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These simple and effective tips will help you be ready to hit the trails at any given moment. As someone who has been active my whole life + in the fitness industry for over a decade, these things are what ACTUALLY changed the game in terms of feeling strong and ready for the mountains. As a busy mom and business owner, my workout routines vary season to season. However, sticking to these tips year round really help me stay mountain strong!
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
For next level fat loss strategies, hormone/gut health help, serious performance goals and unparalleled support, apply for Mountain Metabolic coaching. Learn more HERE.
For more free wellness resources, hiking/travel guides, and other blog posts, check out my website HERE.
What is Fit for Hiking?
Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discuss here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. 1s Hello bam! Welcome back to the fit for Hiking podcast. I have a quick and dirty episode for you today, but I wanted to go over just easy habits that you can incorporate in your daily life to improve hiking performance, because one scenario that I get presented with a lot, whether it's with clients or people messaging me on Instagram, is, um, people saying something like, oh, you know, I'm traveling to the mountains for a trip. Um, but I don't necessarily live at altitude, and I'm really worried about being physically prepared, like, what can I do? And while there's not necessarily much you can do to prepare physically for the altitude if you live at sea level, um, there are a lot of different habits that you can incorporate in your daily life just to prepare in other ways, to feel good on hikes that will definitely make a difference whether you're presented with altitude or not, and definitely will help when you are in high altitude areas so that you're not feeling crappy in how you're showing up physically, you know, with being prepared for your hikes. 1s Because if you've ever been on a hike and thought, whoa, I was not prepared for this, or generally felt embarrassed or miserable by how much you're sucking wind, this is definitely for you. I've been there myself. I experienced this big time moving from Indiana to Colorado, and also I had never been a hiker, so there was such a learning curve for me in so many ways. Um, but these are tips that I've learned over the years do make a big difference. Um, whether you're an avid hiker or you're just someone who gets out occasionally. And the reality is, the average person, most people are not getting to hike as often as we'd like. Like life comes up. We probably have work responsibilities. Kids, you might not live somewhere where there's lots of accessible trails, steep ascents, or altitude, and you just might only get to hike a couple times a year if you're lucky. Um, you know, I think we see like tons of people on Instagram, YouTube, whatever platform you're on for social media that are seemingly on vacation every single day. And it can kind of make you feel like everyone is doing these things all the time. And that is absolutely not true. Even as someone who lives in the mountains, I'm only getting out to hike a couple times a month maybe, um, it's not as frequent as you would think because I have a business to run. I have a daughter, I have schedule, I have a house to clean. Like it just doesn't end up happening as often as I would like. So these are some tips that help me kind of just stay in hiking shape. So I'm hiking ready at any given point, because what I want to be able to do is say yes to any random adventure at any given time. Like recently, I went on a coaches retreat with my amazing. Not in metabolic coaches. It was so cool to finally all be together. I've talked about a little bit on some of the other episodes, but we were in Utah, we went to Zion National Park and we went and we're doing some fun hikes. I hadn't really been hiking as much as normal the month before, actually, kind of the two months before we were moving, we were traveling a bit, um, however, I felt so good on the hikes. I didn't feel slowed down. I didn't feel like I wasn't prepared because I keep these habits in mind, and these are kind of like my go tos to just always be ready. Um, so I wanted to share them with you. So if you're looking to improve your hiking performance just in general by adding some daily tips, here are my top tips for you. So number one is to incorporate incline walking into your weekly workout routine, even if it's just one time. Okay, so this can be done on a treadmill or if you live somewhere hilly, but the incline definitely makes a big difference, especially if you plan to do hikes where you're gaining several hundred or several thousand feet. Like that is brutal if you're not prepared, and you're also probably going to have a pack, maybe be out of your element. So practicing this at least once a week is going to be huge. So, you know, obviously you might not have gym access, but I do think if you want to take this seriously, either investing in a treadmill for at home, getting a cheap gym membership, or, you know, if you live somewhere really awesome, you can go outside. But if you live somewhere where like, you can't do this year round outside because of weather or because you live somewhere super flat, then you're definitely going to want to make an investment there if it's important to you. Um, the incline walking is going to be so helpful. And this can also be done on a StairMaster if you have access to that, even better. Awesome. It's going to be a little harder. I feel like incline walking. You can kind of like read a book zone out a little bit for me, the StairMaster, I have to be so focused. Otherwise I will trip over my feet. But whatever works best for you. And this can look like just steady state walking. So just kind of going at the exact same pace, same intensity for the whole time. Um, and I usually like to do either like a 5 to 10 incline, somewhere between 7 to 10 is usually what I do. But if you're a beginner, then I would definitely start a little lower 4 to 5 on the incline. Um, and go for at least 30 minutes, because you really want this to kind of imitate the stimulus that you'd be experiencing on a hike. So usually if you're doing, uh, you know, an intense incline, it's going to last more than 5 to 10 minutes if you're on a several mile hike. So at least 30 minutes is going to be a good place to start. And you can always build up from there. Another tactic you can use is sometimes doing steady state and then sometimes doing more of an interval approach, because sometimes the hikes we do are going to be a steady climb. And then sometimes there's going to be like really intense spurts where you're just like walking straight uphill. And then it's going to level out and then it's going to repeat like that. So it's good to kind of variate sometimes taking an interval approach and sometimes just going steady state steady intensity. So I definitely would kind of alternate between these two. Or if you know that the hike that you're wanting to train for, if you're training for a specific hike, you can always kind of copy that stimulus. And if you don't really know what hikes you're training for, you just want to be in shape for hiking in general. Then you can alternate between the two. Okay. Oh, another quick note on that is bonus points if you can have a pack on your back that is weighted, because that is going to really help imitate what you're going to be experiencing on the trail, especially if you are like a mama and you're carrying a kiddo, mom, or dad. Um, if you have a big heavy pack on your back with a kid like that is some heavy stuff. I really underestimated how hard it would be to carry a kid up really intense, uh, inclines, especially at altitude, like here in Colorado. It is brutal. Um, or if you are a backpacker and you know that you're going to have a 30 plus pound pack on your back or even just a day pack, like if you're not used to that, it's going to feel so much harder when you're in this situation. So I definitely recommend looking into a weighted pack. You can either get one that specifically for this. I actually just got one of these from. It's called Wild Gym. I really like it. I'm not sponsored by them, but I think it's a really great idea. If you are a hiker and you want to do some training, um, or you can just use like a day pack and put some plate weight plates in it at the gym, like if you're going to the gym. Um, so either way it works and it's going to help kind of prepare you for what it's like to do the incline walking with a big old pack on your back. Okay, my next tip is to include at least one single leg exercise in each workout that you do, so every single time you're exercising. Think about adding a single leg workout in, so this can be anything from single leg step ups, step downs, single leg deadlifts, split squats, reverse lunges, curtsy lunges, single leg glute thrusts, etc. there are so many awesome single leg variations, and having single leg strength and stability will help immensely when you're doing big inclines, especially if you are doing something where you're like basically stepping up on massive rocks and really having to go the distance with your legs. Um, this has helped me a lot. I am such a big proponent of single leg exercises. I think that they help immensely in any sort of adventurous sport. Mountain biking, hiking, skiing, all of these things. So if you're like, totally clueless on all of the names of exercises that I just listed off, definitely would recommend looking into my fit for hiking guides. It just takes the guesswork out. It makes it so much more simple. If you are not a big exercise person and you don't know what these names mean. Uh, takes the guesswork out so you can always look at the link in the show notes and try a free week. Or if you've already tried the free week, you can pick a guide. We have everything from beginner to intermediate, advanced and then summit crusher level. So there's a couple different, um, ability levels depending on where you're starting with your fitness. So add one of those in at least for every single time you're working out. 1s My third tip is to make friends with carbohydrates. I think a lot of women just instinctually now are like avoiding carbs. Um, I know that it's been a hard mental journey for me because carbs were one of the things that when I was like in my diet phase in my 20s, I was a hardcore avoider of carbs. I even went gluten free for a little while just to, like, really drive home the whole no carb thing. Um, and and I didn't have a reason to go gluten free. So let me just say that, like if you are celiac or you need to be gluten free, I'm not like bashing that at all, but I did it as a way to really avoid carbs because I was so afraid that they would make me gain weight. Um, which is not true, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. All I'm saying is definitely incorporate carbs frequently, because if we are always running on low carbs, we're going to feel it in our hiking performance. Like energy is going to be low because carbs are our body's preferred source of fuel. Um, I experienced this recently. We were on a hike in, uh, Banff National Park this past summer, and I went for a hike after work, and my husband and I were hiking and it was like a decent steep incline type situation. Um, but, you know, I do those a lot, and it was lower altitude than what I was used to, and I was just dragging and I felt like crap. And I was so mad at myself. I was like, what is the deal? Like, I've been training for a half marathon. I've been exercising frequently, like I know what to do. Why do I feel so crappy? Um, and then I realized that I had not had any carbohydrates all day, and I was running on fumes like I was not performing my best. That night. I ate a whole bunch of carbs. Same thing the next morning. And then we went for a hike again the next day. And I felt night and day different, like, so much better. And so it was a really good reminder to me that if I'm not having ample carbs, I'm not going to feel good on my hikes, on the runs, on in any sort of like everyday activity, your body needs them. So please, please, if you're someone who just like, naturally avoids carbs because you think they're unhealthy, or you should for any sort of weight loss reason, you can absolutely be healthy, lose weight, all the things, and still incorporate carbs. They are an absolutely necessary macronutrient, especially as females. We really do need them for proper energy and for hormone function. So. Having carbs consistently just in everyday life, but also especially before training sessions and before any hikes that you're doing, your body is going to think you're going to perform so much better. Okay, next tip is to walk every single day and increase your mileage leading up to any sort of hike. If you like, are going on a specific trip where, you know, like that's a hiking trip, I want to feel good for that. Um, if you're someone who just likes to be able to say yes on a whim and you hike frequently, then walking daily is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. Um, it's not a super intense, you know, pursuit, but it is a habit that makes a difference. This is going to serve you really well. If you aren't accustomed to walking frequently, that's going to translate to feeling it so much more when you're on the trail with, you know, potential altitude, longer miles, big inclines and a pack on your back. So it's going to feel a lot harder if you're not just walking regularly. Also, like your feet might hurt. And it's also helpful to break into shoes that you're going to be hiking in. So every now and then finding a little like, you know, dirt trail nearby that's not super far. Maybe you don't even consider it a hike, but really, breaking in those boots, if you're not someone who lives near mountains and you're not hiking frequently, that's a really good way to break in the shoes. That way, you don't show up for a trip and hate your life because you have immediate blisters after the first day. 1s So kind of two for one. They're walking every single day and then also breaking in your shoes if you haven't done that yet. All right. Next one is to stay well-rounded in your workouts, and I recommend doing at least three times weekly year round. I think sometimes we tend to be very cyclical with our workouts. Like I'll work out really hard leading up to this event, like a vacation or a wedding or a trip or whatever, and then we kind of fall off. But that just makes it so much harder to get back into the groove, keep the routine. And also you, you probably do want to be able to just say yes to stuff like if someone invites you randomly to go on a trip that is going to include hiking, or even just ask you on a day hike like you want to say yes and say yes confidently that you can show up and feel good. So keeping that routine going year round and not really just like dropping off with your workouts for months at a time. Like obviously there's going to be weeks. There's going to be times where it's helpful to take a break and even good for your body to take a week or more off. But what I'm talking about is the people that are like, I work out for this specific thing, and then I'm all or nothing with it and I totally drop off. So really try to stay consistent with even 2 or 3 days a week makes a big difference. 1s Okay. And our last one is if you are planning to visit a place with high altitude and do some hiking, give yourself a few days to acclimate at a moderate altitude before going even higher up. So let me provide an example, because, you know, here I live in Colorado and a lot of people fly into Denver, which already is just above 5000ft, and say they're coming from sea level, like where I grew up in Indiana. Um, that's a pretty big change just right there. Like, that's a big difference, especially if you're someone who is susceptible to altitude sickness. I don't think everyone is to the same extent, but altitude really, really affects me. The first time I visited Denver, I was sick. The whole time I had a horrible headache. It felt like I just had a multi-day hangover that I could not get rid of, and my body responded pretty drastically. Where some people can show up to high altitude and they feel pretty fine. So it kind of depends on the person, however, especially if you know or if you know you're very susceptible to altitude sickness or if you've never been at altitude before and you don't know how your body's going to respond, definitely spend a few days in a place like Denver before going to higher altitude, because say you're going to go hiking somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, and your home base for that trip is Denver. That's going to be potentially like a 3 to 5000 altitude difference. Um, that's a pretty big difference. So going from 5000ft to 10,000ft in elevation, you are going to feel that so much more. So what I see sometimes is people who fly into Denver, and then they immediately drive up the next day for a 14 or something, which is like a huge difference. Then we're going all the way up to 14,000ft, especially if you're from sea level. Your body might not love that, and you're probably not going to perform your best. So even giving yourself a few days at Denver altitude and maybe driving to the foothill, you know, like maybe give or take another thousand and then saving your big hike at a higher altitude for a few days in once you've given yourself a few days to acclimate. Um, really hydrate and be prepared for that. Um, so that's just one example based on this location, but it translates to a lot of different places wherever you fly into might be quite a bit lower than the ultimate altitude that you plan to go for an adventure or for a, um, hike that you plan to do. So definitely pay attention to those things, because altitude sickness is brutal and can definitely make or break an experience. I've been on backpacking treks with people who couldn't summit because they got super altitude sick right before the final ascent, and that sucks, because then you're missing out on a potentially, you know, once in a lifetime opportunity. Um, because your head is pounding or you're sick and it's just it's not a fun situation. So giving your body a few days to acclimate definitely can help. 1s Okay you guys. So those are my quick tips for improving hiking performance. Some of these are going to be more relevant, you know, on your actual trip. And some are just going to be everyday things that you can add into your workouts to help you perform your best on and off the trails. Like all of these tips are only going to be helpful, um, in everyday life. Plus even more so if you are an avid hiker or adventure girl. So I hope that this has been helpful as always. And the link for the free week of it for hiking is in the show notes, so definitely check that out if you are kind of lost on how to really work out to support your outdoor goals. If you have some big things going on in 2024 that you want to feel good for, these workouts are such a good, well-rounded combination of cardio strength hit, and they're going to prepare you in the best ways to show up for your hikes. Confident and ready to rock so you can enjoy them to the fullest. Um, because like we talked about at the beginning, it is no fun to show up for a hike and feel horrible, feel like you're dragging, you know, holding up the group or just not feeling confident and not really being able to enjoy it because you were are miserable and not prepared. So that is exactly why I created the guides. I hope that they are helpful for you. And if you guys have questions about which level to go with, you can always send us a DM at the underscore for Hiking Instagram page. I'd love to connect with you there. All right guys, that is all for today on this short and sweet episode and I will see you in the next one. 1s Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on a trail comm. Happy and healthy trails.