Rucking

Rucking is a essential part of what we do. It is also becoming a popular way to get in shape. Its low impact, completely transferable to our operations and builds both strength and endurance. DO IT!

What Is Rucking?

Rucking is simple. So simple, it’s stupid.

Get a backpack.

Put some weight in said backpack.

Put on the backpack.

Start walking.

That’s it.

Rucking Helps Your Heart

Rucking elevates your heart rate compared to regular walking (so it counts as cardio!) and has an effect on your ticker that’s comparable to jogging. Rucking also improves your all-around work capacity and endurance. Gaining the ability to cover ground under load builds a strong foundation of fitness.

Rucking Burns More Calories Than Walking and Only a Little Less Than Running

If you hate to run, but still want to get the caloric burn that comes with running, rucking is the answer you’ve been looking for. In fact, you can burn about as many calories rucking as jogging.

If you’re a 200-lb man and run for an hour at 5 MPH (that’s about a 12:00 mile pace), you’ll burn 755 calories.

Walking briskly (3.5 mph) for an hour burns 391 calories for a man of the same size.

Add a weight to your brisk hour-long walk (i.e., go rucking), and the research shows you can burn around 40-50% more calories. So our 200-lb man walking at a 3.5 mph pace while carrying 50 lbs of weight will burn around 585 calories. Not too far off from running, and you didn’t have to run! It’s a win-win!

If you’re already taking regular walks, start throwing a pack on when you do; you’ll burn thousands more calories over the course of the year.

Rucking Is Less Stressful on the Body Than Running

Part of the reason many people hate running is the stress it puts on your body, especially your knees. When you run, every stride you take can put between seven and twelve times your bodyweight onto your knees. That’s a lot of force. And if your stride is off or if you have flat feet, the repeated high impact of running can result in knee and joint pain. In fact, the stress that running puts on the joints gives long distance running a fairly high injury rate — anywhere from 20 to 70 percent according to the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

With rucking, you’re just putting two to three times your bodyweight onto your knees with each step, plus whatever weight is on your back. It’s much less taxing on your body.

The reduced stress on my joints and tendons is the big draw for me with rucking, especially as I get older. I’ve injured myself several times while running and sprinting in my 30s. And long distance runs leave the joints in my knees and hips aching for a few days after the run is over.

Now, I’m sure with some time, I could build up the conditioning that would allow me to sprint and run without the pain, but it’s just not something I want to do right now because my focus is on getting strong with barbell lifts.

So to get the aerobic conditioning that comes from running without the stress that running puts on the body, I ruck. Even after a long, hard ruck, I don’t feel much pain or discomfort in my lower body. I might have a bit of muscle soreness, but none of the aches and pains in my joints.

Rucking Builds Strength

Just as the legendary ancient wrestler Milo of Croton got stronger by carrying a bull on his shoulders, you’ll get stronger from carrying a weighted ruck.

The added weight on your back gives your lower body a good workout. Like I said above, I’ll often feel sore in my hamstrings and quads after I ruck. Doubly so, if my ruck took me up and down hills.

Where you’ll really get a strength workout from rucking is on your upper body. As McCarthy told me during my podcast interview with him, “people in the military, they have big strong backs. Not because there’s a back machine at the military gyms that’s exclusive to those. It’s because there’s more time under weight.” After a long ruck, my traps are always smoked.

Even your core gets worked from rucking, as it activates to stabilize the weight.

Rucking Improves Your Posture

If you’ve developed Quasimodo shoulders thanks to hours of slumping at a desk each day, rucking is the perfect antidote. The weight of the backpack actually pulls your shoulders and back into proper alignment and puts you into proper posture. As you ruck more and more, you’ll be training your body to stay in that optimal position even when you’re not rucking.

Rucking Gets You Outside 

If you want to increase your overall health and wellbeing, you need to up your dose of “Vitamin N” by spending time in nature. Studies have shown that spending time outdoors can decrease stress, ward off depression, reduce obesity, boost the immune system, and enhance cognitive abilities. You can compound the health benefits of being in nature by turning your wilderness jaunts into a ruck.

Rucking Prepares You for an Emergency

So you’ve put together a bug-out bag and/or a get-home bag. But if stuff really hit the fan, would you be able to carry that bag for miles and miles as you try to get the hell out of dodge?

The ability to march under weight is a highly functional physical ability and a necessary survival skill. Theodore Roosevelt and JFK thought every man should be able to walk 50 miles in 20 hours — and it’s even more worthy to be able to do such while carrying a pack. Even if you never have to go quite that far, regular rucking prepares you to stay mobile in an emergency.

How to Get Started With Rucking

It doesn’t take much to get started with rucking. You just need some weight, a comfortable backpack sturdy enough to hold that weight, and some time.

How Much Weight to Use

If you’re just starting out with rucking or it’s been awhile since you’ve done much physical activity, start with a weight that’s about 10% of your bodyweight. So if you’re a 200-pound man, start with 20 pounds in your ruck. Each week, add 5 pounds until you get up to about 35-50 pounds. McCarthy doesn’t recommend going above this amount unless you’re training for the military, especially for selection to special forces. It will put too much stress on your body.

What to Use for Weight

For weight, use whatever you have on hand. Dumbbells, iron plates, sandbags, and bricks (duct-taped together) work. So do rocks you find along the trail you’re hiking. GoRuck also manufactures weighted plates for this purpose.

How Often/Long to Ruck

I try to get in at least one ruck a week on one of my weightlifting rest days. It keeps me active, but doesn’t interfere with my recovery time. You can do more or less.

What’s nice about rucking is that since it’s relatively low impact, you could do it every day if you wanted.

If you’re just starting out, begin with a 30-minute ruck. That’s probably a walk or two around the neighborhood block. Slowly build up to an hour or more.

 

Complete article

 

Author: Michael Hamilton

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