Bushwalking as a physical fitness routine

[GPSGuided]

Bushwalking being an outdoor physical activity, how do people here fit bushwalking in your life? Within a the spectrum of primary physical fitness routine to that of a leisure recreational activity? To me, to be a primary physical fitness routines need to be done at least 2-4 times a week and has to induce aerobic benefits. Although a hard bushwalk can be as straining as an intense bike training session, for a city dweller with responsibilities, it's just not possible to allocate the time to carry it out on a regular basis. As such, it's an adjunct fitness routine with lots of pleasure added in i.e. Recreation. Further, I avoid pushing my walks to the same cardio intensity as a hard bike session as a routine to minimise accidental injuries, as well as a need to save energy for the long return trip.

Where do you sit on this? If used as a primary fitness routine, how do you structure it?

I am not sure whether X-country and trail running can be classified as "bushwalking". Open to definition here.

[perfectlydark]

Its my primary routine despite only getting out maybe 1-2 times a month. Being no other fitness routines just leaves this. Does help though despite the irregularity

[wayno]

i hill walk around the city coast and up hills in the city . varying intensity, i only tend to get in the big parks during my holidays these days...

[GPSGuided]

Do you only walk? Any other primary exercise routine to maintain/gain fitness?

[wayno]

short jogs during the week days.

[perfectlydark]

Short wslks everydsy ( a couple kms) to the train station thats it

[wayno]

i used to do more during the week, then i'd get to the weekend and find that exercise seemed to feel like more of a chore on the weekends.
weekends i'm putting in up to five hours walking

[photohiker]

5km with ~300m elevation in the hills virtually every day (just under an hour) and an exercise routine a couple of times a week for maintaining core strength and flexibility.

I step up the variability, difficulty and duration when approaching a multi day walk.

[wayno]

highlights from my exercise regime...

[michael_p]

Luckily I live in an area with pleasant bushland around me. Getting out for an approx 5km bushwalk/jog 3-4 times a week has done wonders for my health. Lost lots of weight and feeling the fittest I have for many years. Go for longer walks or mtb rides on weekends as well.

[Hallu]

Bushwalking doesn't make me lose much weight, it's eating light during the trips that does. The thing I've noticed is that even 3 weeks without bushwalking is enough to get you out of shape, while after 2 weeks of day walks and moving around you feel great. My main problem is never muscles or joints or anything like that though, it's always my cardio. I get really out of breath during the first steep climbs. I think unless doing heavy mountaineering bushwalking doesn't improve your cardio much (at least it never did for me).

[GPSGuided]

My take with bushwalking as a fitness exercise is that it can be good for endurance (long sustained walks) and building an aerobic base and a sub-optimal method of weight reduction. But to attain those benefits, one needs to invest quite a bit of time week on week. And to improve one's peak aerobic capacity, a much higher intensity of training is required than a few hills. But still, bushwalking as a pleasurable activity can't be beat.

This also brings out an interesting question. To bushwalk well, what kind of physical attributes are ideal? Endurance, strength, power-weight ratio, aerobic?

[wayno]

maximising VO2 max aerobic capacity requires interval sessions. around seven to ten minutes exercising at peak aerobic capacity, repeat the sessions three times with a few minutes rest in between.
standard practice in athletics training.

[GPSGuided]

[quote="wayno"]Anyone managed to integrate interval sessions within their bushwalks? Hill climb repeats needed.

[wayno]

if you havent done these before exercise caution,,, start easily and build up the pace, any niggles then stop. never do hard sessions when you're sore.

[photohiker]

Anyone managed to integrate interval sessions within their bushwalks? Hill climb repeats needed.

Be easy to do if you had a hill that took 20-30 minutes to climb, just take a break every 7-10 minutes. In SA, you could do this up Mt Lofty.

I agree that general bushwalking doesn't deliver peak aerobic fitness regardless of how much you do. It does deliver a good base though. If you are training for is bushwalking, then why do you need peak aerobic fitness? As far as weight is concerned, I have zero weight control issues. If I take a break from walking as I usually do around christmas, my weight will increase a bit but then rapidly comes down to normal once I return to walking.

[GPSGuided]

if you havent done these before exercise caution,,, start easily and build up the pace, any niggles then stop. never do hard sessions when you're sore.

Good advice. I don't have issues there. High intensity interval training is pretty standard with my cycling routine. But hill climbs are harder on the knees and joints when part of an interval session.

[GPSGuided]

If you are training for is bushwalking, then why do you need peak aerobic fitness? As far as weight is concerned, I have zero weight control issues. If I take a break from walking as I usually do around christmas, my weight will increase a bit but then rapidly comes down to normal once I return to walking.

I think this can be considered from many angles, one can relate to general physical fitness as well as attraction to the younger generation (cf. Early thread on aging bushwalking clubs).

[Ellobuddha]

I was wondering whether it was good for fitness or not. I did 11km today with a 20kg pack. Was 2hrs 40mins. Wore a heart rate monitor ( polar brand chest strap type) to see how hard it was. Track was undulating forest road with a few short steepish sections - 4wd only.

According to the monitor, my bpm average was 125 and max was 149. It tells me my cardio range is above 116 bpm. On the flat sections I walked at about 4.5 kmph, my bpm was around 112 which was not stressed, quite cruisey. Definitely went up trying to maintain a footpace on the steeper sections with the weight on. Said I burnt 1680 calories.

Was interesting to see results. It was moreso just really good to get out in the trees.

[wayno]

what a coincidence, sounds exactly like my stats when i'm walking down the street....

[GPSGuided]

According to the monitor, my bpm average was 125 and max was 149. It tells me my cardio range is above 116 bpm. On the flat sections I walked at about 4.5 kmph, my bpm was around 112 which was not stressed, quite cruisey. Definitely went up trying to maintain a footpace on the steeper sections with the weight on. Said I burnt 1680 calories.

To make sense of your numbers, you'll need to find out your HRmax. Age based HRmax calculations are often way out of whack, so don't bother with it. Irrespective, given most people's HRmax are in the 180-210 range, a max of 149 is pretty average on the intensity scale.

[GPSGuided]

what a coincidence, sounds exactly like my stats when i'm walking down the street....

Must be a pretty stressful walk! Too many cars or pedestrians?

[wayno]

too much caffeine and cream donuts....

[photohiker]

According to the monitor, my bpm average was 125 and max was 149. It tells me my cardio range is above 116 bpm. On the flat sections I walked at about 4.5 kmph, my bpm was around 112 which was not stressed, quite cruisey. Definitely went up trying to maintain a footpace on the steeper sections with the weight on. Said I burnt 1680 calories.

Yes, that is also my experience. Walking on the flat or downhill does nothing for cardio. I wore my polar HRM on the Mt Lofty walk one time:

Going up: MaxHR 162 avgHR 145, 628kcal, 46:40 minutes
Going down: MaxHR 137 avgHR 116, 335kcal, 40:33 minutes (I'm not into downhill running, too stressful on the knees)

So bottom line is; if you want to include some cardio workout in your bushwalking, find some decent hills.

[GPSGuided]

So bottom line is; if you want to include some cardio workout in your bushwalking, find some decent hills.

Or cross into bushrunning.

[MrWalker]

I have a walk at least 3 times a week, but can only spend about 35 minutes on weekdays. So I try to do something longer (several hours) on alternate weekends, if I'm not going anywhere special.

I only walk, since I'm training for walking. But because my weekday training is so short, I walk absolutely flat out and I get the equivalent of 3 hours exercise in 35 minutes. It's up and down hills too, so I count the uphills as interval training and the downhills as rest periods.

[eggs]

We have some friends we try to walk with most weekends.
I have been concentrating on best bang for buck in the Adelaide Hills.
Mt Lofty is not bad and a varied loop from Chambers Gully can get you up to 900m of climbing in a 15km round trip.
As others have pointed out - my best weight reduction comes from carrying weight [say 12kg+] up steep hills.
And the best I have found so far is a non-repeated double loop at Ambers Gully - giving 910m of climb over 11.2km which takes about 2.75 hrs.

I should add extra activities through the week, but riding the bike to work is a regular light workout in between.
However, I am yet to get back on the bike since clipping a truck and having the bike wedged under a bus while I was having a close encounter with the road...

I have just completed about 90km of walking over 6 days in the West Macdonnell Ranges, and I am confident that the best weight reduction came from carrying about 25kg up a big hill, while some extensive day walks of up to 20km did little, with the food intake about equalling the burn rate. But I am sure it still did me good.

[Pteropus]

When I was living in Brisbane I was reasonably close to Mt Coot-tha, which was great for an hour or two stroll a couple of times a week, with some very steep sections that gets the heart pumping hard. I really don't like running, but at the moment I haven't got a steep hill to climb, so am back into jogging for the time being. Fortunately I have some nice bush close at hand for a jog, since, if I'm going to run, then I want to run among trees.

[GPSGuided]

...I am confident that the best weight reduction came from carrying about 25kg up a big hill, while some extensive day walks of up to 20km did little, with the food intake about equalling the burn rate. But I am sure it still did me good.

Whilst I agree that weights on walks are good for increasing energy expenditure and weight reduction, I would be cautious of this strategy unnecessarily as it'll put additional strain and wear on all the joints. Joint problems are progressive and generally not significant till later in life. So health considerations is another good excuse for UL.

[eggs]

I am thoughtful about joints - especially as I am not young any more.
So to combine weight work with heights - I generally pack a lot of the weight as water bottles - and at the peak height I can empty them to preserve the knees when coming down.