Rucking 101
What is ‘rucking’?
Rucking is walking with a weighted backpack or weight vest. It’s an activity transferred from military life, mimicking soldiers who have to carry their supplies in training and combat.
If you are local to the Raleigh, NC area, I lead a group called MotherRuckers NC! Check it out!
Physically
It’s a challenge with effects similar to weight lifting, except you get to be outside, in nature! There are 4807285 reasons why rucking is beneficial to your physical health, a couple are:
- Strength to handle life, tasks, long term health, injury prevention, performance
- Increased bone density
- Lymph drainage (garbage system to flush out toxins, dead cells, etc. If this is clogged, you feel shitty)
- Oxygen rich blood increases energy, attention, creativity, critical thinking, healing
- Stronger muscles = greater endurance
- A fit body has a greater ability to handle ALL stress (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual)
- Immune boosting
- Hormone regulation
- Turning on your stress off-switch
Mentally
Just like any fitness activity, your brain will quit before your body does. Your ego likes to be comfortable, it doesn’t like challenge or agitation. Rucking is an incredibly simple movement experience that can be done with friends! This quiets the mind and those false statements of “I’m too tired!” Fighting the ‘lazy urge’ is hard because our society has made it so damn easy to be lazy. To be an incredible human can feel impossible with the amount of information and distractions. Our brain is our greatest gift and our greatest enemy. If you have sad, depressing, angry, negative thoughts, the BEST thing you can do is get into nature and move. Rucking is the easiest way to sweat, be in nature, and be with friends.
Emotionally
Experiences are stored in the body. Every stressor, emotion, reaction is stored too. They are all energy. And if that energy is not processed and dissipated, aches, injuries, disease, mental issues occur. This is why daily movement is vital to our long term health. Far too many of us bottle things up, don’t say what we feel, hide from truths, hold our tongues. Movement helps us get these instances out in healthy ways. Have you every slammed a medball on the ground? Thrown a sand bag? That’s catharsis!
Spiritually
This could also partially flow into the emotional category, but showing up for yourself is building trust in yourself. The more you trust yourself on a conscious level the more you trust yourself on an unconscious level. This results in you hearing and TRUSTING your gifts, feelings, and intuition more. This part of fitness is not talked about often enough. It’s because it’s not sexy for a cover of a magazine. It’s intangible, it’s magic. It’s felt. It’s not photographable.
Equipment & Weights
Check out my Amazon store for a bunch of awesome shit! I have a rucking category for weights and random things. But the highest quality backpacks you’re going to find are from GoRuck.com.
GoRuck is currently out of hip belts so I found this affordable option.
SHOES: We’re walking people, so a high quality shoe that supports your individual needs is mandatory. I can’t really make recommendations because some people need lots of cushion while others wear minimalist. What I will recommend is a shoe with a WIDE TOE BOX. Everyone needs space for their toes to spread. This is basic anatomy and to have the greatest foundation in your foot requires spreading of the toes.
APPAREL: comfortable workout clothes, dress for the climate. Always dress in layers.
HOW MUCH WEIGHT DO I NEED?
Additional weight : Movement history
0lbs : never worked out/haven’t worked out in a long time/recovering from injury
5-10lbs : slightly active/parents/infrequently exercise
15-20lbs : moderately active/frequently exercise
25+lbs : extremely active/long history of frequent exercise
Recovery
Yoga Tune Up ball / foam roller rolling
Stretching
Whole foods/appropriate calories for your goals
A full night sleep