Backpacker Magazine – May 2007

The Workout: Hike Farther, Hike Stronger

Want legs that can tackle any climb, any heavy pack, any mileage? Well, don't work harder–work smarter. We grilled fitness experts and scoured the medical literature to uncover the latest, greatest strategies for building strength, endurance, speed, and flexibility.

by: Evelyn Spence

Tags:
• Fitness
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• Food & nutrition
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• Mountaineering
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2) Stretch your hip flexors and eliminate leg pain.

The new rules Tightness at the hip can cause problems all the way down your legs, making flexibility in the rest of your body almost impossible. Even worse, backpacking, especially if it involves a heavy load, makes your hip flexors tighter than walking or dayhiking does. "When you walk with a pack, your torso tends to lean in, folding your body slightly and compressing your hips," says Justin Price, a corrective exercise expert and owner of The BioMechanics, a personal training and wellness facility in San Diego. "Your pelvis rotates forward and the muscles around it shorten up."

Fortunately, the solution is straightforward: You need to stretch your hip flexors, those bungee-like muscles that connect your torso to your upper legs. The American Journal of Sports Medicine highlighted the benefits in a December 2005 study, which reported that better hip flexibility actually reduces patellofemoral pain syndrome–that ache under your kneecap. Even better, stretching your hip flexors lets you lengthen your stride and get more power out of your glutes.

The fix Cyndi Lee, owner of OM yoga center in New York City and author of Yoga Body, Buddha Mind, says the Warrior II pose aligns your knees, opens up your hips, and increases both leg strength and flexibility.

Stand with your feet about 4 feet apart, then reach your arms out to either side, parallel to the ground with palms down. Turn your right foot in slightly and your left foot out to a 90-degree angle. Look over your left shoulder, exhale, and lunge until your left knee is over your left foot and your shin is perpendicular to the floor. Hold for at least 30 seconds.

Extra Credit: Lunge with rotation
You can stretch and realign your hip flexors–and strengthen the muscles that stabilize your hips and legs (glutes and adductors)–by exaggerating a normal walking motion. To start, hold a medicine ball in front of you with both hands. With your back straight, lunge forward with your right foot, simultaneously rotating your arms to the right and lowering your hips toward the ground until your front knee is bent at 90 degrees. Tilt your hips up and forward until you feel a pull in the hip flexor of your rear leg, then step back and return your arms forward. Alternate legs, doing 8 to 12 reps for each leg, 3 to 5 days a week.

Simple solutions to stretch 3 trouble spots

Calves The calf stretch is easy, right? Just stick a leg back until you feel a pull. Yet Price insists most people do it wrong. "You need to make sure your calf muscle doesn't twist while you stretch," he says. Stand upright and place your hands on a wall or tree. Extend your right leg back, keeping it straight and your front leg bent (this looks like the traditional calf stretch). The subtle difference is all about preventing pronation and poor alignment: Keep your heel on the floor, raise the arch of your back foot slightly, and tighten your right glute.

Hamstrings "The lower body gets used in a pretty one-dimensional way while you're backpacking, and this shows up as stiffness and soreness in muscles like the hamstrings," says Baron Baptiste, a yoga instructor and author of Journey Into Power. To keep your hams limber, try Baptiste's rag-doll pose: Standing with feet together, fold over at the waist and let your upper body hang to the floor, with arms loose and torso relaxed; hold for 20 to 30 seconds. Do the pose once before each day's hike.

IT band This oft-forgotten belt of connective tissue on the outside of the upper leg stabilizes the hip and the knee, especially each time your heel strikes the ground. "With extended use, a tight IT band can turn into a huge problem," says Brian Halpern, a sports-medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City and author of The Knee Crisis Handbook. "And sometimes it takes a long time to heal." To prevent tightness and chronic inflammation, you need to keep the tissue supple. Standing upright, place your right foot behind your left. Leaving your left arm hanging loose, raise your right arm and bend to the left until you feel a pull at your right hip.

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