A fit body is the best asset for any trekker, as it's your own body that can help you to complete the trek. If not taken good care of, it is your body itself which will want you to return from the trek, unfinished. The task is often not easy and it requires complete discipline where the body plays a very significant role. Keeping the muscles in perfect condition is one of the most important practices of any trekker. While climbing up and descending down on the trek, almost all the body parts are utilised. Hence, keeping the muscle injuries at bay is the most important task for any trekker. However, it is not difficult and if you follow these basic routines then you will be all set for it.
Importance For Warm Up Excercise Before The Trek
Usually, simple day hikes do not require any critical planning, but if you are on a multi-day trek in the remote Himalayas, then it becomes utmostly important that your body does not give up due to physical injuries. Trekking is a strenuous activity and before starting the day's trek, it is very important that you prepare your muscles and body for it. These are called warm-up exercises and it helps prevent muscle cramps and injuries on the day's trek. It involves exercises like spot jumping, hip rotation, wrist rotation, foot rotation, hamstring stretch, quadriceps stretch, push-ups, etc. While doing the warmup exercises, do note that you should not overdo it as you are still to trek. A quick exercise for 10 - 15 minutes is enough to get going for the day. Not more.
Importance Of Cool Down Stretches After The Trek
After a tiring day's trek, it is very important that you perform cool-down exercises so that your muscles feel relaxed and release the lactic acid accumulated during the day's trek. Even if you miss the warm-up exercise, it does not affect you too much if you start the trek easily and then make it intense. However, cool-down exercises are very very important and should not be missed.
Below are a few post-trek stretches which will help you recover well and quickly after a trek and keep your muscles injury-free.
Hamstring Stretches: The hamstring is one of the big muscles in your body and injury to it is a show stopper on a trek. While trekking, we use our hamstring a lot and it needs to be kept in good shape. These stretches help keep our hamstring in good shape and increase its strength.
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visit the website https://www.fitzabout.com/yoga/hamstring-stretch-top-12-yoga-poses-for-tight-hamstrings/ to know various forms of hamstring stretches
Calf Muscles Stretches To Release Tightness and Increase Strength: Calf muscle is very important and is used extensively while climbing up. Often when the trekking trail climbs up too much, your calf muscles are put to good use and they might get tight if they arent used to that stress. Hence, stretches to release the tightness of the calf muscles and increase their strength are very important.
Massage your calves with your fingers and mattress roll to release the tissue tightness.
read more on https://blog.paleohacks.com/yoga-poses-release-tight-calves/
Quadriceps Stretch: It is extremely important to stretch which can bring the quadricep muscles into perfect shape. Quadriceps are mostly used while descending and it is one of the very important leg muscles. You need to take care of it with proper strengthening and releasing exercises while on a trek.
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Back Extension: Back stretches help reduce stress on you back which is overloaded during the trek, specially on a long walk with heavy rucksack.
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These are the few stretches which will help you a lot during the trek and can even be practiced as a pre-trek preparation exercises. Apart from the stretches, you need to maintain your body for dehydration issues. You must take ORS solutions on a regular basis. You must give your body some warm-up workouts before you start trekking on a particular day. Remember that keeping your body muscles in perfect condition is a must so that you can trek successfully.