Why Not Do Both?

​In this episode, I bring some common sense to one of the more silly debates in the world of training for hiking. 

Episode Transcript:

​​[0:00] Today, I want to talk to you about probably one of the most silly debates that

[0:05] I see in the hiking community when it comes down to training. And one of the most silly arguments that I see, which just doesn't make any sense, but some people get really, really passionate about or argumentative about, and it just, it's very, very strange. Now, this particular debate that I see, and it pops up in forums or Facebook groups or whatever it may be every once in a while, is the debate between strength and endurance. In the sense that someone says, hey, I'm training for this. What should I do? Or I'm going to go to the gym. What workout should I do? Or I'm thinking of doing some strength training. What do you recommend or whatever? And on one end of the scale, some people will be like, hey, hikers don't need to do heavier weights. It's not realistic. It's not practical. You don't want to get bulky. You don't want to put on extra muscle. So you should just be doing endurance training. You should be doing lots and lots of repetitions, not using heavy weights and really working on endurance because that's the most relevant thing for hiking.

[1:02] And on the flip side, you'll see people sort of say, well, actually, strength training is really, really beneficial. Using heavier weights is super useful. You should be doing this and spending all your time doing this. And in fact, strength training is so much more beneficial than endurance training. And people kind of go head to head arguing this type of thing. One side, they say endurance. One side, they say strength. And they will genuinely argue this point.

[1:30] It's so strange.

[1:33] Because realistically, when it comes down to pretty much any of these debates, when we've sort of got one side and the other, usually the answer for a hiker is why not just do both? You know, when we're looking at this particular debate, strength and endurance, both of them are beneficial for hikers. Both of them are really, really useful. Both of them are going to be super, super practical and relevant for a hiker. And it is incredibly easy to do both of them. You don't have to do one or the other. Just do both. You know, you could do periods of four weeks of just doing endurance training, then four weeks of just doing strength training, then four weeks of endurance, four weeks of strength and go like that. You could, if you were doing two strength workouts in a week, you could do one strength workout with heavier, more challenging resistances and one workout with endurance where you're just doing lighter stuff, but really, really grinding out the reps. Or you could split your workout up. And if you're doing 40 minutes of strength training, you could do.

[2:35] 20 minutes of strength and 20 minutes of endurance. It's not really very hard. Ultimately, it's just the way of the world where people get so polarized on certain things. But ultimately, if you see people arguing over this type of thing, nine times out of 10, or probably 99% of the time, they're probably not really

[2:55] worth listening to because it's never a one or the other thing. The same thing goes for when people argue about double-legged exercises versus single-legged exercises. It's another one with strength training where people are like, hey, you should be doing lunges and step-ups and single leg deadlifts because that's more functional for hiking. And then other people will be like, well, no, you should be doing barbell squats and barbell deadlifts because that's better or whatever it may be. And again, why not do both?

[3:25] Do some single legged training, do some double legged training. It's very, very simple, very, very effective. And the same thing when it comes to cardio and people arguing about lower intensity versus higher intensity. Yes, there is no argument that lower intensity training in a cardio sense is more important for hikers. It doesn't mean that's all you have to do. You can do both. Do the majority of your training at lower intensity and once a week do something higher intensity.

[3:54] It's a silly, silly, silly argument. And ultimately, I just want to sort of highlight this thing is if you ever see someone online arguing about this stuff and they're like, hey, one person says do this, other person says do this or whatever it is, nine times out of 10, you can do both. Put a bit of thinking in your training, very, very simple. And more often than not, it'll be beneficial to you get exposure to other things. So I don't know. There's not that much more I wanted to say about this one, but I just want to highlight this fact because I've seen it a couple of times recently.

[4:23] And hopefully my listeners are not falling into this trap and this polarity but if you are, hopefully this is a bit of a wake-up call get a little bit non-nuanced it's very easy to balance out your training with lots of different things if you just put a bit of thought behind it last thing i will sort of say before i wrap up this episode is if you're in this situation like cool that makes sense bit of strength bit of endurance bit of single leg

[4:48] bit of double leg bit of low intensity, bit of higher intensity. That kind of makes sense getting that spread, but I am not really sure how to plan that out. I'm not really sure how to fit that all into a week. I'm not really sure how to get the right balance for my needs, my situation, and my hiking goals. If you need help with that, I'd love to chat with you. If you want to find out a little bit more about our online personal training for hiking, you can go to summitstrength.com.au online. Online on that page there's a big video talks a lot about our programs and if it sounds like something you want to learn a little bit more about there's a link on that page you can book a free call with our team um and we can have a little bit of a chat about it all so if you want to check it out you can go to summitstrength.com.au online and we can take it from there so with that being said thank you for listening hope it was useful for you people for a few people hopefully wake up call for anyone who may need it and hopefully this can serve you well moving forward so thanks for listening and we'll talk to you soon bye.

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