How to Stay in Shape for Big Hiking

How to stay in shape for big hikes: need muscle and stamina!

For muscle building and maintaining, core strength training is required.

For stamina, cardio training is required. 

Mixing core strength and cardio trainings is important. The below table is my exercise schedule of week.

 

For core strength

I do BODYPUMP class once or twice a week. I am soooooo into BODYPUMP!

Bodypump is a program invented by Les Mills, a New Zealand company. 

This is Les Mills's Bodypump website. You can get an idea if interested. 

https://www.lesmills.com/us/workouts/fitness-classes/bodypump/#facType=modal&filterType=0&classes=bp

It is a 1-hour workout consisting of these tracks:

1.Warm up

2. Squats

3. Chest

4. Back

5. Triceps

6. Biceps

7. Lunges

8. Shoulder

9. Abdomen

10. Stretch

You see all the muscles are trained. Each tracks use a bar and plate and/or barbells, and a mat. It uses rather lighter weight and do repetitive movement. 

For example, chest tracks have many ups and down of bar+plate, then do many push-ups. So this program is designed for not only building muscles, but also shape up the entire body. It also has cardio aspect by repeating the same movements. If you want to focus on only building muscles, you need to do lifting heavy weight without many repeats.

Another fun point of Bodypump is all the exercise is done with music. Now Les Mills released 109 versions. It is fun doing with music with rhythm. I LOVE Bodypump so much and actually I am addicted to it. 

For cardio

Swimming is my cardio workout. Usually twice a week, each workout is 1.2-1.5 km in 45-55 minutes.  I swim 50% crawling, 25% back stroke, 25% chest stroke. 

I love swimming. I belonged to swimming club when I was an elementary school student. After I graduated junior high, I didn't swim for a long time. Actually I started swimming again after I joined the gym a year ago. Once I entered the pool for the first time in decades, I realized that I completely remember how to swim. I was surprised how body remembers things that are learned at early age. 

I used to run 2-3 times per week for cardio workouts. I noticed that it was tough to do in Boston due to weather. Winter is snowy and icy. Summer is too humid. Also it is not good that a lot of street are not smooth and made of bricks which is damaging for feet. 

Most importantly, my biggest and most fun cardio workout is hiking on weekends. 

Walking for commute is also a part of my cardio workout. Commute is a great way to exercise. Commute has been always my workout time. For graduate school I biked 20 km/day. For postdoc time, I biked 20 km/day. Now I walk 6.4 km/day. 

The key of training is to enjoy it. I love swimming and Bodypump. Also it is easy to have the gym 5 minutes from my place, also it is on the way to work/home. If my gym was outside of commute route, I would feel lazy to go there.