7 Weird tips for increasing hiking speed (that actually work)

In this article, I will cover weird but effective tips for increasing hiking speed. I’m not going to talk about the things that everybody already knows like “stay hydrated”, “build stamina”, etc. Instead, I will discuss tips that you probably didn’t know about – some of these might sound very weird at first, but make perfect sense after being explained.

 

1. Dehydrate your food

The first weird tip that will improve your hiking speed is simply dehydrating your food. Dehydrating your food allows you to bring healthy food – non-dehydrated food tend to spoil very fast, especially food like fruit, vegetables and meat. At the same time it also decreases the weight of the food you are carrying.

For those of you who don’t know what dehydrated food is, it’s simply food where the water has been “removed” from the food by dehydrating it. Sometimes you can buy dehydrated food – some examples of dehydrated hiking meals can be found in this article: Best hiking meals.

So why would bringing dehydrated food increase your hiking speed? Two reasons:

• Dehydrated food weighs less. Having to carry less weight will increase your overall hiking speed. Sure, the weight difference won’t be that big, but still, little wins add up.
• Dehydrating your food allows you to carry healthy food and actually maintain a healthy diet on the trail.

Eating healthy on the trail really starts to matter when you are doing long distance hikes. If you are hiking a trail that takes 2 days to complete, you could totally get away with eating unhealthy and just focusing on calories. However, if you are hiking for a couple weeks or even longer, eating healthy becomes super important and it will affect your hiking speed quite a lot.

If you want to learn more about eating healthy on the trail, take a look at this article: eating healthy on the trail.

If you are interested in learning more about food dehydrators, this is one of my personal favourites: Excalibur food dehydrator review.

 

2. Train your upper body

It might be pretty obvious that training your lower body would result in increased hiking speed, but training your upper body?

As it turns out, you really use a lot of your upper body muscles while hiking. Especially on difficult terrain and with a heavy backpack.

So training your upper body will really help you on those difficult parts on a hiking trip. Additionally, it will help to have more upper body muscles when it comes to hiking with trekking poles.

Oh and if you care about maintaining/building muscles on the trail, make sure to read this resource: Can you build muscle while hiking?

 

3. Take pre workout

Taking pre workout… It might seem weird at first to use pre workout on a hiking trip. However, this might really give you a boost to push on for another hour or so when you are feeling super tired.

Pre workout will basically give you that endurance boost when you need it the most.

I would say the positive effect is twofold, it will give you a physical boost, but also a mental one. Knowing that you have taken a pre workout and your body should really feel a boost of energy should really help a lot.

The simplest type of pre workout is based on caffeine, so even a nice hot coffee could really help. However, if you drink a lot of coffee or other caffeinated drinks during the day, there is a big chance that you have built a tolerance for caffeine.

If you want to try a “real” pre workout I would recommend something like Vintage Blast.

 

4. Eat your snickers

How in the world could eating snickers improve your hiking speed? Simple, calories equals energy and energy is needed to keep up with your hiking pace.

I know that I also talked about how eating healthy by dehydrating your food can increase hiking speed, so definitely don’t only eat snickers. However, pure calories definitely matter as well.

Especially if you are only going on a day hike or maybe a 2 day hike, eating healthy isn’t going to effect your hiking speed too much – pure calories are. Once you start hiking for multiple days in a row eating healthy becomes more and more important, otherwise you will start to feel really bad and your hiking speed will decrease pretty fast.

Overall, I would always recommend to have a healthy mix of both healthy food and calorie dense snacks that you can really enjoy.

 

5. Wearing two pairs of socks

I expect that a lot of you already know about sock liners, but I’m going to discuss it once again and see how it affects hiking speed.

A liner sock is basically a sock that you wear underneath your hiking sock and this will prevent blisters. How does this work? Well, blisters are usually the result of friction between your feet and the sock you are wearing. By wearing a liner sock, the friction that would normally be happening between your feet and your hiking socks is now happening between the liner sock and the hiking sock.

For most hikers, this makes a huge difference when it comes to blister prevention and having healthy and pain-free feet will really improve your hiking speed.

It’s not only about wearing two pairs of socks either, it’s about taking care of your feet in general. Wearing a liner sock is only one of the many things you should do. You should wash them every evening (if you are on a multiday hiking trip). You should take off your hiking shoes whenever you can (even one small breaks) just to get your feet out of those sweaty shoes for a moment.

Remember, your feet are your most valuable assets when it comes to hiking!

 

6. Start or stop using trekking poles

Remarkably, some hikers tend to hike slower with trekking poles while others increase their hiking speed. It really comes down to what type of hiker you are and what type of terrain you will be encountering.

In order to find out whether or not trekking poles increase your hiking speed, you should simply try it out.

One argument against using trekking poles is that it increases the amount of calories you burn up to 20%. This means that you will either have to eat (and carry) more food or that you will continue hiking with less energy. Additionally, carrying more food means a heavier backpack and a heavier backpack tends to slow hikers down.

That being said, most hikers still feel like hiking with trekking poles increases their hiking speed.

In case you are still looking for some trekking poles I have been recommending TrailBuddy for a while now and I still stand by my choice!

 

7. Wear lightweight hiking shoes

Ok, I’ll admit it, this one is rather obvious. Everybody knows that lightweight hiking shoes are good for hiking speed. However, most people don’t realize exactly how much of a difference this can make.

Weight on your feet can in fact cost you 4-6 times more energy then weight on your back. This means that picking a very lightweight shoe is super important if hiking speed is your main priority.

One of the best options are trail runners, they are becoming more and more popular for hiking and with good reason! However, some trail running shoes are more suited than others. Therefore I would recommend to check out the following article in case you are interested: Best trail running shoes for hiking.

That being said, there are still benefits of using traditional -heavier- hiking boots. One of the most prominent ones is that they could prevent ankle injury, but they are also more budget-friendly in the long run. As long as you now where to look, that is (best cheap hiking shoes).