Hill Fitness Guide!

Fitness is one of those weird things that's hard to pin down. Sure, you can be generally fit in the sense that you can walk up the road without collapsing into a wheezing heap and you don't have any injuries, but beyond that things get more complicated.

Fortunately OUTDOORSmagic is packed with information to help you get fit and stay fit.

Dashing through the snow - Andrew Terrill from Running - The Album

Fit For What?

It's all about being fit for your activity. To explain what we mean, look at it like this, both an Olympic 100-metre sprinter and a marathon runner are 'fit' but in different ways. The sprinter will have massive explosive power needed to propel himself over short distances as fast as possible.

The marathon runner, on the other hand, will have a combination of great localised muscular endurance and general cardio vascular fitness combined with a system that burns fuel incredibly efficiently.

Both are as fit, but ask one to do the other's event and you'll realise that their fitness is very specific. For most OMers, it's all about being fit for hill and mountain walking, backpacking, scrambling and maybe climbing or mountaineering.

Let's call it being 'hill fit'...

Runner's High by Marcus Crompton from Running - The Album

What's Hill Fit Then?

As an experiment we went mountain walking with a heart rate monitor. What we found was interesting - on flat or downhill sections, our heart rate dropped dramatically, so our system was ticking over at quite a low level. Our mucscles were still working, but metaphorically speaking, our engine was running at quite low revs.

Hit a climb though and things change. Your legs start working harder as you lift your pack and bodyweight against gravity and your heart rate rises fast towards the point where you start using more oxygen than you can process.

Mostly though, you'll pace yourself below this level because you can only maintain anaerobic activity for a short time. We had to push really hard to reach the sort of heart rate levels common during running and, to be honest, most walkers simply won't go that hard.

The more weight you're carrying - both in your pack and as part of your body - the more mass you'll be lifting with every step and the harder you'll work. A good reason to lose weight from both or either.

So far then, it's about being able to maintain a reasonable level of aerobic activity, which is general endurance, combined with localised muscular endurance, so your legs can keep working.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's pointless training harder than you'll be walking though. By working hard - hill running for example - you'll increase your power right through your rev range, meaning that you can walk at the same speed for less effort. If you don't train hard, then you'll stay a plodder...

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Running into Cwm Tryfan by Andrew Terrill - Running - The Album

Fuelling...

To keep your body grinding away over an entire day, you need to keep it fuelled. With practice you become better at processing food and slow-burning fat in particular, but you can make your life a lot easier by eating the right things, both as you're walking and believe it or not, in advance.

In the morning you're powered largely by what you've eaten the night before and, to a lesser extent by your breakfast that morning, get it right and you'll feel the benefits all day.

The same's true of hydration - more information on both in our star article below.

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Recovering

If you're off on a multi-day backpack or even just a weekend one, then not only do you need to be able to go all day, but you'll have to do it all over again next day.

You might think it's just practice and it's true, with use, your body will adapt to repeated stress, but you can still give it a big helping hand by treating it well at the end of the day. That means eating the right things at the right time, maybe doing some gentle stretching and, erm, perhaps some self-masssage.

More details in our star article below...

If you're lucky enough to live in a hilly area where you can walk regularly then your body will adapt relatively quickly, though training specifically to improve aspects of your fitness will also help - hill running, for example, will both strengthen the muscles you use while walking and turbo-charge your cardio-vasular fitness.

If on the other hand you're stuck in the big city and can only get away for the occasional weekend, you can still train for the hill using the gym and the pavement. Our next star article tells you how...

Just scroll down for a selection of articles covering everything from training to dealing with common injuries and even minimising the risk of the common cold, yes, it is possible :-)

And for even more information, check out our Health and Fitness section.