How to Shape Up For Serious Backpacking

Serious backpacking can involve long treks over treacherous terrain under harsh weather conditions. You need to have not only the proper gear but also the right level of fitness to survive and enjoy your outdoor adventure. To shape up for serious backpacking, you must focus on the three essentials: strength, endurance and skill.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Strength-training facility or home gym equipment
• Good pair of running shoes
• Obstacle course
• Refresher courses

Build Strength

1. Take an honest assessment of your physical fitness and strength. Imagine the rigors of a long, difficult and demanding backpacking trip and determine how prepared you are to meet the challenge.
2. Sign up with a gym, a trainer or find a training buddy. Commit to an earnest strength-training program using free weights and resistance exercise equipment.
3. Focus on the muscle groups that you will use most in backpacking: legs, back, shoulders and arms.
4. Start strength training months before a challenging backpacking trip because it takes time to build physical strength.

Develop Endurance

5. Start a running regimen. Backpacking is mostly about being able to traverse long distances under the weight of your pack. One of the best ways to develop the endurance required to do this is through cardiovascular exercises--the most popular cardio exercise is running.
6. Set a goal. Walk or jog a couple miles a day and gradually increase your speed and distance until you can sustain a good running pace for the distance you want to achieve.
7. Train by hill-running. Consider endurance training focused on the type of backpacking experience you are preparing for. For example, if your backpacking trip will be along mountainsides and steep inclines, build endurance with hill-running or stair-climbing exercises.
8. Explore other types of endurance and cardiovascular exercises like ballroom dancing, tennis, swimming, cycling, martial arts and contact sports.

Hone Outdoor Skills

9. Your feet should become familiar with challenging conditions. Use an obstacle course to practice agility and balance. Outdoor adventure involves traversing terrain that could be rocky, slippery, muddy or under water. Your feet, legs and body should learn to be familiar with these conditions. Practice with a relatively challenging obstacle course.
10. Learn outdoor skills like swimming, digging and climbing up and down a rope, a wall or a tree.
11. Brush up on CPR, first aid and other survival skills.

Tips & Warnings

• Always stretch before and after your training exercises.
• Give your muscles a 48-hour recovery period after heavy training.
• Eat balanced meals and sleep an average of eight hours a day.
• Never start strength training without your doctor's approval. Consult a professional fitness trainer to ensure you are doing all the strength exercises properly, without risk of injury.
• Backpacking will require you to carry your own weight, plus the weight of your gear, up and down rough terrain. You might also need to assist a fellow trekker, or summon tremendous physical power to save your own or somebody else's life. Plan to be strong enough to overcome these hurdles.
• Developing endurance is also a long process. Start your regimen months before your backpacking trip.
• Cardiovascular regimens can be stressful to the heart and lungs. Start slow and take adequate rests to allow your blood circulation to catch up.
• The more your body is acquainted with the different types of outdoor challenges you could encounter while backpacking, the higher your chances of survival, enjoyment, and sense of accomplishment.