Spring is here! As the weather warms up its easy to get antsy to get outside and get to hiking. Today we want to share with you some suggestions for preparation and gear recommendations to maximize your experience with the outdoors.
It’s important to recognize that leisure exercises where our mind is taken away have amazing effects on the mind, however they can lead to less than desirable consequences on the body. These are activities that can be more easily prepared for rather than adjusted to accommodate. Put another way, 3 miles up a steep hike, you won’t be thinking of your Midtown NYC Physical Therapist‘s cues for knee control when you are hot, tired, breathless, and mercilessly trying to catch up to a mountain goat of a hiking partner ahead of you. Therefore, we would like to share some great ways to prepare for the season.
Hiking Exercises – Explained by an NYC Physical Therapist
Step-ups (step-downs)
No surprise here … hiking is just one long game of stepups. However, the intent here is to change the way you think about the step-ups as more of a step down where the emphasis is on the eccentric (going down) portion. The cue is step down taking 2-3 seconds from the highest position to come down to the floor using these cues.
- Look down and lean forward while reaching your back foot back
- Come down as if landing on a box of eggs
- Keep 90% of weight on the box foot and do not use your back foot to push yourself back up
- Come up fast and lock the leg out immediately
3-4 sets at 8-10 per leg—weight used in both hands when appropriate.
KB deadlifts
A great way to learn to accommodate the needs of the spine and legs to stabilize when wearing a pack. A backpack of any size will throw off the normal center of gravity for your body. Follow the video series for best cueing.
w/o KB
- Soft knees, Hips back, sit down
- Use wall or object to approximate hip hinging position for consistency before attempting weights
w/KB
- Use the above cues to get down to KB ensuring to use your eyes to look behind the KB to maintain a good spine position
- Grab Kb and use cue “ rip KB apart” to activate posterior shoulder musculature
- Push floor away straightening knees out first
- Look up last as hips press against KB
- Repeat first step to lower ensuring to look down towards the heels where the KB should land
Minimum of 30-40% of body weight suggested for KB deadlifts.
3-4 sets x 6-reps
Plank variations
A great way to simulate anti gravity forces on the spine accumulated during hiking and backpack management. There are 2 versions included; while simple, its important to remember planks can be as easy or as hard as you cue them, often times the exercise is done incorrectly and not felt as powerfully
- Setup to that elbows are slightly behind shoulders and eyes are over fists
- Press into the floor with forearms ensuring the shoulder blades press into the ground
- Pull elbows towards feet and feet towards elbows isometrically to maximize plank tension
- Pull chin into the neck to ensure long neck is achieved
3-5 sets x 15-30 sec reps ( >tension is more important than longer time )
Hiking Gear Recommendations from our Midtown Manhattan Physical Therapy Team
Shoes
Hiking boots vs hiking shoes. Let go of the old school idea of hiking boots. Advancement in sneaker technology allows for lighter shoes that can have sometimes even greater traction on wet, or loose terrain. These shoes also have rubber reinforced toes and a rock plate in the middle of the foot for protection against rocks and roots. Your old squishy Nike foam bottomed shoes are not appropriate here because they do not get good traction and severely lack in the stability department that is key for safe hiking
Hiking boots are typically heavier and work better if you have a heavy pack on for many miles because they help stabilize the ankle. Stabilizing the ankle however has its consequences, especially when considering implications at the knee, Hip and low back. In short… use shoes for shorter day hikes and boots for longer treks.
Backpack Selection
This is often an overlooked portion of hiking. Many of our patients with back pain can drastically improve there hiking experience with a pack designed to better distribute load across the hips and back. These hip straps can help the load hug your body decreasing the fatigue of mis-managed load on the shoulders causing a change in normal posture. In addition, packs that move back and forth on the back create additionally unnecessary forces to stabilize during hiking.
Outdoor retailers such as Paragon sports and REI are great for outfitting you with the perfect backpack with no pressure to buy the Ferrari of packs. Its important to realize that your stylish commuter backpack may not be the most appropriate on the trail.
Poles
Don’t laugh, these are overlooked and super effective. We often associate these poles for skiing or overly outfitted hikers however they are great for lowering fatigue experienced from balancing, especially with load on the back, over mixed terrain. They are light enough to have with you strapped to a pack but useful enough to dramatically increase the distance you can go. These are especially useful when descending on loose terrain while your body has to work hard to decelerate the downward forces so it’s helpful to be able to manage the side to side forces to decrease the overall stability demands. Failure to stabilize adequately on the decent of a hike is typically where we hear patients report their injury stemmed from.
