Train Your Quads Better And Get Your Hiking Legs Faster

As a hiker, you need your quads. They help you power up the mountain and come back down again while reducing your risk of knee and hip pain. But it's super easy to miss these three things about training your quads in the gym so that they actually make hiking easier when you're out on the trail. 

How to Train Your Quads

Let's talk about the four parts of your quadriceps muscles so you know how to train them right. 

Your quads live in the front of your thighs with your hip flexors (here’s a great diagram!) Three of the muscles attach to the top of your femur and then connect into your patellar tendon, and the last one actually originates on your pelvis. 

Any exercise that extends the knee will use your quadriceps. 

Most importantly, working your quads in a single leg position transfers so well to hiking because it combines quad strength with hip stability. This helps you avoid excessive knee diving in or hip dipping on the trail. 

Don't just do front squats to build your quads! Instead, incorporate lateral step ups, poliquin step downs, and lunges (to a depth that works for you) to strengthen them for the trail. 

Speaking of the trail, the uphills and downhills use your quads in different ways. 

Going up, we use the quads concentrically when we are straightening the knee. On the way down, we use them eccentrically, which means we use our quads to slow down the flexion of the knee. 

Not only does this slow lengthening on descents have the potential to cause more muscle damage, it can often be forgotten when we work in the gym. I often see people plop down on the back part of their step up or move too quickly through their squats and then wonder why their quads are strong in the gym, but fall short on the trails. 

The key is to incorporate exercises where you start at the top of the movement and are really aware of how far and fast you're moving down. My favourite exercises for this are: 

• Using a poliquin step down because you're gently touching that heel against the ground before coming back up. 

• Step downs where you start at the top of the moment and come down slowly to barely touch the ground, and then move back up. 

In both cases, I want you to pay attention to what your hips are doing. Make sure you're not reaching for the ground by dropping one hip. Instead, stay disciplined to keep those hips level! 

You can also slow down the lowering part of your movement. In fact, try a squat where you take up to four seconds to get into your low position. That will be readying your brain and your muscles for a slow, safe descent. 

Keep in mind that if you strengthen your quads like crazy and neglect the back half of your body, you might be setting yourself up for trouble. Check out my last blog with my tips on how to strengthen your glutes for hiking.

Finally, the quadriceps need length and strength. 

For those of us who are sitting most of the day, it can cause a reduction in the length of our quadriceps muscles over time. And, with the one quad muscle connecting on the front of the pelvis, the reduced quad length can actually pull your pelvis forward. This is usually associated with knee pain and low back pain. 

I'll often see people go to stretch their quads, but go around the stretch instead. It usually looks like one of two things:

1. They might super arch their back when they're getting into a quad stretch. Now this traditional quad stretch also hits your hip flexors and that rectus femoris, which attaches on the pelvis. So by tilting it forward, you're actually making it less of a stretch for your quad. 

Quad Stretch: Incorrect Pelvic Position

Quad Stretch: Correct Pelvic Position

2. The second is they don't really care about the position of their knee while they're doing this stretch. And I'll typically see the knee way out to the side. So they're not stretching all of their quad fibers equally.

Quad Stretch: Incorrect Knee Position

Quad Stretch: Correct Knee Position

The easiest way to know you're doing this or any stretch right is to be aware of where the muscles are and searching for them in the stretch. But for quad stretches specifically I have two tips: 

• I find if you move your femur in line with your torso, you get more of a stretch through the quads. 

• Spend five seconds pushing your ankle into your hand and then relaxing. You will get a deeper, better stretch! 

After you increase the length through stretching, make sure to use your quads through their new range of motion. This will lock the brain-muscle connection for the added length you've achieved. 

The whole goal of doing exercises in the gym is to help us enjoy the trails more. If you’re looking for more hike specific workouts, we have a free 30-day Couch-to-Summit Program that can be done at home and get you feeling ready for the trails this summer.

Have a WILDR week and we’ll see you on the trails!