Hiking needs a lot of work. To succeed, you must keep adequate energy levels all over the trip, particularly near the end.

It’s no easy job considering this comes after multiple days of hiking and in hypoxic conditions. Here are eleven tips on how to enhance your hiking fitness.

How To Build Up Your Hiking Fitness?

Tips to build up Hiking Fitness

1. Train Right

We all know that training can improve steadiness, but what is the correct way to make the most progress?

Most active individuals look for short workouts to pack into their busy schedules. That means quick training sessions at the gym, on the track, or the treadmill. However, study shows that an excellent way to prepare for fitness is to do low-intensity workout for longer time frames.

Regarding hiking fitness, we suggest doing day hikes where you’re out for some hours. Adapt being on your feet. Walk at a relaxed speed that you can maintain for a long time. 

Avoid performing energetic spurts after the breaks. Your objective should always be active for a specific time or distance, not pace.

2. Lose Weight

Your body weight directly influences energy expenditure. Heavier individuals need more energy to move than those with lower-weight. Therefore, the heavier individual must make more effort to hike to the same place.

Shedding those extra pounds will enhance your endurance if you have excess body fat. Keeping a healthy body weight has a performance benefit due to the greater speed, lower energy cost, and better agility.

3. You should use a foam roller…

…or a ball or a massage stick to put pressure on tight areas within your muscles. Soft pressure can usually free tension and fix the muscle to its optimal length, which means faster healing times and decreased possibility of injuries on the track. 

Hamstrings, calves, and quadriceps are typical muscles that react well to foam rolling. If you find a tight area as you are rolling, keep the position for 45 to 90 seconds. During rest intervals on the track, use a whole, 1-liter water bottle instead of the foam roller.

4. You must stretch after every hike.

Stretching after a trek reduces the odds of an injury, speeds recovery, and can help control muscle imbalances. Concentrate on your hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, and hip flexors when you get out of your car at the track head. 

Hold the stretch for around 30 seconds to get the maximum advantage. Add yoga once a week for an entire-body stretch.

5. Set a Comfortable Pace

When persistence is the aim, the key is to develop a sustainable speed. When one is feeling energetic, fresh, and excited, it’s easy to begin too soon. Instead, try the opposite. Begin gradually to warm up and then settle into your typical speed. 

Most individuals hike around 2 to 3 miles/hour. Target to finish the day at the same speed.

Beginning and halting often is not an effective way to trek, nor is it the most suitable way to build fitness. When you stop, your heart rate drops. Upon restarting, the heart rate rises again. By hiking sustainably, you maintain your heart pace in an aerobic zone.

Your aerobic point is the intensity range at which the body changes from largely depending on fat for fuel to largely depending on carbs. 

Long aerobic training below your aerobic threshold creates muscular adaptations that enhance oxygen transport to the muscles, enhance lactate removal rate, decrease lactate formation rate, and improve energy production and utilization. 

These adaptations happen gradually over time. The more time you give on the tracks, the easier it’ll be for you to set and be mindful of your perfect, sustainable hiking speed.

6. But be mindful of how you warm up beforehand

Unlike the fixed stretches explained above, dynamic stretches are most suitable for training the body for activity. Execute 10 reps of lunges, leg swings, and double heel lifts just before your trek. These stretches pull muscles on the track and decrease the danger of ankle sprains.

7. Enhancing your balance will help prevent injuries

Balance is among the essential components of a health program. Training by making ongoing instability at home decreases the chance of ankle rolls and knee injury on the track. Try single-leg balance reach or balancing on one leg (close your eyes for more difficulty).

8. Hydrate Accordingly

We all understand that water is necessary for basic human survival.

It forms up 70 percent of our body mass and is needed by our body’s metabolic functions. 

By drinking water, the body simply acts greater. The heart pumps suitably and muscles work better. Both of these are essential to your fitness. With adequate water, your body can operate well and recover from training much more adequately than if you’re dehydrated.

Secondly, remember about electrolytes. When you sweat, you lose not only water but also minerals and salt. It would be best if you also replenish these. That’s why we suggest using electrolytes on your hike to make sure that your electrolyte levels stay balanced.

9. Eat the Right Foods

When you walk, you burn calories. You are required to recharge with food. But which eats are ideal?

First, let’s be precise. The body uses fats, carbs, and proteins when you work out. So nothing is wasted, including sugary beverages, high-fat snacks, and “junk foods”. 

However, the body can produce energy from carbs more quickly than from protein or fat. Therefore, eating a high-carb diet is most efficient while hiking. 

You need to ensure you have sufficient food for the time of your trek. Elevation can make you feel bloated and reduce your hunger. But do your utmost to keep consuming calories, and don’t miss meals.

10. Focus on the Positives

While hiking, you’re going to be tested. Mounting a high-altitude summit is a mental and physical challenge. Because when you begin to feel exhausted, negative thoughts start entering your brain. 

These discouragements and doubts are natural, but if you allow them to get over, you may begin to lag behind, step slower, and be drawn to quit. Instead, think positively. Concentrate on all of the things going correctly. 

These can include: you are well hydrated, you’re acclimatized to the altitude, you don’t feel sick, you have eaten well, you’re not very sore, and you slept several hours. 

You can be thankful for the mild climate, the training you put in, the friendly gear, the support from the guides or friends, how far you’ve come, and the overall experience. Use everything and anything as inspiration to continue.

11. Use the Rest Step

Hikers have a method of mounting steep grades called the rest step. The rest step lets you rest for some time between every step. This is achieved by carrying gradual steps and pausing when your back leg is stacked.

Here’s how to achieve the rest step. When you step upward and forward, lock the back leg’s knee. Put all your weight on the back leg for a moment before continuing. The back leg, basically, becomes a temporary trekking pole or walking stick. 

By performing the rest step, you preserve energy and, therefore, improve your endurance.

Training Exercises for Hiking

Remember the following as you exercise:

• Make the workouts suit your body, not the other way around.
• If something hurts, change the workout or cut it; and get additional rest days if you feel the need.
• Move at your own speed, moving gradually at first. Raise the reps or add more weight or resistance as your exercise progresses.

Warm-up: Get warmed up by performing a quick 5 to 10-minute walk. Then follow the guidelines:

• Inhale during beginning exertion, then exhale as you start returning to the initial position; during more rapid workouts, simply ensure you breathe regularly.

• Relax for 30 to 45-seconds after every exercise (unless otherwise noted).

• Do each of the workouts below once in line, then relax for 2-minutes and repeat another set of the workouts (if you’ve time to fit in the 3rd set of workouts, that’s even more relevant).

Must Workouts for Hiking

• Jump Squats
• Hip Roll Exercise
• Step Up Exercise
• Heel Down Exercise
• Squat Curl Overhead Press Exercise
• Bridge with Hamstring Curl Exercise
• Side Plank with Leg Raise Exercise
• Hip Clock Exercise

FAQ :

How to build stamina for hiking?

Here’s some ways to build stamina:

1. Run/Walk.
2. Try Hill Intervals.
3. Start Weight Training.
4. Work on Your Breathing Technique.
5. Improve Your Exercise Frequency.
6. Build Mental Toughness.

Can you get in shape only by hiking?

First, an average 1-hour hike can burn about 300-400 calories while strengthening your lower body and core. And as the height goes up, so do the advantages of hiking. 

What happens if you hike every day?

Going up and down hills makes the heart pumping and is a fantastic cardio exercise. Like most cardio workouts, hiking helps decrease your chance of stroke, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and even some cancers. Hiking is a weight-bearing activity that helps prevent osteoporosis and creates muscle mass.

Why do I get so tired while hiking?

The main reason hiking is so exhausting is that most individuals rarely go hiking and are not in shape to hike. Hiking in the summits can also be tiring due to the thinner air at more elevated heights. By failing to replenish lost energy, walkers can also drain faster if they have low blood sugar.