Want to lose fat, boost your fitness, and enjoy the outdoors? Start rucking today.
The post The Beginner’s Guide to Rucking appeared first on Legion Athletics.



Put some weight in a backpack.
Put on the backpack.
Walk.
That’s rucking in a nutshell.
While rucking is simple, it’s also one of the most underrated kinds of cardio you can do:

  • It burns a boatload of calories
  • It boosts your cardiovascular fitness
  • It’s easy to recover from
  • It’s versatile (you can do it anywhere)
  • And, it’s social—you can easily do it with a group

What’s more, it’s also very easy to progressively overload your workouts. That is, you can continually make your rucks a little bit harder, which isn’t easy with walking.
In other words, rucking is one of the best kinds of cardio for people who “don’t like” cardio.



What Is Rucking?

Rucking is simply walking with a weighted backpack. That’s it.
The term “ruck” is short for “rucksack,” which is a durable backpack designed to carry heavy loads. Typically, rucksacks are made of more durable materials and feature thicker shoulder straps and back padding than regular backpacks, but the terms are often used interchangeably.
What’s the difference between rucking and hiking or backpacking, you wonder?
In the case of rucking, you’re carrying extra weight with the goal of getting a better workout. Typically, this extra weight is in the form of metal plates (ruck weights), bricks, sandbags, water jugs, or some other heavy object.
In the case of backpacking or hiking, you’re usually carrying extra weight because it’s needed to complete the trip (such as food, water, tent, etc.). The extra weight is incidental to your main goal, not the goal itself.
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The History of Rucking

While the term “rucking” has come into vogue recently, humans have been humping heavy loads ever since our ancestors started walking upright.
That said, due to soldiers’ need to carry large amounts of food, weapons, and other supplies long distances, the history of rucking has been closely intertwined with military life for millennia. As the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus once remarked, “for what can you expect in a war, from a man who is not able to walk?”
In 107 BC, the statesman and general Gaius Marius reformed the Roman military, requiring legionaries to carry their own equipment on campaign, which worked out to about 50 to 60 pounds of armor, clothes, weapons, food, and other supplies. Previously, soldiers had stowed much of their kit on pack animals, which were slow, unwieldy, and inefficient.
Marius’ insistence on his soldiers rucking not only allowed Roman armies to move faster and cheaper, it also made the soldiers tougher, fitter, better warriors. Many of the soldiers took pride in their ability to haul their own supplies, and jokingly referred to themselves as muli mariani—“Marian Mules.”
As the ancient historian Plutarch explains:
“Setting out on the expedition, he [Marius] laboured to perfect his army as it went along, practising the men in all kinds of running and in long marches, and compelling them to carry their own baggage and to prepare their own food.”
Over two millennia later, rucking is still a key pillar of military training around the world. As Eric Haney details in his book Inside Delta Force, candidates for Delta Force (one of the most elite units in the U.S. Military) are required to march with a 45-pound rucksack for up to 50 miles over rough terrain in order to qualify for this elite unit. Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and most other elite military teams have similar rucking standards.
Ironically, modern soldiers often have to carry much more weight than their chainmail-clad counterparts two thousand years ago.
While advanced military technologies like radios, body armor, guns, ammunition, and medical equipment have made soldiers more effective, these gadgets also weigh a lot. For instance, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan were often required to ruck up to 130 pounds over mountainous terrain during long patrols.
Rucking Benefits

Rucking Burns a Lot of Calories

It may surprise you to learn that walking (without a heavy backpack) burns almost as many calories as a slow run.
For instance, a study conducted by scientists at California State University found that subjects burned about 350 calories per hour while walking at a 4-mile-per-hour pace (a brisk walk).
As you’d expect, you burn a lot more calories when you add 20, 30, or more pounds to your back.
Specifically, a study on military personnel conducted by NATO found that you can expect to burn around 600 calories per hour when rucking 45 pounds at about 4 miles per hour on a flat road.
In the late 70s, military researchers even came up with an equation to accurately estimate how many calories you burn while rucking with different weights at various speeds and gradients. It’s known as the Pandolf equation, and it looks like this:
M = 1.5 W + 2.0 (W + L)(L/W)2 + n(W + L)(1.5V2 + 0.35VG)
Translation:
The more weight you carry, the faster you walk, and the steeper or rougher the terrain you walk on, the more calories you’ll burn rucking.
For example, I weigh 170 pounds and usually ruck with a 45-pound pack at about 4 miles per hour over moderately hilly terrain (let’s call it a 2% grade).
Based on those numbers, I’m burning around 700 calories per hour rucking—about twice as many calories as I’d burn walking and almost as many as I’d burn during a moderate bike ride or run.
You can use the following chart to estimate how many calories you’d burn carrying different weights at different speeds.

First, find the amount of weight you’re carrying in the top row and the speed you’re walking with that weight in the next row down. Then, find your body weight in the left hand column. Trace the row containing your body weight to the right until it intersects with the vertical row containing your rucking weight and speed.
That’s roughly how many calories you can expect to burn rucking.
For example, here’s how many calories a 180-pound man would burn in one hour rucking 30 pounds at 4 miles per hour:

Rucking Boosts Your Fitness More Than Walking

While walking is an excellent form of cardio, it isn’t nearly as effective for improving fitness as rucking.
Why?
For the same reason that bench pressing is more effective than doing push-ups for building muscle—it helps you better implement progressive overload.
Compared to walking, rucking elevates your heart rate higher, burns more fat, and provides an overall greater “training effect” in the same amount of time.
Rucking Is Easier on the Body Than Running

Rucking is probably less stressful on the body than running, though not for the reasons most people think.
You’ll often hear that rucking is lower impact than running, but research shows both activities are comparable in this regard.
For example, a study on military recruits found that rucking with 45 pounds on a flat surface creates maximum impact forces of around twice the person’s body weight. That is, if a person weighs 200 pounds, the maximum amount of force transmitted through their legs while rucking would be around 400 pounds.
Studies on running show that peak impact forces are around 1.5 to 3 times body weight—not drastically different from rucking. What’s more, research shows peak impact forces during running aren’t correlated with injuries, so it’s probably not worth overly worrying about anyway.
So, why is rucking easier on your body than running?
I’m not aware of any studies that have compared running and rucking in this manner, but based on my own experience rucking and running and talking with others who do as well, it seems that rucking causes much less muscle damage than running. This is also why rucking also tends to interfere with weightlifting workouts less than running—you don’t feel as stiff, sore, and drained after a long ruck as you do after a long run.
That said, rucking is still harder on your body than walking, which is why it’s important not to do too much too quickly. (More on this below).
Rucking (Probably) Doesn’t Interfere with Muscle Growth

You’ve probably heard that cardio can interfere with muscle growth, and this is true.
What’s also true, though, is that not all forms of cardio are equally detrimental.
For example, running clearly impairs muscle and strength gains but cycling and rowing don’t seem to. The amount of cardio you do also makes a difference (even short runs don’t seem to cause problems, but longer ones do).
The main reason for this is that cycling and rowing cause very little muscle damage compared to running, and the same thing is true of rucking.
If you decide to try your hand at rucking you’ll experience this for yourself. You can often go on a long ruck on a Sunday, for example, and still do a heavy leg workout on Monday without missing a beat.
This doesn’t mean you can do as much rucking as you want without interfering with your progress in the gym (a 5 hour ruck will still take some starch out of you), but it’s unlikely to interfere with your ability to gain muscle if you do it a few hours per week.
In other words, you can think of moderate amounts of rucking as a “penalty free” way to burn calories and boost your fitness.
Rucking Is Versatile

My favorite form of cardio is cycling for a variety of reasons (lack of interference with weightlifting, high calorie expenditure, immersion in nature, etc.), but it also presents a few logistical problems: if you have a road bike, you need paved roads; it becomes difficult if not impossible if the weather is bad; and indoor cycling is painfully boring.
The same problem is true of other forms of cardio that require specialized exercise equipment: if you don’t have a rowing machine, stairmaster, elliptical, etc., then you can’t do your workout.
That isn’t the case with rucking.
So long as you have a backpack, some weights, and a place to walk, you can ruck. And depending on your mettle (or masochism), you can ruck in any weather conditions—rain, sleet, or snow.
Rucking Is Social

Most kinds of cardio don’t lend themselves to conversation and camaraderie.
Unless you’re moving at a snail’s pace, talking while cycling, running, or rowing is frequently frustrating and unsafe. Even if you like to do cardio indoors on a machine, it’s often impossible to chit chat over the noise of the machines.
Rucking is different.
It’s quiet, relatively slow, and very safe, which makes it easy to chew the fat with friends. Although you’ll be breathing hard if you’re rucking at a fast pace with a heavy pack, you can still communicate without having to scream over a rowing machine or worrying about getting poleaxed by a careless driver.
How to Start Rucking

Step 1: Walk Before You Ruck

If you aren’t currently walking regularly, spend at least two weeks walking before you try rucking.
Increase the pace and duration of your walks until you’re doing at least two hours of walking per week, with each walk lasting at least 30 minutes.
Do this even if you’re already active with other sports (like weightlifting, cycling, basketball, etc.), as it will prepare your joints, tendons, and muscles for the specific challenges of rucking and reduce your risk of injury.
If you’re very overweight (30+% body fat in men and 35+% in women), stick to walking until you reach a healthier body fat percentage (