, you're probably going to be mostly aerobic. If you're going a little bit quicker than that, you're probably going to be doing a lot of aerobic, but there may be some more anaerobic contribution. Again, that's a whole nother video going into intensities, but that's a general idea. If we're looking at this low intensity, long duration, we want to keep things nice and easy. Alternatively, if you use a heart rate monitor, zone two training. You've probably heard about zone two training before, maybe you don't fully understand it, but in a nutshell, zone two training is just working at an intensity which is pretty much purely aerobic-based. That's kind of what it is. So if you've got a watch, got a tracker, working on that. If you're not sure how to figure out your zone two, just go into Google, type in how do I figure out my zone two, a bunch of different ways.

[18:46] That's number one. Majority of our training should be aerobic-based. Number two, when we are looking at higher intensity training, it is still beneficial to get some exposures to some more challenging stuff, which gets the heart rate up, gets the breathing up, and actually challenges that. So you can be ready for that on the trail. It is still beneficial to do that. I personally believe a really, really good approach to this for hikers is to do this as part of what we call longer intervals. So as opposed to you may go down a local gym and you may do training where you do 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, really, really quick. Or you might do 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off. And that's sort of short, sharp hit training. I personally think if you do longer intervals, it's going to be much more effective. And essentially, looking at about intervals, where you're going quick for about two and a half minutes or more. Why two and a half minutes or more? As we sort of saw before, once we get over that two-minute mark, it's predominantly going to be aerobic-based contribution. So if we can do two and a half minutes or more, this shifts the emphasis of these higher-intensity intervals a little bit more. So you might get on a bike and do two and a half-minute intervals, rest for 90 seconds, repeat that a bunch of times. Or you might do four-minute intervals or six-minute intervals or whatever it may be. It's not quite as intense as up really, really, really short, sharp, but it's going to be much more relevant for.

[20:03] Um, and then, yeah, and this will ensure it's hitting the higher ends of the aerobic energy system and help you on those harder sections as well. And then on top of that, just to build that out, um, in very, very, very small doses, adding in some very high intensity stuff can be useful. It's not a hundred percent necessary. It's not like you're missing out if you're doing it, but this can be a nice way just to finish things off in your training. So you may do little small blocks in your training of sprint work. So if you're looking at say a 15 week program before a trip, you may do 12 of those weeks working at lower intensity stuff, lower intensity stuff, maybe do six weeks of this stuff. And then you may just do three weeks of like really short, sharp stuff. So you've spent the majority of your hours working on these things and then a little bit like that. Or you may sort of say, hey, at the end of a workout, I'm going to go do a low intensity session for like five minutes, for 50 minutes or something. Then the last five to 10 minutes, maybe I'll do some higher intensity intervals. So I just get a little bit at the end, but the majority of my time is spent doing this lower intensity stuff. Or it might be a case of sort of saying, okay, I do a lot of stair and hill climbing. Most of it I'm keeping relatively slow, but every once in a while, I'm just going to do a climb, which is really, really, really quick. And I'm going to go as quick as I can for 30 seconds and just get a little bit of exposure here. Just getting little bits and pieces of that here and there can be good. Again, you don't want to go overboard with it, but it can be good.

[21:21] So, last thing, or one of the last things I kind of want to cover here. So, hopefully that does make sense. But a lot of people kind of get to this point when I'm talking about this stuff is people ask about like, you know, what about hikers who do HIIT or CrossFit?

[21:34] Because, you know, high-intensity interval training, really, really common in the fitness industry.

[21:39] CrossFit, really, really common. There are a lot of hikers out there that'll get online or you'll talk to them in the gyms. They do this type of training and they always go out and hike and they seem to be okay. Like, what's going on there? And realistically, a few different factors. Number one, this type of training, as I said before, it's not black and white in the sense of this energy system, this energy system. This type of training, if you're doing traditional kit, there will still be some aerobic contribution. That's fine. There will still be some development, so they are still getting a little bit of work there. It's not like it's completely being neglected. But what's typically happening is this type of training will increase their reliance on anaerobic energy systems. It will increase their reliance on that lactic acid system, which is fine in short bursts. Longer stuff, it may not be super, super efficient because we're going to get less and less and less reliant on that aerobic energy system in different sections of the trail, which is not great. This can still work. A lot of people do it. A lot of people see success for it, but it's not going to be as efficient for endurance activity. It's not going to be as efficient in regards to producing energy. It's not going to be as efficient in regards to how much fuel you need to consume. It's not going to be as efficient in regards to those by-products that build up. It can work. It's not quite as good.

[22:50] Ultimately, when it comes down to if you are targeting this aerobic stuff, you are probably going to get better results with less effort if you can concentrate on the right areas. It is a little bit backwards or does seem a little bit backwards for people who are used to going into the gym and just absolutely pushing themselves and getting to the point where they're throwing up. And they're like, you know what? I'm supposed to go slower and that will get me better and that is a bit of a battle to wrap your head around but if you can concentrate on the right areas, if you can hone in your training to hit the energy systems that you want for your activities, you're probably going to get better results.

[23:25] In summary, ultimately if you want to see the best results from your training

[23:28] for hiking, you want to ensure that your cardio is developing the right energy system. As hiking is a predominantly aerobic-based activity, this is where the majority of your cardio hours should be aimed at. You can can complement this. It doesn't have to be 100% of that, should be the majority. You can complement this with small doses of anaerobic training, and that can be very beneficial in small doses, but it should really never be the majority of your training. Pretty simple, all in all. Hopefully, that gives you a little bit more of understanding of this. Hopefully, it wasn't too complicated for some people. Hopefully, you're still with me at the end, but hopefully, it just gives you a little bit more context in regards to all of this.

[24:05] I fully understand when it comes down to this type of stuff. If you are looking at this, you're like, Ron, yeah, this kind of makes sense, but in all honesty, the thought of putting this together, figuring out training, figuring out how all this comes together, it is a little bit beyond me. If you're in that situation, I would love to help you out. This is what I do all day, every day, helping hikers with this type of stuff, helping them with their training, helping them build out their workouts to make sure they're getting the best results with the least amount of effort. And if you want a little bit of help with that, I would love to chat with you. I offer online personal training programs for hikers to help them get fit, strong, and resilient for their adventures. My packages include a custom and personalized workout program covering strength training, cardio, hiking programming, covering mobility, personalized in a way that's going to fit around you and your life. On top of that, we do put a big emphasis into education, talking about all the different peripheral factors which can make or break an adventure, things like nutrition, recovery, self-care, mental strength, all of that good stuff. And on top of that, give you the coaching, support, and accountability to keep you on track. Now, if you want to learn a little bit more about that, all you need to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. On there, there's another video, talks through our program in a little bit of detail, talks you through how we go about things. And if it was something you want to explore a little bit further, there's a link on that page where you can book a free call with us. We can have a bit of a chat and see if and how we may be able to help you.

[25:24] So with that being said, if you want to check that out, go to that link, summitstrength.com.au slash online. But with that being said, thank you for listening today. Thank you for watching. I hope you've learned something. I hope it makes sense. Any questions, please let me know and we'll talk to you soon.