How to get Mountain fit at home

Staying at home for almost half of this year, it would not be wrong to say that maintaining fitness has become slightly difficult. Infact, it will certainly not be easy to climb a mountain even if you can plan one now.

But it is actually possible to stay up to speed. The idea here is to get your body ready for high altitude trekking while staying at home. And we help you out here. This is not a Mountaineering Course but this is going to help you get started.

So what does this activity essentially involve?

At the basic level ,this generally includes lifting your bodyweight up the mountain along with 15-20 kgs of your stuff loaded on your back for long hours for several days.

So which muscle groups are the most essential for you to work on?

  1. A strong core and shoulders
  2. Strength in the legs

Building a strong Core is an essential part of the process

A weak core strength will make you carry your pack in a wrong posture. As a result, your joints, rather than your muscles, will bear the load. You will get fatigued much faster increasing the chances of getting injured.

So here is a list of basic exercises to get started :

Core Exercises

The 10 min Core Workout

30 Seconds of each exercise will result in a set of 2 mins. Take a 30 second break and repeat this for 4 sets. That’s just 10 mins of your time. 3-4 weeks and you will definitely start seeing results.

Let’s move to the next part .. Your Shoulders

Shoulders

Climbing a mountain or trekking to the top is a long game with load on your shoulders. The key is to build load capacity on your shoulders. Build your shoulder strength for the long haul.

Push ups and Pull ups are the most basic exercises that will help you build shoulder and upper body strength. Adding weights in these exercises will help increase strength but let’s keep that for later.

3 sets of 10 reps each is a good beginning

Finally let’s get to the most important part here –

Leg Strength

Climbing essentially involves long hours of continuous uphill steps with as little break as possible. You need to build good strength to your quad muscles ,glutes and a flexible hamstring muscle for the stretches. Strong knees and calves for the downhill climb. That’s sounds like a lot but it can actually be covered in just 4 exercises.  

Work your Legs

These 4 exercises are a good start to condition your legs for a climb or a trek. 3 sets of 10 reps again with breaks in between will get you some good results in about 3-4 weeks.

This is a basic workout schedule to get you out of the couch. If you are already a fitness freak, then this help you stay fit for the mountains as well.

Here's the free PDF link so that you can share with your fellow mountain buddies. Click here

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