Dude, seeing your name pop up in the most random comment sections is refreshing. You have been preaching this stuff for so long and I consider myself fortunate to be learning about it while I’m still able bodied. Let’s get after it!
I go “rucking” about 3-4 times per week, and I do it on a very steep “mule track” (average 33% slope), i dont carry much weight because the steepness of the climb is enough to give me a good workout, same for coming back down. I remember when i started my knees were hurting like HELL when walking back down (and i was generally already in good shape because i always worked out) after just few weeks the knees must have adapted to the effort because i dont feel any pain or discomfort whatsoever anymore.
One way to solve that is to strengthen your calves and feet by wearing minimalist shoes. Make use of your feet and calves for shock absorption. I guarantee you will be sporting massive calves and strong ass feet that allows you to run with rucksack.
I was at the GORUCK Rucking event in Normandy/France last week, we were expecting you there! We have missed you Peter, too bad you couldn't be there at short notice. :(
I recently got into rucking at age 60 generally doing 5 miles with 25 lbs. Going to start taking it up a notch as it is a nice change of pace from more traditional work in the gym.
i do what i guess is a sort of rucking. a couple times a week i wear an empty backpack and walk about 3 miles to a trader joe’s. then i shop for only what i can fit in the backpack and walk back home. usually the weight is between 20-25 pounds. this both limits the food i consume and gives me great exercise. i lost 25 lbs in a few months
I’m 220. 45 years old. Wear a weighted vest( actually 3). The weight is front and back. Vest total is 100lbs. 3 days a week for 60min. I bike hills the other days. It is the best. Winter time it is 5 days a week, 100lbs, no matter what the temperature, 0 to -20C. Just do something. Your older self will thank you.
@@Travlinmoyes. I started with 20 lbs evenly on my vest which has wt front(chest) and back( Midback). Would walk hills and some flat for 60 minutes until it felt like it was not taxing anymore and would add 10 lbs and repeat until I hit 100lbs. I figure 100lbs is good enough
Thank you for this. I will be 38 in a few weeks. Going to take this hobby up. I usually just ruck on steep incline with my 35lb plate carrier for 2 miles. But I'm going to take it up a notch this fall.
I do most of my cardio on an erg I integrated rucking in my 60’s . In the UK part of the selection for the SAS is a 15 mile event across the Brecon Beacons called the ‘Fan Dance’ it’s absolutely brutal . I have now done 7 of these , best time just under 5 hours . The Bergen weight is with 25lbs + food and 4 litres of water .
Love this video - I carry 22kg in a day pack on the short walk to my kids school twice a day - the big advantage is when I do a multi day backpacking trip every four months or so I have no issues carrying the weight.
Tried rucking for the first time the other week after wanting to for years (was inspired by the delta force 40 mile ruck). 35 lbs, 2 miles in 28 minutes w/ incline was a better leg workout than anything else I’ve done. Hopefully I can do 20 miles eventually.
Knee wear - to what extent is it modulated by inflammatory metabolic factors? I suspect it’s significant, and if so it suggests Peter could probably continue to run somewhat regularly.
I'm considering starting this. I'm a 57-year-old past cross-country runner, but can not jog 10 miles on pavement anymore due to my knees. I'm hoping rucking would allow me to reach my old load without pounding the knees.
Possibly. Start low & slow & gradually increase over time. But I would look into Chase Mountain's mountain-proof knees, program & start his training program, he's got tons of videos online too
3 time and 8 times number hold true in barefoot versus "traditional" heal strike shoes? I would assume lighter loads in the knees when barefoot + forefoot strike no?
Ohhh rucking! I think I need new glasses. Been doing it when walking the dogs with 20lbs( rucking that is ). Enjoying it a fair bit, lost over a stone over a few months with help of kettlebells.
I started rucking about 3 months ago, starting with 15lbs in my hiking backpack and going anywhere from 3 to 7 miles over rough and hilly terrain. I'm utterly grateful there's a park literally 3 miles from me with some great hiking trails. Now, I'm up to 45-50lbs. Wears me out. But, dang, it feels great.
You missed a bit : in Rugby Union the benefit of rucking is you can use your sprigged boots to get a player off the ball if they are on the ground lying on it... so the benefit of rucking is "you can mess the opposition player up big time" so tehnically i been rucking since i was about 5 years old.. just started rucking (walking) : do about 18kgs on a 7km golf course (cart path) at night.. too early to tell the benefits yet...
Dr. Attia, please tell me where you got that shirt. If you can't, then please give me a clue at least. Secondly, I love this topic and I'm a regular consumer of your videos - finding them exceedingly helpful. Thirdly , thank you for reminding me about this rucking practice and I'm going to start doing it again now at my age of 58. This is something I used to do in my twenties and thirties for fun. I had no idea it had a name...
Shhh he’s getting royalty’s from the GoRuck corporation. You know the overpriced kid backpacks with US flags all over it…. Which were not made in the USA.
Yeah in the infantry I never heard anyone call it “rucking”, it was referred to as a ruck march. It’s crazy how all these civilians want to be soldiers when they’re in their 40s and 50s but it was the most unpopular thing imaginable in the 90s.
I remember years and years ago where there was a short time where runners were putting weights on their ankles when they were running. It was determined later on, knowing that the weights slowed down the running times of the runners, that if you ran (I’m using simple numbers to make a point) 4 miles in an hour wearing weights and the same person ran 5 miles in an hour without wearing weights, it was pretty much the same amount of exercise. Rucking seems to be the new fad now. I’m not saying it as a fact, I’m asking. Using the same analogy as running, if you ruck for 4 miles in an hour and you don’t ruck, but walk 5 miles in an hour, I’m wondering if you’re basically getting the same amount of exercise.
With the weights you mentioned carrying (30% of body weight) are you saying the same weight for males and females? I suspect this could be too much / cause injury for women. My sons (very lean and light in their teens to early twenties) can easily carry far more than me without any training and yet they are of similar weight (50kg). I would find it very hard to hike with 17kg on my back, I have the endurance (I'm a long distance runner), but not the strength. My friend's daughter (young and fit) is a paramedic in a combat unit and she has been having medical difficulties in her pelvis and lower back due to the heavy weights she has to carry over long periods, and I've heard of other young women in the military with similar issues.
10 to 15 percent, build up gradually, increasing weight by a couple pounds every two weeks or so. Increasing any higher than 30 percent body weight increases risk of injury. Maintain good posture and don't slouch.
Is there any research on how this might affect spine and back health? Has someone recovering from injuries, and finally on the other side of pain, I’m wondering if this is something that should be potentially gradually adopted or avoided altogether
My opinion only....definitely something to start low and increase weight and/or distance and/or slope over time. The goruck company seems to build these pretty well to distribute the load to minimize as much as possible any impact to spine. But, I think the point about 3x load on the body does indicate there is always wear and tear.
A good backpack should distribute most of the weight onto your hips. That's optimal. Rucking will help to build the muscles that support your spine. It really is a full body exercise.
If I were you, I'd start building your body up with calesthenics, light weight lifting and some begginer level plyometrics training as well as doing some kind of ab work 5 days a week to increase the overall muscular endurance and static strength of your core. You also need to get your base aerobic capacity up to an acceptable level; preferrably something to where you can hold a convo with someone while riding an exercise bike or an eliptical at about 30 to 40% of a machines resistance or walking at a brisk pace up and down hills for about 30 minutes. Once you've built up a base level of strength and endurance again then I would start adding in rucking with a lower weight and lower distance and then slowly build up in weight and distance and overall speed as you adapt to it.
Have any studies been done on dogs that ruck? I've started getting my brother into hiking/rucking. His dog is half German shepherd, half husky. Hes thinking of getting her a harness with pack for backpack camping trips, shell be able to carry her own supplies
30% is a solid goal, but the actual limit seems to comfort, rather than a percentage of your bodyweight. i have settled on 60lbs even though i have a vest that holds 100 because i just could not find a way to feel comfortable with that much weight. it just plain hurts to wear the vest at that point.
Sorry, rucking is not the main fitness practice in the US military. Rucking is primarily used when a soldier goes to the field. It is how he or she carries supplies . It just so happens that there is a huge fitness benefit, but the main fitness practice is running. Running is part of a soldiers physical fitness testing.
@ericstephenson145 @ericstephenson145 Absolutely! Actual Ranger qualified personnel serving in Ranger units like The 75th Ranger Regiment is less than 1% of the total Army. Rangers still have to conduct the Army PFT, and the 2 mile run is a component of that test. Airborne!?
He said light infantry, airborne, or ranger. Any form of infantry or special operations unit will ruck a lot. That's what we do - move from one objective to another with lots of weight. You will conduct field ops and ruck from range to range for one to two weeks, every day. Battalion and company level rucks up and down massive hills. Even fire and maneuver exercises are essentially rucking at a faster pace. It is THE activity that people have the most difficulty with. A 160 pound, 300 PFT stud could very well fall out of a long ruck. His body isn't meant for that weight.
All the reply’s are proving the point, making comments about infantry based units. What % is that of the entire US Military? Remember it’s 5 branches and there are people who get us paid, who make meals, fly things, etc. it’s not the primary mode of fitness. Look at the PT tests for all branches and you can see this.
No load in biking. Hahaha. You obviously haven't tried going to the bike park on a downhill mountain bike spending a day on the jumpline. To be fair I rock as often as possible and occasionally I run but it tends to leave me with little aches and pains that I don't get from rocking or biking.
I ran into a older woman doing this form of exercise when I was mountain biking . This is the high desert with technical climbs that can get steep and loose . She was hiking . Not running . Now I believe pedaling up with my mountain bike in this difficult terrain is actually the most pure firm of exercise . Its not just a cycling cardio event and just working the legs . This type of technical mountain bike climbing is a full body and cardio workout in one activity . It's interesting the flat pedalers who go for speed on cycling rides who are in good cardio health struggle with this as they lack the upper body strength to accomplish these technical climbs . I will also hit my vo2 max in short order depending how steep and loose a trail is .
“Eccentric” has too c’s and they both make a sound.. The first c makes a hard sound and the second makes a soft sound. It’s like eksentrik. Not ee-sentric. Peter probably mispronounces it just to get people like me to comment.. 😂
8x you body weight? I had to of not paid attention somehow. Then I heard 3x so I’d have to have 300lbs on my back. Oh heyll no😮??? I think I need to rewind. I do hills no weight. That’s hard enough
@katnez start with ten pounds in a backpack and shoot for a 15 minute mile. Just walk around your neighborhood. You really don't have to seek out hiking trails or hills to get the health benefits from rucking.
This claim of humans walking down wild animals… a hunter can’t keep up with a black bear that’s simply walking… nor a brown bear… nor an elk… this hunter should know this? Disagree? Time to head into the back country and try it, or ask any Alaskan or Canadian hunting guide… humans don’t have a chance at beating these animals in a linear distance traveled contest, “short” or “long” time frame.
I don’t know about bears or animals like that in cooler climates… but it seems to make sense that in very hot climates when we can sweat, but the animal cannot and has no method of cooling off when we continue to force it to move, persistence hunting makes sense
Big cats(mountain lions) and other large north american animals can travel hundreds of miles a day. Always a good joke when the powers that be relocate a big cat by a few hundred miles. The mountain lion will be right back where it stated the next day if it wants to be.
The method of hunting that they describe would have occurred through grasslands and desert conditions. The land would have been mostly flat and traversed by humans with the athletic ability comparable to pro level athletes today.
@@nathanclaspell6003 It’s still laughable. Wolves in North America can run down ungulates, perhaps wild dogs can do it in Africa. A human can attempt to repeatedly sneak up on an animal and take it by surprise, but that is not what was claimed. What was claimed was that humans could, like canines, run down large game animals and tire them out by outdistancing them over time. This is classic anthropology types making crap up and then trying to find facts to support a story they contrived in their heads. It’s total nonsense, and only indicates whomever is coming up with this theory does not spend time in the wilderness attempting to pursue animals. I don’t know this other gentleman, but Mr. Attia should know better.
This seems like a total fad. If you want to be strong, do weight training, if you want to be fit, do an endurance sport. If you want to be neither, and tired, do rucking.
