Trail Legs

[The Splitter]

My Girlfriend and I recently returned from a four day trip to the Smokies where we hiked two loops. The first was up Sunkota Ridge to 52 and down Tbomas Divide. The second was up Noland Divide to 61, Pole Rosd Creek and Deep Creek to 59 and then Deep Creek a short distance back to the trailhead.

We're from Florida and get up to the mountains a few times a year, I've always been in good shape but this year I'm back in really good shape like I was a few years ago. I train at a serious Crossfit/Strength and conditioning gym and do lots of heavy high rep Sauats and Deadlifts. I have a ton of lower body and core strength.

Being from Florida we obviously don't have the same ability to train but what I was surprised at is how quickly my body seemed to "adapt." The first day was hell climbing up Sunkota Ridge, and by the time we returned to base camp the following evening I was feeling wrecked and actually a little worried about the rest of the trip. When I woke up the next morning however, I was feeling great and shot up Noland Divide like a rocket, covering the 9 and change miles to the campsite in just over 3 hours.

What I'm wondering is, is this normal? I felt the same way for the remaining days as well. It's like I just needed a little kick in the ass to get moving. What I did notice though is that while my muscles and cardiovascular systems were more than up to the task, my bones and joints were not. I finished off the trip with some achy knees and a mild case of shin splints. Which I'm hoping to be able to avoid by steadily upping my weekly mileage here in FL to avoid when I go back later this year.


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[Kerosene]

At your age and level of fitness, yes I would say it's pretty normal. If you were carrying 30-odd pounds then it would likely take you a day or two longer to get your trail legs. If you were out for an extended trek then you would be a lot better after 10 days, 30 days, and 60 days (more or less). Even fit and carrying a day pack, it can be amazingly difficult to try to keep up with a thru-hiker after they've been on the trail for 3+ months; by that time they have the tempo, muscle memory, strength, cardio, and mindset to just keep cranking for hour after hour.

By the time you reach my age -- even if you stay in above average shape -- it will likely take you 3-4 times longer to get your trail legs. The same goes for healing: When I tore my MCL at age 49 (during one of my 3x/week soccer matches that kept me in incredible shape). The ortho looked at the injury and assured me that it would heal with rest, but at my age it would take 4 months to heal with PT as opposed to 4 weeks for an 18-year old. He was right (I tried to come back after 3 or so months, but it was month 4 before I could really cut again). Aging means adjusting.

[moytoy]

+1 on what Kerosene said and at 58 even Kerosene can only imagine what is to come :)

[Wyoming]

You have described a classic case of overdoing it before you were in good shape for hiking.

While you may have good strength, flexibility and all that for Crossfit and weightlifting that is not the same as hiking in the hills with a pack. Hiking up and down hills with the big percentage increase in body weight caused by the pack and contents requires its own training and conditioning. Crossfit is not bad, it is just not sufficient either.

Much greater forces are being put on your ligaments and tendons with the extra weight and the added effects of stepping up hill and downhill. The muscles always adapt the fastest and this lulls many into thinking they are ready to go. But that is very often not the case as your beginning injuries are testament too. It is good that this was a short hike and you did not hurt yourself much more than you did. But it is a good lesson about training for what you are going to be doing. If you had continued there is a good chance you would have had big issues by the sound of it.

Train for hiking by hiking with loads. Work yourself up to full load weights and distances. Take your time getting there and listen to what you body is telling you. Since you live in FL you will need to simulate hill work as much as possible. Maybe your gym has a stair machine like mine does and you can bring your pack and walk up that and train up to a reasonable time with weight. Training for downhills may just not be possible. Work on calf and leg stretching also as that is important too. If there is no way to train hills then there will be a corresponding lack of conditioning in your ligaments and tendons for the hills and you will need to take that into account when you hike. It is easy to hurt them.

Best of luck.

[MuddyWaters]

At 49 i come off the sofa and hike 20+ mile days in strenuous terrain, with pack up to 25 lbs or so.

As was said, its not the cardio thats necessarilly limiting , its the probability of overuse injuries to joints, bones, tendons that arent accustomed.

I find running to be good for helping condition by repeated impacts. Im still careful about how forcefully i land in my downhill leg when hiking, because i experienced a stress fracture once before.

[Redrowen]

I see you’re in Tampa or close to it. There are plenty of resources in the Tampa area you can use to help you work on your conditioning for the mountains. You can use your local high school football stadium and hit the bleachers. Building stairwells and parking garages make productive training grounds, talk to the management and get permission before you starting wandering around with your backpack.

I prefer these methods over hitting a gym. You can be very creative with your training when using a parking garage because of the incline, decline and stairwells. I can hike all day long, ride my bike for 3 to 4 hours and not get bored. Put me on a stair machine or a stationary bike and I’m bored to death within 5 minutes.

[Starchild]

For me usually the 2nd day is the hardest, by day 3 I am getting into the mode. But hiking legs usually come at the 3-4 week mark, and I call this 'refugee mode' - the point when your body gives in to your trip and really ramps up everything including appetite. I figure the body doesn't know why you are doing this, but figures out you must be for a very good reason and goes along with it.

[Pedaling Fool]

I'm curious, how much running do you do? Since you live in Florida (as I do) I find that running is the best way to keep your body toughened up to the impact of hiking, which is a high-impact activity, especially thedownhills with a pack.


Also, to increase the impact I run on the bridges around here, I imagine you have some bridges in your area that would be good to run up and down on. And in addition to squats and deadlifts, which are outstanding exercises, how much do you work on polymetrics? Squats and deadliftsare great at building up the muscles and connective tissues, giving you a great foundation, but then to build on that you need to add impact to really develop the body.


However, with all that said, it's important to remember that the body is lazy and does not like change. Regardless of how much preparations you do you will never be in top hiking form once you return to the mountains, because it's just a different activity. That doesn't mean that hiking is tougher, it's just different and the body hates change. So those that say the only way to prepare for hiking is to hike are right in that respect, but for those of us that don't live near the mountains we know that's not a viable answer – hiking on the Florida Trail is not at all comparable to hiking on the AT; running is much more comparable,especially if you can find a bridge (hill) to run.


BTW, since you're a crossfitter, how are your pistol squats? This guy is awesome at them :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWvIu7s-vIM

[The Splitter]

Redrowen, I like the idea of the stair climbing. I'm a firefighter and I know groups of firefighters used to go down to the Bank of America building downtown and climb it, I should see if I can still get access to go down there.

Peddling Fool, my pistol Sauats are terrible, and by terrible I mean I can't do them. That guy is ridiculous. I have basically tailored my programming to suit my job and my hobbies and so it doesn't really include things like pistol squats of snatches and allows me to focus on lifts and movements more pertinent to what I do. I do a lot of weighted box step ups for example.

I've thought about taking up running again and I think I will as it sounds like that's what I really need to do to build up bone density and joint strength.



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[Pedaling Fool]

I've thought about taking up running again and I think I will as it sounds like that's what I really need to do to build up bone density and joint strength.



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Yes, it's the icing on the cake. And just like weight training you want to start out with endurance training, the moderate running and develop a base/foundation, then move to tempo runs, hills and speedwork. Believe it or not, if you stick with it, it become very addicting, but you gotta set goals and always pushing yourself, as with anything in life. Don't get locked into mindset of simply going faster over a given distance, then it become monotonous.

[bemental]

Military Athelete has a pretty solid Afghan Pre-Deployment Training Program, I'll post a link for anyone who may be interested:

"This program is designed to build your legs and lungs in preparation for deployment to the steep, rocky environment down range in Afghanistan.
It is also designed to use minimal equipment, and thus be utilized to train up personnel without access to full featured gyms, bunches of equipment, and/or personnel who have little lifting experience."


https://andrew-bement-ucre.squarespace.com/s/AFGHAN-PRE-DEPLOYMENT.pdf

It's been my go-to training program in the past for any military course I knew would be hiking heavy.

Modify at your own leisure and pace/experience.

[rocketsocks]

Military Athelete has a pretty solid Afghan Pre-Deployment Training Program, I'll post a link for anyone who may be interested:

"This program is designed to build your legs and lungs in preparation for deployment to the steep, rocky environment down range in Afghanistan.
It is also designed to use minimal equipment, and thus be utilized to train up personnel without access to full featured gyms, bunches of equipment, and/or personnel who have little lifting experience."


https://andrew-bement-ucre.squarespace.com/s/AFGHAN-PRE-DEPLOYMENT.pdf

It's been my go-to training program in the past for any military course I knew would be hiking heavy.

Modify at your own leisure and pace/experience.
I like the simplicity of these types of workouts, just what I was looking for, thanks for posting.

Sandbag Getup - The exercise starts standing, with the sandbag on one shoulder. Lay down, then “get up” any wayyou can. Come to complete standing, with both feet shoulder width apart. You’ll be doing these for time. Switchshoulders as needed.

[Tipi Walter]

My Girlfriend and I recently returned from a four day trip to the Smokies where we hiked two loops.


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You leave out alot of info. Were these dayhiking trips? The first day was obviously a dayhike back to a car camp? The second hike also seemed to be a dayhike. Dayhikes are totally different beasts than backpacking hikes.

Try pulling these loops with an 80 lb pack and then we'll talk.

I'm more interested in the psychological changes you went thru or will go thru when doing these loops with an 80 lb pack. Not with the physical changes, although they occur too.

On my last backpacking trip I compared two difficult trails (when carrying a big pack), the Hangover Lead South trail and the Upper Slickrock Nutbuster trail. From the Trail Journal---

CHENEY'S TESTICLES
While South Lead is a grind and a gain and a trudge, the Nutbuster provokes extreme emotion, frustration, cursing, fear and hate; and a sudden radical shift in ego and personality but also an opportunity to meet your God whoever that may be. Your worldview will snap and you could start at the bottom a male and end up at the top a female with new organs. Or you could start with a pet dog with a dogpack and end up with a snapping hyena. You will end up using your anus ring muscle to cut blowdowns and your front peener as a swing blade. You will start out as a Jeb Bush loving republican and end up carrying Dick Cheney's testicles in a sack. Or you could start out renting a cabin with Jeremy Renner and end up on Hangover Mt sipping fruit juice from a beverage straw from Kardashian's butt crack.


Mushroom spores will cloud around you and engulf your head as you fight your way out of a galax patch. A wild dog will run by carrying a human ribcage. A bonobo and a gorilla will mock charge you and then howl as you dump a brown heavy load in your shorts. Chimpanzee fingers will cup your scrotum and offer relief. In the distance you'll see topless girls greasing each other down with narwhal oil and then you'll stumble in a patch of sawbriar vines as you rush to reach them. They never get closer as your blood loss becomes significant and you pass out clutching a raccoon who hoards human wrist and hand bones. They call it the Nut Mirage. Okay little pinheads, let's saddle up and climb this mountain.

[rocketsocks]

You leave out alot of info. Were these dayhiking trips? The first day was obviously a dayhike back to a car camp? The second hike also seemed to be a dayhike. Dayhikes are totally different beasts than backpacking hikes.

Try pulling these loops with an 80 lb pack and then we'll talk.

I'm more interested in the psychological changes you went thru or will go thru when doing these loops with an 80 lb pack. Not with the physical changes, although they occur too.

On my last backpacking trip I compared two difficult trails (when carrying a big pack), the Hangover Lead South trail and the Upper Slickrock Nutbuster trail. From the Trail Journal---

CHENEY'S TESTICLES
While South Lead is a grind and a gain and a trudge, the Nutbuster provokes extreme emotion, frustration, cursing, fear and hate; and a sudden radical shift in ego and personality but also an opportunity to meet your God whoever that may be. Your worldview will snap and you could start at the bottom a male and end up at the top a female with new organs. Or you could start with a pet dog with a dogpack and end up with a snapping hyena. You will end up using your anus ring muscle to cut blowdowns and your front peener as a swing blade. You will start out as a Jeb Bush loving republican and end up carrying Dick Cheney's testicles in a sack. Or you could start out renting a cabin with Jeremy Renner and end up on Hangover Mt sipping fruit juice from a beverage straw from Kardashian's butt crack.


Mushroom spores will cloud around you and engulf your head as you fight your way out of a galax patch. A wild dog will run by carrying a human ribcage. A bonobo and a gorilla will mock charge you and then howl as you dump a brown heavy load in your shorts. Chimpanzee fingers will cup your scrotum and offer relief. In the distance you'll see topless girls greasing each other down with narwhal oil and then you'll stumble in a patch of sawbriar vines as you rush to reach them. They never get closer as your blood loss becomes significant and you pass out clutching a raccoon who hoards human wrist and hand bones. They call it the Nut Mirage. Okay little pinheads, let's saddle up and climb this mountain.

ah man, I love when you go hiking only to come back to pen organized thought to share...awesome!

hope this one makes your journal, so I can find it again sometime.

30709

[The Splitter]

You leave out alot of info. Were these dayhiking trips? The first day was obviously a dayhike back to a car camp? The second hike also seemed to be a dayhike. Dayhikes are totally different beasts than backpacking hikes.

Try pulling these loops with an 80 lb pack and then we'll talk.

I'm more interested in the psychological changes you went thru or will go thru when doing these loops with an 80 lb pack. Not with the physical changes, although they occur too.

The first trip was an overnight in the backcountry before returning to basecamp, second trip was two nights in the backcountry. Pack weight was 33 lbs on the longer of the two trips.

Why would I be hiking with an 80lb pack? I couldn't find 80 lbs worth of crap to put in a pack if I wanted to, at 33 lbs I'm carrying everything I could possibly need. Unless there is something I'm missing?

By psychological changes are you referring to embracing the suck for multiple hours? I'f that's the case there weren't many psychological changes occurring. Between my time in the military, existing experience as a backpacker and athlete, being a firefighter and running/operating a lawn care business in Florida, I'm more than accustomed to thriving in austere environments.



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[MuddyWaters]

Why would I be hiking with an 80lb pack? I couldn't find 80 lbs worth of crap to put in a pack if I wanted to, at 33 lbs I'm carrying everything I could possibly need. Unless there is something I'm missing?

By psychological changes are you referring to embracing the suck for multiple hours? I'f that's the case there weren't many psychological changes occurring. Between my time in the military, existing experience as a backpacker and athlete, being a firefighter and running/operating a lawn care business in Florida, I'm more than accustomed to thriving in austere environments.

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All Tipi is saying, is trail legs carrying weight, is different from not carrying weight.
He goes out carrying 3-4 weeks food at a time, and stays out in the worst winter blizzards and sub zero temps ma nature can conjur up.
In conditions where there is NO chance of getting help for up to a week or more.
Were all pretty much pu**ies by comparison.

But he doesnt hike 25 mpd either, which has its own effects on joints, tendons, etc, that is worse than 5mpd. Repetition is everything in repetive stress injuries. Its cumulative small trauma.

Most can learn a lot about surviving winter hiking from him.

[The Splitter]

All Tipi is saying, is trail legs carrying weight, is different from not carrying weight.
He goes out carrying 3-4 weeks food at a time, and stays out in the worst winter blizzards and sub zero temps ma nature can conjur up.
In conditions where there is NO chance of getting help for up to a week or more.
Were all pretty much pu**ies by comparison.

But he doesnt hike 25 mpd either, which has its own effects on joints, tendons, etc, that is worse than 5mpd. Repetition is everything in repetive stress injuries. Its cumulative small trauma.

Most can learn a lot about surviving winter hiking from him.

80 lbs makes sense then if your carrying three weeks of food on your back. I've never considered staying out more than five to seven days with no resupply.


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[jeffmeh]

All Tipi is saying, is trail legs carrying weight, is different from not carrying weight.
He goes out carrying 3-4 weeks food at a time, and stays out in the worst winter blizzards and sub zero temps ma nature can conjur up.
In conditions where there is NO chance of getting help for up to a week or more.
Were all pretty much pu**ies by comparison.

But he doesnt hike 25 mpd either, which has its own effects on joints, tendons, etc, that is worse than 5mpd. Repetition is everything in repetive stress injuries. Its cumulative small trauma.

Most can learn a lot about surviving winter hiking from him.

With all due respect to Walter whom I greatly admire, I will nit-pick and claim that his home turf in the south does not really qualify as "the worst winter blizzards and sub zero temps ma nature can conjur up." They can certainly be very nasty and present a formidable challenge, but they do not earn the superlative.

P.S. Walter, please do not sick your human bone hoarding raccoon on me. :)

[RockDoc]

Four days is not generally enough to get your hiking legs. Even 40 years ago my hiking friends agreed that it takes at least 5 days. FWIW

[Tipi Walter]

P.S. Walter, please do not sick your human bone hoarding raccoon on me. :)

My raccoon is only interested in hikers who have collapsed and are immobile and near death.

[J-Mich]

Great posts. Knees are what I worry about. In my case though, I think running is what damaged my knees so I don't know if that will help me to prepare? I climbed my first 14er last year and it wasn't until the downhill that my knees started to bother me. What about supplements? Do you all take anything to help your joints? Glucosamine?

[bemental]

+1 Glucosamine/Chondroitin; but you need to take it for a few weeks to let it build up in your system, and continue to take it to get results.

http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/glucosamine

[MuddyWaters]

Great posts. Knees are what I worry about. In my case though, I think running is what damaged my knees so I don't know if that will help me to prepare? I climbed my first 14er last year and it wasn't until the downhill that my knees started to bother me. What about supplements? Do you all take anything to help your joints? Glucosamine?


was it your knees, or the tendons around the knee?
It is hard to tell difference sometimes.
Many peoples "knee pain" is just tendonitis around the knee.

[rocketsocks]

was it your knees, or the tendons around the knee?
It is hard to tell difference sometimes.
Many peoples "knee pain" is just tendonitis around the knee.agree, I've been getting sinvisc one injection for about a year now, tow rounds...I think they have helped me, but they are for bone on bone, won't do a thing for tendons and ligaments.

[bemental]

Ditto, I've got arthritis from the service - I know what my problem is.

[J-Mich]

was it your knees, or the tendons around the knee?
It is hard to tell difference sometimes.
Many peoples "knee pain" is just tendonitis around the knee.

Mmmm, yeah I don't know for sure. I have thought about seeing a doctor or physical therapist before I try another 14er or long hike. Would like to know what it is so I can treat it accordingly. I don't feel a thing doing day to day life stuff but those long downhills are a killer.

[J-Mich]

+1 Glucosamine/Chondroitin; but you need to take it for a few weeks to let it build up in your system, and continue to take it to get results.

http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/glucosamine

I have a friend who is an occupational therapist and she is not convinced that glucosomine is effective but I am. I notice a big difference when I am taking it. If I run out and stop taking it for a few months, I feel it!

[Pedaling Fool]

Mmmm, yeah I don't know for sure. I have thought about seeing a doctor or physical therapist before I try another 14er or long hike. Would like to know what it is so I can treat it accordingly. I don't feel a thing doing day to day life stuff but those long downhills are a killer.
Just try some simple tests. Do a simple squat all the way down (you don't need weight, just do a squat). Can you go all the way down, like in this video, but doing it as a normal squat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWvIu7s-vIM

If you experience pain, you probably need to just workout, unless it's the kind of pain that is telling you something is definitely wrong. Just keep working at those squats and you should see improvement and the diminishing of pain, if not maybe you do want to see a specialists. And if you're really motivated you can attempt a single-leg squat (pistol squat) as in the video above. Again, just go down as far as you can and repeat as much as you can and eventually work up to the point where you can go all the way down on one leg...then you can start thinking about adding weight...

The downhills, unlike the uphills isolate the quads quite a bit, meaning the quads don't get much help from the hamstrings, like they do when going up hill -- that's why downhills are tougher, not just for you, it's a common problem in hiking and many people who first get into hiking are surprised that they actually like going uphill more than downhill, which is kind of counter-intuitive.

[Pedaling Fool]

Four days is not generally enough to get your hiking legs. Even 40 years ago my hiking friends agreed that it takes at least 5 days. FWIW
I thought of that when I first read the title, only because I remember when I felt I finally had my trail legs, but it took much longer than five days...more like 5-hundred miles. I guess it depends on how one defines "Trail Legs", so that's why I didn't approach this thread from that vantage point.

I just read this article and this is what I think of when I think of getting one's Legs, in this case it's running legs, but I can relate to the feeling in my experience while hiking the AT -- it was a really special feeling and I don't think I could get that same feeling in a short hike, it's something you gotta work at and go thru a little pain, then break through to the other side.

Very good article on running and dealing with Tourette syndrome http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/amaris-tyynismaa-runner/


Two key Excerpts on what it feels to have 'Legs':

"She’s even come to appreciate the brutality of the sport, how the soreness and burning lungs eventually fade until she is electric, floating, aware of the pain and simultaneously superior to it. Last month, she told me about a recent, revelatory practice session. “It was a really hard workout,” she said, “and at the end we had to do two 400-meter intervals. I was running and I was just so happy. I don’t know what it was, it was just easy. And while I ran, I was yelling, I’m in a state of grace! I don’t know, I just … you feel no pain, you’re just there and you’re thinking about everything, and it’s very hard to explain.”



"She was alone again. Any sign of effort had subsided from her face. She was just gone, in her own world. Coach Terino calls this expression “the happiness of crossing the earth under her own power and control.” She finished in 4:59.50."

[thecyclops]

Coming from a runner/hiker/cross training background,IMO,if you're hitting crossfit hard,it should be harder than anything you will ever be doing backpacking.
So even though you are from Florida,that crossfit trumps anything backpacking can dish out....Even when Im "being lazy"for a bit,or stop training so hard,the simple 3-5 mile runs alone make hiking feel like a breeze in comparison.

[egilbe]

I'm not a big cult-fit fan. With that said, hiking is an entirely different activity. Your cult-fit workouts are for an hour at hi-intensity and a lot of the exercises are done incorrectly and at the wrong pace. Hiking is a continuous, repetitive motion for several hours a day, for days on end. As was said earlier, its the cumulative damage and no rest days that cause the pain. Cross-fit, you are ripping and tearing muscles all at once. When you are hurt, you know it and eventually come to your senses and leave the cult.

[egilbe]

The downhills, unlike the uphills isolate the quads quite a bit, meaning the quads don't get much help from the hamstrings, like they do when going up hill -- that's why downhills are tougher, not just for you, it's a common problem in hiking and many people who first get into hiking are surprised that they actually like going uphill more than downhill, which is kind of counter-intuitive.

I like hiking downhill better when I'm going uphill and I like going uphill better when I'm going downhill. :D

As someone who just came back from a three-day hike on the Grafton Notch Loop Trail, my quads didn't hurt until the day after climbing down Old Speck. It was easier on my legs during the Winter when the trail was analog. Digital trails in the Spring or Summer are way tougher.

[Wyoming]

Coming from a runner/hiker/cross training background,IMO,if you're hitting crossfit hard,it should be harder than anything you will ever be doing backpacking.
So even though you are from Florida,that crossfit trumps anything backpacking can dish out....Even when Im "being lazy"for a bit,or stop training so hard,the simple 3-5 mile runs alone make hiking feel like a breeze in comparison.

While I won't criticize the cross-fit techniques like elgibe did above, it is certain that your statement is completely wrong. You are comparing grapes to watermelons as the two types of activities are only marginally related.

Long distance backpacking is an extreme endurance sport (readers that hate calling hiking a sport save it for some other thread pls) even when considered from the perspective of the typical AT hiker. If you wander into more advanced hikes like the CDT or to what is required by the FKT hikers (say Anish on the PCT) there is no other meaningful way to describe it.

Crossfit is not like the above at all. It is much more oriented towards the all encompasing develop every muscle you have so that you can win a fight for survival. In fact this is exactly the way the founder of Crossfit articulates it. The most similar activities would then be mixed martial arts training in the athletic venues or the kind of PT and training usually ascribed to those in special operations in the early parts of their training (not later however).

I have done all of the activities mentioned above at one time or another (the fighting and special ops training when I was much younger obviously) and can assure you that someone devoted to and fully trained in a specific extreme endurance activity will just flat smoke someone who is trained per a Crossfit type or similar purpose. If what you seem to think was true folks trained that way would hold all the records for long distance running, swimming, hiking, bicycle racing, rock and mountain climbing, triathalons, and so on - which they don't. At the same time those who do specialize in the extreme endurance activities are not exactly going to be likely to win any sporting events oriented around the types of activities a Crossfit person is trained for, nor are they your best choice to win a fight for survival (unless you count being able to get away which is also a form of survival).

Substantial hard muscle mass above the waist is not only not going to help you hike faster it is going to slow you down. And, if you spend much time doing extensive long distance hiking it will just melt away as it is not needed and your body will put its energy into building (and most importantly maintaining) the specific muscles needed for what it is doing. Another thing all that extra mass will do is result in lots more force being put on your lower extremities and it will raise the likelyhood of stress and wear injuries - just like the OP was starting to have occur. For these types of reasons I am going to stop my extensive swimming in about a month so I can melt about 10lbs of muscle out of my upper body to build myself up for my fall hike of the AZT. 10lbs of extra mass above the waist is not much different than 10 extra lbs in your pack so our OP may well have had the equivalent of a 50lb pack - counting his pack and heavy muscle mass - on for his short hike and it was more than he was ready for.

[Tipi Walter]

I'm not a big cult-fit fan. With that said, hiking is an entirely different activity. Your cult-fit workouts are for an hour at hi-intensity and a lot of the exercises are done incorrectly and at the wrong pace. Hiking is a continuous, repetitive motion for several hours a day, for days on end. As was said earlier, its the cumulative damage and no rest days that cause the pain. Cross-fit, you are ripping and tearing muscles all at once. When you are hurt, you know it and eventually come to your senses and leave the cult.

I didn't even know you could use the word "cross fit" without getting sued?? :) I think 60 Minutes or some show did a story about the owner of the alleged "cult" and he said he loves his lawyers as they are very actively challenging anyone using the word "crossfit". Almost sounds like Scientology.

[The Splitter]

I'm not a big cult-fit fan. With that said, hiking is an entirely different activity. Your cult-fit workouts are for an hour at hi-intensity and a lot of the exercises are done incorrectly and at the wrong pace. Hiking is a continuous, repetitive motion for several hours a day, for days on end. As was said earlier, its the cumulative damage and no rest days that cause the pain. Cross-fit, you are ripping and tearing muscles all at once. When you are hurt, you know it and eventually come to your senses and leave the cult.

Neither am I, my gym is an affiliate, however, we are more of a strength and conditioning and "old school Crossfit gym." Crossfit wasn't always full of douchebags having seizures with weights. But it seems like now a days if you just say "strength and conditioning" which is all Crossfit is, most people think meat head, not athlete. Crossfit (or cultfit, I agree) has changed over the years off the worse.


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[Tipi Walter]

YOUR STRENGTH COACH UNCLE FUNGUS ADVISES---
1. Load pack with 75 lbs.
2. Hike up the Nutbuster Slickrock Creek Trail #42.
3. Repeat for 30 years.

You will get Cross and have a Fit.