Weight Training DURING your thru-hike

[robertblake60]

So I'm a pretty well built guy and I'm really not looking forward to losing a lot of upper body strength during my thru hike. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to keep this from happening.

Now, I know what exercises to use to build/maintain upper body strength. My question is 'will I be able to?'. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel at the end of a day. Should I do it in the morning before I start my hike. Will I be able to consume enough calories/protein to build/keep muscle?

What about yoga or core work?

Does anyone have any experience with this on their thru? What was your plan? How did you feel?


***I will likely only be stretching my lower body, I doubt there is a need to do squats or lunges as those muscles will be worked regularly.



Thanks!

[Lone Wolf]

i used to do rock curls as i walked, pushups in the AM and at road crossings and such. pull ups at shelters

[Malto]

I worried about the same thing prior to my thru and guess what, I lost significant upper body muscle mass. I'm not sure there is much you will be able to do about it. How much time do you currently spend a week maintaining that muscle mass? Can you or will you spend that time on the trail? Here's the good news though. You will get back and be absolutely lean and mean. I found it quite easy to get back from trail shape to good overall fitness upon my return. The human body is wonderfully efficient.

[Malto]

One more thing re Yoga. Send Swami a note, he is big into this. He just hiked Over 14k miles over the last 18 months. He will definitely have some perspective on this. http://www.thehikinglife.com/journal/2012/12/

[colorado_rob]

This is a serious concern of mine as well, I do not want to lose all my upper body muscle mass, so I will be following this thread for any suggestions. My simple minded "plan" is to do multiple set of both crunches and push-ups every day, plus try to do pull-ups whenever possible (useable tree branches, shelter rafters, wherever the opportunity lies). Not the best regimen, but better than nothing.

[Miner]

I'll be honest, I've never met anyone who was built that didn't loose some of that muscle on a thru-hike.

The biggest thing working against you is your bodies high demand for calories and need for protein that will rob your upper body of muscle mass. You can do something about the protein as many have added protein shakes to their diet on the trail. But you'll have to carry alot more food weight then the rest of the hikers around you to deal with the lack of enough calories. Most hikers loose weight during a section and then attempt to gain it back in the next town. You can't do that since some of that weight loss would be muscle which can't be gained back overnight.

Using hiking poles aggressively can help some in keeping some upper body strength if you are always using them to push you up hill and slow you downhill or propell you along flat sections. Most users are a bit more passive in their use.

[jeffmeh]

In general:

1) Unless you dedicate time and calories to maintaining upper body muscle mass, you will lose it.
2) Unless you dedicate time and calories to doing explosive exercises, you will lose capabilities requiring fast twitch muscle firing, such as quickness and vertical leap.
3) What will you will gain is extremely specialized adaptation to long distance hiking.

My son did supplement with BCAAs and whey protein throughout his thru last season, but he quickly determined that he did not have the time and energy required to maintain muscle mass and explosiveness, and went from close to 200 lbs. to 160 lbs. Now he's playing rugby, and has found that getting it back is hard work.

[James GAME2009]

There was a guy who hiked with rebar for a trekking pole. I'm not sure how practical/effective this was, but it is an interesting idea at least.

[Snowleopard]

"Will I be able to consume enough calories/protein to build/keep muscle?"
I think you can carry sufficient protein powder and powdered milk to maintain protein. It's a good idea for everyone to pay attention to eating healthy diet on the trail. Since you're likely stronger than most, you should be able to carry what you need. You'll probably have to do some mail drops/bounce box/mail order for both protein powder and powdered milk. The protein powder I use weighs 4.5 oz (126 grams) for 100 grams of protein; add a couple ounces of powdered milk to make it more palatable. Keeping up the calories might be a little harder.

[Malto]

Your body will burn the protein as energy, which it does less efficiently than say carbs. I haven't thought of a nutritional way to stop it. There is likely an exercise way but I'm not sure that is very realistic on a thru, other than some minor benefit from trekking poles that will spread the daily exercise out throughout a larger part of the body.

[ChinMusic]

mark............

[topshelf]

I try to alternate days doing pushups and pullups. those 2 exercises should hit most of your upper body including core to maintain their mass and strength

but losing upper body muscle mass will happen, part of the game

[The Solemates]

So I'm a pretty well built guy and I'm really not looking forward to losing a lot of upper body strength during my thru hike. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to keep this from happening.

Now, I know what exercises to use to build/maintain upper body strength. My question is 'will I be able to?'. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel at the end of a day. Should I do it in the morning before I start my hike. Will I be able to consume enough calories/protein to build/keep muscle?

What about yoga or core work?

Does anyone have any experience with this on their thru? What was your plan? How did you feel?


***I will likely only be stretching my lower body, I doubt there is a need to do squats or lunges as those muscles will be worked regularly.



Thanks!

All these people saying to do stuff at the end of a trail day is stupid. You will not want to. After hiking all until dark all you want to do is cook supper and then go to bed. You are going to lose everything you worked for and more, no matter how much you do "on trail".

I don't know how serious a bodybuilder you are, so my comments are only based on my experience...and I was pretty insane.

I was an amateur bodybuilder before I hiked the trail nobo. I was 225 lb with 8% body fat, worked out 6 days a week and ate 6 meals a day (5 during the day and one at 2am). I had never been below 200 lb since like 7th grade (literally - I weighed 200 in 8th grade). After hiking for 4 months, I weighed 187 lb at the start of Maine - I had lost 38 lb - but I wasnt eating right. When I finished at Katahdin I was back up to 195 lb.

You are going to lose serious weight.

However, the return to bodybuilding, for me, was easy. It took me years to get to the point I was at pre-hike. 6 months after I finished the AT, I was actually bigger and better than before. It only took me 6 months. I only took 2 weeks off - I started lifting 2 weeks after I got off the trail.

If you are really a bodybuilder, you will lose serious weight and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are someone who just goes to the gym and doesnt really have the bodybuilder lifestyle, your experience may not be as drastic as mine was.

[RCBear]

As solemates mentioned, there would be an inverse relationship of current muscle mass to amount lost over that time period. The good news as you see from his post is that for those that lift regularly and intensely, the return is pretty quick if you get back at it as before. obviously it isn't like starting over. muscle memory is an incredible thing. I took 7 years off between 35 and 42. i lifted hard up to age 35. about 8 mos after returning, i had returned pretty close to when i left. not the same of course because of sheer age and i have had to change my routine for accommodating nagging injuries that compounded over time, but nonetheless, the return was pretty quick all in all.

[robertblake60]

All these people saying to do stuff at the end of a trail day is stupid. You will not want to. After hiking all until dark all you want to do is cook supper and then go to bed. You are going to lose everything you worked for and more, no matter how much you do "on trail".

I don't know how serious a bodybuilder you are, so my comments are only based on my experience...and I was pretty insane.

I was an amateur bodybuilder before I hiked the trail nobo. I was 225 lb with 8% body fat, worked out 6 days a week and ate 6 meals a day (5 during the day and one at 2am). I had never been below 200 lb since like 7th grade (literally - I weighed 200 in 8th grade). After hiking for 4 months, I weighed 187 lb at the start of Maine - I had lost 38 lb - but I wasnt eating right. When I finished at Katahdin I was back up to 195 lb.

You are going to lose serious weight.

However, the return to bodybuilding, for me, was easy. It took me years to get to the point I was at pre-hike. 6 months after I finished the AT, I was actually bigger and better than before. It only took me 6 months. I only took 2 weeks off - I started lifting 2 weeks after I got off the trail.

If you are really a bodybuilder, you will lose serious weight and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are someone who just goes to the gym and doesnt really have the bodybuilder lifestyle, your experience may not be as drastic as mine was.


I'm not a dedicated as you; sitting at 6'0", 210lbs, 14% bodyfat. In the gym lifting 4 days/week, cross training on 4 days with a full day off on Sunday. I want to lose some weight and get down towards that 8% mark, guess I need to be prepared to lose all (most?) my muscle too. But I'm glad to hear it only took you 6 months to get it back.

I'll try to maintain some of it by doing exercises and eating some protein powder, but thanks for the realistic and informed opinions.

[robertblake60]

One more thing re Yoga. Send Swami a note, he is big into this. He just hiked Over 14k miles over the last 18 months. He will definitely have some perspective on this. http://www.thehikinglife.com/journal/2012/12/

Thank you, I will!

[robertblake60]

This is a serious concern of mine as well, I do not want to lose all my upper body muscle mass, so I will be following this thread for any suggestions. My simple minded "plan" is to do multiple set of both crunches and push-ups every day, plus try to do pull-ups whenever possible (useable tree branches, shelter rafters, wherever the opportunity lies). Not the best regimen, but better than nothing.

Haha...add in

1 arm front and lateral raises with my pack
Rock curls (as suggested above)
Reverse Pushups

and any other crazy thing I can think of.

[robertblake60]

I think based on this, I'm going to stop lifting weights as often and focus more and more on spending that time hiking. If I'm going to lose it anyway, I might as well work on getting my legs ready.

2-3 hours a day, 6 days per week should be a good start.

[MuddyWaters]

Nope, you will lose it.
Doesnt really matter what you eat, you will be doing too much cardio work every day, all day.

Ever smell the ammonia in sweat? Thats nitrogen leaving your body.
When you are trying to build/maintain muscle you avoid long cardio work to prevent this, it works against you.

[Pedaling Fool]

If you got the energy to do pull-ups and stuff during your thru-hike, then more power to you; I did a little, but not much at all. Don't worry about it, thanks to muscle memory it comes back really fast after a thru; I had no problems, in fact I was more energized after my thru and I was about 10-years older then you during my hike.

[-Animal]

So I'm a pretty well built guy and I'm really not looking forward to losing a lot of upper body strength during my thru hike. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to keep this from happening.

You can build upper body strength on the trail... I did it by carrying a heavy bucket the whole way. But you will lose muscle size... you will quickly gain back the size after your hike. But I doubt anyone would want to do what I did.

[FarmerChef]

Agree with many others here who say that muscle loss is inevitable. Catabolism is almost entirely unavoidable on the hike as your nutritional needs demand more of your body than you can provide it. This will reduce your upper body bulk and enhance your lower body. Perhaps the little secret in all of this is that your core will not lose as much as your arms/chest/shoulders. This is because with all that weight perched high up on your back, you require your core to keep your body stable from step to step. It's not the same as doing crunches, scoops or planks but it's constant and "on' all day long.

Protein powder is going to be your friend. There simply is no lighter source that I'm aware of. I would take it on my hikes but after my typical 9-10 day hikes my muscle loss is negligible having first consumed available body fat (going from around 10% down to 6% on average). After a week, I'm right back where I was pre hike in my lifting routine. Hope that helps.

[leaftye]

Why is the muscle lost?

If it's being broken down for energy, there's probably not much you can do. It's easy to say "eat more", but everyone tries that, and most people cannot eat enough.

If it wastes away due to lack of use, creatine might help. You probably already know that creatine has been found to minimize muscle wasting in injured patients that cannot use their muscles for weeks or months. It should work for hiking too.

[cliffordbarnabus]

I did mini yoga sessions including pushups and pull ups ( if i could find a good branch or whatnot) each evening. took about 30 mins. great way to conclude a day. I didn't lose much mass, but didn't have much to lose

[Mike2012]

Friendo,
Devote yourself to your thru hike bar none. I too was going to do pushups and ppull ups and squat thrusts every night but wisdom taught me to relax. Lost 40 or so pounds. Working out almost daily since finishing. Lost lots of body fat. Get jacked after your hike. It won't take but a month or few. I'm looking cut, defined and the best ever. At the very least don't overtrain. Give yourself the extra energy to actually complete the task. Focus.