Getting Creative With Your Rucking Workouts
Rucking is an excellent way to turn a lazy walk into a heart health-boosting endurance endeavor. It also helps to build back muscles and make you stronger.
But for some ruckers, the workout can get boring or monotonous. Here are some ideas for getting creative with your rucking workouts:
1. Change Your Pace
Rucking is a unique exercise that many individuals are not familiar with. It is an effective way to increase cardiovascular endurance and strength while providing a total-body workout. By using a backpack, the body is forced to stimulate and engage multiple muscles at one time. This is a great alternative to jogging, which can be difficult on the joints. Rucking combines push, pull, jump, lunge and squat exercises all into one workout. It also increases balance and body awareness while improving upper-body strength and gripping power.
When beginning a new rucking program, it is important to start slow and build your way up to longer rucks. Too much load too soon can cause injuries. You should also avoid running rucking, which can cause fatigue and reduce the effectiveness of your strength training. In addition, rucking should not interfere with your recovery between strength training sessions.
Changing your pace during rucking is another great way to increase the challenge of your workout. You can do this by increasing the speed of your walk or incorporating more hills. This will require more effort from your legs, back and core, which will result in greater calories burned and increased lactic acid production. This will help you achieve the best results from your rucking workouts.
Rucking is a low- to moderate-intensity workout that combines the aerobic cardiorespiratory effects of walking with muscular strength training from carrying a backpack. This makes it an ideal option for those who want to lose weight and improve their cardiorespiratory health while building strength. It is also an excellent choice for those who want to take their fitness to the next level, such as those interested in participating in an obstacle course race like a Spartan or Tough Mudder event.
2. Change Your Backpack Position
When rucking is performed correctly, it’s not just an effective exercise but also a functional training activity that mimics some of the movements you might perform in real life. This is why rucking is becoming such an attractive fitness trend. It’s a low-intensity workout that anyone can do with little to no special equipment beyond some sort of backpack and walking shoes. It’s also a more effective weight loss activity when compared to running.
Rucking is a form of walking that adds weight, challenging your body to increase the amount of force it can carry for longer distances. It conditions and builds both the slow and fast twitch muscles in your legs, back, core, and hips. It’s an excellent alternative to jogging and walking and can be a much more enjoyable way of exercising outdoors.
My guest today on The Art of Manliness is strength coach and author Josh Bryant, who’s here to talk about rucking and how you can make it a more effective and enjoyable workout for yourself.
The first thing that you’ll want to do is get a good fit on your backpack. You can find a professional at a local rucking store, or recruit a friend to help you out with this. You’ll want a pack that is well-padded and has wide straps that distribute the weight over your shoulders and back rather than digging into them. It should also have a pocket for a water bladder or hydration pack so you can stay hydrated as you work through your workout.
Once you’ve got your backpack fitted, start out with a light load and gradually increase the amount of weight that you’re carrying. Then as you walk, pay attention to how your body feels. If you feel like you’re pulling a face or straining your shoulders, lower the amount of weight that you’re wearing.
3. Change Your Sweat
Whether you want to add an element of intensity to your workout or you’re trying to break through a strength plateau, rucking can help. It’s a simple, low-impact exercise that takes your walking routine and turns it up a notch. And you don’t need any expensive equipment to get started—all you need is a backpack and some weight. You can start out with anything that you have lying around that weighs something, like soup cans or books. As you progress, you can gradually increase the amount of weight that you carry.
Rucking is also a great way to build strength, particularly for your legs and core. And it can even improve the flexibility of your feet, ankles, and lower legs if you ruck on soft surfaces such as dirt trails or grassy fields, rather than hard pavement or sidewalks. In addition, rucking can burn more calories than running, depending on the amount of weight that you’re carrying and the speed at which you walk or run.
As you get more comfortable with rucking, you can experiment with adding some other exercises into your workouts to make it more challenging and fun. For example, you can do a few sets of pushups or squats during your ruck, especially if you’re doing a long ruck or are at a high percentage of your bodyweight. This will help you burn even more calories and build your endurance.
Just be sure not to push yourself too hard during your rucking workouts. Going all out during rucking is more appropriate for competition or life-and-death situations than it is for training. You don’t want to leave everything on the field, so make sure to keep some in reserve.
4. Change Your Music
Changing your music during rucking can help you feel motivated and engaged. While you may be tempted to crank up your favorite songs for extra motivation, it’s important that you choose the right music for your rucking workout.
You want to listen to something that’s upbeat but not distracting. Rhythmic music can be a great choice, as it will keep you moving along with the beat of your steps. And try to avoid listening to music with lyrics as they can become distracting during rucking workouts.
Rucking is a specialized type of exercise that involves carrying a backpack or weighted vest while walking, running, stair-climbing and hiking. It’s an activity that’s well-known to military members and veterans as part of their basic physical fitness training, but it’s also gaining traction in the civilian world.
As an endurance exercise, rucking is good for improving your heart health, and it’s less stressful on the joints than running. It also helps to build muscle, and it’s a great way to get outside and enjoy the scenery. And if you’re a beginner, it’s relatively easy to start and gradually work up to rucking for longer periods of time.
For many ruckers, it’s the social aspect of this niche sport that makes it special. For example, the Seattle Ruck Club is a group of veterans that meets weekly to ruck together in various locations. The club’s founders, Brandon Uttech and Chris Rose, say that rucking gives them the sense of community they missed as military veterans. They encourage others to join them in their rucking adventures and to participate in rucking events that feature a fun, lighthearted approach to fitness.
5. Change Your Friends
Incorporating rucking into your workouts is an effective way to burn calories and lose weight while improving your strength and endurance. It also puts less stress on your joints than running, which can lead to injury and pain if you’re not careful. With so many benefits, it’s no wonder rucking is growing in popularity among fitness enthusiasts.
Today on The Art of Manliness podcast, I’m pleased to welcome Josh Bryant, a strength coach and author of multiple books on fitness, including his latest, Rucking Gains. Rucking, which is walking with a weighted backpack, started out as something soldiers did to prepare for combat, but it’s now becoming an increasingly popular form of exercise.
The great thing about rucking is that it’s easily accessible to just about anyone. You can do it anywhere — from a walk around the block to your local park to a hike during a trip abroad. And you can use a variety of weights to increase or decrease the intensity of your workout. You can even ruck while hiking with friends or family.
Adding weight to your back during a hike or rucking session increases the challenge of your exercise and can help you burn more calories. You can also ruck with friends of different abilities, and you can do lunges or push-ups every 10 minutes or half mile to vary the intensity of your workout.
One of the reasons rucking is becoming more popular is that it helps people build mental resilience and resilience in the face of physical challenges. Whether you’re being dragged out of a burning building in Afghanistan or just carrying 120 pounds of supplies through the desert, rucking will get you ready for whatever life throws your way. And it’s also a fun, social activity that’s often done in groups, so you can make new friends while strengthening your body and mind.
