How to Get in Shape for the Appalachian Trail

Training for Extended Uphill Hiking 0:00

So how do you train for something like this? Cause you're going up, you're going uphill for an extended period of time. It's not just like I was doing the stairs over on the beach. No, that's for a few minutes where you're going up. This is an extended period of time where your, your, your elevation, you know, just keeps, keeps going up and up and up. So, so training, any type of training you do, like I would think one of those stair walker machine things, what are those called? A stair master. That would be good.

Or walking on a treadmill with an incline, right?

Balance and Terrain Preparation 0:31

Yeah, walking on an incline. Anything that you're doing for an extended period of time. I think those things can be helpful. What I think helped me, because of course I'm analyzing as I'm walking, like what helped me prepare for this? And one of the things we do in CrossFit involves stepping on boxes, like a 20-inch box, and you step up and you step down. And I felt that really helped with the balance of a lot of the steps we had to take because a lot of the terrain was pretty uneven. It wasn't like you're on a paved road, just on an incline.

It was rocky. And so your foot wasn't always on a flat surface.

Using a Walking Stick for Support 1:08

And so you really did need a certain amount of balance, um, to do that safely. Now for somebody who's got bad breathing and bad balance, the stick was very helpful. A walking stick with a compass on the top is, is what I use.