Strength Training for Hiking: Train for the Descent

Lokh, founder of Forma. 1 August 2026.

You got up fine. It was coming down that ruined you.

Four hours up felt like work but manageable, and you were pleased with yourself at the summit. Then 900 meters of descent turned your quads into something that would not hold you on the last stretch, you started taking the steps sideways, and on Monday you could not sit down without using your hands on the armrests.

Almost everyone who trains for hiking trains for the wrong half of the day. Uphill is an aerobic problem and your legs are working concentrically, shortening under load, which is the half your body handles well. Downhill is your quads lengthening under load, repeatedly, for hours, with a pack adding to it. That is eccentric loading, it causes far more muscle damage than the climb, and it is why the soreness shows up two days later.

Train the descent and the whole day gets easier. Train the climb and you arrive at the summit in good shape with the hard part still ahead of you.

What actually limits you on a big day

Three things, roughly in the order they bite.

Eccentric strength in your quads and glutes. This is the real limiter on any route with meaningful descent. When it runs out, your knees take load your muscles should be absorbing, your foot placement gets sloppy, and that is where ankles get rolled and knees start aching.

Trunk and hip stability under a pack. A loaded pack shifts your center of mass backward and upward. Everything about balancing on uneven ground gets harder, and the muscles that hold you upright fatigue for hours rather than seconds.

Feet, ankles and calves. The most neglected and the most likely to end a trip. Thousands of small stabilizing corrections on rock and root, plus the calf work of every step up.

Notice what is missing from that list: aerobic fitness. It matters, and you probably already have enough of it if you hike regularly. Strength is the thing that runs out first on a long descent, and it is the thing almost nobody trains for.

What to train, and how much

Two sessions a week, 30 to 40 minutes each, four to six movements, stopping two to three reps short of failure. That is the whole program outside a dedicated build block.

• Step-downs. Stand on a box 30 to 40cm high, lower yourself slowly to the floor on one leg over three seconds, step back up with both. Three sets of six each leg. This is the single most specific movement for hiking that exists and it is far harder than it sounds.
• Split squat, slow on the way down. Three sets of six each leg, four seconds lowering. Loaded with dumbbells once bodyweight stops being difficult.
• A hinge. Romanian deadlift, three sets of six. Your glutes and hamstrings do most of the work of standing back up on steep ground.
• Loaded carries. Two sets of 40 meters, heavy, one or two hands. Trains the trunk under exactly the kind of sustained load a pack applies.
• Calf raises, single leg. Three sets of 12, full range, off a step. Then the same again with a bent knee to catch the soleus, which does more on steep ground than the calf muscle everyone trains.

Progress by adding weight when every set hits the top of the range with reps still in reserve, or by slowing the lowering phase further. The eccentric emphasis is the point: the slow descent in the gym is rehearsing the slow descent on the hill.

The eight weeks before a big objective

If you have a specific trip, add a third session and put a weighted pack on two or three of your longer weekend walks, building from 8kg to whatever you will actually carry. Rehearse the load, do not train with it constantly. A pack accumulates joint stress faster than it builds strength, and the gym is a far more efficient place to get strong.

Where the gym session goes

Here is the conflict, and it is sharper for hiking than for most sports.

A long hike is a real training load. Six hours on your feet with 1,000 meters of ascent and descent is a genuine event, and your watch records it as one: it moves your training load, it drains Body Battery hard, and it shows up in your sleep that night. It is not a rest day with a nice view.

So the two things compete directly, in both directions:

• Heavy legs on Thursday wreck Saturday's descent. Eccentric soreness peaks 24 to 48 hours out and has a longer tail than other training. You arrive at the top of the descent with quads that are already halfway through their capacity.
• A big Saturday wrecks Sunday's session, and often Monday's too. The damage from a long descent is the same kind of damage a hard leg session causes. Stacking them inside 48 hours is asking one set of tissue to absorb two doses.

That week is correct for a normal week. The problem is that hiking weeks are not normal. The route was longer than planned, the descent was steeper than the map suggested, the weather turned and the whole day took nine hours instead of six. You arrive at Monday with no reliable sense of whether the heavy session is a good idea or the thing that ruins your next two weeks.

Common questions

How do I train for a hike with a lot of elevation?

Weight the descent. Step-downs, slow eccentric split squats and loaded carries do more for a big day than any volume of step-ups, because coming down is the half that causes the damage.

How long before a hike should I stop lifting?

Nothing heavy in the last 72 hours, nothing new in the last week. Eccentric soreness has a longer tail than most training and it will meet you halfway down.

How many days a week?

Two, plus the hiking. A third only inside a dedicated build block, and it is the first thing to cut when your weekend days get long.

Do I need to train with a weighted pack?

Two or three loaded walks in the eight weeks before a big trip, to prepare your shoulders, hips and feet. Beyond that it is a slow way to build leg strength and a fast way to accumulate joint load.

The part your legs cannot tell you

Every rule above needs one input: how much Saturday actually cost you.

Your watch has it. The hike is logged as an activity with its elevation and duration, it moves your training load, and the overnight Body Battery recovery and HRV that follow describe how well you absorbed it. A six-hour day and a nine-hour epic land in that data as the different events they were, which is exactly the distinction your legs are bad at reporting on Monday morning.

Forma reads it and decides. Recovery, not effort. After a moderate day it gives you the heavy Monday session. After nine hours and 1,400 meters of descent it gives you something lighter, or tells you today is not a lifting day, and it names the signal that drove the call. Warm-up through cool-down, sets, reps, rest and cues, pushed to your watch.

Same reasoning for the other sports that compete for the same recovery: runners, and skiers, which shares hiking's eccentric problem almost exactly. Everything is on the training guides hub.