Planning Your Hike Itinerary: Physiotherapy Considerations
There are many factors to consider when planning your hiking itinerary. One very important factor is how best to plan your itinerary for your body in order to prevent injury. As a physiotherapist and an avid hiker I have seen firsthand how many hikers of all ages and abilities suffer injuries while on trail.
Please note: this blog post is meant to offer general education and should not be considered physiotherapy assessment, treatment, or advice.
A few BIG reasons you might sustain an injury while hiking:
Doing too much too quickly
The tissues in your body need time to adapt to any movement or activity. When we put load on the tissues too quickly, that is when they tend to become injured. Our tissues are amazing at adapting and with the right progression of activity or exercise will strengthen and lengthen to the activity you’re asking them to do.
Making mistakes because you’re tired
It’s important not to let your body and mind get too fatigued when out in the backcountry. This might mean that you have shorter days at first to adapt your body and mind to the energy demands of the activity. It’s also important to stay well nourished with food and well hydrated with water to keep your mind thinking clearly.
Your pace is too quick or too slow
Everyone has a different pace that works well for their body and their fitness level. If you hike too fast, this could lead to becoming overly fatigued and/or falling. If you hike too slowly, this could lead to increased risk of repetitive strain injury on the downhill or having to hike in the dark to make it to your objective.
The terrain is too challenging for you
Be honest with your comfort level with terrain. If you try to take too big of a jump into challenging terrain, your physical skill level might not be up to the task. Just as your tissues need time to adapt to the physical demand, so does your skill level.
How to consider your risk of injury when planning your hike itinerary
Start by calculating your current hiking pace
Calculate how many kilometers (or miles) you can walk or hike per hour. You will start to notice patterns like how your pace changes depending on the type of terrain.
Plan your itinerary with a slow start
Now that you know your pace, you can apply that to your hike itinerary. Keep the key principal to start slow to let your body’s tissue adapt to the activity. This means you should plan to do less than what you are able to do for the first few days. Even if you have been trail running big distances daily, there is nothing exactly like the hike you are doing and you still need to take time to adapt into it.
Let’s use my Great Divide Trail (GDT) thru-hike itinerary as an example.
My comfortable alpine pace: 25 kilometers in 8 hours (3.125 km/hour)
The average kilometers I planned to do daily: 20-30 kms (25 km as average)
My first week distances: 15 km, 15 km, 22 km, 20 km, and 20 km
My second week distances: 25 km, 30 km, 28 km, 22 km, etc.
As you can see, the first week I did less than what I knew I was capable of. It wasn’t until the second week that I started to hike my average distance per day. If you have a shorter goal, then it is wise to increase your distance progressively each day. If you have a longer goal, it might be wise to slowly increase your distances over the first two weeks.
Check the terrain for that section and modify your pace accordingly
Try to research the hike by reading blog posts or guide books. Find out how technical the terrain is and use this information to change the distance you think you’ll be able to comfortably cover in a day.
If you don’t make these modifications, then you could end up pushing yourself too hard and too fast on technical terrain. This will increase your risk of both falling and hurting yourself badly and sustaining a repetitive strain injury from overuse.
I made this mistake on the third day of my GDT hike when I planned a 21 km day in my itinerary. I didn’t properly check the terrain and ended up pushing hard along a very exposed ridge all day. The mental fatigue was the worst part of the day and I found myself having to do everything in my power to focus on my footing so that I didn’t fall. I would not recommend this.
Be honest with yourself. If the terrain sounds too challenging for your abilities, perhaps plan an alternate route. Or, work with a physiotherapist on a progressive training plan to help you gain the skills you need for that terrain.
Consider fatigue and nutrition when planning your itinerary
Ensure you consider how mentally fatigued you might be after a particularly technical section of trail. If you know you will likely be fatigued from a previous day, consider planning a shorter day the following day. In the example above when I hiked the incredibly challenging ridge all day, the next day was still less than what I was capable of. I was so grateful for a shorter day, but I was still incredibly fatigued by the end of the day.
You might also want to consider how much food you will have for a certain section. If you know you will have a heavier pack (at the start of a hike or section), you might want to give yourself more time to navigate the terrain. You might also be low on nutrition by the end of the hike or section, which could make your brain foggy. Try to consider this when planning your route and distance.
