Thru-Hike Physical Preparation

[DapperD]

If all goes well I am planning to thru-hike next year. I have been dieting ,walking, and lifting weights for like 4 months now and the effort has paid off in over 10 pounds of lost weight. I was wondering if other's who are planning to thru-hike are also attempting to get in good shape for their hikes and if they are what type of workouts are they doing, and are their efforts paying off?

[HikerRanky]

There are several articles on WB that will help with your thru-hike planning and prep.... This one here deals with physical preparation....

Randy

[take-a-knee]

If you need to lose body fat check out the Zone Diet. If you incorporate its principals into your food plan for your hike it will help you avoid muscle loss.

[ChinMusic]

DapperD - I am not a thru-hiker so I have no direct knowledge on the rigors of a thru.

But, IMO the strength training is very important for someone in our age group. Strengthening the muscles of the legs will help you prevent injury. Stronger muscles help protect the joints and allows you to absorb the punishment of an uneven tread.

Cardio will make your first month more pleasurable but is not as important as the strength training IMO. I am NOT saying that coming in as a couch potato is a good idea.

[sammysmithdrnker]

i am doing three mile runs daily, lunges, and squats.

[ChinMusic]

i am doing three mile runs daily, lunges, and squats.

Nice. Lunges are a bitch. Vary the lunges to include walking lunges, front/backs, angled, etc. Hit those stabilizer muscles from different angles. If you have access to one of those half-ball platforms (can't think of the actual name), where you stand on this unstable platform, and have to maintain balance while doing curls/etc., it will strengthen the "little" muscles that support your ankles/knees/hips and improve balance.

Stretch, especially those calves to help prevent plantar fasciitis.

[Tennessee Viking]

I am not planning to thru for a long while. But one of the easiest things to do is to just go out and walk with your pack. Just add some bricks, water,... to get used to the weight.

[take-a-knee]

i am doing three mile runs daily, lunges, and squats.

I'd reccomend you stop running the same distance everyday, that is a good way to get an overuse injury. Start doing some intervals, IE 4 x 400m, or 3 x 800m with 2-3 min. rest between intervals. I used to have ailments from running a lot, no more. If you can find a Concept II rower, that thing will tax you like nothing else. If you can find a gym that has a Stairmaster Step Mill PT 7000, do that two days/week. If you can hold level 8-9 for 20min, you're getting there.

Stairmaster:
http://www.monsterfitnessdirect.com/stpt70st.html

[Pedaling Fool]

...

Stairmaster:
http://www.monsterfitnessdirect.com/stpt70st.html

The gym I go to on base has one of those; it's an outstanding machine. Like TAK says, don't do just running all the time, mix it up, certain parts of the body gets beaten up and other parts get soft when you just do a few thing(s). Chinmusic also had some good recommendations.

[Datto]

Here's what worked for me when preparing for my AT thru-hike:

1) I backpacked every name brand trail in Indiana, Ohio and lower Michigan, three out of every four weekends (and sometimes during vacation) during the spring/summer/fall prior to the year where I thru-hiked the AT (the difficulty of the 50 mile long Knobstone Trail in southern Indiana certainly was a wake-up call for me and made the AT in Georgia not seem so bad a few months later during my thru-hike). This regularly scheduled backpacking, by far, led to me being about as prepared as I was going to be for the riggors of the AT because I'd deliberately hiked rain or shine and I had lots of rain during my prep hikes. Plus, all that backpacking got my knees in relatively good shape prior to my AT thru-hike and it also clued me in to what it's like to be alone for extended period of time. During the wintertime just prior to my thru-hike I backpacked about one weekend per month in the snow, camping out most times for at least one night in the snow.

2) I also did treadmill work while wearing my backpack (with weight inside) during the winter months, doing the treadmill at 3.0+ miles per hour at 10% slope for at least 30 minutes per day, working my way up to 60 minutes per day.

I do think it's quite important to wear your loaded backpack during whatever training you choose to do prior to your AT thru-hike. I'd just happened to have a great hiking trail about a 30 minute drive from work and I'd backpacked that nearby trail probably a hundred times before my thru-hike.

You'll definitely want to choose to backpack for at least one week-long period prior to your thru-hike. That'll give you a much better idea about what it's like to be out in the woods for an extended period of time. I'd chosen to hike for a week on the AT north from Damascus, Virginia prior to my thru-hike and had also hiked the much easier Ocala Trail in Florida for a week or so during the winter. Those were both very valuable experiences in preparing me for my AT thru-hike.

Datto

[DapperD]

Here's what worked for me when preparing for my AT thru-hike:

1) I backpacked every name brand trail in Indiana, Ohio and lower Michigan, three out of every four weekends (and sometimes during vacation) during the spring/summer/fall prior to the year where I thru-hiked the AT (the difficulty of the 50 mile long Knobstone Trail in southern Indiana certainly was a wake-up call for me and made the AT in Georgia not seem so bad a few months later during my thru-hike). This regularly scheduled backpacking, by far, led to me being about as prepared as I was going to be for the riggors of the AT because I'd deliberately hiked rain or shine and I had lots of rain during my prep hikes. Plus, all that backpacking got my knees in relatively good shape prior to my AT thru-hike and it also clued me in to what it's like to be alone for extended period of time. During the wintertime just prior to my thru-hike I backpacked about one weekend per month in the snow, camping out most times for at least one night in the snow.

2) I also did treadmill work while wearing my backpack (with weight inside) during the winter months, doing the treadmill at 3.0+ miles per hour at 10% slope for at least 30 minutes per day, working my way up to 60 minutes per day.

I do think it's quite important to wear your loaded backpack during whatever training you choose to do prior to your AT thru-hike. I'd just happened to have a great hiking trail about a 30 minute drive from work and I'd backpacked that nearby trail probably a hundred times before my thru-hike.

You'll definitely want to choose to backpack for at least one week-long period prior to your thru-hike. That'll give you a much better idea about what it's like to be out in the woods for an extended period of time. I'd chosen to hike for a week on the AT north from Damascus, Virginia prior to my thru-hike and had also hiked the much easier Ocala Trail in Florida for a week or so during the winter. Those were both very valuable experiences in preparing me for my AT thru-hike.

Datto

Thanks for the information Datto! This is great advice! I really do need to get out there beforehand, I don't think anything I could do would prepare me more for the challenges that I will experience.

[trouthunter]

Aside from weight training and stretching, I would second what Datto said about hiking all you can (with loaded pack), and I also used workout equipment with a full pack although I used an elliptical trainer instead of a treadmill. It is also good to vary the speed / difficulty of your workout if you use a machine to better prepare your body for real hiking IMO.

[grumpypickle]

I did and extensive amount of physical prep prior to my thru this year, working out 6 days a week for 4 months. I lost 10 lbs and put on a good deal of muscle. A few things that worked and did not work for me:

* I used the stairclimber mentioned previously extensively. It is a great cardio workout and gets you accustomed to sustained climbs. The thing I would do differently is spend time walking *down* the stairs. The biggest physical obstacle I faced was knee pain early on. Until you develop the muscles around you patella and knee joint, you could be subject to this as well.

* I thought having a stronger upper body would be beneficial for carrying my pack. Not so much. The extra muscle was just weight early on and I lost most of the muscle mass by Harpers anyway. You are better off dropping the 10 lbs.

* Someone mentioned lunges and such. Great idea, particularly 'step ups'. You can do them at home. Put your pack on and step up onto a 2 ft high bench. Repeat until tired and sore!

* The one thing I did do a great deal of that no one has mentioned is strengthening your core. Crunches, leg lifts etc. will help tremendously with your endurance.

have a great hike

[Egads]

Like Datto said, just go hiking. Do some cardio workouts between hikes

[trouthunter]

* Someone mentioned lunges and such. Great idea, particularly 'step ups'. You can do them at home. Put your pack on and step up onto a 2 ft high bench. Repeat until tired and sore!

* The one thing I did do a great deal of that no one has mentioned is strengthening your core. Crunches, leg lifts etc. will help tremendously with your endurance.

have a great hike

Good advise, especially the step ups in my case.
I have not done a complete thru of the AT, I have done several lesser thru's and have encountered many areas with 2 -3 foot step ups almost all the way to the summit, and then again on the descent, of course.
I found this especially true in the Blue Wall area around Rosman NC.
Some areas there you need a rope, HaHa

[T-Dubs]

I'd reccomend you stop running the same distance everyday, that is a good way to get an overuse injury.

Not a thru here, but this sounds like great advise to me. I'd think exercises that don't involve a lot of foot pounding would be the key. Biking, rowing, weights...those things that build fitness and leg strength without the wear and tear on your legs/lower joints.

That would be my thru-hike approach. If I had one. Which I don't.

TWS

[Blissful]

Walk and hike if you can with your backpack. But your best prep will just to get out there on your thru and hike day in and day out. My son went out with no prep whatsoever and finished. He was also overweight (lost 50 lbs on the hike). I did do prep but I also was overweight. It's more mental than physical.

[ChinMusic]

Walk and hike if you can with your backpack. But your best prep will just to get out there on your thru and hike day in and day out. My son went out with no prep whatsoever and finished. He was also overweight (lost 50 lbs on the hike). I did do prep but I also was overweight. It's more mental than physical.

This supports my take on it to a tee.

Cardio will make the first month more enjoyable but if you take it slow the trail itself will be your cardio.

The strength training is something that actually helps prevent injuries that could prematurely end you hike. IMO the strength training is more important.

[take-a-knee]

This supports my take on it to a tee.

Cardio will make the first month more enjoyable but if you take it slow the trail itself will be your cardio.

The strength training is something that actually helps prevent injuries that could prematurely end you hike. IMO the strength training is more important.

I agree, everyone should strength train. Why would a person choose to be weak?

[Marta]

From David Horton's remarks at The Gathering, during a seminar on speed hiking: You should prepare yourself physically for an AT hike (regular-speed as well as high-speed) by doing similar exercise for a duration as similar to the goal as you can make it. In other words, two miles of walking, four times a week, is not sufficient to prepare you to hike fifteen miles a day, six days a week. He suggested daily walking as strenuous as you can find, usually in the morning (because that's the easiest time of day for a busy person to secure inviolate daily personal time), accompanied by actual hiking on the weekend. He specifically said that treadmills and sidewalk and street walking are not great preparation for trail hiking or running.

He did NOT say you'll never make it unless you do this, but that doing this ahead of time increases your ability to do what you need to do when the time comes.

He also remarked (in a discussion of speed) that reducing pack weight and body weight are essential. He said the amount you can expect to slow down for every extra pound you carry is two seconds per mile per pound.