Practice

Warming up on hikes

To tackle significant routes, you can go on other organized hikes at the very beginning of the season to get your body back into condition. And above all, before starting, remember to warm up properly:

→ The warm-up must be gradual to move from rest to effort…

→ Remember that the more intense the effort, the more important the warm-up should be. This will prevent you from being out of breath or having a stitch in your side after a few minutes of running.

→ Adapt the warm-up according to the weather. If it is cold or windy, the warm-up must take longer because the heat loss is greater and therefore the body takes longer to “warm up”.

→With age, warm-up must be particularly careful to avoid injury. Indeed, tendons become less elastic over time, and muscles are also less resistant with age.

→We must not believe that the more we are trained, the less we need to warm up. On the contrary, it takes more time to mobilize all your muscles.

→It is not recommended to do passive stretching before exercise because they reduce the blood supply to the muscles (“cut legs” effect). They should be reserved at the end of the session to recover.

→There is no standard warm-up, it must be adapted to the session you plan to do, to your current form. It’s up to everyone to personalize it. It is generally made up of two phases: a first mobilization phase where the body is awakened (typically slow jogging), followed by a tensioning phase where the exercises are gradually intensified.

→ For a hike, the warm-up is also reduced because the intensity of the effort will remain low throughout the session. You can simply start by walking slowly for 5 minutes and gradually accelerate to cruising speed.

Advice provided by Nicolas Cherpeau (http://www.courir-plus-loin.com)

We also suggest you test our mustache course -10 km circuit to best prepare you for this event.