I have a mile walk that I do at least 4 times a week Over the spring/summer/autumn I carry a load up to half my body weight Question: If I carry half my body weight over 1 mile is this equivelent to me walking 1.5 miles? It seems like a lot of work for an extra half mile
No that doesn't make sense. Walking a mile with half your body weight is the same as walking a mile with half your own bodyweight. If you want to walk a mile and a half then just do that. I would of thought doing a mile with half your bodyweight is more taxing though.
It is extremely taxing. Especially as a good part (.25 mile) is up a 45% incline Feels great when I take off the weight
Not quite sure what your question is here. Yes you have done the work of a 1.5 walk, in a physics sense. But it's debatable whether you have burned as much calories as you would doing an unburdened 1.5 mile walk.
weighted walking is strength work, whereas walking for longer is very mild endurance work. different things, both useful.
though if you have an old war wound and are carrying 30-40kg in a rucksack there is always a small chance of aggravating it on uneven or even trail, i'd stick with doing strength work in the gym or at least on a flat hard surface. Time off for injury is always a pain (no pun intended)
I wouldn't think of it like that. If you're going for caloric expenditure, then yes your body is working harder carrying the weight therefore you are burning more calories. But as FishofDoom sort of put it, you are adding a strength training element to the walk. This doesn't correlate well with figuring you've gone extra distance because the demand on the muscles is different then no weight and walking. To be honest you're probably burning more calories with half your body weight (for me that's about a 110lbs pack, which I've done before on a regular basis in hills and it really sucks) on a mile walk then you would running two miles with no weight. You're not thinking about it correctly in figuring out caloric expenditure if that is what your goal is.
If you're only walking a mile under no time constraints or added weight... you're not getting much of out of 1 mile. If you have some insane grade that your moving up and your elevation gain makes the 1 mile hard then it's more understandable. Or if you're moving across sand with a carried load for a mile then that starts making more sense.... But a mile in and of itself isn't very much of anything with no added factors. What's your goal and what sort of terrain are you on? There are a ton of ways to make 1 mile sheer hell and everything in between. I ran a group of 12 this morning over the sorriest most miserable 50 meters of sand this morning until they reckoned they'd just rather walk into the ocean and drown. 50 meters of sand with smooth ocean rocks at around 10-15lbs each for overhead presses, shot puts, and time sprints in sand was enough to break them all. Absolutely break them. And they only had 1 hour of it and they were wrecked. When I checked total distance done that morning we were barely into the 2 mile territory. This group includes women and men past 55... So for 1 mile to mean much you really, really need to crank up the factors.
Darnit. I meant to hit quote and hit thanks. I agree and disagree. It really depends on how much he weighs. I've seen fit men break with a 80 lbs ruck at a decent pace in a mile, and others break in less then 2 - 3 miles with even less weight. If he weighs 150, and is carrying 75 lbs then that's really a regular ruck and I know I can walk forever given proper nutrition during the time I'm rucking. Rucking is a seriously underestimated exercise, especially if you have a time constraint. For a sniper platoon indoc I had to do a "ruck run" for 10 miles with a 65 lbs pack. You had to come in under 2 hours. How did I prepare for it? I wore a 100 pluss pound pack, and with even more weight I covered less distance (sometimes just a mile) and was destroyed afterwards. I also came in third. One guy was more of a beast, the other had half the weight and was kicked out of the indoc later. Not a lot of people can do that very quickly. Special forces guys on the other hand, they do that for a warm up (not even really making stories up either, a MARSOC guy came out and did it in something like under an hour, he was actually able to run the entire thing). A mile on flat surface, and on the road, with a good amount of weight on your back can be a brutal workout.
Thanks for the replies guys my goal is to maximise the amount of exercise I get in the limited time available, to make the walk more challenging as well as haveing the 0.5 BW(35kg) as a goal the terrain is well worn trail with several obstacles (fences to cross, ditches to leap etc), up to the top of the hill and down the other side forming a loop. In one direction it is a gradual climb with an extreme decent, reversed it is a harsh climb with a gradual decent
The more you do it with the same weight, the easier it is on your body. Once you reach a certain amount of weight, then it's better to be carrying it for necessity (combat/survival) because it is HORRIBLE on your back and joints, especially if you don't have the right pack. I wouldn't try to progress with weight too fast though. With a workout like this I would go for time at the current weight, to the point where you're almost running with the pack (which will take a while) and then start increasing the weight so you still make progress. Be careful though, many a people have bad knees, backs and shoulders from rucking without having their body prepared. Your mind may be able to do it, but building stronger bones for structural integrity takes a little longer.
I start the season wearing body armour only (3.5kgish), then build up 5kg or so per month till I reach my target load
That sounds great. You know your body better then anyone else and perception of difficulty/stress is a major indicator of the actual difficulty and stress it's causing your body. That said, it's important to listen to your body!
How much time have you got? Walking is a very low intensity activity for most people, if you only have a limited ammount of time mayb try something more intense.
I see what you mean. I have been walking this rout for at least the last 10 years, and in the winter I often walk it in pitch blackness (without the load), so i'm confident that I wont step wrong. Gyms just are'nt my cup of tea, and I'm tooo tight to pay for exersize The walk serves as a dog walk and keeps my scent around our land strong to deter foxes. The load is intended as a way of making the walk more efficient exersize wise and strength building wise
I think a lot of people underestimate walking under a load. I challenge those who are skeptics to load a pack with 100 lbs, and go for a mile walk. Then come back to the thread and talk about how pathetic of a workout it can be. I would love to hear the story of how you even got the load on your back from the ground.
This used to be a way of life for me, as an OP I used to not only carry my own personal kit but also radios, batteries, and extra ammo (sometimes even getting lumbered with the GPMG on top of all that) aswell, so I think getting the load onto my back and walking a mile would not be a problem at all. I'll do another nine if you ask nicely enough. If you prepare properly, use the correct kit, and are reasonably fit, it's actually alot easier to do than people think (though still hard work, as to be expected, especially the last mile or two). Alot of it's in your head.
Oh definitely. I've had a full javelin system, batteries for comm, a full combat load out for an M-16 and M110 (7.62 is a lot heavier) as well as the weapon systems, and water and food for two days (which is a lot more then usual in 140 degree weather with extra to maintain carrying the weight.). And that was my pack. Add body armor and a kevlar and I had to weight about 400lbs for that mission. I have a picture of myself before we stepped off and I had to ruck it 6 clicks through hills and ended up carrying an engineers weapon system as well (a 240B, machine gun with 7.62 round). That pack weighted over 100 lbs and if I didn't have the right nutrition for the walk, which was also at night time, I probably would have been incapacitated for the actual duration of the mission trying to recover. Obviously this particular ruck is my proudest moment as far as rucking went in my short career, but I know a lot of people can't do that. It's different when you're used to it though, and you can be in great shape but not understand pace count, stride length, and the mental state you have to maintain as well as knowing when to properly hydrate and get nutrition. 1 mile isn't particularly hard, I agree. But if you're working up and using it for just a little bit of exercise like finite monkey is then I think he has a great little program going on, especially if he just keeps adding the weight up. If he gets to the point where he's carrying a ridiculous amount of weight for 1 mile, then it's a sure thing he'll be prepared for carrying moderate weight for many miles. Needless to say I love rucking, and I got it down to a science when I was in. I may not have been the fastest runner, but if you wanted to strap a pack on and walk for days I was the guy for it. I got the lovely position of pack mule in country, which wasn't fun walking hills and mountains on narrow rock ledges at night time where if you fell you were probably going to die : P. That and if I stepped on an IED, due to my weight I wouldn't have been blown into the air as high so it would have probably blown me clear in half, but at least I would have died quickly!
