I could never stand long runs.
The constant pounding on my knees and ankles leaves me sore for days.
I thought I just wasn’t a cardio guy. Until a friend introduced me to rucking.
I figured it was just a hike with a pack, so he loaded my bag up and we hit a beautiful North Carolina trail.
Three years later, I make sure to go for a ruck once a week because it’s led to such a powerful health transformation for me.
I used to hate cardio, and now I look forward to it every Saturday morning. Here’s why.
Table of Contents
17 Rucking Benefits that Will Transform the Way You Exercise
1. Better Cardiovascular and Heart Health
Rucking is a fantastic exercise for your heart and cardiovascular system. And you don’t even need to get your heart rate that high.
I naturally have high blood pressure, and since I’m having a kid, it’s become something that I’ve really focused on getting under control. Rucking has helped me a lot with that cause (honestly, I think it just offsets the coffee, but still…).
I always try to ruck for at least an hour. The goal is to be in what’s called “Zone 2 cardio,” which is basically when your heart rate is elevated, but you could still easily hold a conversation if you wanted to.
Or if you want to be more precise, it’s 60-70% or your max heart rate.
Getting 60 minutes of that Zone 2 cardio about once per week helps increase the flexibility of your cardiac muscles, which helps your overall cardiac efficiency.
2. It Builds Leg, Core, and Back Muscles
Because you’re working with weights, you’re building muscles.
Sure, rucking isn’t going to bulk your thighs up like hitting the squat rack and eating a whole chicken will.
But if you start rucking, you’ll notice some growth in your legs and you’ll certainly have a stronger back and core.
Rucking is a full body workout—my traps have even gotten bigger since I started rucking regularly.
Knowing that I’m putting on muscle helps me get through the burn.
3. Rucking Burns More Calories than Walking (and Not Much Less Than Running)
Rucking can burn 2-3x more calories than walking, and it’s almost on par with running (though I think rucking is way easier than running).
Let’s use an example to show the power of rucking.
Say you’re 180 pounds. If you go for a 60 minute walk, and you’re walking at 4 miles per hour, you’ll burn something close to 380 calories.
Now throw a 20-pound weight in your pack and do the same thing: you just burned around 430 calories.
But that’s only adding 10% of your bodyweight. A lot of people like to start with 20%. You’re burning 470 calories.
If you’re not used to counting calories, let me put it this way: 470 calories is equivalent to about a full chicken breast with some rice and broccoli. That’s an entire meal.
It may not seem like much, but if you incorporate a ruck into your routine once or twice a week, the extra burned calories can really add up.
Compared to running, rucking doesn’t burn as many calories, but I find it so much more enjoyable and easy. More on that below.
4. Rucking is Low Impact and Easy on Your Joints
Running is hard on my knees, and I always found going for a run to be somewhere on the spectrum between uncomfortable and straight up painful.
That’s why rucking was such a big deal to me when my friend introduced it to me.
I could get sustained cardio without punishing my knees and ankles.
Rucking is a low impact exercise and it’s a whole lot easier on your joints when compared to running.
It may be surprising, but running isn’t actually bad for your knees or joints. It’s good for them, but you really have to make sure your form is spot-on and you’re wearing the right shoes.
I’ve never been able to get the correct form down, so going on 30-60 minute jogs has always left me sore. Rather than hiring a running coach to help me nail my form down, I just ruck.
You’re much less likely to develop improper form—you’re a lot more competent walking than you are running.
So if you’re like me and hate having aching knees and ankles, then rucking is a low impact cardio you can reasonably do several times per week.
5. It Improves Your Posture and Balance
Navigating a dirt trail with 40 pounds on your back requires a lot of small muscles—muscles you might not develop if you’re hitting weights in the gym. And you’re certainly not building them when you’re sitting at your desk.
The thing about rucking is that it almost forces you to have better posture. When you have all that weight on your back, if you don’t walk with your shoulders open and your back straight, you’ll start to feel an intense burn in your muscles, and maybe even a little pinching in your lower back.
When your posture is off, rucking is quick to remind you.
It’s one of the reasons I recommend starting to ruck with 10% of your bodyweight for the first go. On a 3-mile ruck, you’ll find out which muscles for posture and balance need some more development.
There’s nothing you need to do, necessarily. Just keep rucking. Either add a mile onto your next ruck, or add another 5% of your body weight to the pack.
6. It Can Help Change Your Body Composition
If you change nothing else about your lifestyle—same diet, same level of activity—then rucking will lower your body fat and increase your muscle mass.
Since I started rucking regularly, my body fat percentage has dropped from 24% to 20%. Now that’s not a huge amount, and my buddy who got me into rucking went from 30% body fat to 16% in a year, which is an insane transformation.
And you can find plenty of examples of people who’ve used rucking to change even more than that.
Your body composition is really dictated by your diet. My diet has a few weekend beers, which may or may not be accompanied with some wings, pizza, or burgers.
It’s hard to lose too much weight when you’re downing IPA’s and a 12-wing basket. But still, just adding in a regular ruck once a week to my exercise routine has improved by body composition significantly.
7. Rucking in Nature Boosts Your Mental Health
A lot of studies are being done on the mental health benefits of being unplugged and out in nature.
Focus, mental clarity, lower stress. We could all use some more of that, right?
I don’t know about you, but living in a city, I can sometimes feel overwhelmed with the amount of noise and the constant busy-ness.
Getting out onto a trail regularly helps me recharge. I personally like to ruck on Saturdays. It’s just what works for my schedule.
And after a long workweek, it can be tempting to wake up slow, look at my phone, and hit the local bakery. But when Monday rolls back around, if I skip my ruck, I find my ability to focus and perform just isn’t quite the same.
That bit of time in nature—I don’t listen to podcasts or music while I’m rucking—really helps me recharge. It almost feels like giving my mind a spa-day. When I get that hour or so of nature-time, I perform better all week.
8. It’s Easy to do With Minimal Equipment
You can get a lot of gear for rucking if you want. But you don’t need to.
For my first ruck, I just wore a beat up old pair of sneakers and threw on an old backpack. My buddy brought a sandbag with him and we threw that in my pack.
Since then, I’ve invested in a better rucking backpack, plus some weights to make it easier for me to dial in how much I’m rucking with.
But I only got to that point after I fell in love with rucking.
So if you’ve never gone on a ruck before and you’re wondering whether or not it’s right for you, you really don’t need anything special to get started. Just throw some weight in a pack, grab a water bottle, and hit a local trail for a few miles.
9. You Can Turn Your Ruck Into a Full Bodyweight Workout
I love weight lifting—I try to get into the gym four times per week. But in running my own business and the chaos of life, I sometimes miss a workout.
When I do, I like to add a little extra onto my rucks.
It can be as simple as repping out 20 pushups every mile you ruck. That might not seem like a lot, but if you’ve got 40 pounds on your back, those pushups can get you nice and sore the next day.
A lot of backpacks that are built specifically for rucking have handles at the top and bottom that also allow you to easily use them for “kettlebell” swings (although it’s a bag, not a kettlebell), squats, and overhead presses.
Rucking by itself is a full body workout, but if you want a little extra muscle building work, it’s really easy to incorporate.
10. Rucking is Fun to do with a Friend or Spouse
I was introduced to rucking by a friend. We were able to go on a trail I’d been wanting to see. We were able to have a great conversation. It was awesome.
Rucking is naturally social. I love rucking alone, but if I have a chance to go with someone else, I love that opportunity, too.
My wife isn’t the biggest outdoors person, but she does like a hike every once in a while. The thing is: I don’t know that she’d ever go further than 3 miles. And she goes pretty slow.
Normally, a hike with her isn’t enough to get my heart pumping or to tire me out.
But if I throw 70 pounds on my back? Well, now I’m happy to ruck at her pace.
That’s one of my favorite things about rucking. Even if you’re more fit than the person you’re walking with, you can crank up the weight you’re wearing and make the walk more difficult for yourself (in a good way).
11. It’s Very Scalable (Easy to Progress—Just Add More Weight)
One of the reasons I wanted to get a rucking bag and weights was because I like to measure my progress.
And there are two really simple ways with rucking to make sure you’re consistently improving your body: add more weight, or add more miles.
Start with 10% of your body weight in your pack and try a three mile ruck. That’ll take about an hour. Too easy? Next time add 20% of your body weight to the pack and do the same distance.
Adding 10 pounds is going to make each ruck just a little harder. And when you finally hit a weight that feels like a challenge, you can add distance. Turn that 3-miler into a 4-miler.
I recommend tracking the weight and distance of your rucking. Tracking ensures your progression. And your progression is basically like a multiplier for all the benefits listed here.
12. Rucking Helps Build Bone Density
If you’re not doing any weight lifting right now, then rucking will help improve your bone density. If you already weight lift, well, starting to regularly ruck is only going to help more.
Interestingly, there are three characteristics of exercise that contribute to better bone density: strain magnitude, rate, and frequency.
Another way of putting it is: how powerful the impact is, the duration in which strain is being applied to your bones, and how often the impacts happen in a given session.
For weight lifters, you’re getting a lot of strain rate (when you’re doing a bench press, you’re applying a lot of weight to your bones). But you’re not necessarily getting a lot of strain magnitude or frequency.
To get those characteristics, you really need something repetitive. Rucking increases the strain magnitude by adding weight, and because you’re hiking for several miles, you’re hitting the ground frequently.
Great bone density not only helps you be more capable in the short term, but it’s a major factor to consider for old-age health.
13. Improves Stability and Flexibility
Because you won’t be rucking on a smooth surface and even the most well-groomed trails have some rocks and uneven spots, you’ll be building your stability.
I was surprised to learn how much stability and flexibility helps overall strength.
I was always one of those guys who was all about lifting heavier. But when I hit a plateau on my squat at 315, I took a step back and tried a few different things.
That’s around the time I started regularly rucking.
Rucking builds the stabilizers in your knees, ankles, and your core (particularly your obliques). It also builds your traps and middle-back muscles that help keep you upright.
It was only a month or two after regularly rucking (and still weight lifting), when I noticed that I was squatting 315 easier than usual. I decided to add a bit more weight, and wouldn’t you know? I broke through the plateau.
And I didn’t just break through to 325. Over the next month or so, I progressed to 365.
Now there are a ton of studies that show how weighted walking can improve your stability.
But having first-hand experience of just how much improved stabilizer muscles can affect my overall strength was a total game changer for me.
14. Gives You a Chance to Get Some Vitamin D
When that first day of spring hits and you finally get some sun after a long winter—that’s one of my favorite feelings in the whole world. I’m sure I’m not alone there.
When the weather is warm, I like to throw on a pack, a tank top, and catch some rays.
If you’re like me and spend most of your time indoors, it’s crucial to get some sunlight in whenever you can. For me, rucking is the best time of the week for that.
There’s plenty of science that says getting sunshine and vitamin D is necessary for everyday function. But common sense is all I need to know to get out at least once a week to make sure I’m not turning into a hermit.
15. Rucking Breaks Your Normal Workout Routine
After years of lifting weights, I have to admit that sometimes I get tired of seeing the same people in the same gym lifting the same weights.
I like a little variety. And the beauty of rucking is that you can do it anywhere. Sure, I could go pump iron at a different gym every once in a while, but then I have to get a guest pass and jump through who knows how many hoops.
With rucking, you can pick a new trail every week.
Not only does rucking offer a workout that’s totally different than hitting the same gym, it’s also easy to change the ruck as often as I want.
Heck, I’ve even brought my rucksack and weights with me on vacation to get a ruck in and see the trails in other parts of the US.
Over the years, I’ve learned that adding variety to my workout routine has been a key part of staying consistent. And as the SEALS say: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
16. Rucking Boosts Your Lung Capacity
I was a smoker for many years, so my lung capacity hasn’t always been great.
By the time I got started rucking regularly, I had already recovered a lot of the lung capacity I lost from smoking. Those were some hard-fought breaths, getting through sprints and jogs after years of treating my body poorly.
Obviously, the benefits of not smoking are pretty clear to all of us at this point. But I only point this out because I’ve had an eye on my overall lung capacity for about a decade.
Doing HIIT style cardio definitely helped boost my lung capacity, but regularly rucking took things to the next level.
There’s a specific reason why rucking is so good for lung health. Yes, it’s great for your heart, which I explained above. But because rucking is an aerobic exercise, it also helps improve the efficiency of your muscles, meaning they can do more with the oxygen they’re already receiving.
It’s a double-benefit-whammy.
Not only can your lungs take in more, but your muscles require less.
So if you were to start rucking for 3 months, the next time you do a quick sprint—whether that’s playing in the backyard with the kids, or if your running to catch the subway—you won’t run out of breath as quickly.
17. Can Be a Low Cost Hobby
My dad golfs. That’s not a low cost hobby.
I’m a big fan of rucking because even if you decide to go all-out and get the best gear like a tactical weighted vest, a rucking backpack, ruck weights, and awesome rucking boots—you’re really not going to spend more than $500.
And it’s not like any of those things wear out (except maybe the boots, but you don’t need to buy a new pair for several years).
Of course, you can start rucking right now without spending anything. Just grab a backpack, throw some books in it or a few water bottles, and hit a trail.
To be honest with you, a big reason why I was drawn to rucking is because I also think that military-vibe looks cool. Always have since I was a kid. It’s a little embarrassing, but whatever.
So I wanted to get all the gear. And even going all-out with the backpack, boots, and all—it’s really just the one-time cost and that’s it.
Now I only have to spend money on gas to get to new trails I’m excited to ruck. If I don’t feel like spending, I don’t go so far. It’s that simple.
Build your strength and endurance in only 8 weeks with my rucking transformation guide.
Convinced Yet?
Rucking regularly changed my life, and I think it’ll change yours, too.
Rucking has helped me lift more, improve my physical health and give me more energy, it’s helped clear my mind after brutal work weeks, and it gives me a chance to spend some quality time with my wife while also getting a workout.
In short, rucking benefits every single aspect of my life that’s most important to me: physical, spiritual, and my relationships.
That’s why I’m so passionate about it.
If you decide to pick up rucking, I’d love to know how it helps you.
William Barton
I ruck to build strength and endurance. Since I've started rucking, I've used this amazing hobby to see trails across the US. But nothing beats a ruck near my home in North Carolina.
Build your strength and endurance in only 8 weeks with my rucking transformation guide.