- Time of past OR future Camino
- 2017, 2018, 2019, 2025
There are two common methods used by Forum members to achieve physical conditioning for long distance walking on a Camino pilgrimage.
I have done this for wilderness backpacking trips when I was too busy to consistently follow a training schedule and had no health issues to contend with. This included a normal baseline fitness that was not challenged from being chronically inactive, or severely overweight.
My focus here is why I personally prefer to pre-train ahead of time. I want to talk about some specific advantages to starting a Camino with a better level of fitness. This includes increasing one’s core muscle strength, leg, and upper body strength, as well as cardiovascular fitness.
First: For a Camino, there is no need to train to become a competitive athlete. The idea is to adjust your body to the increased demands of walking up and down hills as the kilometers begin to accumulate. You do not need to be able to run a marathon, or bench press 500 pounds; you just need to be able to enjoy walking from town to town without your body yelling at you and demanding to know ‘Are we there yet… are we there yet…are we there yet…’
Pre-Training Helps Prevent Injury
Pre-training will help strengthen anatomical structures that will deal with increased stresses and loading of muscles and joints. But more importantly is that the process used to become fitter, must also reduce as much as is reasonable the risk of causing an avoidable injury.
Training prior to a Camino, rather than while on it, allows you to have all the time you need to work yourself into shape for distance walking. You do not have to worry about vacation time limits pushing you to reach a destination. You truly have the luxury to plan a fitness routine that can be as relaxed as it needs to be.
Feet and backs and shoulders and knees are the leading ‘stars’ that need hardening for the increased impacts caused by distance walking. Using these muscle and structural areas as you exercise at home will dramatically help your first days on the Camino.
Pre-training before the start of your Camino also gives you a better understanding of how your body might respond when you start your pilgrimage. You have had a change to get in-tune to how your body normally responds and feels under the physical stresses from increased exercise. This can mean a better ability to identify ‘normal’ responses to exercise, from those symptoms that are ‘abnormal’ and might require treatment.
Many injuries like sprains, fractures, lacerations are the result of falling, tripping, and losing footing. This is more likely to occur with increased fatigue. Concentration becomes more difficult the more fatigued one becomes. Muscle control is compromised. Balance becomes more problematic. The better shape one is in, the less risk of these things occurring.
Decreased fatigue increases one’s ability to use proper techniques to lessen shock impacts to the knee with each step downhill, or to avoid slipping on loose surface debris.
Training Allows More Capacity to Enjoy the Beginning Stages of the Camino
Most of us invest a lot of effort and expense to walk a Camino. For me, that means that I want my entire Camino to be enjoyable from its very first hours of walking. I want the biggest bang for my buck.
Physically, fitness training is often accompanied with aches, pains, fatigue, gasping for breath, sore feet, etc. That becomes the primary sensory input into your brain, dulling the sights and sounds and smells of everything else around you. Mentally, all that discomfort can force your focus inward when you really want to be focused on the external world around.
Pre-training can help get us past the stage where our mind is preoccupied with negative thoughts and discomforts from being out of shape. This allows us to fully absorb our experiences, burning into our memory all the things we will see and hear.
Training Increases the Chances That you will Complete Your Camino
Whether the goal is completing a Camino, or qualifying for the Navy Seals, frequently it is the mental component that determines success or failure to reach that goal.
Pre-training at home will expose doubts. The discomfort of exercising, feeling winded and fatigued, the next day aches that makes many of us think things like ‘why the heck am I doing this? How can I keep this up day to day?’ I find it best to try and deal with these issues prior to a Camino instead of after I start.
Of course, there will be other mentally challenging issues like dealing with being wet, or cold, or missing family. I have found that becoming mentally toughened to physical efforts can greatly help with overall mental resilience.
Approaching fitness training thru a gradual and consistent process that allows for smaller steps at home will do three things:
This post is my point of view. It has helped me as a mountaineer, various thru-hikes including the PCT, and on the Caminos I've walked.
There are also positive points for waiting to train until you start a Camino, and that would make a good topic for a second thread.
- Training before starting a Camino
- Training during a Camino
I have done this for wilderness backpacking trips when I was too busy to consistently follow a training schedule and had no health issues to contend with. This included a normal baseline fitness that was not challenged from being chronically inactive, or severely overweight.
My focus here is why I personally prefer to pre-train ahead of time. I want to talk about some specific advantages to starting a Camino with a better level of fitness. This includes increasing one’s core muscle strength, leg, and upper body strength, as well as cardiovascular fitness.
First: For a Camino, there is no need to train to become a competitive athlete. The idea is to adjust your body to the increased demands of walking up and down hills as the kilometers begin to accumulate. You do not need to be able to run a marathon, or bench press 500 pounds; you just need to be able to enjoy walking from town to town without your body yelling at you and demanding to know ‘Are we there yet… are we there yet…are we there yet…’
Pre-Training Helps Prevent Injury
Pre-training will help strengthen anatomical structures that will deal with increased stresses and loading of muscles and joints. But more importantly is that the process used to become fitter, must also reduce as much as is reasonable the risk of causing an avoidable injury.
Training prior to a Camino, rather than while on it, allows you to have all the time you need to work yourself into shape for distance walking. You do not have to worry about vacation time limits pushing you to reach a destination. You truly have the luxury to plan a fitness routine that can be as relaxed as it needs to be.
Feet and backs and shoulders and knees are the leading ‘stars’ that need hardening for the increased impacts caused by distance walking. Using these muscle and structural areas as you exercise at home will dramatically help your first days on the Camino.
Pre-training before the start of your Camino also gives you a better understanding of how your body might respond when you start your pilgrimage. You have had a change to get in-tune to how your body normally responds and feels under the physical stresses from increased exercise. This can mean a better ability to identify ‘normal’ responses to exercise, from those symptoms that are ‘abnormal’ and might require treatment.
Many injuries like sprains, fractures, lacerations are the result of falling, tripping, and losing footing. This is more likely to occur with increased fatigue. Concentration becomes more difficult the more fatigued one becomes. Muscle control is compromised. Balance becomes more problematic. The better shape one is in, the less risk of these things occurring.
Decreased fatigue increases one’s ability to use proper techniques to lessen shock impacts to the knee with each step downhill, or to avoid slipping on loose surface debris.
Training Allows More Capacity to Enjoy the Beginning Stages of the Camino
Most of us invest a lot of effort and expense to walk a Camino. For me, that means that I want my entire Camino to be enjoyable from its very first hours of walking. I want the biggest bang for my buck.
Physically, fitness training is often accompanied with aches, pains, fatigue, gasping for breath, sore feet, etc. That becomes the primary sensory input into your brain, dulling the sights and sounds and smells of everything else around you. Mentally, all that discomfort can force your focus inward when you really want to be focused on the external world around.
Pre-training can help get us past the stage where our mind is preoccupied with negative thoughts and discomforts from being out of shape. This allows us to fully absorb our experiences, burning into our memory all the things we will see and hear.
Training Increases the Chances That you will Complete Your Camino
Whether the goal is completing a Camino, or qualifying for the Navy Seals, frequently it is the mental component that determines success or failure to reach that goal.
Pre-training at home will expose doubts. The discomfort of exercising, feeling winded and fatigued, the next day aches that makes many of us think things like ‘why the heck am I doing this? How can I keep this up day to day?’ I find it best to try and deal with these issues prior to a Camino instead of after I start.
Of course, there will be other mentally challenging issues like dealing with being wet, or cold, or missing family. I have found that becoming mentally toughened to physical efforts can greatly help with overall mental resilience.
Approaching fitness training thru a gradual and consistent process that allows for smaller steps at home will do three things:
- It reduces physical stress that can be damaging.
- It reduces the risk of overwhelming your mental ability to comfortably cope.
- It leads to increasing levels of confidence. When you set a goal to be able to comfortably walk 5 kilometers and then meet that goal, your confidence level is there to shoot for a goal of 10 kilometers. Wash, rinse, repeat. Whatever your end goal, constantly achieving these smaller steps toward an overall fitness goal will increase your confidence that you can walk a Camino.
This post is my point of view. It has helped me as a mountaineer, various thru-hikes including the PCT, and on the Caminos I've walked.
There are also positive points for waiting to train until you start a Camino, and that would make a good topic for a second thread.
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