Now, I know the title of this post is a hot take to get you to click but hear me out …
A couple days ago someone on r/Wildfire asked what are the best strength exercises for hiking and a lot of people answered “hiking” or “just hike” or stuff like “weighted vest stairmaster.” This happens pretty much every time someone asks a question about PT, so I wanted to make a detailed post explaining why those answers are incomplete.
First some quick context behind this take because I think it's important to understand the lens I view this topic through. Before I joined a handcrew in 2019 I got my master's in exercise science and spent 5.5 years as a full time strength and conditioning coach training D1/pro athletes. My full time job now is coaching and educating wildland firefighters on this stuff.
Actually before I even start to make my points let me be very clear about what I’m NOT saying. I’m not saying we shouldn’t hike to prepare for this job. The Principle of Specificity is chapter 1 of S&C textbooks type of stuff, and my programming is not above this principle. If you want to get better at moving up and down a steep mountain with weight on your back you need to prioritize moving up and down a steep mountain with weight on your back. Hiking is in all of my programs, to be clear. And when I use the word "overrated" it does not mean bad. For me it just means we overvalue hiking and undervalue other aspects of PT which I'll get into.
I approach hiking just like I approach everything else in PT. For example, if my goal is to increase my max deadlift I need to prioritize picking heavy barbells up off the floor. That being said, even if that’s my number one goal I wouldn’t program heavy deadlifts every single day. I would probably do 1 heavy deadlift session a week, and maybe another deadlift session that’s dynamic focused (conjugate method), but I would be sure to also strength train the rest of my body to support my heavy deadlift sessions.
Here’s what this looks like with how I program hiking volume:
The timelines can shift left or right a little depending on when someone has criticals but for the most part I program ZERO hiking from Nov-Jan. You just spend 6-8 months wearing a heavy pack almost every single day. Take a much needed break from the load carriage, please.
Starting in Feb I’ll start to transition to zone 2 hikes (yes these are a real thing. It’s ok not to try to break yourself off every hike I promise), or I’ll combine running and hiking in the same session. Ex: 30min easy run straight into 30min easy hike on flat ground. This is a great way to continue to prioritize time on feet while progressively adding time under load. From there I’ll progress intensity/duration week over week, but staying at a 1 hike/week volume until we get 3-5 weeks out from criticals. Only then will I think about programming 2 hikes a week. I never program 3+ hikes a week.
If I don’t program that much hiking then what do I program?
I’ll get to that at the end but first I want to explain in more detail why I don’t program hiking with as much frequency as traditionally done in this profession.
First of all, I think we overvalue hiking as it relates to cumulative physical demands on shift. I understand that hiking is part of the job every single day. I also understand that the hike can sometimes be the hardest thing you do all day. Despite those, it's still just the commute to work. This is backed up by evidence.
The most comprehensive peer reviewed study on this stuff done by the most experienced researcher in wildland firefighter physiology (Ruby, 2023) showed that ingress/egress hiking made up only 19% of high intensity fireline tasks. Fireline tasks being things like hiking, cutting, swamping, line construction, etc. Now, in terms of total duration per shift 19% isn’t insignificant, simply because WLFF spend so much time working at higher intensities, but here’s how I think about this. If the majority of your PT is hiking, are you effectively preparing yourself for the other 81%? In my opinion, no you’re not.
That raises the question: how much hiking is needed to effectively prepare a WLFF for the job demands?
In the human performance space hiking is referred to as load carriage. Rucking is also an interchangeable term primarily used in military populations. The world’s leading researcher on load carriage in tactical populations (military, fire, LEO) is Rob Orr and through his decades of research on this stuff has concluded that the frequency for load carriage training sessions needed to improve performance while minimizing increased injury risk is every 7-10 days.
The 75th Ranger Regiment’s Human Performance Team published ruck march guidelines that follow similar frequency recommendations. They program ruck marches:
1x/month for maintenance of minimal baseline
2x/month for sustainment of ability
1x/week for improvement of ability
2x/week for improvement of ability at a high level (reserved for speciality events like selection pipeline or Best Ranger Competition - if you didn’t know these events require very high volumes of load carriage)
My personal hiking volume guidelines closely mirror these.
So how do we prepare to crush hikes, crush critical, and crush it all fire season if we only hike 1, maybe 2x a week?
It’s pretty simple actually. GPP baby.
First, we focus on building a bigger engine (aerobic capacity) in the off-season with running, air bikes, rowers, and general conditioning. Lots of easy, low intensity endurance mixed in with some threshold and higher intensity work.
Concurrently, we focus on building a stronger chassis (absolute and relative strength) with things like heavy front squats at 2-5 reps, heavy deadlifts, RDLs, bulgarian split squats, weighted lunges, lateral lunges (don’t neglect frontal plane work and those adductors), heavy UB presses and pulls, direct core work with exercises that target trunk stability and thoracic rotation, copenhagen planks, sandbag get ups, and KB windmills. Add in tempo based lifts and isometrics and strengthen connective tissue. Add in intensive/extensive plyometrics to develop power and deceleration ability (downhill hiking). Also, don’t forget targeted mobility for hip/thoracic extension to counter all the time spent in hip/thoracic flexion while hiking, cutting, and digging line.
Building both strength and endurance capacity as singular qualities has massive carryover to load carriage ability.
It’s important to remember that hiking is categorized as work capacity. It’s very specific type of work capacity that should be trained on its own (again, principle of specificity), but general work capacity also translates extremely well to specific work capacity demands when programmed intelligently. Your AMRAPs, EMOMs, and For Time workouts can be a great way to build fatigue resistance in the same exact muscles that are stressed while hiking, without the added stress of load on your spine (wearing a pack). Think like a CrossFit Metcon but subtract all the goofy CrossFit stuff and prioritize movements that target quads, calves, and trunk resilience.
Last thing I want to talk about when it comes to programming for hiking is adding variety and progressive overload to hiking sessions. What I see a ton is crews doing the same exact hike every single time on the same trail, same distance, same elevation gain, with the same weight in your pack, with the same time goal. Is that the most effective way to improve hiking performance? No.
That would be like doing the exact same run every day and wondering why your run times are plateauing. Or trying to improve your bench press by doing the same sets, same reps, and same weight on the bar every workout. We know that’s not effective in every other aspect of PT but we still program hiking sessions like that most of the time.
Change it up. Progress it week over week. Slowly increase the weight in your pack, or the time on feet, or the elevation gain per mile as you get closer to fire season. Add tempo! I program a lot of what I call power hike intervals which look something like 1min hard as possible trying to cover as much ground as you can and then 3min slow and easy. Repeat for 3-5 times. You can progress the work:rest ratios on those intervals too.
If you got value from this article I think you would enjoy diving into our flagship Rugged Athlete [EDU] Course: High Performance Hiking.
It comes included in our Pro Membership which you can check out here:
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