Top Strength Exercises for Hiking Real Training

Top Strength Exercises for Hiking Real Training

if you like hiking there are some exercises that you can do to help improve your fitness specifically for that activity

first of all you should be walking preferably on an incline for at least 120 minutes a week if you are looking to improve your fitness for hiking once you get there you can start doing more intensive cardio workouts like sprints and stairs but that's a topic for another.

let's talk about the best strength exercises for hiking number one the squat at the very 

beginning form is more important than how many you do or adding any weight at all so just do your best after you've mastered the form building to being able to do 3 sets of 15 to 30 reps with your bodyweight is your next step finally you're gonna add weight in the form of dumbbells kettlebells or barbells each type of weight will hit the body differently which is a good thing because hiking is going to stress your core in a lot of different ways when loading the movement progressed slowly strength is built over time and you want to avoid injuring yourself.

number 2 the walking lunge as a single leg movement this exercise will help strengthen your legs for the hills on your hike as well as improve your balance because the last thing you want to do during a hike is fall.

Start with 3 sets of 10 to 30 on each side this exercise can also be loaded by carrying dumbbells in each hand or in front of you over the bar held on the back or in the front number 3 the deadlift the deadlift is a very important exercise and is one that people frequently hurt themselves on so when practicing your deadlift form is absolutely the most important thing 3 sets of 15 to 20 reps are a good place.

To start start light get the form down and build slowly your glutes hamstrings and back will get nice and strong for dealing with those trails carrying a pack or possibly having to move something out of the way on the trail number 4 this step up to knee raise the step up to knee race is a pretty simple exercise step up on a small step or a box and when you get to the top of the movement lift the knee on the other leg without setting it down on the box returned to the bottom position and do the other side this exercise is great for training your balanced cardio and the ability to raise your leg up high enough to step on or over things.

for this put one to three minutes on theclock and just alternate legs in a nice steady pace until the time is up three sets of one to three minutes we'll get you started pretty nicely five planks there are a lot of variations of them but we're gonna focus on just the standard inside plank 

You can do them supported by your hands or by your forearms you'll do both the standard and the side plank until failure for three sets each number six push-ups push-ups are great because you want to be able to be strong enough to pick yourself up off the ground if you do happen to fall or if you need to push something out of your way on the trail if you can't do push-ups 

You can do them in an incline to make it a little bit easier and then move to a harder variation later three sets of fifteen to thirty on this one too when you get to thirty try a harder variation number seven one arm bent over rows these are important because like the deadlift it trains you to pick things up especially because you're doing it from a bit over position 

You can do it with a kettlebell or a dumbbell do three sets of fifteen to twenty reps on each side number eight burpees burpees are a killer cardio workout and are great for building overall conditioning it doesn't take too many burpees to get your heart pounding in your lungs breathing hard for this one try to do as many burpees 

As you can in three minutes rest as needed but try to fill that time block with as many burpees as you reasonably can number nine calf raises your calves are going to take a beating on your hikes especially if you're carrying a pack so do yourself a favor and knock out some calf raises 

you can very easily load this movement with dumbbells or a bar or even your hiking bag you can even do them one leg.

at a time if you don't have access to much weight try for three sets of 30 to 50 reps you'll thank me later number 10 get out there and just practice carrying weights or bricks or small logs or your pack in your arms and just walk this is going to tax 
your core and help to build your postural muscles for the hike 

Try lots of different things three sets of 100-meter carries should be sufficient now you don't want to do all of these exercises in one day as that's quite a bit for a single workout but you can very easily split this into lower andupper body days for two to four days a week of training with a hard hike on the weekend to round it all out.

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