Want to add extra benefits to your daily walking routine? Try ruck walking or rucking which involves carrying extra weight on your shoulders in a rucksack or backpack. The walking style can be incorporated into your daily routine for a wide range of wonderful benefits.
Walking has been recognized as one of the best ways to stay fit. No wonder, different variations of this simple activity are gaining popularity from casual strolls, brisk walking, fart walking, to slackline walking. The different styles of walking offer varied benefits for weight loss, diabetes control, relaxation to improvement in focus and concentration.
Walking with extra weight on your back can also bring a range of unique benefits from additional burning of calories to improved muscular health. This means that by investing the same amount of time, you are getting additional returns. However, one should be careful while incorporating this practice gradually in their routine to give their body time to adjust, and to prevent muscle-related injuries.
What is rucking: How to walk with extra weight
Before stepping outdoors for your regular walk, you need to remember to carry a backpack with some weight. Whether you want to put some books or other fitness equipment is completely your choice. Lifting the backpack while walking can transform your fitness in several ways.
Benefits of walking with weight or ruck walking
You burn more calories
Walking with a backpack can help you burn additional calories than usual as moving with additional weight can speed up your weight loss, as per studies. A study found out that people who walked at 2.5 miles per hour (mph) on a flat surface while wearing a weighted vest that weighed 15% of their weight, burned 12% more calories than those who did not wear a vest. If you want to speed up your weight loss journey, just add some extra weight.
It improves muscle endurance
Walking can tone muscles and help build muscle in your glutes, hamstrings, and quadriceps. This added intensity can be beneficial for muscle health. Adding weights to your walking can thus increase the intensity of your workouts, and aid in engaging more muscle groups.
Heart healthWalking with a little weight can also help you maintain your heart health. Rucking can improve heart health by increasing cardiovascular demand. This aerobic exercise builds endurance, strengthens the heart, and decreases blood pressure. The increased intensity of exercise can lower bad cholesterol levels and risk of heart disease.
Healthy bonesWeight-bearing aerobic exercises like rucking help work your bones against gravity, which can help strengthen your bones and prevent bone loss. Running, skipping, jogging, walking are all examples of such activities.
Mental health
Any form of walking is amazing for your mental health as it releases happy hormones. Short bursts of 10 minutes of brisk walking are capable of increasing our mental alertness, energy and positive mood.
Ideal duration and distance for walking with weight or rucking
It is advised to start with 15 minutes to 30 minutes if you are not much into exercise and gradually increase the duration.
Beginning with 3km can be a reasonable target for beginners.
What to put in your backpack
Fill your backpack with a load of around 10% of your bodyweight. You can use books, fitness equipment, sandbags, or stones and pebbles.
