Urban Hiking
Sometimes...You Have to Make Do With What You Have
Life isn’t always accommodating of our rigid training schedules. Sometimes, you need to improvise, especially if your training program calls for a mountain hike and you're a hundred miles away from a mountain. I live in Glendale, Arizona and if I want to hike, I need to drive 25-30 minutes to access the nearest trailhead for Camelback Mountain or Piestewa Peak. Like most people, I can't always build an extra hour into my workouts for travel time. So I developed an alternative. Instead of hiking up a tall mountain, what if I hiked up a little hill multiple times?
The picture above is a street overpass in Glendale, Arizona. Hills of any size are hard to come by in Phoenix, so this was the best option I had. It's a 10 minute walk from my house, which, coincidentally makes for a perfect warmup. By the time I hike over to it, I'm usually lightly sweating and ready to start charging up and down the concrete face. While it's not the Rockies, with a little imagination, I was able to turn this urban eyesore into a training ground with just a weighted pack and running shoes.
The workout is a hybrid model and incorporates two exercises that are normally not paired together: sprinting and hiking. I'm a big fan of interval training, and this is a great way to build up both your aerobic and anaerobic conditioning.
The Workout is ridiculously simple.
- Slap a pack on your back
- Hike up and down the hill five times
- Drop your bag off at the bottom & sprint to the top
- Jog back to the bottom
- Grab your bag and repeat
Simple right? Of course. But surprisingly, this workout can be punishing. I've provided a sample routine below that you can use to develop your own. I would suggest starting with 25lbs (Level 1) in your pack and then gradually increasing. As you'll notice, I've incorporated pyramid sets for the hill sprints (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1) but feel free to modify that depending on your preference and level of fitness. To mix it up a bit, the final round involves some modified pack carries (e.g. throw the pack over your shoulder like a chainsaw, clutch the bag against your chest in a bear hug, carry the pack by its handle in one hand like a briefcase, etc.) From time to time, I'll work those different carrying styles throughout the routine to change things up.
In total, the beginning routine consists of:
- 45 Trips (up & down)
- 25 Hill Sprints
- 40 Pushups
- Total Elevation Gain = 900 ft (45 trips x 20 ft)
- Total Distance Hiked = 5400 ft (45 trips x 60 feet x 2)
The routine below should be challenging for those in moderate-to-decent shape, but as you get stronger, you'll definitely want to kick up the intensity by:
- Increasing the # of trips (up & downs)
- Adding weight to your pack
- Increasing the # of hill sprints
- Increasing the # of pushups and adding sets throughout the routine
- Jogging with the pack / sprinting with the pack
- Total Distance Sprinted: 1500 ft (~ 1/4 mile)
| 10 minutes Warmup / Hike to hill |
| 20 Pushups |
| 5 Reps |
| 1 Hill Sprint |
| 5 Reps |
| 2 Hill Sprints |
| 5 Reps |
| 3 Hill Sprints |
| 5 Reps |
| 4 Hill Sprints |
| 5 Reps |
| 5 Hill Sprints |
| 5 Reps |
| 4 Hill Sprints |
| 5 Reps |
| 3 Hill Sprints |
| 5 Reps |
| 2 Hill Sprints |
5 Reps
|
| 1 Hill Sprints |
| 20 Pushups |
| Hike Home / Cool Down |