Muscle gains from uphill walking with added weight?

Trarbach
Trarbach Posts: 34
in Fitness and Exercise
Out of the desire to be active more in addition to my 3 days a week weight lifting, and the intent of gaining more muscle mass,would walking up a steep angled hill with progressively bigger increments of weight (in a backpack)make for gains CLOSE to free weight technique or is this closer to being an aerobic activity?

Replies

  • cajuntank
    cajuntank Posts: 924 Member
    Think of it like this... How many steps does it take to get up the hill?
    If you are eating at a caloric surplus, then treat it like any other exercise. What I mean is, if the hill is 50 steps for example...when you go to the weight room and can pound out a set with a given weight for 50 reps, is that building muscle? To some very very small degree, probably yes, but its really more an aerobic task. But if you add weight to where you can only get 8-10 reps/steps and no more until you rest, then yes you are building muscle (again, assuming you have calorie surplus to do this with).
    There are many links on this site for strength, body building, and aerobic training. They are different, though there will be for a time some overlap of each other in the beginning of your training.
  • Trarbach
    Trarbach Posts: 34
    That is well put,using so much weight on such an angle and doing so safely would not be wise for my goals. Thanks for clarifying!
  • ShakeyMcGee
    ShakeyMcGee Posts: 13
    http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_secret_of_loaded_carries&cr=

    I have been doing the suitcase walk for a couple months and it has put muscle on my traps, improved my core and a noticable improvement in grip strength when i deadlift. I am using a 30# dumbell, alternating hands when grip starts to fade, for a half mile walk. It takes me only 10 minutes and it is the most bang for the buck workout as far as results vs. time invested.
  • Trarbach
    Trarbach Posts: 34
    That sounds interesting and intense. I find walkig a good mood elevator for me and would like to incorporate bigger gain from it in other ways. Since you've seen results I'm gonna have to try it!
  • Trarbach
    Trarbach Posts: 34
    As a side note from this discussion I've decided to do the uphill walk with a backpack not on my back but as the suitcase method Shakey revealed on this topic ,I will attempt to test this method fully for a minimum of 8 weeks and hopefully report back with an opinion and maybe some measurements.

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