Which Exercise Gives Explosive Power for Hiking Uphill

Speaking of recreation activities, we will immediately consider hiking uphill. Today, this outdoor activity has become a trend for many young people worldwide.

Participants need to be physically and thoroughly prepared for an uphill hike for a delightful trip. Don’t worry if you don’t know where to start. I’ll help you learn which exercise gives explosive power for hiking uphill with the post below.

The Importance Of Physical Strength In Hiking Uphill

Most of us make a mistake in thinking that hiking uphill is tourism, so you can go as long as you like it. But when you start your journey for 10 to 15 minutes, you will feel muscle aches and knee fatigue right away.

So, if you do not have good health, you cannot hope for a successful trip. Exercising before hiking uphill keeps you from bumps and acclimates to vigorous exercise first so your muscles can relax and painless when you first get used to it.

When you have good strength, you will only focus your feelings on the journey, not worry about your legs hurting or tired. At that time, you will thoroughly enjoy the atmosphere of the mountains and forests, the lively sounds of nature, and the joy inside you.

On long trips, participants may need to be physically ready for hiking for several months to be confident enough to hit the road.

How To Prepare For Uphill Hiking

Accessories

Hiking attire will depend on the terrain and weather of your destination.

Suppose you go in the dry season, hot weather. In that case, you need to choose clothes with elasticity, good absorbency, lightweight, deodorizing, and UV-resistant.

When you go into places with heavy rain or high humidity, you should prepare waterproof clothing, heat-proof clothing, pants, or leggings to avoid insects.

In addition, accessories such as bandanas, gloves, and hats are also necessary items.

Food and drinking water

For journeys that consume a lot of energy like hiking uphill, preparing food and drinks is necessary. You should bring dry, easy-to-digest, lightweight foods that provide enough power for hiking uphill, such as bread, sausages, biscuits.

Do not forget to bring 2-3 liters of drinking water, depending on the route. You should also bring mineral water, water containing electrolytes, vitamin C.

Strengthen muscle

If you are the one who exercises every day, runs the gym every day, I believe you can afford to make your trip. If you do not have a habit of exercising, start now, do not think, “Is it too early” – I boldly asserted, “It’s never early.”

You can start exercising by warming up and building muscle groups. Pay attention to your back and lower body muscles, such as the thigh muscles and calf muscles.

Besides, back exercises are also essential. When participating in the uphill hike, the amount of luggage you bring on your back is heavy, so the back exercises will probably be necessary.

Practice endurance

Endurance allows the muscles to function in their best condition, increasing power for hiking uphill performance, avoiding injury, muscle tension, or joint pain.

Endurance is improved by stretching muscles before and after exercise. Post-workout muscle stretching speeds up post-workout muscle recovery. For hiking uphill activities, the flexibility of the leg muscles and hips is focused on strength training.

But endurance training is a process that takes from low to high. To begin with, 30 minutes a day and gradually increase to 40 minutes, 50 minutes, and more; when you reach your endurance goal, you need to practice every day to maintain it. That’s why from the beginning, I have affirmed that “practice is never early.”

Practice with a backpack

Uphill hike is a long journey that requires a lot of strength. Therefore, a heavy pack can be a “burden” if you cram too many unnecessary items. You should only prepare items that are really essential, compact, instead of carrying trivial things.

In addition, a backpack with a back support bar, a belly belt will help you become “easy to breathe” a lot while moving. If possible, you should also choose for yourself a waterproof backpack to protect your belongings in case it rains.

The backpack training can be done shortly before your trip. Of course, the backpack must hold things and get extra weight over time. Backpack training can be done in the park or when you go for a morning jog.

The purpose of this is to help you familiarize yourself with the use of the backpack, familiarize yourself with the use of power belts, fixed belts, especially if you are a beginner; this is absolutely necessary.

Choose the right shoes – practice with the shoes before starting your trip

You should choose shoes that fit either foot or one size wider, with smooth lining and good elasticity to avoid blistering due to heavy movement. You should also prepare more rain slippers and 1 or 2 pairs of socks to avoid wearing wet socks for too long.

After choosing a shoe you like, the next thing you need to do is adopt it. The easiest way is to use shoes in daily mobility, used in daily practice.

While using shoes, if the feeling is too tight or too wide, then immediately change to another pair of shoes because shoes significantly affect the trip’s success. A couple of inappropriate shoes can turn your trip into a disaster!

15 Best Exercises For Uphill Hiking Training

Lunges:

Lunges are one of the most fitness moves that include forward and knee bends. It builds muscles such as the hip, thigh, calf, knee, and body balance.

Here’s a guide to how to do Basic Lunge the right way:

First, you stand in a standing position. The two roles are in balance. Extend your legs hip-width apart, arms gently relaxed, and rest your hands on your hips.

Perform the left foot step ups, about 60 – 90 cm from the original position, so that the calf and left knee are at an angle of 90 degrees.

Note, the knee does not touch the floor. The heel should be raised, and the toes contact the floor. Then squeeze the abdominal muscles to keep the body balance.

Return to an upright position, then perform the same movements with your right leg as the left leg in step 2.

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Squats:

Squats are among the essential exercises in the hiker’s strength training regimen for building muscles. Squat exercises help make the most explosive power for the buttocks and leg muscles.

Squat also increases blood circulation to the body so that the skin becomes more youthful and youthful.

Squat exercises help increase heart rate, promote consumption, burn calories, bring high efficiency for weight loss, and reduce belly fat.

Squats help bones and joints tough, promote flexibility and balance of the body.

Preparing posture: Chest open to shoulder width, eyes straight, arms crossed over chest or chest locked with shoulder, legs split horizontally open hip, knees, and toes in the same direction.

Start lowering body: Knees bent, slowly lower body, focus on heels and hips.

Return to the prepared position: Squeeze thighs and abdomen, then lift your body.

Hill sprints:

Hill sprints include exercises that require running speed at a high pace lasting from 1 minute to 8 minutes. At this rate, the body reaches its limit, the heart rate, and oxygen consumption level peak.

The effort is pushed to the extreme; the lactate concentration in the blood reaches 12-20 millimolar. Breathing up to the maximum threshold – usually one-to-one breathing. This is one of the moves that give you explosive power for an uphill hike.

Hill sprint makes two critical changes in the body. The first is a change in the nervous-muscle system. Single muscle groups begin to work better together, so you create more power for hiking, more speed.

At the same time, large muscle groups, such as the quadriceps, work better together, increasing the frequency of steps and creating flexibility in the running step. Basically, the body becomes more efficient and coordinated more smoothly to increase the frequency of actions.

You will find yourself energetic and simply gliding across the ground forcefully and gracefully. Sprints also significantly affect your whole body as you run on your feet and generate strength from the abdominals, pelvis, and hips.

First, to hill sprints, choose a short hill with a medium slope. You should take uphill runs with an effort of 85 to 90 percent of your maximum heart rate. Magnify your arm rotation, with your arms pumping hard and high. Do 6 to 10 repetitions.

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Deadlifts

The deadlift is the most potent full-body strength-building exercise that gives hikers explosive power. It targets the shoulders and forearms with a certain weight.

Deadlift helps the upper body and lower body be best developed, such as muscle groups such as glutes, thigh muscles, shoulder muscles, back muscles, pectoral muscles, chest muscles.

The deadlift can help prevent injury by building the strength of the muscles surrounding vital tendons and ligaments. The deadlift builds strength on your lower and upper body, including your back muscles.

Deadlift’s standing position is upright with feet shoulder-width or shoulder-width apart. Both hands tightly grab the barbell so that the inner forearms touch the bar slightly.

Adjust your spine in a central position neither up nor down, looking straight ahead, and lowering your hips. Next, you pull your lower abdomen slightly back and make sure the pelvis is in the center. The shoulders should be facing back, pressed tightly, and not bent.

Both hands gripped the bar, pushing the legs firmly downwards so that the right legs create a force to lift the barbell. Hips and shoulders up at the same time, hands held tight. Combine strength with your upper body to lift the weight until it is in the middle of your upper thigh.

Slowly lower the dumbbells until the dumbbells hit the floor, and stop and lift to continue this deadlift. Note that when you lower the dumbbells, you need to work slowly and feel the tension of the muscle bundles.

In particular, when doing the next lift, you need to be in control and not use inertia to push the weight up.

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Vertical plate press

The vertical plate press is a strength training exercise primarily aimed at building explosive power for the shoulder, inner chest, forearms, traps, and triceps. This exercise requires a weighting plate when performed.

This exercise not only gives you a six-pack body, but more importantly, it will develop stability and responsiveness in the abdominal muscles that stabilize the spine.

Suppose you’re trying to train safely and increase performance for your upcoming hiking uphill trip. In that case, the vertical plate press will build muscles in your lower back.

First of all, to get into a prepared position, you need to lie on your back on the ground. Then, place your hips and knees in a 90-degree bend to remove the force of the hip flexors. Next, hold the weight plate directly in front of your chest with your arms outstretched.

Then you use the strength of your lower back to lift your upper half vertically while your hips and knees do not change. Slowly press the upper body down vertically.

Band walk

Band walk is an exercise to build the strength in your lower back and legs. Hikers commonly choose band walks to exercise the ability to move under pressure to build muscle on the legs and lower back.

Miniband is an elastic string that stretches with many different levels of stretch. The harder it is to stretch, the better the effect is. Therefore, if you want high performance, choose strings with as low a stretch as possible. Of course, if you start with elastic strings, choose a good stretch.

First, start the band walk and hook the miniband onto the ankles. Stretch your legs hip-width apart. Bend knees slightly, lean forward right at hips, tighten abs & butt muscles.

Step 10 steps ups. Step 10 steps backward. That is one iteration. Do 20 repetitions for each exercise.

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Plyometrics

The Plyometric is a muscle shock workout method (one of the most detailed training methods). The typical exercise program type for this series is Drop Jump. Step down from a certain height. And Depth Jump is jumping from a certain height and bouncing on the ground.

Plyometric enhances muscle strength (exerts an incredible force over a short period) of muscles. Combining Squats and Plyometric exercises improves bounce, jump drastically.

The Plyometric is a strength-building exercise that helps muscles generate significant force in a short period of time.

By applying the Plyometrics method to your workout, your muscles will more easily adapt to fast and continuous stretching movements.

This will promote quick-response muscles to help develop better muscles. The muscles in the human body will react much quicker when you practice fast exercises.

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Agility drills

Agility drills are systems of exercises aimed at improving and developing the speed of an entire body or a specific muscle group. These exercises help the body become more flexible and agile to perform all activities in practice and daily activities effectively.

The agility drilling exercise is designed to improve leg coordination and speed for all outdoor sports participants. Run with your knees high forward through the steps, landing in any step space.

For this simple move, the proper form is vital. Make sure to land on your feet and forward with your arms.

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Box jump

Box Jump is a perfect match for Plyometrics and Squat. First, when starting any exercise, you will also need to warm up your body and let your elbows get used to avoiding accidents during training. After the warm-up, get into Squat position and forcefully pop on a prepared wooden crate. Finish with Squat on the wooden box.

The movement is effortless but can bring highly effective results at any time for the practitioner. Just repeat the exercises and persevere over a long time; your body will make reasonable changes and build muscles.

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Plank:

A plank is an exercise that directly affects the core, arm muscles, and thigh muscles. Plank exercises help reduce belly fat exceptionally effectively.

Plank helps build core strength, reducing the risk of back and spinal injuries, increases overall metabolism. It also improves posture, increases balance, and helps stabilize the brain, treat anxiety and stress.

Forearm planks:

This strength training exercise helps build strength in your core, shoulders, arms, and legs.

To get this pose right, start in a pushup position, but bend your elbows so you can rest on your forearms.

Keep your body straight and focus on holding your abs and squeezing for 30 seconds.

For more difficult posture, place your forearm on an exercise ball and use the ball to support most of your body weight.

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Side plank:

An alternative to the regular plank pose, side plank helps build muscle for your abs and lateral muscles.

Lie down, lean on your right side with your legs extended.

Place your right elbow just below your right shoulder and support the body on your forearm.

Tighten your abs and lift your right hip off the ground.

Hold for 30 seconds. Switch sides and repeat.

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Watch video: dynamic half kneeling psoas stretch (hip flexor stretch)

Burpees

Burpees are efficient fat-burning exercises all over the body. Burpees are a series of movements that are performed in succession, helping to burn massive calories, build muscle strength, endurance, and endurance of the body.

The movement sequence in this Burpees exercise will affect many muscle groups on the body, such as glutes, thigh muscles, shoulder muscles. The continuous activities together, helping the body to burn excess fat effectively, and the entire body will feel exhausted after the exercise.

The basic Burpees exercise will consist of 5 consecutive combined moves Squat – Squat Thrust – Push Up – Frog Jump – Jump Squat.

First, you are in an upright position with 2 feet hip-width apart, arms stretched along the sides of your body, and lower down like a Squat.

Gently bend down, then put your hands on the floor, your feet push back so that your feet touch the base with your toes.

Do a 1-beat push-up by placing the body gravity on the hands and feet, lowering the body to the floor, but not touching the ground; Head, back, hips, legs are kept in a straight line.

Collect two legs back in frog jumping. Then, jump high, hands raised overhead.

Repeat the above movements to continue this Burpees exercise until the required number of reps is reached.

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Hip bridge:

This strength training exercise gives explosive power for your abs, buttocks, hips, and lower back.

First, you lie on your back with your hands on either side of your body. Bend your knees, and your feet are flat on the ground and below your knees.

Raise your hips over your heels so your body forms a straight line from your knee to your shoulder.

Then, lower your body down to the original position and repeat for 30 seconds.

Focus on tightening the abdominal and leg muscles while lifting and lowering. You can modify this pose to make them more challenging by lifting one leg off the ground and stretching it out in front of you.

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Stretch (Quad and Hamstring stretch)

Stretching exercises work on the muscles after a workout to help relax the muscles after a stressful workout and at the same time promote blood circulation to bring more nutrients and oxygen into the muscles.

Standing Hamstring Stretch.

The Standing Hamstring Stretch is a stretching exercise that works mainly on muscle groups, including the neck, back, thighs, and calves. The instructions for this exercise are as follows:

Stand up straight with two legs hip-width apart, knees slightly arched, and arms stretched at both sides.

Exhale as you bend forward at your hips, lower your head toward the floor and keep your head, neck, and shoulders comfortable.

Bring your hands back, embrace your legs and hold the posture for about 45 seconds to 2 minutes.

Return your body to its original state when you are done with the exercise.

Standing Quad Stretch.

Stand upright with your legs closed close together, and arms stretched along your torso.

Bend your left knee and use your left hand to pull your left leg toward your buttocks. Keep your knees together. If you need to, place one hand on the wall for balance.

Hold for 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

Repeat on the other leg.

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Barbell step up

Barbell Step Up works mainly on the thigh muscles and will help your thighs look more prominent and become stronger. The thigh muscles and calf muscles are also affected, supporting the legs to develop the most comprehensively.

First, you need to prepare yourself a weight equal to the right weight and a 50 cm high chair; it is best to use a weightlifting chair that the Gymer still uses to practice at home.

Then, you leave the training chair in front of you and about 10cm away from the standing position.

You are in a standing position with two legs hip-width, two handles, each holding one head of barbell and balance on the shoulder, most secure and secure.

Step right foot up in chair, press right heel on a chair, and pull the left leg up together. Exhale as you move on.

Step back down by landing your left foot first, then lowering your right leg. At the same time, inhale.

Continue to repeat ten times with your right foot, switch to do the left leg.

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Single leg calf raises

The calf raise is a simple but very effective calf lift, and if you want to tone your calves or slim your calves, this is an exercise for you with the help of a leg machine.

This exercise helps to dissipate excess fat in the calf area and at the same time build muscle in this area.

The calf muscle is a group of muscles located in the lower body, which is used daily.

First, you need to prepare a dumbbell. Keep a dumbbell in your right hand and place the tip of your right foot on a raised surface.

Next, you cross your left ankle behind your right leg. Lean your left hand on a bench or wall for balance and lower your right heel toward the floor (but don’t touch).

Use calf force to lift your right heel as high as possible, squeezing your right calf at the top.

Pause for a few seconds, slowly lower your toes back down to the starting position. Perform equal repetitions on both sides.

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Watch video: Single Leg Calf Raises

Safety Tips For Uphill Hiking Trainings

First, let’s take a look at some diet tips to prepare yourself for hiking uphill strength training.

• It is strictly forbidden to skip breakfast and breakfast before 8 am
• Chew carefully, eat slowly, and drink plenty of water. Drinking water also needs to drink small sips without gulping down the whole bottle.
• Limit eating greasy, starchy foods and rice. Mainly eat green vegetables, pork, beef, chicken, boiled eggs.
• After each meal, eat one banana. The effect of bananas is mainly stimulating digestion and toning muscles.
• Get at least 6 hours of sleep a day, and 8 hours of sleep, the better.
• Do not drink coca or alcoholic beverages that are harmful to the liver and kidneys.
• Do not eat at night.

A moderate training regime is something you need to keep in mind when starting out. Jogging is the most crucial exercise because it builds endurance, increases stamina, and is also great for the health and toning of many parts.

• Jog 5km per day, jog continuously for 1 km, then rest once. It would be better to jog in the morning and take one day off every one day.
• The following week, exercising more intensity than the previous week by putting extra weight in the backpack.
• Practice meditation daily in the morning. Mediation is the best way to practice breathwork. Sit cross-legged, breathe steadily and slowly for 5-15 minutes, depending on ability.
• Afternoon is the most suitable time for leg and abdominal exercises because your muscle is the most active at that time.
• Exercise legs should do one day and two days off. Try to take many leg exercises, and don’t just do one if you don’t want a deformed body.
• Remember to do your best until you can no longer practice. When the foot hurts, use hot water on the sore muscle to massage the muscles and absolutely do not quit.

Muscle pain after exercising is normal, and that is a sign that you have been exercising correctly. It will only hurt the first time because your leg muscles do not have to get used to the intensity. The next time you will not be in pain anymore.

Conclusion

Are you ready for the adventure ahead? If in doubt, get yourself prepared for hiking. Also, before your trip, learn carefully what to keep in mind when going hiking for a safe and complete journey.

I hope my article can be of help to you before each trip. I hope you always have a peaceful and enjoyable journey.

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