Is Hiking An Aerobic Or Anaerobic Exercise? 10 Health Benefits Of Hiking

What Type Of Exercise Is Hiking?

Hiking is predominantly an aerobic exercise because it is a low-intensity endurance activity that increases your respiratory and heart rate. Like all aerobic exercises, hiking consists of repetitive rhythmic movements over an extended period of time. However, hiking is a unique form of exercise because it also triggers anaerobic fitness, especially when carrying a heavy pack or climbing steep hills.

Since hiking is a combination of aerobic and anaerobic exercise, it yields many health benefits to its participants. Before getting into this, we should go over the differences between aerobic and anaerobic exercise and each of their advantages.

Aerobic Vs Anaerobic Exercise

As we mentioned, aerobic exercise is a sustained low-intensity effort that increases your breathing and heart rate. Aerobic exercise relies on oxygen for energy, requiring your body to take oxygen in and pump it to your body’s active muscle groups. This process relies heavily on your heart and lungs, making aerobic exercise very beneficial for our cardiovascular health.

Some different forms of aerobic exercise include:

Hiking (duh)
Running/jogging
Swimming
Cycling
Rowing
Elliptical
Skiing

As you can tell, all of these activities involve rhythmic movements and typically take place over an extended period.

Anaerobic exercise is short bursts of intense exercise that rely on energy stored in our muscles. This exercise can only be sustained for a few seconds and leads to lactic acid development within our muscles, causing soreness and fatigue after exercise. Some of the benefits of anaerobic exercise include burning fat, building muscle, and increasing bone density.

There are a variety of different types of anaerobic exercise, including:

Sprinting
Weight lifting
High-Intensity Interval Training
Calisthenics
hiking?

Check out this informative article to learn more about the differences and benefits of aerobic and anaerobic exercise.

Benefits Of Hiking As A Blend Of Aerobic And Anaerobic Exercise:

Hiking, a combination of aerobic and anaerobic exercise, lends itself to many fantastic health benefits. Some of the aerobic benefits that come with hiking include a boost in the immune system, the elevation of mood, improved endurance, and lowering your blood pressure. It is no surprise that these benefits come with hiking because hiking is mainly an aerobic activity. The steady lengthy, cyclic movements of hiking make it the quintessential aerobic exercise.

However, I said there are parts of backpacking that can trigger your anaerobic system, including steep inclines, a weighted backpack, and scrambles. Hiking steep trails turn into lunge workouts, a calisthenic exercise for your quad’s, glutes, and hamstrings. At the same time, trekking miles in a day, carrying your pack can serve as a weightlifting program working your back and trapezii.

Finally, the almighty scramble to get up highly precipitous mountainsides using your hands and feet serves as a full-body calisthenic workout. This anaerobic aspect of hiking gives many other health benefits, including fat burning, building muscle, and increasing bone density.

To recap, hiking provides both aerobic and anaerobic exercise benefits, including:

Aerobic Exercise Benefits:

Weight loss
Lower blood pressure
Boost mood
Boost immune system
Lowers bad cholesterol raises good cholesterol
Increases endurance

Anaerobic Exercise Benefits:

Build muscle
Burn fat
Increase bone density

How To Improve Your Hiking Endurance:

After all we have discussed, it should come as no surprise that the best way to improve your hiking endurance from a fitness perspective is to increase the amount of aerobic exercise you do regularly. By doing so, you are prepping your cardiovascular system to take on a physically demanding backpacking trip. Some ways of doing this include the aerobic exercises mentioned above, but I would focus on activities similar to hiking, such as jogging or going on long brisk walks.

Another great way to improve your endurance while backpacking that does not even require a shred of exercise is to focus on making your pack as lightweight as possible. You will be shocked how much further and faster you can hike after cutting excess weight from your backpack.

A personal example of this for me was when I hiked around Mont Blanc in just a day pack. Here, I was able to knock out twenty-mile-plus days for multiple consecutive days thanks to dropping my pack weight by nearly fifty percent. Check out our backpacking gear blog to find great equipment to take pounds off your pack weight!

Other tricks that can help you improve your endurance include:

Keeping adequately hydrated
Being sure you are eating enough calories on the trail
Using trekking poles to take pressure off your needs
Aerobic exercise training

Tracking Your Aerobic Activity While Hiking:

Tracking your aerobic activity is a helpful tool that helps establish a baseline of your aerobic fitness and logs your hikes giving tons of fitness data from each one. This data can vary from device/application, but often it will include your pace, distance hiked, elevation gained/lost, route, and estimated calories burned.

These data points are helpful because they track your fitness and can help you see if changes in backpacking strategies lead to any measurable differences in your pacing or amount of distance covered daily. So if you try a new water filtration system or pack your backpack a different way than usual, tracking your aerobic activity can help show you if your changes helped or hurt you as the old saying goes that which is not measured cannot be improved.

There are several different ways out there to track your hikes and your health stats while backpacking. From free apps on your cell phone, such as Strava or the health app, to expensive smartwatches, there are several options to choose from when it comes to tracking your aerobic fitness while hiking.

If you are starting out I would recommend starting with a free service such as one of the above applications before purchasing a more expensive smartwatch. If you find yourself looking to buy one, I would do your research to find the best one for you as there are quite a few on the market, each with its benefits.

Some popular brands I recommend looking into include Garmin, Apple, and Fitbit. Check out this very informative article comparing some of the different types of hiking watches.

That's A Wrap!

Hiking is a great activity that can not only bring amazing views and experiences with friends but can also be a great way to keep your body in excellent condition. I hope this article helped shed some light on what kind of exercise hiking is and its health benefits. Be sure to sign up for our email list stay in the loop for all of our latest articles!.

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Hiking With Bad Knees. 5 Tips On How To Protect Your Knees When Hiking

We all love hiking in the great outdoors, but if you have bad knees, it is essential to take the proper precautions to prevent knee pain from ruining a good hike. Knee pain alone can be very debilitating, but when coupled with a long-distance hike, it can be downright miserable and, if bad enough, can keep you off the trail for a while. That is why it is essential to know how to protect your knees and manage your knee pain when hiking.

As both an avid hiker and an orthopedic surgery physician assistant, I have experienced and treated knee conditions both on and off the trail. Here are five tips that will help you protect your knees for many miles to come!

Stretch/warm-up
Wear Proper Hiking Boots
Use Hiking Poles
Pack Smart
RICEN (pain relievers, rest, ice, compression, elevation, NSAID’s/Pain relievers)

Stretch/Warmup:

Stretching and warming up are crucial aspects of the pre and post-workout ritual whenever doing any exercise. This get’s your muscles moving and your body ready for exercise.

Now I know there are a bunch of weekend warriors out there who do not stretch ever, but I encourage you to do so before embarking on your hike because it is a simple activity that can help prevent a sprain or injury when out on the trail.

For lower intensity exercising such as hiking, it is a good idea to perform static stretches for your major muscle groups, including your quads, hamstrings, calves, and back. Here is a link to some helpful stretches.

Wear Proper Hiking Footware:

Okay, this may seem like a no-brainer, but it must be said. You need to wear a supportive shoe whenever you are hiking, but this is even more so when trekking with bad knees. The reason is that with every step we take, pressure is distributed throughout our leg (our knee), and each step begins with our boot hitting the ground, making it essential to have adequate footwear to help dissipate that pressure.

If you have bad knees and typically hike with running shoes, I would say a change in footwear is a great place to start getting those knees back on track. Learn about all of the different hiking footwear options out there and the best one for you!

Use Hiking Poles:

Now, these are an absolute must-buy and are something that you will immediately take notice of when you use them for the first time. When I first saw these things, I thought, no way am I using those sticks, but then I started injuring my knees, and I decided to give them a shot. Boy, was it worth it! Although they looked dorky, I will say I immediately noticed the difference when using them, and now I will never go on a hiking trip without them!

One of the reasons these poles work so well is they act as another shock absorber for your knees, and each time you take a step while using them, you reduce the pressure and load on your knees. Not only do they take a load off of your joints, but they also provide fantastic stability when hiking on uneven terrain, especially on the downhill, which is every hiker with a lousy knee’s worst nightmare! If you’re not sure what kind of poles to purchase, check out our recommendation here!

Pack Smart:

Be mindful of how much weight you will be carrying in your pack. An overweight pack can cause severe discomfort during your hike and can even lead to injury. Be sure to try on your backpack before going out on a long trek to ensure that it is something that you and your knees can handle.

It is crucial to make sure that you are hiking with a reasonable-sized pack, but it is also essential that the method you use for packing makes for efficient hiking. Be sure that most of the weight from your pack is focused on your hips, a good way to do this is by making sure that most of the weight in your pack is at the bottom.

Having weight distribution that is too focused on the upper portion or outside of the backpack can throw you off balance during your hike, leading to falls or twisting injuries to the knee.

RICEN (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate, NSAID's):

For many years, rest, ice, compression, and elevation have been the go-to first-line treatment for joint pain. These strategies are beneficial after a long hike where your knees are achy, and you need a speedy recovery!

You can follow this tip is exactly how it is written! After you finish a long hike that took a toll on your knees, take a load off and rest. Relax and use either an ace wrap or compression brace for support. You can keep your knees compressed while hiking as well for added support. Icing your knee after a long day hike while keeping it elevated above your heart can bring down any swelling that you may have.

Finally, consider taking pain relievers such as Tylenol or NSAIDs before/during/after your hike as needed for knee discomfort. Be sure to check with your doctor before taking any new medications.

That's All!

Hiking is a physically demanding exercise and is even more challenging for people with bad knees. But with the proper practices and equipment, you will realize that managing your knee pain may be easier than expected. I hope the above tips will help you in preventing/managing/treating your knee pain. Happy trails!