Go Take A Hike
One of my favorite activities and form of exercise is hiking. As we age it is important to keep our muscles in shape. Any form of exercise is beneficial compared to inactivity. However, hiking is a great form of exercise to engage our muscles, provide cardio, promote weight loss and help boost our mood.
As we age, we tend to lose muscle mass, bone density and our sense of balance. Hiking engages and develops your muscles by navigating the various terrains on a trail, including slopes, ruts, rocks uneven ground, and tree roots. This hiking terrain challenges and develops various multiple muscles groups, including calves, quads, hamstrings, hips complex, glutes and core, which improves our balance. Hiking, like other weight bearing exercises, has been shown to improve bone density, which is especially important to post-menopausal women to hold off osteoporosis.
The changes in elevation and complexity in terrain makes hiking a good aerobic activity, benefiting the circulatory and respiratory systems by strengthening our heart, reducing our blood pressure and improving our lung capacity. Depending on the various changes in elevations and the pace you maintain during the hike you can change the intensity of the cardio workout.
Due to the more challenging terrain and longer duration associated with hiking, you burn more calories compared to taking a walk in your neighborhood or around a track. The calories burned during a hike depends on a variety of factors, including your weight, the trail grade, the temperature, and your age. The Healthline website has a good chart to estimate the calorie burned. For example, a 180-pound person hiking a trail with 6-15% grade could burn 656 calories per hour compared to the same person walking on flat surface burning approximately 435 calories per hour. You can increase your calorie burn by incorporating trekking pole or wearing a backpack during your hike, which engages your upper body muscles and increases the intensity.
Hiking has the added benefit of being out in nature which has been proven to improve your mood. For many, hiking is a relaxing activity that helps relieve everyday stress. Additionally, you get to experience nature that you might not otherwise see in your everyday routine. Often hiking is done in the country side or mountains where the air is cleaner, but there are many trails around cities too. Take some deep breaths, enjoy the scenery around you and feel your stress leaving your body.
In Carroll County, Maryland, you don’t have to go far to find good trails, consider: Liberty, Prettyboy and Loch Raven Reservoirs, Gunpowder, Patapsco and Greenbrier State Parks and Hashawha Nature Center. In addition, the Alltrails app is a great resource to find trails close to home or away on vacations. This app provides the length, difficulty and basic description of the trails, so you can select a trail to meet your needs.
My advice if you are looking to improve your health and fitness, put on some sturdy shoes, grab a water bottle and GO TAKE A HIKE!!