Essential Training Tips for Preparing for Mountain Hiking

Preparing for mountain hiking involves harnessing the mind and body to an optimized level, to make it capable to adjust to the extreme wilderness and climatic adversities. Though it is a fun and adventure to trek in the hills, but it requires the individual to acquire great physical and psychological strength to cope efficiently at these staggering heights.

When planning to trek the high-altitudes, you should remember that a single exercise is not enough to acquire the capabilities of hiking. Therefore, the basic training schedule should entail gaining optimal strength by toning different muscle groups and functions with accurate repetitions, through professional instructions from a fitness trainer.

Cardiovascular Workout

Climbing the lofty heights of the mountains requires the heart and lungs to be in an extremely functional condition, helping you to adapt to high-altitude trekking with a quicker pace and for an extended period. Therefore, you should start practising cardio exercises like running in the tracks, or treadmills, walking, jogging, cycling, and swimming, apart from some high-intensity drills of jumping jacks, half-jacks, plank-jacks, leg raises, squats, and hops. These activities will help to pump-up your heart and lungs to the maximum level, and develop your body to attain quick blasts of strength required for hiking the towering heights.

Leg Exercises

In preparing for mountain hiking, leg training is specifically an essential drill mandatory for all the trekkers aiming to conquer the lofty heights. As trekking mostly demands to have robust legs capable of withstanding long hikes and at a stretch, so it is a better proposition to offer a proper boost up for the legs. Therefore, you need to practice squats, calf-raises, and leg-raising exercises with accurate reps, apart from brisk strolls to increase the strength gradually and tone your legs. Besides, you can also practice by fixing your treadmill at a higher slope for maximizing the technique of gaining effective leg strength.

Core Exercise Session

When you are developing your overall strength through synchronized drills, you need to emphasize on the core fitness training, involving the chest, back, hips, and the abdomen. Thus, a muscular core aids in the appropriate body orientation to mitigate the effects of stress on the bones and muscles. Some specific exercises are required to enhance the core strength of the body. Therefore, you should practice basic drills such as, push-ups, planks, and V-sits specifically targeting internal and external obliques, and hips to enhance the entire body balance. Again, you should also do repetitions of oblique reach, with particular set of press like bird dog crunch increasing the control and stability of the entire body.

Further, in preparing for mountain hiking, you need to practice exercises like leg lifts, and squat thrust to gain more strength and burn out the excessive fat, more than any traditional strength training drills. Moreover, you can tone your core by practising on a total body stability exercise ball to build-up the stability and spine health, apart from acquiring muscular balance and better posture.

Practice Hiking Sessions

In preparing for mountain hiking, you should follow a regime comprising of demo or practice hikes to get a feel of the real trekking experience. Before the scheduled climb, you should expose and adjust your body and mind to the outdoor environment to acquire a certain level of practice beforehand. Moreover, you should acclimatize your body through replication of the real hiking exposure by carrying trekking equipment and rucksacks while visiting local places for mock treks.

Thus, with all these synchronized exercise methodologies, you will be able to boost your physical and mental strength to the optimal level in adapting yourself for the mountains.