Strength Training to Protect Hikers' Knees and Hips

You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thanks for joining the movement, movement. I'm Sebastian Gonzales, show curator and head clinician at Performance Play Sports Care in Southern California. This show's for active people, those who refuse to let pain and injury get in the way of their life and how they want to live it. Trails and trips, fields and courts, whatever moves you. Each episode features rotating host, expert guest, and real clinical conversations that help you move better and trust your body again. Here we go. We have Rowan Smith. Hey, Rowan. Hey, thank you for having me on.

Hey. From the Training for Trekking podcast, I asked Rowan to be on. We were going, Rowan, I think I told you in the email, we're going to do a series of podcasts to highlight the benefit of doing some resistance training or strength training and what that means to, we see a lot of people in our clinic who are like 40 years old and generally physically active. But then there's a lot of things they kind of say, I don't know, I'm getting kind of old for this and, you know, that kind of stuff. And we've told them over the years of how they could benefit from something like consistent resistance training.

And I feel like the thing that is most common in our clinic for dropout is that people feel like they're really focusing on pain versus actually like physical competency and resiliency and stuff always comes back, unfortunately, a little faster. So your podcast has been great and speaking to it about hikers and backpackers. So I thought I would have you on to speak to those people. Sound good? Yeah, absolutely. This is my bread and butter. So I'm excited to chat about it. Yeah. So tell everyone about yourself and your history with being on the trail and why you're qualified to talk about this.

Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Rowan Smith. I'm the founder of Summit Strength, which is an online personal training service specifically for hikers and mountaineers. Now, I've been a hiker pretty much my entire life. I've been a coach in one way, shape or form for about 20 years or so. And I've been specifically working with hikers since 2017. So almost a decade now. So we're getting on. Over that time, worked with over 500 hikers in every type of situation, you know, imaginable, preparing for big trips, overcoming extra pains or, you know, just being wanting to be strong and comfortable in their regular adventures.

Now, talking about specific topic today with pain and everything, one thing I realized pretty early on when I first started working with hikers is, you know, a lot of people are preparing for a big trip. That is a big aspect and a lot of people are worried about that. But the second biggest concern in the hiking community just seemed to be aches and pains. Knee pain, super, super common. Foot pain, super, super common. Hip, back, shin pain. All of these things just coming up again and again and again and again. Both in a case of overuse, which is obviously not much fun. But also, you know, when you're in the middle of nowhere and you sprain your ankle or something like that, it's a little bit scary.

So, yeah, early on in the hiking aspect, had a lot of people coming to see us. And with my background from many, many years of coaching, I was like, well, you know what? There's some certain things I know work in a general population, in a general sense. Let's apply it to the hiking world. And, yeah, it's been pretty good. It's made a big difference to a lot of our clients over the years. Our systems have developed a lot over the last nine years since I've been doing this. And it's something that we're not to sound arrogant, but we're very good at helping hikers with their pain these days. So, yeah.

Oh, good. Yeah. I was wondering, what stirs somebody to get a hiking coach? Like, I feel like for a running coach, it's because they want to improve on their running. But when people look for a hiking coach, what is their first – what are they coming for specifically? Yeah. There's typically three categories people fall into. And all of these categories start by people trying to do their own thing, whether it's just hiking, whether it's training, whatever it may be, and they run into trouble. Either pain creeps up or they have a hike that just goes terribly and they don't have a good time. They're like, look, I need help.

And it either comes from someone who's leading up to a big challenging adventure. So, that may be a massive bucket list goal. That might be a big mountain. That might be, for them, just their first long day hike or their first overnight hike. But either way, they're like, oh, I'm a little bit nervous about this being realistic. The other situation is the aches and pains where they're going out, whether it's a big trip or just their regular hiking. And they're just like, I'm always getting knee pain. It's just struggling. I'm just not enjoying myself anymore. And that kind of stirs action. Or people who – similar situation, but they may not have a big trip.

But they're like, look, every time I get out on the trail, I'm the last in the group. Or every time I get out on the trail, I'm huffing and puffing up the hills. And it's hiking something that I don't just want to do now, but I'm looking at the next 10, 15, 20 years. This is something I want to do until I can probably not walk anymore. This is something I want to fix and make sure I'm enjoying myself. So they tend to be the three big categories, I guess, people fall into. But usually it's someone that's just had a bad experience and they're like, look, I need a bit of extra help. Yeah. Funny, over the years, I've spent some time hiking.

I'm an Eagle Scout. And don't they have Boy Scout down in Australia? Yeah. The guys I used to backpack with, they don't anymore. And we went on a hike last year. They were struggling a lot. And I think it was a wake-up call to them, at least for not being physically able to do it. They did it. You know, they didn't complain after the fact, but they complained a lot during. So I don't think it was enjoyable to them. Yeah, well, that's when I get the phone call afterwards. They're like, oh, I want to turn that around. Yeah. So when you bring up resistance training or strength training in people, how do you discuss it?

I know that there's probably a lot of blended definitions out there. And strength training or resistance training means different things to different people. What do you talk about when you first talk about it? Yeah, as you said, it definitely does get a like. There's a lot of people online talk about these things which are strengthening, but maybe not strength training. So there's a little bit muddy. Typically, the way I phrase it and the way I sort of bring it up is something that we can be relatively structured with. We can look at particular muscles and say, we're going to load that up. And we're going to load it up in a way that's significant.

So not that you can just do something hundreds and hundreds of times or dozens and dozens of times and you're like, now I'm tired. But something that, you know, after 40, 60 seconds or so, you're pretty tired. You need a rest. So loading up significant resistance on an area doesn't have to be full-blown powerlifting or bodybuilding, which a lot of people are a bit hesitant about in the hiking community, but just something that's going to give a decent challenge to the muscles. Yeah. It seems like there's probably a stereotype of, I don't want a bodybuilder or powerlift, but so this is different the way you describe it to them.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Because that is the big hesitation. They're like, oh, I don't want to do that. And maybe they've been given a program like a bodybuilding program where they can barely walk the next day, which is a pretty common thing. And we're like, well, you can get a lot done with a lot less work as long as you're smart with it. So, yeah. Actually, I heard your recent podcast. There was the lady with the knee pain and I was listening and she would sound like she had done some bodybuilding in the past or someone had programmed for her and she didn't feel good. In that example, how are things different with your program compared to what she was doing?

Yeah. So, when like in that type of example, when we've got someone who's, yeah, come off like a general gym trainer where they followed, I guess, the bodybuilding approach where there's like, okay, we'll do leg day and we're going to do 20 different exercises or, you know, even 10 different exercises. For us, we're a lot more conservative and we'll sort of look at, okay, in a 60 minute session, we may do one or two leg exercises, something for the front of the legs, something for the back of the legs. Maybe later in the week, we'll do another couple of exercises. And we sort of look at a small amount of quality work as opposed to just throwing the kitchen sink at it and just hoping it's going to work.

And we find as long as we're smart with a long-term plan around how we're going to progress this, how we're going to build things up, that can be incredibly effective. So, that's really the big difference, just the volume, I think. Okay. So, overall volume. So, like you, I think you mentioned about 60 seconds worth of work. How many reps does that look like? How many sets? How many different exercises for maybe a front of leg, back of leg? Yeah. So, typically, you know, when I say 40, 60 seconds, it's like, it can end up like maybe 10 to up to maybe 15 repetitions. Like, as hikers, there's a lot of value doing some of the more higher repetition stuff, but hikers are pretty good at that already.

So, what I'm talking about, a little bit more condensed. In regards to the actual, what a workout might look like, a typical format for me in a 60-minute session might be do, you know, five minutes of mobility warm-up, five minutes of kind of some smaller muscle groups, like some core or some glute medius work or something. It's just a warm enough, just working little bits and pieces. And then we typically break it up, we'll do something for, you know, a few sets of a front or a posterior or anterior chain. So, maybe a squat or a single leg deadlift or something. Just a few sets. Something for upper body, something for calves, something for mobility, and then a little bit on the other side of the legs.

So, if we did something for, say, a squat, we would do some glute bridges at the end. If we did, say, a single leg deadlift, we would do some step-ups or something at the end. So, we just get that split. It doesn't end up being a huge amount, but again, a few sets of each area done consistently over time, you know, it really goes a long way. And I recall in that podcast that you, Lillity was talking about how just cutting some reps out really made a big change for her from her past experience with how bad she felt after doing some of the resistance training. Yeah, that was a really interesting point she made because, you know, in her particular situation, her particular history, we identified that calf strength, super, super important for her goals, for her injury history, all of that.

And other people in the past had identified that as well and said, look, we want to work on it. But the typical prescription for a lot of people with training, and they're like, well, just start with 10 repetitions and see how it goes. For her, 10 repetitions led to a lot of pain doing calf raises, and she really struggled with it. For us, because we always do have quite of a personal connection, we check in, we adapt and adjust. She reported back saying, look, 10 reps, we did this, and it was hard, it was uncomfortable, I was in pain. So we're like, well, let's just reduce it down to seven reps.

And she did that. She was like, oh, I can do it without pain now. And then we slowly build up. And that was a funny thing where I didn't really think too much of it in our response, because that's pretty normal of how we approach things. But for her, it was brand new. And she said, just reducing those repetitions was just game changing. So there you go. That was great to see. Yeah, I was thinking about that when I was listening, that it's like, that would seem pretty, it seemed pretty obvious, I think, to me, we're in a medical field. It's like, just do a little less, or we do something called clustering the set, you know, put it down, take a little break, and then continue.

But also from like a hiking, running standpoint, it's like, maybe 10 miles is too much, nine's okay, you know, like it makes, it's just, it comes down to capacity, right? Exactly. So, well, so it seems like everybody that you've interviewed on your podcast that I've heard have been really happy and surprised about how, how well they feel after everything. Like, what's the common stories you get after doing some resistance training, doing your program? What are they able to do? What's their mindset like? Yeah. So, the two big outcomes, I guess, people kind of get out of the training, when they can consistently apply it, they can build up to time, this and that.

There's two big outcomes. Number one, they often surprise themselves about actually completing something that they thought was out of their way. So, whether that is a big distance day, whether that's climbing up a mountain, whether that's backing up day after day after day, whether that's carrying a pack that they never thought they could carry. There's so many factors in hiking that can be a little bit worrying. So, that's a big factor where they're just like, I managed to do that, complete it, and I didn't have to bail out halfway or step off the trail in the second day or whatever. But then, probably the more significant thing, at least in my opinion, not just succeeding it, a lot of people come back and they're like, I was actually comfortable.

I actually enjoyed it. And yes, it was a physical challenge, but I got to the end of the day and I was like, I still had some food, some energy in me that I could chat with people and have a good conversation or I could get to the top of the hill and I wasn't just gasping and heaving, but I could look around and take in the view. And I think that's the big factor where, you know, hiking in itself that a lot of people fall in the habit where they're just like, I'm just going to scrape myself through. I can push through and deal with a day or two or three on the trail, but they forget about the fun.

And I think that's the really significant thing when we can get people to truly enjoy themselves, feel confident in themselves, feel comfortable with themselves. It just opens up so many cool possibilities. As I said before, not just short term, but then they're looking to watch the future. They're like, there's so many cool things I can do and I can actually embrace it now, which is amazing to see. Yeah. It sounds like they really start to like it versus just suffer through. Have you heard the concept of type one, type two, type three fun? I've heard type one and type two. I don't know about type three.

Yeah. Personally, I know that I would just discuss this at a wedding with a guy and he's like, oh, the research shows like type three exists. I said, I don't know because type one is like fun during, fun after. Like looking back, I like it, right? Type two is like, this sucks, but I'll do it again. That was a great time. They say type three is like, if I, I'm sure someone will correct me. It's like, I almost got attacked by a bear. I almost died, but I keep talking about it. So it must've been fun in some way, which I don't think really exists. But I've always wondered because I don't like, I personally don't like running.

I like hiking. I like backpacking and I play baseball recreationally. So when I'm discussing the types of fun with people, especially with runners, they're like, oh yeah, type, type two, it's type two. I said, so you don't enjoy it, but you do like it. And I said, in baseball, I like, it's all type one. And I feel like hiking backpacking, when you feel physically able, I believe it's type one. Yeah, absolutely. I would 100% agree. So when people come to you, um, with some problem, I'm going to imagine there's probably a timeline. Uh, some people do it in desperation. I'm sure like, Hey, I got something in like three days, three months, you know, three years is probably the easier timeline.

But, uh, what's the discussion like when you have short and long-term time, uh, timelines? Yeah, so, so typically we do get a lot of people who are like, I mean, trying it themselves. They're six weeks out from a big thing and they're like, I need help. And we're like, well, it's, it's a bit short. Like we can throw the kitchen sink at it, do everything we can. We can see some good changes in that time, but it's not what I call significant changes. So we can get you feeling better. We can get you feeling good when it comes down to this type of training, the value. And I always say the value of it comes from the consistent application.

And it's like, kind of, I describe it as the snowball effect in the sense, if we can start off slow, we gather momentum. There comes a point where once you've got enough momentum, it just avalanches and all that stuff comes together. The strength, the fitness, the enjoyment, the comfort, all of that. And usually what I sort of say for timeline is short term, if you can string together six, seven, eight weeks of kind of consistent training, that's when you begin to notice that first significant changes where you're like, I'm feeling stronger. I'm feeling better. I'm feeling like good. But then if you can string a few more weeks and you get up to that, like 10, 11, 12 of consistent stuff, that's where it begins to snowball.

So typically we try to get people 12 weeks consecutively, which isn't always possible. But then we sort of have the people with the longer term health issues, not health issues, injury issues. And they are a little bit more complicated, I suppose, than, you know, other stuff going on. So then we sort of say, look, we could do it 12 weeks and we could like really, really go for it. But why don't we give ourselves a bit more breathing room? Why don't we be a little bit more conservative with this just to be nice? And that's when we're looking at five or six months or even up to 12 months to certain people.

So that's kind of the conversation. I like the snowball analogy and the avalanche analogy because that really does sum it up when we can talk about that consistent training. Nice. Yeah. It sounds like you're trying to set some realistic expectations for them and not try to sell them a miracle. And I love that. I don't think enough people really hear that, but they got to know it takes a little bit of time. Do you, for those people who have a short term goal, but it's really not super attainable, is there, do you just tell them, hey, it's going to suck? Like just suffer through it or like you have them give some objects to their buddy who's more capable or what do you do?

Yeah. Usually, usually in that situation, we kind of, yeah, we say, look, we're going to do everything we can. Probably not going to be pain free. It's probably not going to be the funnest thing in the world, but we will get you through. And in that situation, we kind of look at every single quick win that we can get. So we sort of apply the training. We do the strengthening. We do the fitness. We do the cardio and all of that. We do as much as we can within that time. A lot of those people, sometimes the best benefits they get is they've gotten themselves into trouble six weeks before a trip.

Sometimes it's just pulling things back and saying, you know what, you're doing way too much. You need to give the body a bit of time to recover. And that's actually a really quick win where we can kind of strip things back, actually give the body a chance to recover. That works really well. We've had a couple of people just this week who literally had that. They've had four or five weeks. We're like, you're just doing too much. Chill out and you'll be much better. So that's the first thing. But then we kind of look at all the other aspects where we can get a little bit of an advantage, whether it's for getting through the hike, but also pain.

Because a lot of what pain comes from, at least in the hiking context, is when we're tired, when we're exhausted, when we're fatigued, things go wrong. We get more appearance of pain. We make bad decisions. We sort of like take bad routes. We step in potholes, stuff like that. So we do a big thing on just energy management. We talk about pacing. Really simple thing. Just adjusting your pace can conserve energy. We talk about fueling and just snacking. Most hikers under eat on the trail. So getting to actually eat a little bit more, have a bit more energy. Dramatic difference. We talk about gear techniques, using like trekking poles and maybe a knee brace or strapping your ankles, something like that.

And we just look at all these little things that don't really require time. They don't really require a huge amount of effort. But if we can get enough of these 1%, 2%, 3% changes, we can kind of get you over the line. So that's kind of what we look at. Longer term clients still get all that, but it's just not all thrown at you at once. But we kind of throw the kitchen sink at the people in the short term and see how we go. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Actually, it's funny. There's people, a lot of people that I've met who have had like ongoing pain or discomfort. Like obviously there's the exception is the rule.

But for a lot of people, they are doing too much or they're doing things unknowingly that are nonproductive or creating their issue and creating an injury cycle. And those people who you give the aids to, do they ever say like, hey, this is all I need now. I didn't realize trekking poles could save my knees, so that's all I need. Or do they get a good realization that it's an aid as well? Yeah. So usually it really comes down to, I guess, investment in the sense that people who are directly working with us and they put a bit of money to work with coaching, they're aware that because we have these conversations, all of this stuff is going to go together.

And they're like, look, all this stuff is great, but I'm not going to latch onto one thing, which is great. Typically, when I have those conversations, and I guess in a public setting, if someone's asking in one of our community groups or something and I'm like, hey, I can't give you specific advice, but this is a bunch of stuff you could consider. Yeah, it's pretty common. People latch onto something and be like, cool, that's the solution. I'm just going to lean on that. So it really comes down to, I guess, the way it's communicated and also the personal investment, at least in my experience.

So yeah, I definitely see a bit of both of it, but different contexts. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. The people you're having a real quick conversation with, it's like, well, this is a good thing, but really this is the more important thing. So I've heard on your other podcast, you've talked about doing home training and weighted backpacks and things like that. So for people who have home equipment or don't have minimal home equipment, like what are the, what are some bare minimums? Like what could they do with them generally? Yeah. So in the hiking, like our, our community and our context, like a lot of hikers don't particularly love the gym environment, which is fair enough.

Like, you know, completely understand that. So typically when someone's relatively early in their strength training journey, maybe they've just done a few exercises here and there or done some HIIT training or never really followed like a proper program. Um, we usually say if you're training at home, there's only two things we want a hundred percent need. Number one is like a set of like exercise mini bands, just so we can load up some different movements. Um, you know, that costs you $10 online. Um, and then also a backpack and as a hiker, happily enough, everyone has a backpack and we can load that up.

That can typically, as long as we structure out our training in a way that, um, works around that and it has a good progression, it's like smart exercises. It sort of sits like kind of, it's personalized for the individual. Let's just say, um, we can get a lot out of that for quite a long time because you can load up a backpack pretty heavy. The bands can work in quite a few different ways and we can leverage body weight in a lot of interesting ways as well. Typically when it comes down to a point where some people like, ah, the backpack's just annoying, not so much limiting on weight, but it's just annoying.

Um, then we usually recommend just go out and get like a cheap dumbbell set of, uh, adjustable dumbbells. So it doesn't take up a huge amount of room, but we can load things up a little bit more. Um, for the people who are a bit stronger, that's when we're like, ah, you know, maybe we do want the gym environment. It makes things a little bit easier to load up. Um, but for 95% of our clientele, um, don't even need that if they don't want it. We can just work around it as long as we choose the right exercises. Okay. Actually, um, I get a tangent question. It's not on the paper that I sent you then.

So there, um, are you familiar with like some of the kind of like strength standards, like yeah, you should be able to deadlift this and squat that and so on. And is there kind of like basic targets that say 40 year old, 50 year old, uh, male or female backpackers should be able to do with some of those movements or exercises? Yeah. So we do have a few benchmarks that we use, um, and they're not specific gym benchmarks. They're more ballpark. Body weight benchmarks in movements. Cause you know, for a hiker, we could absolutely give deadlift targets and this and that, but a lot of our hikers aren't even doing that.

They're not deadlifting. They're not doing heavy squats. Um, and we're just moving our body weight on the trail. So fair enough. I always do sort of say that the caveat to this is a lot of people get wrapped up in numbers. Um, we always say we have benchmarks, but this is more to identify areas that are going to be most beneficial for this individual to work on. So if you're below it, it doesn't matter. We're just going to work on that. If you're above it, it doesn't matter. We're still going to work on it. Um, but it's just good to get an idea of kind of where you stand. So a few typical ones we use is like calf raises, single leg calf raises.

Um, we have a benchmark score of 28 repetitions on each side. If you can do them nice and slow and steady on one leg at a time, um, we're like, yo, that's pretty good. A lot of people undershoot that. We're like, okay, cool. That's an area that we want to train because a lot of people neglect their calves. Um, and then we have a few other movements. We have like, look at, um, single leg, gluten hamstring strength. We look at single leg, uh, quadricep strength. Um, and we have a few other bits and pieces that we work through. So, but they're all very, very basic. Um, and it's more to just get a snapshot as opposed to you can hike or you can't, or you're going to be in pain or you're not.

Um, if that makes sense. Yeah. So it's not like they should really fixate on it. It's just kind of knowing where they're starting from or do they, um, is there a point of diminishing return? See people. Yeah, there, there is like, this is a funny argument. The reason I laugh, it's a funny argument in not so much the hiking community, but I also work with a lot of mountaineers and the mountaineering community. They're very opposed to strength training as well. And this conversation comes up all the time. My argument is if you are not investing a crazy amount of time, and if you're just doing a couple of weeks, hours a week of strength training, maybe three hours a week at most, and that's, I would never have a hiker do more than that personally, because there's so many other things to work on.

Even if you're super strong and there's a point of diminishing returns, why not keep on improving? Like it's not the end of the world as long as it doesn't get in the way of things. But for probably 99% of hikers who people who are not super advanced in the strength training, um, they're, they're, they don't have a huge history behind it. But as long as there's following smart programming, they can get years and years and years and years of improvements. If they're being consistent, as long as there's a smart program around it. So I think the point of diminishing returns conversation is a bit bigger than it really is in practicality, just because it's coming out of the powerlifting communities who are looking for 1% improvements.

But, you know, in a, in a hiking or mountaineering community, you know, there's, there's a whole different conversation. At least that's my opinion. People will argue with me. I'm sure that's my opinion on it. Yeah, that's okay. They'll go to your podcast and listen to the other contexts and then you get more followers. Yeah. So, so send, kind of on that same grounds then, um, how much does form, does form have to be perfect with, uh, some of the exercises that you give them or. Yeah. So this is again, an interesting one, and this is a little bit of a difference between I guess, methods of delivery, because for me, I am an online personal trainer.

I don't do any personal training anymore. I don't do live sessions. I'm not like physically watching with people, whatever it may be. We basically provide programming. People do it. They report back. We adjust and this and that. So the way that we look at strength training is we want to get the best results from exercises and the best results from our training with the least risk of things going on. So on a typical gym environment, if we are looking at say barbell work, we're doing barbell back squats or barbell deadlifts, and we're looking at in quotation marks, optimal loading where we're loading up to the absolute perfect point.

Yes. Forms pretty important because like if you're loading up that much and you're doing these certain exercises, you want to get it right because you don't want to hurt yourself. There is like a degree of a risk in certain exercises. If you're loading them up for us, we don't want that risk because I'm not there with them. So the exercises I choose and program are chosen for if you don't have a huge, perfect form, it's still going to be safe at very low, low risk of things going on. If you don't have perfect form, it's still going to be effective in a sense of even if you're wobbling all over the place or kind of doing weird movements, it's still going to strengthen certain areas up.

And for in the hiking context, as it is a little bit of a unpredictable environment where we're stepping on weird surfaces and doing weird movements with our body, I say like, look, even if our movements aren't perfect through us, that's actually a good thing because maybe we'll get exposed to some strange positions which are in our training, which will kind of help us protect on the trail. So in my context, form is it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm not too worried about it as long as it's kind of 75% right and it's generally there and we'll work the right muscles, I'm happy with it. Other contexts, you know, you can obviously argue a little bit different, but that's kind of how we work.

Yeah, I would agree. We kind of say that perfect form matters with really high speed or high performance. Most people that we see as much as I think they want to believe they're high performance, they're not. They're just recreational people and it doesn't really matter that much. But if it's painful to do as well, then we got to modify form a little bit. And I'm sure that's where you ever get that whole knees over toes thing. And I'm sure that's common in your industry too. And yeah, that's where that came from originally. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, you know, we're exactly the same. And so to say, as long as you're feeling the right muscles and as long as it's not painful, we're pretty good.

And if there is pain or if you're just not feeling it kind of where we want it, then we probably want to adjust. Okay. Well, actually, give me a good tangent then. When you say feel the right muscles, what does that mean? So usually with the exercises, we will sort of say, look, when you're doing this exercise, you should probably feel it here, maybe here, maybe here as well. And so to say, these are the general areas. So if we're doing, say, a split squat and we may say, look, you predominantly want to be feeling this on the thighs, like the quadriceps. You might feel a bit in the glutes, maybe a little bit in the hamstrings, depending on if you're feeling it there.

Happy day is great. If it kind of shifts more than like, oh, you know what, my back leg's doing all the work or, you know, my lower back's taking the work for some reason or my calves are getting really tired, then it's like, all right, we kind of want to adjust. So usually we just give some rough areas of where this kind of want to fit, wants to be feeling, just so people can be aware of, yeah, whether it's- Kind of like how the machines say, the little red areas and that's the- But then you look at those machines and they're like, this movement does every single muscle under the sun. You're like, how does that work?

It doesn't make sense. So yeah, some of those ones I do have a good laugh, but yeah, kind of in the same vibe. So with your training program and as someone comes up into, and at like a big event for them, is there a taper down? Is there a reprioritizing of more mileage and elevation and pack weight, et cetera? How does that look? Yeah, so there's a few things that goes into it. And if we're looking at a specific trip and a specific end point, there's a few things we just need to be really, really confident we're going to do. So number one is whatever hike we're doing, we, from very early on, we want to be confident that by the time you get to the hike, we usually say about two weeks before that we are actually confident you're going to be ready for the demands of the hike, meaning you're ready for the amount of hours you need to be hiking, whether that's four, five, six, seven, 12 hours at a time, meaning we need to be ready for the pack weight.

So actually be confident you can carry that for that amount of time, and meaning probably in most hikes, be ready for the elevation. So going up and down, most hikes are going to have that. So we need to be ready for that. So long-term thing, whenever we start working with someone, those are planning, going ahead, saying, okay, intelligently, logically, we're going to build up towards that. So before you go, that's going to happen. So the ramp up is just over a course of how many months we're working together, three, four, five, six months. That all kind of builds up. Strength and endurance, just like in the gym or at home, that's stuff we do all year round.

So that doesn't kind of change too much, but it just gets harder and harder and harder over time. And it's, yeah, just really making sure we kind of get to that peak and that avalanche I was talking about before, right before the trip. And then to your first point with the taper, depending on the trip and depending on how long we've had to train together, we will usually have a bit of a taper period for one to two weeks where we pull things back, give the body time to kind of calm down and recover. If we're in a short timeline, this may just be a week where you just have a week of just doing some really short pack walking sessions and just a bit of stretching recovery, just to manage nerves and keep the body ticking over.

If you've had a longer term journey, this will be two weeks where we kind of do. Medium-ish week of training where it's a little bit easier and then a really easy week because too many hikers just train right up to the date and they just don't give themselves time to actually recover and adapt and the end of their hike is just knackered. Or another comment, they just get sick like the week before because they're so tired, which happens all the time. So yeah, that's how we go about it. Well, doing more is always better. Yeah, well, that's it. Now for a quick pause before we keep going. Hey, everybody, it's Sebastian.

If what we've been describing in the show so far sounds very familiar and you've been dealing with some ache, pain, or stiffness that keeps coming back no matter what you do and no matter what you try, we're offering a free discovery call today where we brainstorm with you what has been working for you, what hasn't been working, and we also try to unravel what is a critical part of the puzzle that you've actually been missing that's keeping you from full recovery and getting back to full activity. The link's in the description. It only takes a few minutes to fill out the form. Okay, back to the show.

So those people who are doing like the hundreds of miles one, what are they doing in the middle? I'm sure they're not doing their resistance training, but I'm just curious personally, what are the tips for those 10-day, three-month type of trips? Yeah, see, this is one where it kind of looks a little bit different to what a lot of people may imagine in the sense that when we're looking at a long-distance hike and say someone's going to go do a multi-month hike or a multi-week hike or a crazy amount of mileage, in their mind they're thinking, okay, I've actually got to train and I've got to hike four or five days in a week and I've got to practice doing that over and over and over and over.

For me, we don't really do that. It can work, but like not many people have the time to hike that much unless it's your job or you're retired. Not many people have the resilience to kind of keep that up for months and months and months when they've got to get on the trail anyway. So for us, we, in the middle amongst, we're still day hiking for the most part and we will have that kind of slow and steady build of mileage over time, but it's mostly day hiking. We'll just get people out doing hikes for a day on the weekend with their pack and slow the build that up. And then we'll sort of dial in a few days where we're like, hey, we'll do maybe an overnight if you have time and you've got some friends to go with, maybe a multi-dayer, just to dial in your gear and this and that.

But for the most part, it's day hiking, which is a little bit backwards, I guess, like a lot of people look at it. But I feel like that's mostly practical for the majority of people. And then amongst the day hiking, we do the strength training. We do what we call our conditioning sessions where we're doing stairs or hills or just pack walks around the neighborhood or other cardio and just doing some shorter, sharper sessions to kind of fill the gaps in there. So kind of like strength training, a couple of days amongst the week, weekend day hikes with or without pack, a few multi-overnighters throughout there at some point, but then don't really try to plan for a one-month hike by doing multiple one-week hikes.

Exactly. Yeah. And it's always that. We're not trying to replicate the hiking because that's what you're doing on the trail. It's not what we're doing with our training. We're trying to prepare you for the demands so when you can get out there, you can enjoy yourself. We're not just trying to replicate that because it's not super practical for most people. Yeah, I couldn't imagine it. Actually, I never thought of it until we started talking about how would you ever plan that amount of volume where you just jump into it? I got sent a message from a client the other day. She sent me a reel that was from a hiking influencer.

And it's like, what do you think of this training plan? And it was like, on Monday, we hike. On Tuesday, we do this long kayak. On Wednesday, we hike. On Thursday, we do a long bike ride. On Friday, we hike. On Saturday and Sunday, we do an overnighter. And I was like, yeah, that's their job. They're getting paid to do that. You can get away with it. But anyone with a full-time job or a family or whatever, yeah, we got to be a bit more realistic. Yeah. I think there was a period of time where I was doing triathlons and I got all the way up to a half-iron distance. And I realized the time spent during the week to what I believe at that point was appropriate training, which it wasn't even every day, but it was too much for the lifestyle.

And so I was like, this isn't realistic. It's not enjoyable. Let's just type two or three fun. So I'm going to peel back and then go for Olympic distance and then stuff like that. So is there like a sweet spot for somebody who's kind of busy in normal life, 40-hour week type of person? Yeah. So on that one, my biggest belief when it comes down to this type of thing is fitting the training prescription around someone's life as opposed to them fitting their training around my prescription, their life around my training prescription. So what I mean by that is every single person we work with, we ask them realistically, what can you consistently fit into your week for training in regards to number of sessions and amount of hours?

And realistically per month, how often can you get out hiking? And whatever that comes back as, we will build our program around that. And we may do more in certain times if they have more time, may do less. So people often ask me if I'm training for this mountain, how much do I need to do? And I'm like, well, I could tell you that, but it's like, is it going to work for you? I'd rather meet you where you're at and then build around it. There are certain metrics we want to make sure we hit by the end. We want to make sure they're ready for the pack wave. We want to make sure they're ready for hours hiking, but we'll just work that around whatever's going to fit into their life.

So it's a bit of a non-answer to that question because people always ask me and I'm like, I don't give you a specific answer until you tell me this. But I feel like that's the best way. I mean, it's a good answer. You really can't program for someone that doesn't have the time. I remember we had quite a few people over the years that I was surprised by when they wouldn't do their exercise homework that we asked them to do. And I remember this one lady, all she had to do was walk for 30 minutes in the afternoon. And it was a little later in the year at the time and it was dark. And so she just consistently wouldn't do it.

I said, how come you're not doing it? She says, it's not safe where I live. Oh, okay. There's more than just like a time constraint here. So, you know, people's lives kind of matter. Yeah, exactly. So what is the longest, I don't want to say longest, but I feel like a lot of people who really like hiking and backpacking want to do it for a long time when they're in their retirement and into their 60s, 70s and so on. Like, how long is this feasible into what age group do you see most people doing that? Yeah. Like, in all honesty, hiking, it's such a flexible thing in the sense there's so many ways you can kind of go about it.

There's, yes, you've got your long distance hikes. Yes, you've got your backpacking with a full pack. But then there's multi-days where you can get a pack transfer. There's overnighters where you can go and stay in a cabin and just go do day hikes. There's day hikes, which will range from anywhere from one hours to 10 hours. There's so many different factors. So, and a lot of people, at least in my experience with hiking is they may have hiked in their life, but they're getting to an age where they're like, okay, maybe I'm not really doing what I was doing before. Maybe running's not so good for me.

Maybe team sports is not so good for me. Maybe even tennis or something like I'm struggling to kind of bounce back. And they see hiking as this is what I can do. And realistically, I say, as long as you can walk, you can hike. There is something you can do. And this is something that you, I think, should be able to be able to do for the next 70s, 80s, potentially in your 90s, if you're still cruising around. As long as you adjust your expectations and you are smart about your preparation. So I feel like it's forever sport. And I don't feel like dropping out of it is a good thing because, you know, if you can't hike, then your options are getting a little bit limited.

You need to walking and then how much after that, you know? Yeah. I would agree. I feel like the common theme that we get in healthcare is, well, I wasn't, I was told I shouldn't be doing that anymore. It's too hard on my knees or my joints. And so I'm not going to run anymore. So I might as well bike. And then they bike for a while and they like it or don't like it. And then, but there has to be something that you can feel, um, like you're, the word would be, I don't want to say competitive, but like, um, like that you're, you excel at, you know, like there's like a mental win versus every time you run, you feel terrible.

And biking is like, well, I don't really like it, but I really like running, but I can't do that anymore. It seems like hiking is a big win for a lot of people at various ages. Absolutely. And I'll tell you what, every single one of my clients have come to me with a story at some stage where they were like, I was on the trail and I ran into this 80, 85, 87 year old guy or girl on the trail who was just cruising along, kicking on. And that's who I want to be. So there's so many people out there doing that who don't realize they're an inspiration to other people, but it's so possible. It's so realistic.

It's just, uh, yeah, it's just, once you got to do the right things. Well, uh, and on that same note, since you're talking about, uh, taking into your later years, uh, can you speak to your experience with, I have bone on bone, uh, my knees are arthritic. Like I'm sure you get a lot of stories with that. And how does that go? Yeah, it's a tricky one because obviously a lot of people do have their injury history stuff going on. And obviously that's all, all, you know, to be respected. And obviously, you know, I'm sure you're aware that like the industry, the healthcare industry sometimes doesn't have the best communication skills in the world.

So sometimes they'll tell people and it'll stings and it'll stick in their head and they think like they can't do something for 20, 30 years. And it's, yeah, it's, it's a bit of a battle. Um, but realistically, like whenever someone has a story like that, we sort of have, uh, come down to it. It's like, let's meet you where you're at right now. If you are arthritic, if you have pain, if you have bone on bone, if this and that, what can we do that's doable right now? Hiking wise, can you go out and do a 30 minute walk just in and park? Like that could be something that's different to what you're doing, but that could be your first step.

And then we can envision how to build it up. Strength training. You may not be able to do 10 body weight squats, but maybe you can do five assisted squats or holding onto something. And maybe we can start there and kind of build you up. So a lot of people come in with these things that are absolutely true and limitations that absolutely suck. It's all about finding something that's going to sit just below, I guess, their threshold of discomfort or their threshold of confidence, and then slowly, but surely edge that up. Yeah. We always say there's things that are not going to be changeable and we had to work around them.

But the only way to really, really way to lock in a loss with something like an arthritic knee is just don't do anything. Like that's the fastest way to not be able to walk again. Just, just get, get weak, you know, so you got to find some, some way around it. And so do the, do the things that you can win at. But I, I completely agree with you on that, but I know that it's a mental battle. As you mentioned, people get told things that really do stick with them, unfortunately. And, um, we've attempted over the years to try to, if we have to say something, which is abrupt, like don't go knees over toes.

Let's just say, uh, we try to follow it up with important word, meaning today. Don't do it today later, please do it. Cause if you don't do it ever 30 years from now, you may regret this. And I'd be the fool to, to tell them that. So, uh, we try to make it a temporary, uh, change. Yeah. I love that. So, um, since we, we're going to start wrapping up here, um, do, what do you think we need to cover still, if there's anything at all about incentivizing people to get out there and start hiking, even if they feel like they can't. And what are some, uh, anything strength related that you think may help these people?

I think there's two things that kind of really, really, really valuable. Number one, incentivizing to get out and do something. My best advice is if you haven't hiked in a while, or maybe, you know, you haven't hiked in forever, the best thing you can do, think in your head, what would you like to do? What is something that you feel like you can do today or whatever may be. And the first time you go out and do it, do 50% of that or whatever it is. What you want to do is basically just make the first experience enjoyable because hiking should be fun. So if you feel like, okay, you know, a couple of years ago, I did a six hour hike and that was kind of okay.

Maybe I can go do that today. Maybe start with a three hour hike and see how you go. If you think three hours is doable, maybe start with an hour or a half or something like that. Make the first experience as enjoyable as possible. Bring some lunch, go somewhere with a good, a good view. Enjoy yourself because that is what we want. And we don't want the first thing, first hike being pushing you to the limits where you may be like, no, this is not for me. Um, so that's the first thing. Um, second thing on the sort of strengthening side, I kind of talked a lot about strength training today, which is super valuable, super important.

I always advocate for also pairing that with a little bit of what we call conditioning in the sense of looking at what you're going to be exposed to on the trail. How can we practice that in a way that is, uh, safe and controllable. So hiking, going up and down hills. Can we practice that in the local neighborhood a little bit before we actually get on the trail or in between hikes doing a little bit of just literally going up and down a hill, practicing that in a way that's not in the middle of nowhere. Um, where you can just stop when you need super valuable. And if you pair that with your strength training, it just really, really compounds the issues.

Same thing with pack work. Same thing with, if you have to keep up with group members, um, practicing pack work or quicker walking or whatever, strength training is amazing. Pair it with a bit of conditioning and it really just does compound, um, the results. I've heard you say the term exposure therapy. Yes. That's my, my, that's my favorite term in the last couple of years. I've thrown around a lot. Um, so yeah, that's exactly it. Okay. Awesome. Can you tell everybody, um, about your website, your program, uh, learn more about how to work with you? Yeah, absolutely. Um, if anyone was interested in learning a little bit more about what we do, um, you can go to summit strength, S U M M I T strength.com.au.

Um, what we do is online personal training for hikers and mountaineers. So if people are looking at a big trip, um, are struggling with an ankle pain, um, are just wanting to improve their hiking for the next, you know, five, 10, 20 years. Um, yeah, check it out. See, see if it may be right for you. There's a, there's a lot of information on that site. And if it sounds like something you want to explore it all, um, you can book a free call with us. There's no pressure. We just sit down and have a bit of a chat, just learn about what you got going on. Um, before we work with anyone, we have a really thorough chat.

So you can go from there. So you can check it out, summitstrength.com.au, um, and just make sure you put that .au on because there's a few summer strengths out there these days and we're in Australia. So that's the one for us. Yeah. I'm going to put a link in all the podcast players for it. So if people are looking for it too. Fantastic. Rowan, uh, Rowan is great to have you on. No, thank you so much. I really obviously enjoy talking about this stuff. So thank you for having me on. I really do appreciate it.