How to Train for a Thru-Hike
Physical and mental preparation for building a resilient body and mind
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September 25, 2024
Why Training for a Thru Hike Matters
I am frequently asked about the best way to train for a thru-hike. While training is important, there is no protocol that will prepare you to hike 8+ hours a day, day after day. However, what you can do is prepare your body to handle that volume of effort. In essence, you’re building a resilient body that is well-equipped to adapt to the rigorous demands of a long-distance hike. This includes physical and mental preparation.
Additionally, you’ll want to train with your gear and prepare for the weather and situations you may encounter on your chosen trail. This article will get you started, but for a full treatment of these topics, check out my book Adventure Ready, co-authored with thru-hiker and nutritionist Katie Gerber, or sign up for my upcoming Backpacking Retreat (details at wordsfromthewild.net)
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Thru Hiking Physical Training
While nothing can prepare you to spend many hours per day, every day, hiking, you can start the trail resilient and strong. I recommend mixing together activities from the three main fitness categories—cardiovascular, muscular/strength, and mobility/flexibility. Building a training plan that incorporates all three of these movement modalities will help you get fit and help stave off overuse injuries. Ideally, you’ll be active year round, but the sooner you can start this program before your start date, the better.
Build Your Plan
Get daily cardio! Your sessions should be a minimum of 30 minutes of heart rate elevated activity, with some sessions being more intense or longer than others.
Engage in strengthening workouts 3-4 days per week. Choose one area of the body to work in each session (upper body, lower body, or core). Alternate days, so each area has at least two recovery days between sessions.
Focus on mobility daily. An easy way to do this is to do a simple stretching or yoga routine after your cardio session.
Bear in mind that your training doesn’t have to involve the gym. For example, simple moves such as lunges, squats, pushups, and planks can all be done using body weight. Your loaded pack can amplify hiking sessions. There are plenty of stretching and yoga routines available on YouTube.
Aerobic Training
Cardiovascular exercises are anything that gets your heart rate up. Ideally most of your aerobic/cardio training will be hiking, but you can also run, dance, cycle, swim, etc.
When it comes to the cardio, don’t stress out about the mileage! For a thru-hike, you’ll be hiking for 8 or more hours a day, every day (with 1 or 2 days off per week). You can’t do that at home. So, your goal is to condition your body to adapt to that demand, not to be able to do it before you start.
A standard marathon training program entails building mileage slowly until you can run 20 miles at once about two weeks before your race. Similarly, your goal will be working up to being able to hike 8+ solid hours with a fully loaded backpack. Structure your endurance cardio sessions (see below) to reach this goal.
Endurance Training
Endurance training is a subset of aerobic training, but it also encompasses a form of high-repetition strength training. Make one or two of your cardio sessions per week longer than the others, and do one to two sessions of high-rep bodyweight conditioning in the lower body.
Start with Lying Hip Abduction/Adduction to bring balance to your lower body. The outer hip and inner thigh muscles are often overlooked, yet these groups are essential in stabilizing your hips and knees as you move forward.
Here are some resources for Adduction and Abduction:
Lie on the floor on your side, keeping your legs straight.
Slide the lower leg a few inches forward so that your feet are in heel to toe alignment. Be careful to remain balanced on your side and not shift backward onto your butt.
Slowly lift the lower leg until you start to roll back. The key is to raise it to the point right before you begin to roll. This may be a very small lift!
Slowly lower and repeat for 10-20 repetitions.
Bring legs back into alignment and slowly raise and lower the upper leg for the same number of repetitions.
Complete on the other side.
Strength Training
The primary benefit of strength training is that it prepares your body to handle the additional weight-bearing load of carrying your backpack through rugged terrain. Two of the best moves you can do are lunges and squats. Experiment with different weights to find what feels challenging to you for each exercise. You can do these weighted at low reps or bodyweight at high reps, depending on whether you’re training endurance or strength in that session.
Forward Lunge
Forward Lunges are crucial to being able to perform properly and without compensatory action or pain since they are the basis of the hiking movement. When done properly, lunges strengthen all parts of the leg as well as engage the core.
Stand with your feet together with your core muscles lightly engaged. Keep your upper body from leaning forward or backward.
Step forward with one foot, making sure that you are not letting your other hip shift to the side. Your step will be longer than normal so that you can lower into a position where your acting thigh is parallel to the floor. Your rear knee will drop down toward the floor. It is not essential to reach parallel initially.
Hold for 3 to 5 seconds before engaging your thigh and glute muscles to push back into standing position.
Repeat on the other side, completing 10-20 lunges per side.
Squats
Squats utilize every muscle group in the lower body and are the ultimate lower body strengthener.
Stand with feet hip width apart with your core muscles lightly engaged.
Sink down and back as though you were sitting into a chair. As with the lunge, keep your knees and ankles from moving inward or outward.
Your goal is to bring your thighs parallel to the floor or as close as you can without letting your knees drift forward of the ankles.
Hold for a few seconds at the bottom of the move before returning to standing.
Repeat for 10-20 repetitions per side.
Flexibility and Mobility Training
Incorporating mobility work can be as simple as stretching in ways that feel intuitive a few times per day or as structured as a regular yoga practice. The goal is to make sure that your joints can move through their full range of motion by reducing tightness in the soft tissue surrounding them. Other forms of bodywork, including foam rolling, therapy ball release, or massage are also useful for increasing mobility.
Forward Fold
Stand with feet hip width apart.
Bend your knees as much as is comfortable and fold forward from the hips.
Let your upper body dangle, clasping opposite elbows, and hold for 10-30 seconds.
Piriformis Stretch
Lie on your back and bend your knees with your feet flat on the floor.
Cross one foot over the opposite bent knee.
Clasp your hands around your bottom thigh and pull your legs toward your chest. You should feel a stretch in the hip of the crossed leg.
Hold for 30 seconds, then switch legs.
Thru Hiking Trail Training
Hike on Trails or Uneven Terrain
Getting onto singletrack trail will train your stabilizer muscles and strengthen your ankles. If you are short on time and can’t get out of the city, find a local park that has some short trails. You may need to do a lot of laps with your backpack on, but the training specificity is worth it.
Practice Elevation Gain/Loss
Choose rolling trails for most of your training so that you accumulate a fair amount of elevation change throughout. Additionally, take the stairs whenever possible during your daily life. Stair climbing powers up your glutes and gets them ready to push you up mountains.
Practice Pack Weight
Carry your backpack during your training hikes and look for opportunities to wear it at other times as well. For example, do your errands on foot, like grocery shopping, and use your pack to carry your groceries home. Even if you don’t have errands that require carrying things, you can still load your pack with your gear and go for a long walk around the neighborhood or city park/bike path or do a few rounds of stairs at a parking garage.
Getting your body accustomed to the added weight of the pack will not only make adjusting to the trail easier, but it can also reveal issues with footwear or pack fit prior to hitting the trail.
Feet and Ankle Conditioning
I recommend doing balancing moves to condition the ankles. This can be as simple as standing on one leg for 30 seconds then switching and repeating 2-3 times each day. You can challenge yourself more by standing on a soft surface, such as a Bosu Ball or pillow.
Your feet will toughen up as you complete your training hikes and naturally build thicker skin and calluses. These adaptations will help you avoid blisters when you hit the trail. Throughout your training, wear the same footwear and hiking socks you plan to use on your thru-hike and modify them during training if they seem to be causing issues. Consider a pair of recovery shoes for after your training sessions.
Heat Acclimatization
Heat acclimatization takes time, and unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do in advance of your trip if you live in a wildly different climate. Some people will use saunas or wear many layers of clothing when exercising to try to make some adaptations.
Your best bet is to be proactive about managing heat when you’re on the trail by wearing light-colored clothing, reducing your mileage, and hiking in the cooler parts of the day while finding a shady place to sit out the heat. These actions will make it easier for you to handle the temperatures while your body acclimates. Carrying electrolyte replacement powders is also essential.
Additionally, I recommend people determine their sweat rate prior to leaving. This can be incredibly helpful for knowing how much water and electrolytes you should be consuming. It is a relatively easy process requiring a bathroom scale, some math, and the ability to exercise in similar conditions to those you’ll encounter on your hike. This is a situation where exercising in a sauna, wearing many layers, or in a room with the heat set to the expected temperature and humidity will be useful. This sweat calculator from the CDC is one of many online versions available.
For more on hydration, check out this Sweat Rate Calculator.
Snow Skills
Snow safety can be a concern on some trails such as the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide in locations where lingering snowpack from the previous winter remains well into summer. It is usually recommended that hikers time their thru-hikes to avoid dealing with snow travel. When it cannot be avoided, the use of traction devices (such as microspikes) and possibly an ice axe are essential for safety.
However, simply carrying them is not enough. You’ll need the knowledge of how to use those specialized pieces of gear as well as plenty of practice with them beforehand.
Understanding snow behavior is also extremely important. In general, north and east facing slopes will hold snow longer than west and south facing ones. Snow will be icy or hard in the mornings, making it harder to cross and it will be softer in the afternoons. Additionally, if you’ll be traveling through a snow-laden area in early summer/spring (or during active snowstorm season), the ability to assess avalanche risk is also crucial.
As with swift water crossings, being prepared and willing to turn around and/or seek an alternate route when encountering consolidated snow patches can make the difference between life and death. This is an excellent in-depth article about how to deal with compact snow fields on trail.
Finally, risk assessment and decision-making skills are crucial for hiking in the snow and fording rivers. We have an entire series of articles on how to get started thru-hiking.
Nutrition
The optimal qualities of what you eat on trail is an often overlooked aspect of preparation. Many hikers adopt the philosophy that “a calorie is a calorie” and eat mainly ultra-processed foods. However, proper fueling is essential to feeling your best, carrying the right amount of food weight, and staying healthy.
The primary considerations for food selection are:
Energy density. Trail food should have a high calorie-per-ounce ratio. This is why ultra-processed food is so popular. At nine calories per gram for fat compared to four calories per gram for protein or carbohydrate, most of those foods pack a punch. However, things like nut butters, seeds, nuts, cheese, etc., meet the following important aspects better than cookies, chips, and pastries.
Nutrition. Since your trail diet is limited, choosing nutritious foods is incredibly important to avoid deficiencies. A good multivitamin can be very helpful as well.
Stability. Backpacking food needs to last for days without refrigeration. It should also involve minimal packaging so that you can easily pack all of the trash out.
Appeal (avoid flavor fatigue). As mentioned previously, your trail diet is limited. It can be easy to fall into a rut of eating the same thing every day, but that can easily lead to flavor fatigue and boredom. Establish a repertoire of delicious options and rotate through them to keep your food appealing and thus maintain proper fueling throughout your hike.
There are as many approaches to eating on a thru hike as there are thru hikers. For four different approaches, watch our webinar recording.
A word about pre-trail nutrition: eating a healthy, well-balanced diet throughout your training period will help ensure you hit the trail well-nourished. While it’s best to be relatively fit, starting the trail with a few extra pounds can help provide a cushion in the early weeks of a hike when appetite often lags behind your activity level increase.
Sleep
On trail, you will likely fall into a rhythm of going to sleep at dark and waking at dawn. This natural circadian syncing will likely leave you feeling rested and energized in ways you don’t feel at home.
Prioritize good sleep leading up to the hike by creating healthy habits like avoiding long naps or ingesting caffeine within 10 hours of bedtime. Keeping your bedroom dark with blackout shades and limiting blue light exposure within an hour of bedtime also helps ensure deep sleep.
Thru Hiking Mental Preparation
The foundation of mental preparation for a difficult endeavor is to set realistic expectations. Your hike won’t always go according to plan, so your ability to adapt is key. One way to do this is to practice voluntary hardship. Doing things the hard way by choice can build your willpower and groom you to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Simple things such as turning off the A/C when it’s hot or walking to the store in the rain rather than driving are perfect examples.
Another tactic is to read trip reports and books about your chosen hike and practice visualization. Mentally placing yourself in various scenarios allows you to prepare for challenging situations in advance so that when you encounter them in real life you’ve already practiced facing them.
A very specific form of visualization that can be extremely helpful is to picture yourself in situations that you are fearful of and walk yourself through what you would do. In the following scenarios excerpted from my 1-on-1 Mentorship Program you will be asked to critically think through a potentially risky situation in the backcountry.
While there are no wrong answers, there are safer and riskier options. These scenarios are opportunities for you to mull over those options and begin to formulate your own safety responses should similar situations ever arise. Feel free to create your own thought experiments based on your own fears or concerns.
Scenario #1
You’re excited to finally be heading into the wilderness after many months of planning. The sun is shining, and temperatures are pleasant for a late-August day in the North Cascades of Washington State. There are a fair number of people along the trail in the first few miles, but after your first junction, the crowds disappear.
You and your best friend hike in companionable silence, listening to the birds and babbling creeks. The trail steadily gains in elevation, and by mid-afternoon you’ve finally reached tree line. The views are tremendous, and you stop for lunch. While you eat, you both make note of the fluffy clouds that are now growing higher and higher to the west. The forecast had been for five days of clear weather, so neither of you is concerned.
As you pack up from lunch you feel a few drops as the clouds are beginning to obscure the sun. Your friend pulls out their fleece as the wind has really picked up and you are now following a ridgeline. You dig into your pack for….
Do you have a rain jacket? A poncho? A fleece? Or did the forecast convince you to ignore average weather patterns that call for cool nights and occasional rain?
Moving along the ridgeline, rain begins to fall in earnest. There is no thunder or lightning, which you are both thankful for since there is no shelter until the valley five miles ahead where you plan to camp. The temperature has dropped significantly, and your teeth are chattering. You call out to your friend that you need to add more layers. They don’t seem to hear you over the wind, and they continue forward as you adjust your own. You jog to catch up to them, which warms you up a little, only to see them descending off of the ridgeline into a trailless basin.
You shout their name, and they stop to look back. “Where are you going?!”
Their answer is incoherent, and they sound irritated. All you hear is the word “shortcut.” They resume going downhill, and you notice their fleece and shorts are soaked through. You remember that they did not bring a hat, gloves, or rain gear to save weight since the forecast was clear.
You take off your pack and run downhill to catch up to them. When you arrive, they have sat down in the wet brush and don’t immediately respond to your questions. When they do their words are slightly slurred. Their lips are bluish. You entreat them to go back up to the trail and they refuse saying that they are too tired.
Is your partner exhausted from the hike? Or do you suspect that they are experiencing hypothermia? Should you let them take a nap there or convince them to return to the trail? What other actions will you take? Are you also suffering from the cold or did you remember your rain gear and layers?
Scenario #2
In the High Sierra, amidst your Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike, you and your tramily are witnessing extremely high water levels as well as unusual amounts of snow for early July. Before you entered the remote section, all of you purchased some form of removable traction for your feet, but only a few also purchased ice axes. Crossing your first high-altitude pass was terrifying since there was a long ice slope that had to be crossed.
Luckily you all made it over. Now, several days later, you’re standing on the bank of the South Fork of the Kern River. The first member of your group to arrive attempted to cross it and was nearly knocked off his feet. He’s 6’2” and weighs 200 pounds. You are the last of your group to arrive at the bank. The other three are already spread out, looking for other places to cross.
One person suggests a high log with many branches hanging down toward the water and sticking up into the air. It is just downstream of the PCT. Another is in favor of forming a line and crossing altogether at the trail crossing. The other person has scouted downstream and recommended a crossing that is clear of rocks and debris, but is wider and deeper than the PCT crossing. It’s 3pm.
Which plan of action do you suggest going with? Or do you think there’s a better option? Consider the consequences of each choice as well as the resources you have available.
Never Quit on a Bad Day
There will be some really bad moments on your hike. These are not the times to call it quits. When I first started hiking, someone told me, “If you want to quit, give it a hundred miles. If you still want to quit, do it.” I have found that to be perennially good advice. Seldom do things suck for more than a couple of days. Usually, food, sleep, and a zero day can get you back on track.
Know Your Gear
Practice makes perfect, and that is the case with hiking too. The more trips, even day trips, that you can do with your actual planned clothing and gear, the better. I recommend everyone take their overnight kit and try it out in their backyard (or a friend's) the first time. That way, if you discover your sleeping quilt isn’t warm enough, you can’t get your stove to work, or you simply have too much anxiety being in your tent alone, there is an easy way out. Work your way up from there.
Understanding how your gear works and what you really want from a particular item takes quite a few uses in a wide variety of conditions. This is why I tell prospective thru-hikers not to worry too much about their gear. Use what works for you and is within your budget, because most likely, your preferences will change as you spend months on trail.
About the Author / Why You SHould Trust Us
National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, Heather Anderson is the first woman to complete the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide National Scenic Trails each three times. This includes her historic Calendar Year Triple Crown hike in 2018, when she hiked all three of those trails in one March-November season, making her the first female to do so.
She holds self-supported Fastest Known Times (FKT) on the Pacific Crest Trail (2013) and Appalachian Trail (2015). She has logged over 47,000 foot-miles since 2003, including over 16 thru-hikes. She is also an avid mountaineer.
As a professional speaker, Heather speaks regularly about her adventures and the lessons learned on trail. She is the author of Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home (2019), chronicling her Pacific Crest Trail record, and Mud, Rocks, Blazes: Letting Go on the Appalachian Trail (2021) about her 2015 AT record. She also co-authored a guide to long-distance hiking preparation with Katie Gerber called Adventure Ready: A Hiker’s Guide to Training, Planning, and Resiliency (2022). You can find her online at wordsfromthewild.net or follow her on Instagram and Facebook @_wordsfromthewild_
