Everyone loves a shortcut. Any time you see a patch of grass at the corner of a pavement, it’s bound to be trampled down by people looking to shave milliseconds off their journey. The problem is, in the fitness world, you’ll be hard-pressed to find many shortcuts that actually work.
Rucking – wearing a weighted backpack while you walk – could be one of the few exceptions. So I decided to give it a go, committing to walking 10,000 steps a day for a week with a weight on my back.
The practice originates in the military, but it’s attracted the masses in recent years thanks to its accessibility and appealing effort-to-reward ratio. Simply add weight to your walks to amplify the intensity and challenge your heart, lungs, legs, core and more. This can boost your fitness and build strength throughout your body – not a bad return from a pop to the shops, or any similar short jaunt.
With the practice promising to make fulfilling my fitness fix feel like a walk in the park, I slid on my rucksack and set off – here are five things I learned.
Rucking is accessible
When you start a new type of exercise, there’s usually a period where you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. Case in point: my early teenage gym sessions consisted of a few ropey bicep curls and 20 minutes on the treadmill. But with rucking, I found this wasn’t the case.
Without wanting to brag, I’ve walked with a backpack before, and rucking was just that with a little extra weight. Once I’d acknowledged the slight shift in my centre of gravity, I was good to go.
Another important point to note is that, while I used a purpose-built backpack and weight plates from rucking specialists GoRuck, you don’t actually need any specialist equipment to get started.
“If you want to start with a lighter weight, I suggest just throwing a few household items in a bag,” says Nichele Cihlar, GoRuck’s director of training. “My water bottle is really large and heavy, so you can put something like that in your ruck then work your way up.”
It’s versatile
I walk quite a lot anyway, so rather than trying to fit in regular long rucks I decided to wear the weighted backpack as I went about my day-to-day life. And for me, this worked a treat.
“I always recommend keeping [your weighted bag] by the front door,” Cihlar says. “If you have to go and find the rucksack then find the weight plate for it, you might not bother to bring it. But if it’s right by the door, it’s easy to put it on.”
I wore mine for dog walks, a day in the office, a pop into town; when I was out of the house, the rucksack rarely left my shoulders. And I found I was able to rack up 10,000 steps per day fairly easily by taking this approach.
But rucking can also be a handy tool if you struggle to fit movement into your day. By increasing the intensity of walking as an activity, it means you can draw more benefits from a shorter stroll.
“I have a couple of French bulldogs and I live in Florida where it’s very hot, so they can’t go super long distances,” says Cihlar. “It’s shorter walks for us, so by adding a ruck to that I can get more out of it.”
It can help you build strength
Wearing a weighted rucksack makes walking harder, and very few people would choose to make something harder unless it offered a whole bunch of benefits. Fortunately, rucking delivers on this front.
“Walking is largely a lower body activity, so the quadriceps, hamstrings and gastrocnemius [muscles in the thigh and calf] are going to have to accommodate that heavier load,” Dr Elroy Aguiar, assistant professor of exercise science at The University of Alabama, tells me.
“As a result, you would get small improvements [in strength and bone density], especially if you do it over a prolonged period of time. You would also get some improvement in muscle mass from rucking, although it probably won’t be equivalent to what you could achieve from strength training.”
“Rucking also helps develop your core strength and the postural muscles in your upper back, because you’re holding that weight on your shoulders,” Cihlar adds.
After walking particularly hilly routes with a heavier weight, I found my thighs felt the familiar dull ache more commonly associated with a challenging leg day. And my upper traps (the muscles you can see around the base of your neck) were hit particularly hard when I was carrying higher loads.
It’s not just a workout for your muscles
Strength is only one benefit to come from rucking. You’ll also call your heart and lungs into action for cardio perks, and you’ll work them harder than if you simply went for an unweighted walk.
“You’re carrying extra weight, and that extra weight costs you energy to move,” explains Dr Aguiar. “It’s going to increase your oxygen consumption and heart rate if you’re trying to maintain the same speed of walking.”
To test this, I did three 1.2km loops of my undulating local park – once without the rucksack, once carrying 15kg and once with 35kg, all at the same pace. According to my Apple Watch, he first lap burned an estimated 102 active calories and my heart rate averaged 88bpm, while the final lap used 119 active calories and my heart rate averaged 108bpm.
Perhaps this isn’t the most mind-blowing difference, but I found these incremental jumps added up over the course of the week. Regularly raising your heart rate can help improve cardiovascular fitness too, and by hiking it higher you’re more likely to experience this benefit.
As someone who exercises regularly, this final fitness perk wasn’t as much of a pull factor for me. But I did draw another less expected benefit from my rucking ventures: I enjoyed the challenge.
“The benefits are as much physical as they are mental,” says Cihlar. “I always say that you never leave the house to go for a ruck and come back in a bad mood. It’s a great way to clear your mind or get outside and get some fresh air, all while getting a good bang for your buck as far as time and fitness is concerned.”
The weight you use is important
Though it’s last on this list, this might be the most important point of all: rucking with a light backpack feels very different to rucking with a heavy one. That’s why it’s very important to find a weight that works for you, and vary it depending on the type of activity you’re doing.
Cihlar says she usually prescribes 30lb for men and 20lb for women (roughly 15kg and 10kg in UK plates) as baseline weights, but highlights how these loads “aren’t a starting point for everyone”.
“You can literally start with any backpack and put some weight in it, which can be your water bottle, some magazines, your snacks, whatever,” she says.
This can be progressed over time as your strength and fitness builds. Then, when you can happily carry more than 5kg, it might be worth investing in some rucking plates and a purpose-built backpack for comfort.
“We also make our Rucker 4.0 rucksacks so they can hold two plates, so if you’re a heavy hitter and you’re training for a hike you can bump it up to 60lb or 75lb,” Cihlar adds.
These heavier weights are more likely to trigger strength adaptations, but you don’t want to lift a load that’s too heavy for you and risk inury.
“As long as you’re [using a weight that means you’re] still able to walk and talk, as we say, then you’re OK,” Cihlar summises. “Your heart rate will be up, but you should still be able to carry on a conversation and breathe well.”
Personally, as someone who lifts weights regularly and weighs roughly 95kg, I found varying my rucksack between 15kg and 35kg worked for me, using the lighter load on longer walks or incidental steps, and the heavier total when I wanted to really push myself.
These heavier sessions were far more taxing on my muscles, and I could feel the impacts in my thighs and traps afterwards. Whereas, by the end of the week, carrying 15kg had become like a default setting and I felt comfortable carting it around.
Will I continue rucking?
Even though my rucking challenge is over, my backpack and plates remain by the front door. I no longer use them as religiously as I did during my seven-day streak – I don’t feel the need to pick them up for every walk, or hit a quota like 10,000 weighted steps a day – but I still reach for them when taking my dog to the park, among other ventures.
Why? Because I like being able to elevate a short walk into an impromptu workout, especially on busy days when it would otherwise be tricky to fit one in. I really enjoy the challenge too, and find I invariably feel better after a quick weighted walk.
For these reasons and more, I’m hoping that rucking is a fitness trend that sticks around.
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