31 Jan Weekly workouts!
I mentioned a few posts ago (click here if you simply must watch me talk on camera like a complete bozo) that I started a group online completely focused on hiking/climbing related fitness, recipes, tips and support. The group now has over 80 members, and it has been absolutely rejuvenating for me. I thrive on creativity and connecting with others, so this is exactly what I needed (and hopefully what others needed as well!!). If you want to join, shoot me an e-mail and I can add you to the group (it’s on Facebook). It’s basically just a really cool community of people who love the outdoors and anything remotely related to the outdoors.
As a part of this group, I’ve been sharing workouts at least 2x per week. I also created a “Sidewalk to Summit” workout plan (if you want a copy of it, I also include it in my weekly newsletters, so hit the “subscribe” button below and you’ll get a free copy) to help folks who really want to maximize their workout time and up the ante on their performance.
I’m going to say this right off the bat – I’m not trying to pretend to be something that I’m not. I’m not a personal trainer, and I don’t have a kinesiology degree (although, if you do, I think that is phenomenal and I envy you – I probably shouldn’t have majored in Latin… but I dare you to out-translate me in the works of Pliny or Vergil!). I am in the process of getting a nutrition certification in April. What I do have is a lot of experience – almost a decade and a half of trial and error in experimenting with the best types of training and conditioning for hiking and climbing. I have done it all: chronic cardio, death by elliptical, spin classes, etc… I’ve struggled with my fitness abilities immensely – I went from horribly out of shape, to fit, and then back to horribly out of shape. I’ve gone from being able to do one push up, to being able to do 60 push ups. I’ve struggled with my nutrition, I’ve dealt with debilitating exhaustion and overtraining. All of this, to say, that I really do feel like I finally have found what works for me. I go over all of the juicy details in my workout guide (did I mention it is free? ok, if not, it’s free), so I won’t bore you here.
What I would love to do on this blog is share my workout schedule every week – this is probably going to be more than some can handle in a week, but do with it what you will. For this week, I don’t have a lot of specifics about what I did every day – but I will take better notes from now on. There is no secret to becoming a strong, fast hiker – the only way to do it is to get your heartrate up, incorporate strength training, push yourself … and do the work.
So, without further adieu, my schedule for the past week and a half was as follows:
January 21 – 8 min tabata/20 min strength
January 22 – 20 min HIIT + strength
January 23 – 30 min strength/HIIT (travelling for work – hotel workout)
January 24 – 1hr strength/HIIT (travelling for work – hotel workout w/ dumbbells)
January 25 – 10 min hiit + strength
January 26 – rest day
January 27 – 15 min sprints/burpees + strength (see HIIT/Strength Combo below – I did this exact workout)
January 28 – 1hr 15 min cardio + strength “bootcamp” style workout at the gym
January 29 – Ran in a 5k (22 min time – wahoo!)
January 30 – (training hike day) 3 hr hike, 3800′ gain (9-ish miles)
So what are all of these magical “HIIT/Strength” workouts? Basically, I like to start my workouts with some sort of “short burst” of cardiovascular intensity. Then, I typically do some sort of relatively intense series of weight lifting (heart rate is still elevated). If I’m feeling energetic, I’ll do another HIIT at the end. I also belong to a gym that is entirely based on circuit training – so, when I go to the gym, it’s usually almost entirely HIIT/intense strength.
I go into a lot of detail about this in my guide, but when I do training hikes, they are fast and brutal. I don’t hike slowly while carrying a pack to train.
I’m attaching a few workout options to this post – feel free to save them to your phone so that you can do them anytime that you want. I’ve also made some videos to go along with the workouts, demonstrating the various exercises listed. Keep in mind that I filmed these videos in my garage with my cellphone (filmography budget = $0.00). One of them features a cameo of my cat Cinder’s eyeball.
Let me know if you try any of them, and what you think – I would love to get some feedback! Happy training!!
If you want to fast forward to a particular exercise, here are the times where they appear in the video:
Hamstring lifts 00.00
Static Sumo squat with heel lift 00:15
Good mornings 00:27
Air squat/squat jump 00:45
Calf raise 01:01
Single leg step up with press 01:13
Reverse squat 01:29
Superman pulse 01:45
Single leg glute raises 01:58
Clamshells 02:11
Static wall sit 02:25
Squat with pulse 02:41
Single leg lunge 02:54
Single leg dead lift 03:18
Single leg glute lift 03:51
Curtsy lunge 04:02
Here’s the video for the HIIT/Strength combo that I posted earlier. The squat jumps + burpees are in the ‘cardio’ portion of the workout, everything else is in the strength portion (don’t worry, your heart rate will be up, I promise).
I’ve listed where the exercises are demo-ed in the video so you can skip ahead and find them!
Jump squat 0:00
Burpees with push-up 00:06
Static sumo with heel lift 00:20
Goblet squat + goblet pulse 00:28
Static wall sit 00:39
Hamstring lift 00:47
Single leg step up with press 00:57
Kettle bell swing (also shown with dumbbell) 1:04
Tricep pulse 1:30
Single dumbbell lift 1:41
21 bicep series 1:54
Manmaker (add a push-up to make it harder) 2:25
Flutter kicks 2:58
Russian twist 3:11
Let me know if you do it, and what you think!! MODIFY as needed – turn the reps into manageable sets. EVERYBODY can do this!!
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