as hikers one of the things we tend to forget about when it comes to training
is working the upper body and this becomes more important when you carry heavier loads and when
you do longer days you might find that the small but important muscles in your back get
really fatigued and you get kind of an achy back after long days on trail so in this video i'm
sharing a follow-along routine that you can do to train those small but important muscles this is
all basic bodyweight stuff great for beginners you won't need any equipment let's get into it
so whilst it's all well and good to be building a strong back using pull-ups and rows
those exercises you already know and do are probably only serving to strengthen
the muscles that are already strong so in this routine we're going to go through
some exercises that may be a little bit different something you haven't seen before
so we can try and get those smaller weaker muscles activated and working and supporting
your hiking alright let's get into our first movement which is just a little warm up
we're gonna float the knees off the floor here keeping the knees directly below the
hips and just pressing the hands slightly into the ground with a nice straight elbow if you like you
can arch your back here a little bit more just make sure that elbow stays perfectly straight
and you're comfortable on your wrists we're gonna stay here for another couple of seconds
all right we can come out of that movement shake it out and prepare for a slightly harder variation
and here we're going to actually arch the back
fully now aiming to draw the shoulder blades around the body
pressing the hands actively into the floor and i'm holding this position for around 15 seconds
okay now that we've done some protraction now we're going to move into retraction of
the shoulder blade and our next movement is called the wlyt the reason why it's called
that is because we're going to create the shape of each letter starting with the w so with elbow bent
thumb pointing up we're going to retract the shoulder blade back and try and pull the fist
off the ground as far as possible so we're going to do five or six reps there hold for a second or
two on the last rep and then move into the next letter in this case it's going to be
l the elbow now is at a 90 degree angle from the shoulder and we're doing the same thing retracting
the shoulder blades trying to keep the shoulder depressed so we don't have the shoulder blades
pointing up towards our ears we want to keep them down in all of the variations of this movement
next we move into the y so really important to keep the elbow straight
now still got the thumb pointing up and i'm trying to pull the fists as far as
i can off the ground but it's important that we lead from the shoulder here this is not an
arm movement it's an upper back movement so trying to initiate the movement from the shoulder blade
finally we come into the t this is a very similar variation to the wire
just with the fists coming directly out at a 90 degree angle from the shoulder and again
we're going to pull the shoulder blade back following through with the arm and the fist
coming as high as you can squeezing the shoulder blades together at the top of
the movement and on the last rep we can hold for a few seconds just to build some isometric strength
okay we're going to flip over this time onto your back and we're going to get into
floor slides so here we're really working on the connection between the shoulder blade
the rib cage and the thoracic spine so the aim here is to keep as much contact with the arms
and the floor as possible so we're bending the elbow and bringing the elbow towards the rib
cage it's important that the lower back remains flat on the ground the entire time as well as
the shoulder elbow in fact all of the upper body should remain into contact with the floor pay
close attention to where you feel the body raised off the ground that will be a good indication as
to where you might be experiencing some tightness or some weakness in your upper back breathe out
as you bring your elbows close towards your ribs and breathe in as you slide up your hands overhead
all right now we're going to move into a half dead bug so bring
the knees directly above the hips and here our aim again is to keep the ribs tucked
keeping that lower back flat on the floor whilst moving the shoulder through an overhead range of
motion so keeping that elbow locked out and the ribcage tucked as you raise and lower the arms
and again with all these movements we want to create space for the head and neck so try
and prevent your shoulder blades elevating and coming up towards your ears you want to
keep the shoulder blades back and down through this and all of the movements in this routine
on the final rep we'll take a pause in this overhead position and really try and focus on
pressing actively our fists into the ground while keeping those ribs tucked
and pressing the lull back into the ground
okay we'll flip over into a prone position again
and our next movement is going to be a scapular push-up performed on the knees
so this can be quite a difficult variation if you're not familiar with this movement from my
other videos already you might find it more useful to perform this on your knees and your hands
but the same cues apply what we're looking for here is to retract and protract the shoulder
blades whilst keeping the ribs tucked so we want to prevent the rib cage opening spreading the
shoulder blades out and around the body as we're pressing the arms or the hands into the floor
okay we're gonna go into another variation of the scapular push-up
but first we're gonna take a little stretch and an upward dog so squeezing your butt dropping
your hips to the floor rolling your shoulder blades back and down get a nice stretch in
the lower back here before we move into our second variation of the scap push-up
so this is a variation for those who have been working on this for a little
bit longer performing a scapular push-up on toes so here we're going to do 10 reps
focusing on creating that nice round upper back as we press the elbow into the floor
and again we're going to hold 10 seconds or so on the last rep
finally to round out this routine we're just going to do a little lat
stretch in this child's pose position so we'll bring the hands up overhead
then move them out to the left and then gripping the ground with your hands you want to send your
shoulder and your rib cage in the opposite direction and you should feel a really nice
stretch from basically the bottom of your rib cage all the way up into the shoulder on the outside
of the body there hold that for a few seconds and then we'll switch over to the other side
so this is a nice stretch but also an opportunity to take a little bit of rest before repeating this
one or two times more so even though this routine is designed with a beginner in mind
this is a really complex area of the body that we're working with here
is thoracic spine the rib cage the shoulder blade itself has like 17 muscles that connect to it so
this means that the details here really matter so pay close attention to the cues i'm giving you
and then spend the rest of the time aiming to execute the movement with as much control
as possible so i hope you guys enjoyed that little routine i would recommend repeating it
twice through and doing this two to three times a week to see some measurable and feelable results
you know something like this it's a very basic little routine i pretty much use it as a warm-up
but depending on where you're at and how much time you've got to actually train something like this
might be all you need to start building a really strong back if you want to take it further i would
recommend checking out my programs elements or hike strong i would say starting with elements is
a good idea that's about it for this video guys thanks for watching i'll see you on the summit