Most new fitness trends require a membership or demand that you lay down big bucks for equipment. Not so with rucking.
If you’ve ever hiked, dashed through an airport or walked home from the market, while wearing a stuffed backpack, you’ve rucked. Actually, you’ve rucked if you’ve worn a weighted pack doing almost anything.
Rucking as a form of exercise evolved from military style ruck marching, which is something military recruits do. The selection process for becoming an elite U.S. Army Ranger includes a 12-mile ruck march while wearing a 35-pound rucksack, aka backpack.
But you don’t have to walk a dozen miles with the weight of a small child on your back in order to gain health and fitness benefits. Simply throw on a weighted backpack, and hit the road while wearing comfortable shoes.
Why you should ruck
Rucking is easy, which means it’s for everyone
Don’t be thrown off by the word easy. “Easy” doesn’t have to mean “ineffective.” It just means “with ease.”
As a matter of course, we all prefer to do things with ease instead of with difficulty. It keeps us on task. If you doubt this, take inventory of something you do every day. I’m sure you’ve found the most comfortable (read: the easiest) way to do it — brushing your teeth or washing dishes come to mind.
Rucking is easy because it’s straightforward, you can do it lightly or intensely, and there’s almost no barrier to entry. It works well for older people, who might need gentler exercise, yet it also is effective for muscle-bound enthusiasts.
Rucking is good for your bones
Osteoporosis affects 10 million Americans, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation. The organization also notes that studies suggest that about 50 percent of women and 25 percent of men age 50 and older will break a bone due to osteoporosis.
Bearing weight or resisting gravity strengthens bones. You do both of those when you ruck.
Rucking strengthens your cardiovascular system
You’re walking with extra weight, perhaps uphill. That means your heart is working harder and you’re conditioning your cardiovascular system.
Rucking builds muscle
Carrying a load means you’re strength training, particularly your lower body and core. Mainly, muscles in your lower body are fired up so that you can walk, and muscles in your core are stabilizing you as you walk.
Rucking improves your posture
A weighted backpack naturally opens your chest, countering the dreaded cashew-shaped spine many of us have developed from hunching over computers, counters, desks, phones.
Also, when you ruck, you’re forced to stand upright — forced to practice good posture — in order to feel stable while walking with a load on your back. (When you walk uphill, you’ll tend to lean forward in order to maintain your balance, though — still strengthening muscles that are good for your posture.)
Rucking gets you outside
Being outside, especially outside in nature, is proven to be good for humans. It decreases stress, keeps your immune system humming and puts you in a state of soft fascination. Might as well reap that while notching exercise that’s easy on your wallet and as easy — or as challenging — on your body as you want.
How to ruck
All you do is strap on a pack, toss however many heavy items you want in it, and walk. But a few details can help you avoid injury and head out with confidence.
Get your “gear”
“Gear” need not be a technical term. You certainly can get yourself a bona fide rucksack and dedicated weights for that rucksack plus a specially designed device to hold those weights — but why? Just use a backpack and some books/magazines/bottles of water/anything that’s heavy and that’ll comfortably go in that backpack.
Don’t have a backpack? I bet you do. It doesn’t need to be incredibly durable or large, especially when you first try rucking. You could even fashion a pack out of a sheet you wrap around a few soft-cover books then place on your upper back, in much the same way a mother straps a baby to her chest.
Prep yourself
You want your pack to feel comfortable against you, its weight evenly distributed. Too much weight near your lower back won’t feel good — this I know from a dozen years of hiking, sometimes for more than an hour and mostly uphill, while laden with 20 pounds of climbing gear in my backpack.
Make sure your shoes fit well and are appropriate for the surface you plan to walk on: running shoes for paved roads, for example, and hiking shoes for rocky trails.
Start moderately
If you rarely exercise, then put only a few pounds in your backpack and walk on a flat to slightly inclined surface for 20 to 30 minutes. Common sense is all you need to guide you here. We all know what it feels like when we’re overdoing exercise, so don’t overdo it.
Build slowly
When you stop feeling challenged, step it up: Increase the weight you carry gradually by a few pounds at a time and walk uphill at increasing grades. You can walk faster and extend the duration of your walk, as well. Earlier, you read about the guidelines U.S. Army Rangers use to separate the wheat from the chaff, so let that inform your upper threshold.
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