Upgrade Your Cardio (2 Tips)

​In this episode, I share two effective tips to upgrade your cardio training (to best help your hiking adventures).

This week, we are looking for hikers to join our signature program, The Online Summit Program.

If you have a big adventure in your sights this year, or you want to get on top of an ache or pain that is holding back your hiking, or you want to be in the best position for your regular hiking for 2025, I would love to chat with you.

To find out more, email [email protected] with the words "let's chat".

From there, we can find a time to hop on a call together, where we can get to know each other; we can chat about your goals and situation and see if and how one of our options may be right for you.
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Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking through two quick tips that you can apply to improve your cardio

[0:08] training to best help your hiking. Now, this week, we are doing five mini episodes, sharing two quick tips in each episode around different areas of training and different areas of physical preparation. So ultimately, at the end of this week, you'll have 10 simple tips that you can take away, apply, and we'll make a quick difference. Now, today we are talking about cardio training. So this is looking at your pack walking, your cycling, your elliptical, your running if you're doing that, your swimming, anything cardiovascular based. Two quick tips. Number one, know what intensity you're aiming for. Now, what I mean by this is a lot of hikers, when they approach their cardio, they just consider it cardio. They just consider it a run. They just consider it a walk. They could just consider it whatever it may be, and they'll just go out and just do whatever they're doing.

[1:03] But to get the best benefits out of your cardio, you want to know what you're actually trying to achieve out of that particular workout. Are you trying to have a low-intensity workout, to work aerobically, to be controlled, to be slow, and just work and accumulate time? Are you trying to do something that's a bit more moderate intensity, where it doesn't get you too outrageously out of breath or tired, but it's a little bit more challenging? Or are you doing a higher intensity workout where you intentionally actually want to push quite a bit all the way up to as hard as you can?

[1:37] Knowing what intensity you are actually aiming for in a workout is really, really, really important. So first of all, have a think about what am I doing in this workout? Am I trying to keep it at a controlled pace? Am I going to stick to nose breathing pace where I can breathe in and out through my nose and keep it really cool, calm and collected? Am I going to bump it up a little bit so I get a little bit of out of breath, but it's not too much? Or am I actually going into this session and what I need to do is push as hard as I can to get the best benefits out of it? Know what intensity you're doing. And if you're not sure what you should be doing.

[2:11] Then either ask whoever you're working with, ask whoever gave you the program, or at the very least, do a bit of research on the particular workout that you're doing. Now, on top of that, a little added extra to this is be aware of what your energy is doing in the day.

[2:28] Because one of the worst things can be is when we're looking at slightly higher intensity workouts and we're having a bad day, we're a little bit low on energy, and we've got a high intensity workout coming up. and we get into the workout, we're like, oh, we'll just give it a go. We'll see if we can push and you get through a quarter of it and then you feel awful and you can't push how much you want and you really, really struggle and you walk out of that workout feeling like it was a waste of time. It was a failure as opposed to a positive thing. So what I mean by this is before you go in the workout, know what in the ideal world, what intensity, what you want to do, but also reference it against your energy. If you're having a low energy day, sometimes it may be better to say, you know what, today I'm actually going to pull back the intensity. I'm not going to try and push it too much, but I'm just going to keep it a bit more moderate. And if you can make that decision before you start training and say, you know what, that's what I'm going to do. That's the compromise I'm taking for my energy.

[3:24] That can make the workout a positive thing that can sort of avoid that sort of feeling of failure. And that in itself can be really, really significant. so a little subset of that know what intensity you are planning for for the workout both in the perfect world but also in your particular situation for the day yes you can change your ideas like your your mind halfway through a workout if you need but it's so much more effective if you know before you start so that's number one number two.

[3:52] Tip to upgrade your hiking is pre-fuel. Now, what I mean by this is so many hikers enter their cardio workouts with just no food in their stomach. Maybe they do it first thing in the morning and they just haven't had time for breakfast. Maybe they do it after work and they haven't eaten since like the morning. Maybe they do it at lunchtime and actually fasting in the morning or whatever it may be. A lot of hikers fall into this trap. And while you can get away with this with lower intensity workouts. If you're just going for a walk or a casual cycle, or even a really slow load of pack walk, this can sometimes be okay. The second you start applying a bit of intensity, whether you're doing some moderate intensity stuff, like some stair or hill climbing, or some higher intensity stuff, like some interval training or whatever it may be, this can get you into trouble. Because we need fuel, we need food to provide the energy to actually push in these workouts. And if we're entering these workouts with a completely empty stomach. We haven't had fuel. You're all compromising yourself before the session. And yes, you can probably get through it, but you're not going to be able to perform to your best abilities. And what we want to get out of these training sessions is we're actually trying to push these training sessions. We're trying to work. We're trying to feel good. So it will help our hiking in the future. So if you're doing a moderate or a higher intensity workout, make sure you're fueling. Now, what I mean by that is typically an hour to two hours before you train, aim to have some type of high carbohydrate food.

[5:21] So if you're training at lunchtime, make sure you're having like a mid-morning snack, like a muesli bar or a piece of fruit or something like that. If you train right after work, again, make sure you have a mid-afternoon snack. Don't rely on your lunch, but just have something at two o'clock or three o'clock or something like that. If you're training first thing in the morning, this can sometimes get a little bit trickier because we're like, oh, I don't really want to eat. So then we got to think about, okay, can I personally stomach a piece of fruit? Can I have a banana right when I wake up? And then I'll train in like 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes. Some people can do that. And if you can, great, go right ahead. If that's not super doable and you're like, I still can't actually stomach like that, then you can look at liquid calories. Now, liquid calories, basically liquid food tends to be a little bit easier to digest in the morning, a little bit or easy to digest at any time, and that can help us out. So you may wake up in the morning and have an electrolyte supplement with some carbohydrates in it. So whatever you're using for your hiking, if that has carbohydrates in it, you can use that as a pre-training thing because it will give you some carbohydrates. It's easy to digest. It'll be quick to digest and will help you with these sessions.

[6:27] Or maybe it's the middle of winter. Maybe you wake up and have a hot chocolate. That may sound a bit weird for breakfast, but a hot chocolate has plenty of carbohydrates in it, may sort you out with maybe not a huge amount of milk just so it doesn't slush around your stomach or you can have a smoothie again or some fruit juice or something like that. Liquid calories will digest a little bit quicker. So those are your two tips for cardio. Number one, know what intensity you're working at for these workouts.

[6:53] Number two, free fuel for your moderate and higher intensity cardio. If you're a low intensity, it's still going to be beneficial, but you can probably get away with it. But anything where you've got to work up a little bit of energy, anything beyond just a casual cardio workout, you want to be pre-fueling.

[7:10] So with that being said, that'll probably be enough on this particular topic. Last thing I want to say is this week, I am doing a big push for my online summit program, which is my online personal training service, which is designed to help hikers get fit, strong and resilient for their adventures. Now, I am looking for hikers to get involved this week, to step up their training, explore this structured process that helps so many hikers in the future. And if you're interested in potentially getting help, I would love to chat with you. If you're at this stage of the year where you're like, you know what, now's the time to kick up my training. Now's the time to take things seriously, to build towards a big trip or get on top of an ache or pain or just improve your general hiking and be the best hiker you can be, I would love to chat with you. What I'd like you to do is if you are interested is to email me at rowan at summitstrength.com.au and with the words, just let's chat. Now, from there, we can basically find a time to hop on a call. We can get to know each other. We can chat through your situation, your goals, your needs. And if it sounds like something I can help out with, I can talk you through one of our training options, which may fit into you and your life. And we can see if and how it may be right for you. So if you wanted to find out more, email me at rowan, R-O-W-A-N at summitstrength.com.au, and with the words, let's chat, and we can have a talk from there. So with that being said, thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow for episode number four of this mini-series.