Rucking 101
Prologue – DO NOT OVERCOMPLICATE RUCKING…he declared as he introduces a multi-volume Rucking Series. The irony is not lost on me. But you don’t have to read any of this treatise. Rucking can be a simple as putting a couple of pounds in a book bag and going for a walk. At first, don’t go too far, too heavy, or too fast but it can be that simple. Just walk with a load. You don’t need permission, it doesn’t require a community, and there is no specific brand, bag, boot, or weight that somehow grants you access to an exclusive club. You can just load up and go and now you are rucking. The barrier to entry is just a bag, any bag, and walking. But we think there is some value in the nuances of these sorts of things. We like the little details, and we are passionate about our passions, go figure. So, we will endeavor to answer all your questions before you even know what questions to ask. Ruck Up.
What We Will Cover
The exercise science behind rucking
How to program ruck training
What ruck to use (Coming Soon)
Wearables and enablers (Coming Soon)
What to use for weight (Coming Soon)
What shoes and socks to use (Coming Soon)
How to fuel and hydrate for rucking (Coming Soon)
Introduction
Being able to move a load under your own power seems to be a fundamental skill that humans should be able to master. Pick stuff up, strap it to your back, and transfer it around. It shouldn’t really matter whether that stuff be provisions on your journey, firewood around your campsite, supplies around your homestead, or books around your campus. The more stuff that you can move, the faster that you can move it, and the farther that you can move it seem to be the metrics of success for this skill. You can call it whatever you want… hiking, walking, trekking, tabbing, or rucking…it is essentially the same thing. I have always called it rucking, and this seems to be the term of art that dominates the current culture. It certainly is the term of art for the US military from where I draw my 35 years of rucking experience.
I have made a career (two actually) of rucking. I spent 20+ years under a ruck starting as a young Private First Class and Cadet, through my active-duty Army career in Special Forces, and now as an author covering rucking and ruck-based selection and assessment courses. I’m not certain that I could accurately calculate my time under load or mileage, but I think that it would be fair to assess that I am in the advanced or master’s category, if such a thing existed. But I don’t just understand this topic from an experiential perspective (does being a gunshot victim make you a trauma medicine expert?), I make every effort to balance my anecdotal experience with rigorous evidence-based research. What is interesting is how much the empirical evidence differs from the anecdotal. They are both valid, but we should be mindful of bias.
The military has a way of sucking the fun out of damn near everything. They can make SCUBA diving, skydiving, and shooting guns into the most painful experiences imaginable. So imagine what they can they can do with an already aching activity like rucking? As such, most military guys have a very biased understanding of rucking. The default understanding is that rucking is bad, it causes an inordinate number of injuries, and it should be avoided. My assessment is that these conditions only exist as a result of improper preparation, a topic we will cover in depth. Oddly, many veterans return to rucking once they leave the service in some vain attempt to reclaim their former self. It makes sense in that rucking has a low barrier to entry and you can see (and feel) immediate gains in performance.
This Rucking 101 series will cover all this lore. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the truth. We will look at the gear, the workouts, and the science. This will undoubtedly be very opinionated. I can’t separate my years of experience from my writing and research, but we will always endeavor to accurately cover the counterargument and the evidence as well. I want you to be informed, but I also want you to be a little entertained. Nobody likes reading a textbook.
Why Rucking?
Humans are human. We are designed to move, specifically on foot. Bipedalism, the ability to walk upright on two feet, might be the single most important evolutionary adaptation to rocket humans to the top of the pyramid. Walking, the use of tools, and our universal and rightful disdain for the metric system…all equally important. About 6 million years ago, we descended from the trees to walk on two feet, and we probably started a pre-historic version of rucking shortly thereafter. The ability to carry loads was integral to our early nomadic lifestyle. When early hunter-gatherers chased down game, they hauled that meat back to the group on their backs. So, rucking is just a part of who humans are and how we are built.
The scientific literature is pretty clear on the benefits of rucking. First, rucking improves bone density like nearly any load bearing activity (Dlugolecka & Jowko, 2022). Rucking engages major muscle groups like your legs, back, and core (Orr, Dawes, Lockie, & Godeassi, 2019). Rucking can be excellent for your cardiovascular health (Chatterjee, Chatterjee, Bhattacharyya, Sen, & Pal, 2018). Rucking can provide improved mental clarity and focus as well (Sax van der Weyden, Merrigan, Newman, Hahn, & Martin, 2024). It remains a (relatively) low impact sustainable activity that can increase your muscular strength, improve your cardiovascular endurance, increase your mental clarity, and even improve your mood. But, all things in moderation. In essence, rucking is just walking. So the level of intensity (and thus strength gains and cardiovascular improvement) depends on the amount of weigh that you are carrying and the pace at which you are carrying it.
Can you get the same benefits from something that doesn’t require you to look like a deranged homeless vagrant wandering the trails? Sure, but you gotta pick your poison. The best activity to compare rucking to is likely running, since most fitness enthusiast are already somewhat familiar with running and its associated stimuli and benefits. But even running can have some detrimental effects. A comparison of injuries from rucking versus injuries from running is a complicated matter. Joint pain from the running impact is the most often cited, and the differences with rucking are not insignificant. But severity of injuries from rucking are higher than running. Total number of injuries, severity of injury, and type of injury are all variables that often get evaluated. I have been studying rucking, including a deep analysis of the available literature, for at least a decade. I’m not a physician, or a certified trainer, but I’m a competent researcher and a skilled practitioner. My expert assessment (take that qualification for whatever you want…I encourage professional skepticism) is that the data is inconclusive.
There is nothing more inherently risky or injury producing about rucking. A casual glance at the scientific literature might lead a reasonable person to conclude that rucking will cause immense back and knee issues. There are plenty of studies that demonstrate that rucking can cause injuries. There is a plethora of studies that show that rucking produces more injuries than running, even when controlled for mileage. And the overwhelming prevailing narrative of many military practitioners is that rucking is just bad. But the one variable that is never present in these studies is conditioning. No study that I have ever encountered accounts for this. You must adequately prepare your body to engage in the activity at hand. Any physical activity is likely to cause injury if you don’t properly prepare for it. No reasonable person would expect to go run a 5K at pace and not expect some sort of injury the next day unless you have adequately trained for it. If you wandered into the gym and started max weightlifting, you’re likely to suffer a debilitating injury. And the annals of CrossFit are rife with tales of Rhabdo the Clown from under-prepared athletes that were capable of completing a particularly intense MetCon workout, but the lack of proper conditioning forced them into life threatening conditions soon thereafter. It seems obvious, but it’s a factor that rucking opponents continually dismiss.
This is especially important given that rucking has such a low-perceived barrier to entry. It’s “just walking” after all, isn’t it? It certainly can be, especially in the context of our Prologue. But it is walking under load. It’s a unique stimulus. It’s a unique stimulus that requires proper preparation. And this reality is especially pertinent for the military population. The bias here is laughably extreme. There seems to be some universal conceit that all Service Members are inherently fit. There is a culture of fitness in the military and Service Members have physical training programmed into their daily training schedules. But the variance for type, intensity, and enforcement of these conditions is wide. Every member is expected to be fit, but compliance to this cultural norm is not universal. And just because a Service Member maintains a good score on their respective assessment tool, and even maintains a fairly robust individual preparedness routine, the rigors of military rucking are unique. As such, they need to be prepared for uniquely.
With a low barrier to entry of a simple bag, a few pounds, and a little stroll rucking is easy to access. But the military maintains a minimum performance metric of 35 pounds for 12 miles under 3 hours. This near universal metric gets stringently enforced, but rarely prepared for. What happens is that most units enforce this assessment on a bi-annual or quarterly basis, but neglect to program regular rucking and ancillary weight training to support this performance. So the inevitable outcome is injury. What would a reasonable person expect? Why should rucking be different from any other physical modality? And to make matters worse, rucking maintains some familiarity bias in that many believe that because they had at one point, say during Basic Training, been able to adequately perform a ruck march, that they should be able to just jump right in and do it now. Regardless of how far removed they are temporally or physically from type. Ah, those glory days.
So no, there is no conclusive evidence that rucking, when properly prepared for, is any riskier for injury than running...or any other fitness activity. We will discuss what properly prepared for entails in a moment, but it’s not a huge burden. When rucking, you’ll experience less pounding on the knees than when running, making rucking a good choice for low-impact exercise. The weight also requires more force from your muscles, which makes rucking a cardiovascular exercise that will build strength and stamina, too. So if you are a regular runner, then you can transition without too much drama to rucking, or certainly augment your running with ruck training. The other factor, beyond proper preparation, that influences rucking injury prevention is proper programming. The variables of load, duration, and pace are ever present. In our next installation we’ll look at what proper programming entails.
Programming Ruck Workouts
First, we should reinforce our prologue notion that there is absolutely nothing preventing you from just throwing on your book bag and walking. You’ll likely survive unscathed all but the most adventurous and aggressive of outings. There is no need to overcomplicate and gatekeep rucking. But I like to think of rucking from a performance perspective. I want to ruck as fast as I can, with a reasonable weight, for a reasonable distance, with a mind towards not getting injured and arriving at my destination in some semblance of physical and mental condition that I can be effectively present. Military guys might call this “fighting condition” …as in I want to carry my ruck with all my stuff to my designated area of operations and not be so smoked when I get there that I’m still able to carry out the mission. That’s sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? From a civilian perspective, I want to be able to be able to enjoy the physiological wellness benefits of rucking without being so fatigue that I can’t go about the rest of my day effectively.
The best way to build rucking performance is field based progressive load carriage, usually 2-3 times a week, focused on short intense sessions. That’s a bit of a mouthful. Rucking performance? What if I don’t want to build performance? I just want to get out and stretch my legs and take a break from running! Sure, but why not build some durability. Why not build some resilience. Why not get better? You don’t need to be preparing form some skull and dagger death race or Instagram worthy event. But building performance is the really the purpose of rucking. You may never get to Special Forces Assessment and Selection readiness levels, but you can still build performance. So the best way to build rucking performance is field based progressive load carriage, usually 2-3 times a week, focused on short intense sessions. Think of this methodology as the most intense to build the most performance and then adapt to your training needs.
This statement is at the core of our ruck programming, and it garners more criticism than almost anything else. This shouldn’t be contentious, but it is. It throws the established conventional wisdom on its head. It counters decades of “that’s what I did” institutional and personal momentum. Thirty years ago, the program for SFAS prep was 8 weeks of rucks with a 6-miler week one and a 24-miler in week eight, adding a few miles each week. You started at 35 pounds and slowly moved up to 75 pounds by the final week. You complemented this with the classic body-building split of chest and tri, back and bi, and shoulders and legs. Throw in some Fartleks (remember those?) and maybe an “advanced” technique like a swim or two and there was your SFAS prep plan. For many, this remains ‘the plan” today. You might throw in some updates like AMRAP, or HIIT, or track repeats, but the rucking remains nearly identical. Just look at the official SWCS produced SFAS Prep plan or any of the official THOR3 plans. Some of these don’t even have weightlifting! But they definitely get the rucking part wrong as well.
Most Soldiers hate rucking. It is almost seen as punishment and there is little wonder why. Most units don’t train for rucking. They simply host an annual or semi-annual 12-mile ruck march event for unit validation. It becomes, predictably, an emotionally significant event. Because nobody in the unit has adequately prepared for it, there is always a marked increase in associated injury rates. Put plainly, it sucks. It spawns the ‘rucking is bad for you, wear dress socks to prevent blisters, and load up on creatine and energy drinks’ narrative that prevails almost uncontested. Boomer Fudd-lore bullshit. This is the reality that so much of the literature addresses. We’re not unsympathetic to the misery, we simply maintain that those people aren’t preparing correctly. And our recommendation is hard work, so it’s bound to be unpopular. It is a relentless and intense process (just like SFAS). So, lots of people predictably resist it. We should note that our training statement is not our opinion, it is what the evidence…the peer reviewed, real world recorded evidence…shows us. You can certainly make an argument that “peer-reviewed” doesn’t hold the credibility that it once did. But it is still the gold-standard. And we should recognize that experience does matter, so your observations and practice can certainly inform your argument. But not at the exclusion of what the empirical evidence demonstrates. In the Taxonomy of Information, data and evidence outweigh narrative and anecdotes. Let’s take a look at the counter-argument.
What our position doesn’t say might be a more revealing place to start. We don’t say the only way, we say the best. There are many ways to train rucking. You could program the antithesis method…treadmill based, set pace and weight, once every 2 weeks, focused on long slow distance…and you would certainly see some sort of stimulus, particularly in poorly trained athletes. But not better than our method. Not the best. There is also a significant distinction to be made with how we define best. Best for what? Injury prevention or VO2 Max? Muscular endurance or flexibility? There are near unlimited variables and the literature seems to favor injury prevention. Fair enough, but we’re training to get selected, not to primarily avoid injury. We define best as increased speed and weight carrying capacity. Finally, we say build rucking performance, not maintain performance. We are assuming that the athlete is beginning from a relatively low performance benchmark. Once you build to a high-performance benchmark there is little evidence to suggest that more than once a week is indicated. But were specifying the best way to build. Words matter.
The field based progressive load carriage component is very well established in the literature. You would struggle to find a study that concludes anything but this. A Systematic Review of the Effects of Physical Training on Load Carriage Performance (Knapik, Harman, Steelman, & Graham, 2012) is a fairly comprehensive meta-analysis of this component and should provide more than enough support for this conclusion to even the most doubtful skeptic. Many critics also cite that this article concludes only one weekly progressive load carriage session, not our recommended 2-3. But this isn’t the conclusion in the studies that it reviews. The full conclusion is “…field-based training conducted at least three times per week that incorporates a wide variety of training modes and includes one weekly progressive load carriage…”, so three times a week is much more relevant, and one might conclude at least one weekly progressive load carriage. The conclusion is not clear in this literature, so we should continue to seek clarification elsewhere, as we have done.
The Army itself has published some guidance via the Uniformed Services University Human Performance Resources Initiative and recommends “limiting ruck marches to one every 10–14 days, planned in coordination with resistance training and cardio days.” (Uniformed Services University, 2023) They base this recommendation on Technical Information Paper No. 12-054-054-0616 (Army Public Health Center, 2016). But the TIP itself concludes that this methodology:
“…may provide optimal performance with the least risk of injury. Because exceeding four marches a month may unnecessarily increase risk, training regimens should not exceed one distance march a week. Unit mission, baseline fitness levels, other physical activities and training, as well as terrain and climate must also be considered.”
Again, the focus of these recommendations is injury prevention, not performance. And even this recommendation includes uncertainty (may) and the caveat that mission and baseline fitness levels must also be considered. Our mission is building elite rucking performance. Our mission is SFAS. We are certainly mindful of injury prevention, but it is not the primary consideration. All of the literature that recommends rucking frequency less recurrently than at least once a week are prioritizing injury prevention, not performance gains. We also prioritize establishing high baseline fitness levels before rucking in earnest. Our methodology includes eight weeks of preparatory fitness…strength, flexibility, mobility, and cardio baseline…before rucking is prescribed. This is exactly in accordance with the literature already cited (Orr, Pope, Johnston, & Coyle, 2010). Evidence.
We should also note the actual recommendation in the TIP is “…field-based training conducted at least 3 times per week…”. Why the distinction between load carriage and other field-based activities? Other than injury prevention in low-fitness trainees, what is the difference in load carriage training versus any other physical training modality? There is no evidence that in a properly conditioned athlete that more frequency correlates to higher injury rates. Would any reasonable credentialed coach program any other physical event only 2 or 3 times a month? What sort of performance gains could one realistically expect training an activity every 10-14 days? One should be mindful of overtraining, but what about undertraining? Can you realistically expect optimum performance gains with such infrequent training? Which method is better, twice a month or twice a week? Not what methods are acceptable, rather what is the best.
Finally for frequency, we absolutely must layer on top of this the analysis of the specific training mission of SFAS. No reasonable person believes that training twice a month would be adequate to build rucking performance for Selection. There is no evidence to support such a conclusion. At SFAS you will be rucking nearly every day for the duration. During Gate Week you will have several timed rucks of an unknown distance. If you are fast enough, you get to go to Land Nav Week. Here you will be rucking every single day. You will be under a ruck for 8-10 hours a day. Again, if you’re fast enough and you can manage the inherent cognitive load and find your points, you earn a shot at Team Week. In Team Week you will be under a ruck, and then some (see: The Sandman) for upwards of 22 or 23 hours a day. And finally, the Long Range Movement. Seemingly endless miles on a bruised and battered body with likely shredded and compromised feet. Twice a month prep? Good fucking luck. In the Knapik, et al meta-analysis the training frequency is as varied as 3-5 times a week, while the intensity and duration were manipulated (Knapik, Harman, Steelman, & Graham, 2012). So, following well established exercise protocols we can conclude that 2-3 times a week is the best frequency for building performance, particularly SFAS level performance.
The final variable in our recommendation is intensity. You can manipulate intensity with three common variables: speed, distance, and weight. Some studies cite duration, but duration is a derivative of speed and distance. We use all three of these variables in our programming with our benchmark variable being speed. And because we focus on short intense sessions, we can focus our programming manipulation on the speed and weight. We develop our understanding of short intense sessions from five key studies, Soldier Load Carriage: Historical, Physiological, Biomechanical, and Medical Aspects (Knapik, Reynolds, & Harman, 2004), Optimizing Operational Physical Fitness (NATO's Research & Technology Organization, 2009), The Development of a Preselection Physical Fitness Training Program for Canadian Special Operations Regiment Applicants (Carlson & Jaenen, 2012), The Role of Strength and Power in High Intensity Military Relevant Tasks (Maladouangdock, 2014), and Optimizing the Physical Training of Military Trainees (Orr & Pope, 2015). We should also note that these studies and many of their cited sources, further support the 2-3 times week frequency conclusion.
What these studies conclude is that intensity matters, particularly with regards to load carriage training. Intensity must be sufficient to elicit a physiological response proportionate to that recommended for cardiovascular and metabolic fitness development, with the speed and weight gradually progressed to levels that meet programming needs (Kraemer, et al., 2004). These studies also note that one of the key factors in injury prevention is fatigue and that fatigue sets in at the tail ends of duration, so shorter is better (Bloch, et al., 2023). Some studies cite distances as short as 2-3 miles and even .25 mile sessions (Poel, 2016). We conclude that this is too short, except for specific targeted sessions, to achieve the fitness, technique, and misery management elements of rucking specific fitness. We determined that the ‘sweet spot’ of maximum intensity and sustainable misery balanced with relative injury prevention is 5 miles. We could have chosen 4 and we could have chosen 6 as the evidence is inconclusive at this level of detail, so we assessed 5 miles as optimum. You can certainly train for longer distances, but your intensity will suffer, and intense sessions are better. Remember, we are looking for the best method.
There it is. The thesis statement: The best way to build rucking performance is field based progressive load carriage, usually 2-3 times a week, focused on short intense sessions. You have the argument, the counter-argument, the logic, the evidence, and the literature review. We only cite about a dozen sources here, but there as many as several thousand articles to support these conclusions. This is an evidence-based conclusion, supported by countless peer-reviewed articles, following all of the most accepted and well-established fitness programing principles. Just because it goes against what you did, or what your buddy recommends, or what Skull and Dagger SpecOps Fitness, LLC recommends doesn’t mean much in the face of the overwhelming evidence. You are free to program your rucking train-up in any manner that you choose. But if you aren’t doing it as field based progressive load carriage, usually 2-3 times a week, focused on short intense sessions then you aren’t doing it the best way. Choose your experts, and your expert advice, carefully. SFAS is an upside-down world and requires a deliberate and informed prep.
In our next release we’ll talk about the ruck itself. Stay Tuned!
Works Cited
Army Public Health Center. (2016). TECHNICAL INFORMATION PAPER NO. 12-054-0616: Foot Marching, Load Carriage, and Injury Risk. Aberdeen Proving Grounds: TECHNICAL INFORMATION PAPER NO. 12-054-0616.
Bloch, A., Steckenrider, J., Zifchock, R., Freisinger, G., Bode, V., & Elkin-Frankston, S. (2023). Effect of Fatigue on Movement Patterns During a Loaded Ruck March. Military Medicine.
Carlson, M., & Jaenen, S. (2012). The development of a preselection physical fitness training program for Canadian Special Operations Regiment applicants. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
Chatterjee, S., Chatterjee, T., Bhattacharyya, D., Sen, S., & Pal, M. (2018). Effect of heavy load carriage on cardiorespiratory responses with varying gradients and modes of carriage. Militray Medical Research.
Dlugolecka, B., & Jowko, E. (2022). Effects of Weight-Bearing and Weight-Supporting Sports on Bone Mass in Males. Polish Journal of Sport and Tourism, 9-14.
Knapik, J. J., Harman, E. A., Steelman, R. A., & Graham, B. S. (2012). A Systematic Review of the Effects of Physical Training on Load Carriage Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 585-597.
Knapik, J., Reynolds, K., & Harman, E. (2004). Soldier load carriage: historical, physiological, biomechanical, and medical aspects. Mil Med.
Kraemer, W., Vescovi, J., Volek, J., Nindl, B., Newton, R., Patton, J., . . . Häkkinen, K. (2004). Effects of concurrent resistance and aerobic training on load-bearing performance and the Army physical fitness test. Military Medicine.
Maladouangdock, J. (2014). The Role of Strength and Power in High Intensity Military Relevant Tasks. University of Connecticut .
NATO's Research & Technology Organization. (2009). Optimizing Operational Physical Fitness. Neuilly: NATO.
Orr, R., & Pope, R. (2015). Optimizing the Physical Training of Military Trainees. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 53-59.
Orr, R., Pope, R., Johnston, V., & Coyle, J. (2010). Load carriage: minimizing soldier injuries through physical conditioning –a narrative review. Journal of Military and Veterans' Health, 31-38.
Orr, R., Dawes, J., Lockie, R., & Godeassi, D. (2019). The Relationship Between Lower-Body Strength and Power, and Load Carriage Tasks: A Critical Review. International Journal of Exercise Science, 1001-1022.
Poel, D. (2016). The Effects of Military Style Ruck Marching on Lower Extremity Loading. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Sax van der Weyden, M., Merrigan, J., Newman, K., Hahn, J., & Martin, J. (2024). Army Combat Fitness Test Scores Moderate Cognitive Function Improvements After a Ruck March: A Hierarchical Linear Model Approach. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
Uniformed Services University. (2023). Load carriage strategies to improve military fitness. Retrieved from Human Performance Resources by CHAMP: https://www.hprc-online.org/physical-fitness/training-performance/load-carriage-strategies-improve-military-fitness
