Hiking is a great way of improving your physical and mental well-being. You don’t need any equipment for it or even experience.
It is possible to make it as moderate or as intense as you want. What’s more, you reap tremendous health benefits from it.
IS HIKING ENOUGH EXERCISE?
Yes, hiking is good enough as a form of exercise.
Great exercises are those that burn calories and help you lose weight. According to this study, hiking is a cardio workout that can make you achieve this goal.
Additionally, hiking every day can help to strengthen your core and improve balance. It can tone your body by building your lower leg, hip, glutes and hamstrings.
Most good exercise also tackles heart problems. In this research, it was shown that outdoor walking helped lower heart disease risk, improve blood sugar and minimize the chances of having controlled blood pressure.
DOES HIKING HELP TO LOSE BELLY FAT?
Before attempting to lose belly fat, you must be aware that spot reduction is a myth. In other words, thinking that exercising one part of the body to lose fat, there is untrue as stated here.
Instead, seek to burn calories and lose weight throughout your body so that your belly too may be affected.
When hiking for weight loss and hence hiking to lose belly fat, you need to rev up your workout. This includes hiking for long or intensifying your workout.
HOW TO BURN MORE CALORIES WHILE HIKING FOR WEIGHT LOSS
1. CHOOSE UNEVEN TERRAIN
Your body tends to even itself out when exercising. If your hike is level, you will not need to engage certain muscles.
On the other hand, uneven terrain involves balance; which can only be handled when working your muscles. That way, you get to achieve more from your hike.
2. INCORPORATE WEIGHTS
When you walk as you are, without weights, you usually burn what you need for the workout. However, when you add weight, you engage your muscles, continuing to burn calories even after finishing the workout.
Consider carrying dumbbells with you or placing an extra load in your backpack. For the latter, this will be a great way of strengthening your back muscles.
3. GO FOR HILLY HIKES
Hiking for weight loss is often intensified by doing it on the incline. Hills make your body work harder and often require more calories.
While going uphill, your heart rate will increase because you need more blood to boost your efforts. Furthermore, you are likely to burn as much as 30% calories when hiking uphill than on a flat surface.
4. INCREASE YOUR PACE OF WALKING
Hiking for weight loss requires you to exert your body by increasing your level of speed. When you walk at a brisk pace, you consume more calories.
Strive to do the hike that you normally do in 30% less time. That way, you will break into a sweat and burn more fat.
5. COMBINE WALKING WITH RUNNING
Technically, hiking involves walking. In fact, most people find hiking non-threatening because it does not require much.
However, if you are hiking but not losing weight, you may need to take things up a notch. Consider running at some point in the hike.
You may maintain a 1: 2 ratio of running and walking. In other words, walk for 20 minutes and run for 10 or walk for 2 minutes and run for 1.
When you mix things up like this, you keep your body guessing. Avoiding steady-state exercising can be a surefire way of losing weight while hiking.
6. SLOW DOWN WHEN GOING DOWNHILL
It may seem counterintuitive for you to reduce your pace when all your body wants to do is increase it, but this strategy actually works.
Stopping yourself from running downhill increases the level of resistance that you subject your body to. That way, it needs to exert itself and use up more calories.
7. GOING OUT IN THE WIND
As mentioned before, the more you subject yourself to resistance, the more calories you are likely to burn.
In windy weather, your body has to put in more effort to resist the wind and propel yourself forward. If you are hiking for weight loss, exercising in windy weather can increase your weight burn by close to 5%.
8. CHALLENGE YOURSELF WITH MINI WORKOUTS
Even though walking is the main form of cardio that you are doing when hiking, there is no reason why you can’t incorporate other forms of workouts.
These exercises will challenge you and make your body keep using up more calories.
Whenever you see a ditch always jump over it rather than go around it. If you encounter tree stumps, go over them and even climb over logs.
Sometimes you may need to lift your hands above your head and do triceps curls without the weights or even try pushups and squats.
Doing so will contribute to a significant level of exertion.
9. INCREASE THE DISTANCE COVERED
Hiking for weight loss works because of the amount of work that needs to be done during the walk.
You want to put in more or less the same effort as that of a slow jog. However, because jogging often burns calories, to achieve the same result while hiking, put in more time.
Hiking can be almost equal to running or jogging when you extend the amount of time spent on it. Consider going for double the amount of time that you would normally run in the gym and also going hiking every day.
10. INCREASE YOUR STRIDE LENGTH BUT MONITOR YOUR PACE
When exercising, you want to be in a position where you are always pushing yourself. What you should avoid is getting into a steady state.
In the latter position, your body will have become acclimatized to hiking conditions and will no longer be burning fat or calories for that matter.
Therefore, you always want to challenge yourself by first increasing your stride length. However, you should revert to your normal stride length to engage your metabolism.
Likewise, ensure that you walk briskly when you’re hiking so that your body is using up more calories per unit of distance covered.
The above notwithstanding, you still want to get the optimal walking pace. If you overdo it, you will likely get out of the fat-burning zone and still be moving too slowly to enjoy anaerobic benefits.
Consider taking a break so that your system can reset and come back stronger from time to time. That should happen about every 6 weeks.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Hiking for weight loss works because hiking requires additional calories from mere walking or no exercise at all.
To maximize this workout, consider monitoring your pace such that it is neither too slow nor too fast. You should also hike in hilly areas and places with rough terrain as they make your body work harder.
Consider carrying weights or putting them in your backpack. Increase your stride length from time to time for that extra push. Make sure that you also hike when it is windy and slow down when going downhill.
Finally, make sure that you don’t overdo it by taking breaks from time to time. This will ensure that hiking for weight loss works for you.
