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The summit of Vermont’s Mount Philo, with its views of the sparkling Lake Champlain, is one of the most popular outdoor destinations in the state for a reason: Its short, roughly three-quarter-mile ascent is relatively easy — an accessible climb for hikers, picnickers, families with young children, and nature enthusiasts of all types.

Mount Philo was an ideal location for one of my early attempts at rucking — walking with weight, usually in the form of a pack known as a rucksack. While the exercise has long been used in military training and is now a central feature of endurance events like GORUCK Challenges and others, rucking is hardly reserved for elite athletes or special forces. As Steph Gaudreau, CISSN, NASM-CPT, a San Diego–based fitness coach and avid rucker, says, “We were all rucking when we walked to school with our backpacks on.”

And so I loaded 25 pounds onto my back, strapped my iPhone to my arm — with Prince cued up on my playlist — and began what would normally be an easy, breezy amble up the hill.

It took almost no time before the added weight made its presence known. My heart pounded. My glutes were firing. A Mount Philo State Park ranger eyed me with a mix of suspicion and concern. I assured him I was just working out.

And what a workout rucking is!

“Rucking improves cardio and lung capacity, strengthens your core and glutes, and improves both walking and running speeds when you’re not wearing a ruck,” says Amy Petersen, director of programming and operations at the online PATHFINDER Ruck Training. “It’s amazing how much lighter you feel and faster you are when you take the weight off.”

“Rucking improves cardio and lung capacity, strengthens your core and glutes, and improves both walking and running speeds when you’re not wearing a ruck.”

Additionally, says Charlie Bausman, chief operating officer at the Mountain Tactical Institute in Missoula, Mont., “[rucking] can be a low-impact method for improving general fitness and training for uphill movement.”

As Bausman points out, rucking is infinitely adjustable based on weight, speed, terrain, and distance, making it possible to start slow and ramp up as your fitness improves and interest soars. By continually pushing you up against the edges of your comfort zone, rucking can help build resilience — physically and mentally. (Personally, I went on to train for and complete a GORUCK Heavy, a gritty team-adventure event that called for carrying weighted rucksacks for 40-plus miles. You can read all about that experience here.)

Even if competitive rucking isn’t your thing, incorporating weighted walks into your training can improve functional strength for everyday activities by building up your core and postural muscles and improving muscular endurance in the lower body.

Plus, rucking provides a social opportunity. Online communities and in-person clubs abound, making it possible to meet like-minded people — ruckers will often seek partners for safety and companionship while exploring new terrain — and even ruck as a team.

Want to give this activity a try? Experts share their best tips to help you pack up and step out for a strength-building walk.

One Step at a Time

Ready to ruck? Bausman offers the following best practices:

1. “Start slow and light,” he says. For a rucking rookie, he recommends a pack weight of 15 to 25 pounds and advises walking at a normal pace for the first one to two miles.
2. Build up on distance first. A rule of thumb for many endurance endeavors is to increase mileage by about 10 percent each week, though some people find that to be conservative. Heed your body’s signals and make time for recovery as you navigate the right distance increases for you.
3. Once you can complete five miles, begin increasing your pace. For most people, a “fast” walking speed is in the 4 to 5 mph range. As your pace increases, you may choose to shift from walking to shuffling or jogging, though that is not a requirement of rucking.
4. Pack weight should be the last thing to increase — and should only be increased gradually. Consider adding five pounds every few weeks, and keep in mind that most people, outside of military athletes and mountain athletes, are not advised to carry more than 35 pounds, says Bausman.
5. You can ruck anywhere. But, as Bausman notes, “trails are preferred over roads or sidewalks to reduce the impact on the joints.”
6. As for how often to ruck, one to two times a week is plenty.

Finally, Petersen adds, don’t overthink it. You can start rucking right from your front door. Choose a familiar route, and begin with your most comfortable, conversational pace. Simple ways to rack up mileage include putting your rucksack on while walking the dog in the evening, or rucking to the gym, office, or grocery store.

“Our participants who do our hardest programs tend to do shorter miles more consistently,” says Petersen. “Because rucking is so easy to do, the only way to do it wrong is to not do it at all.”

Take a Load On

Gaining unilateral strength and absorbing force are key components of rucking development. “Even if you’re stepping off a curb, your body has to be good at decelerating and absorbing impact,” says Gaudreau. To help prepare and support your body through the rigors of rucking, she suggests working step-ups and step-downs into your strength routine.

Step-Up

Repeat 12 times on the left, then switch sides.

• Stand facing a box or a step. Raise your left foot off the floor and place it flat on the box, making sure your heel is not hanging off.
• Engage your core and shift your weight onto your left foot. Drive through your left heel to come to standing on the box.
• With control, reverse the movement, returning your right foot to the floor.

Make it easier: Use a shorter step. Hold on to a rack or similar sturdy object for assistance, as needed.
Make it harder: Hold a dumbbell or a kettlebell in one or both hands, or wear a weight vest or weighted pack.

 Step-Down

Repeat 12 times on the left, then switch sides.

• Stand on top of a box or a step so that your left foot is planted firmly and your right foot is hanging off the back.
• Engage your core and with control, bend your knees and lower your hips. Take care to keep your hips level as you squat down.
• Lower yourself until the toes of your right foot gently tap the floor. (Make sure to keep your weight on the left foot; do not shift it back and lower yourself onto the right foot.)
• Return to standing, making sure you don’t push off the right toes for assistance.

Make it easier: Use a shorter step. Hold on to a rack or similar sturdy object for assistance, as needed.
Make it harder: Hold a dumbbell or a kettlebell in one or both hands, or wear a weight vest or weighted pack.

Rucking Essentials

Shoes:

Footwear is a highly personal choice, and experts recommend getting fitted at a local outdoor store. Look for sturdy, supportive shoes or boots that feel good while wearing your ruck, which you should bring with you while selecting the right pair. Your feet should be snug but still have room, as they will swell while rucking.

Rucksack:

While any backpack can be used for rucking, the ideal rucksack will feature a supportive structure made of durable fabric as well as shoulder padding for added comfort. Both Gaudreau and Petersen recommend GORUCK rucksacks as they are specifically designed for rucking and have sleeves into which weight plates easily slip. Think of your rucksack as a turtle shell, with the weight carried high and snug to your spine. “Keep everything close and compact,” says Gaudreau. “If you like rucking, it’s a bit of an investment to get a bag made for the purpose, but it’s going to be much more comfortable, and you’re going to like rucking even more.”

Load:

Many beginning ruckers choose household items as their starting weight: books, dumbbells, clothes, even a cast-iron skillet or glass water bottles wrapped in towels. GORUCK sells cast-iron weight plates. Remember to start light.

Safety:

Make sure to pack a first-aid kit and a change of socks. If you’re rucking in the dark, take a headlamp and a reflective vest.

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We’re all aging, all the time, which means our bodies are always changing too. As the years pass, those changes can leave some of us dealing with health issues and injuries, as well as aches and pains, that require surgical intervention.

Back and joint pain, particularly in the knees and hips, are common problem areas for many older adults. And though many healthcare providers treat these issues with nonsurgical methods first, approximately 790,000 total knee replacements and more than 450,000 hip replacements are performed annually in the United States, according to the American College of Rheumatology. Additionally, nearly 900,000 Americans undergo spinal surgery each year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

No matter the type of surgery, the healing process can be daunting — both physically and mentally. From doing regular physical therapy to getting back to your normal daily activities and into an exercise routine, there are many steps in the recovery journey.

“For over a decade, I’ve coached people from all walks of life, including those coming back from a surgery or injury and those with preventive healthcare goals,” says Ryan Lew, CPT, CES, PES, ARORA-certified Dynamic Personal Trainer at Life Time in Schaumburg, Ill. “They often come in slightly apprehensive of the unknown, and it’s a journey to understand their new body and its movement patterns and capabilities.”

We asked Lew to offer some advice for those looking to return to regular movement after a surgery. The guidance he offers is general, as he acknowledges that each person’s situation is unique; consult your doctor if you’re recovering from surgery prior to making any changes to your routine.

1. Follow your physical therapist’s guidance.

Physical therapy is often necessary post-surgery. Your physical therapist can recommend or assign exercises or stretches that help you along in your recovery, while a personal trainer can offer additional support and exercises to complement your therapy.

“After a surgery, a person has likely been in physical therapy and knows their limitations but is looking for further help to establish or re-establish a physically active lifestyle,” Lew explains. “Often, if someone is working with a physical therapist, I’ll connect with their therapist to make sure I’m creating the best possible plan for my client. This assures they are supported from all angles of the recovery process.”

2. Start slow and set limits.

When you’re ready to start exercising again, it can be tempting to jump back into a previous workout routine. But Lew recommends starting slow, setting limits, and focusing on little wins.

“When you work with a fitness professional, they can help you redefine your goals and figure out what’s realistic,” he says. “There’s no cookie-cutter approach. When I’m working with someone, I like to look at the entire body and discuss where they’re at mentally and physically before we create a plan together that we feel confident about.”

3. Focus on progressive resistance training.

When you start slow and stay consistent with resistance training, you can continue to make progress on building a base for strength and endurance in your post-surgery body.

“For the first four to six weeks after your physical therapist or doctor clears you for exercise, we’re not focusing on load or weight,” says Lew. “We’re working on getting the small muscles to activate, and relieving tension in the muscles compensated by surgery or injury so your body can work functionally again. After that, as you start to get stronger, you can add more weight and work on further improving your strength and endurance.”

4. Try low-intensity, steady-state cardio.

For your cardiovascular health, Lew recommends adding some low-intensity cardio into your routine. Depending on your abilities, this may look like walking outside or on a treadmill, water walking or swimming, or stationary biking. Be sure to consult your healthcare provider and a fitness professional for specific recommendations.

“Water workouts are great for the post-surgery population,” Lew says. “For example, ARORA Aqua at Life Time is a low-impact pool workout that produces less strain on your joints than land-based exercises. It’s a non-weight-bearing cardio class designed to improve endurance as well as strength and balance with added resistance from the water.”

5. Lean on your community and support systems.

Recovering from a surgery is not always a smooth journey, so Lew recommends looking for like-minded individuals to help you along the way.

“At Life Time, we have the ARORA community of active, older adults, which is a built-in support system for any type of healthy-living goal you may be trying to accomplish,” he says. “Even though we might have different individual goals, or be working within different limitations, everyone has the same objective of being healthier and that can be powerful. In the ARORA studio classes, there’s no intimidation factor so you can feel comfortable and confident — and, in turn, be more consistent with your workouts.”

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Running is often considered the ultimate exercise — it gets your legs moving and your heart pumping, and it calms your mind. There’s a reason that the feeling of aerobic exercise–induced euphoria is called the runner’s high.

Walking, too, is a fitness darling. Research highlights its numerous benefits: boosting immunity, releasing endorphins, and reducing high blood pressure and cholesterol. Plus, it’s a great way to stay mobile.

“As we age, being able to get around via walking is arguably the most important functional capacity one should try to maintain, making walking consistently throughout the lifespan a great addition to a healthy lifestyle,” says Life Time master trainer and nutrition coach Joe Meier, CSCS, PN2. (Learn more about the health benefits of walking at “The Powerful Health Benefits of Walking.”)

Despite each boasting many benefits, these activities are often pitted against each other because of how much impact they have on joints, with the understanding that walking has less than running.

But less impact doesn’t mean zero impact, warns Alec Blenis, CSCS, CES, PN2, a strength and endurance coach and ultraendurance hybrid athlete.

“Walking has different types of impact [than running],” he says. “The stride is different, and the cadence is different. There’s impact from both running and walking, so I don’t think one’s necessarily better than the other as far as impact is concerned, provided you’ve gradually increased your tolerance for it.”

With walking, it’s possible for most people to increase volume while avoiding injuries to the knees, feet, and ankles. That’s not to say there’s no risk — walking too much, too fast can result in soreness and issues like shin splints and plantar fasciitis — but the risk is typically lower than with running. Running can be trickier to manage in terms of how quickly you ramp up your distance and intensity.

Just keep in mind that “while running does come with a bit more injury risk, less impact doesn’t make an activity better outright — impact stimulates important fitness adaptations too,” Blenis says. “Everyone should be mindful of doing an appropriate amount of impact for their bodies.”

If you increase your mileage slowly and invest in recovery time, either activity can be a great way to get outdoors, socialize, and train the cardiovascular system. “From a general health perspective and a weight-loss perspective, both running and walking can be fantastic,” explains Blenis.

(For a beginner-friendly 5K program, check out “How to Train for Your First 5K.” Not into running? Try this “30-Minute Walking Workout.”)

As much as we try to pit activities or exercises against each other to find the ultimate fitness path, the real answer is that there isn’t one. To explore more exercises that are often pitted against each other, visit “Is There Really a “Best” Workout?,” from which this article was excerpted.

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Possible cause: Plantar fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis is inflammation of the thick band of fascia that runs from the heel bone to the toes. It can be caused by a one-time event in which you overload the tissue, such as walking for miles on vacation in new shoes. Or it can develop over a longer period in response to posture or mobility issues in the feet, says biomechanist Katy Bowman, MS, author of Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief.

“Plantar fasciitis is biomechanical in origin,” Robert Kornfeld, DPM, a holistic podiatrist at the Chronic Foot Pain Center in New York City explains. “One typical cause comes from the calf muscle being overly tight in compensation for hypermobility in the forefoot. The tighter the calf muscle gets, the greater the pull and stress on the plantar fascia, which can injure cells and cause them to become chronically inflamed.” Small tears may also develop in the plantar fascia, adding to pain and inflammation.

The antidote, says Bowman, is mobilizing and stretching the foot. “You’ve got this stiff, tense wad of injured tissue, and you want to stretch and smooth it out like a ball of dough.” She suggests using targeted stretches and rolling the foot out on a ball. “These are ways of waking up this tissue that’s clumped to protect itself.”

Other strategies include getting a biomechanical evaluation to help identify problematic gait and posture habits, changing your footwear, and trying acupuncture.

While some may benefit from taping or using an orthotic or brace, Bowman stresses the importance of identifying the underlying cause. “You want to get your foot working better for you without all that gear, or else you’re not really getting to the root of the problem.”

As the literal foundation of our bodies, our feet are crucial to keeping us active and healthy. See “What Your Feet Are Trying to Tell You,” from which this article was excerpted, for more common foot issues and steps to relieving them.

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The first listening game I ever played in a fitness class had simple instructions: Rack and load a barbell for high-rep back squats and queue up Moby’s “Flower,” a song that repeats the phrase “Green Sally up and Green Sally down” (often misquoted as “Bring Sally up and bring Sally down”) 30 times. Hit play, unrack, and listen. Every time you hear “Sally down,” squat down. Every time you hear “Sally up,” stand back up. The rest of the time, hold still at the top or bottom of the squat — and whatever you do, don’t rerack the bar.

As my gym friends and I prepped our squatting stations and hyped ourselves up, the fitness studio rumbled with murmurs of “You can do anything for three minutes” and whispered attempts to calculate 30-rep maxes. “This will be fun,” our coach said — a warning as much as a promise.

Three minutes and 25 seconds later, our class of 15 avid lifters was sprawled on the floor. It had been fun. Kind of. It had also been hard, humbling, kind of terrible. And if the smile on my face was any indication, it had also been the best.

I’ve only done the Moby challenge a couple more times in the decade since — the pace is well suited for strength moves like squats, pushups, and pull-ups if you’re interested in doing them for high reps without a break, which I rarely am these days. And yet it has inspired me to work listening games into my cardio routine.

Specifically, listening games turn my otherwise tedious treadmill sessions — the only way I run through the cold and dark of Minnesota winters — into some of my most smile-­inducing workouts.

Here’s how I do it: After choosing a song with a repetitive word or phrase, I hit play and begin jogging. Each time the word or phrase repeats, I add 0.1 or 0.2 mph to my speed. In between, I hold the new speed until it’s time to add again.

By the conclusion of the song, I’m running fast — even sprinting, depending on the song. Occasionally, a song will have so many adds that I’m sprinting by the end of the first chorus. In that case, I’ll reset to my jog and hold that pace until the chorus picks up again.

I always begin these sessions with dynamic stretching and a five-minute warm-up jog. Between efforts, I ­recover for at least a minute or for the length of another song by walking or jogging.

If you’re new to listening games, start with one or two songs, resting as needed in between, and extend your runs as your fitness improves. (I like to line up three to five songs that will help me progressively pick up my speed or incline, but you do you.)

Why does this music-based approach make me so happy? Well, research has shown that music can boost mood and motivation, pushing athletes to work harder and longer while helping them dissociate from fatigue.

Listening games, more specifically, evoke childhood memories of playing Simon Says and Red Light, Green Light — infusing workouts with a sense of play.

Plus, listening closely to a song — extra closely when it’s not in English — reconnects me to a sense I often take for granted (my hearing). Best of all, it can transform any treadmill sesh from a slog into a party.

Tempo-Driven Songs to Supercharge Your Cardio

These are a few of my current favorite listening-game songs.

Songs With 10 to 24 Repetitions

•   “Fill Me In” by Craig David: Add speed on “fill me in.”
•   “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani: Add speed on “Hollaback girl.”
•   “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” by Céline Dion: Add speed on “it’s all coming back.”
•   “Simon Says” by Megan Thee Stallion: Add speed on “Simon says” during chorus.

Songs With 25 to 39 Repetitions

•   “Pump Up the Jam” by Technotronic: Add speed or resistance on “make my day.”
•   “Con Altura” by Rosalía and J Balvin: Add speed on “con altura.”
•   “Everybody Everybody” by Black Box: Add speed on “everybody.”
•   “Bruk Off Yuh Back” by Konshens: Add speed on “bruk off yuh back.”

Songs With 40+ Repetitions

•   “What U Gon’ Do” by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz: Add speed on “what they gon’ do.”
•   “Baby” by Justin Bieber: Add speed on “baby.”
•   “Shake It” by Bow Wow: Add speed on “shake it.”
•   “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle)” by Limp Bizkit: Add speed on “rollin’.”

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