CNN Health
If you enjoy walking for exercise, there’s a simple way to maximize your efforts — change your walk into a ruck. Rucking is walking with weight on your back, and it’s an increasingly popular form of exercise.
“I see people rucking in my neighborhood all the time now,” said former US Navy SEAL Stew Smith, a fitness instructor and coach for the special ops training team at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. More
I carry an entire day’s production on my back sometimes as I scoot up and down and between buildings on the factory campus.
That’s burden enough for me.
The individuals I see “rucking” around here have shopping carts, overflowing with bags of verminous-looking random junk.
Thanks, Barry.
Hmmmmm.
Used to do that every day to and from school.
C’mon people! Just do some physical labor daily and the fat will melt off.
There was an episode of The Beverly Hillbilly’s where Granny convinced Mrs. Drysdale to get on her knees and scrub the floor and she felt great afterward.
Did carrying 100 pounds of tie down chains on my back as a Navy Plane Captain up on the flight deck of the Kitty Hawk count as a ruck? I tell you what I burned a hell of lot calories per day doing that back when I could eat like there was no tomorrow 3 and 4 times a day with mid rats late at night. If I ate like that now I’d weigh over 300 pounds but back then I weighed between 160 to 170 pounds and had a 32-inch waist.
That’s why have a car.
Ruck you!
“You vill drive nowhere…und like it!”
—Klaus Schwab in the future
Good prep for bugout.
You get a better workout carrying fully loaded ammo boxes through a swamp.
I used to take five mile walks that include a stop at either a ButtZays, (AKA HEB,) or Randroidz, (AKA Randalls.) Looking through the deep discount pre-dumpster endcaps was motivational.
^^^ ‘the swamp’…
I use to do that years ago. 12 to 15 miles a day carrying heavy equipment. I did it for about 15 years and the only thing to show for it is worn out joints.
Tickles me, bet I’ve “rucked” three thousand miles in my 34 year career. Trust me you pay for your “exercise” later in life.
Screw that, used to have to do it wearing green clothes. And black boots. Dates my old ass.
My scout troop did a lot of backpacking. I did my share, but never liked it much. The best thing about backpacking is when you take your pack off. For a few minutes you feel like your floating on air.
But we also did a lot of canoe camping. That was fun stuff. Put me in a loaded boat, and I will paddle all day for a week. Eat like a king and sleep in a tent you can stand up in.
Sometimes, we’d pull ashore under a bridge at some 2-lane highway in the middle of nowhere and see how much traffic went by in fifteen minutes. If there was enough, we’d start walking in whichever direction the most cars were going. After a mile or so we might find a little country store or had station. We’d load up our rucksacks (not backpacks) on supplies, like junk food, matches, fireworks and mosquito repellent, and head back to the river. That’s my kind of rucking.
No thanks, I’ll stick to the gym.
If you use it you will eventually use it up. My back. If you don’t use it you’ll lose it altogether and have nothing to show for it. You’ll see them on the scooters… and everywhere you look, really.
Go ruck off!
Knees to their human: “Don’t ruck on me!”
Jethro SUNDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2023, 18:38 AT 6:38 PM
“Hmmmmm.
Used to do that every day to and from school.”
Uphill?
Both ways?
In a howling snowstorm?
With pots and pans on your feet because no one could afford shoes?
…you must have gone to school with my parents, if so…
hauled bundled electrical conduits on both shoulder from the job trailer to the job site (sometimes 100’s of feet away, sometimes 1,000’s). the larger conduits (3″ & 4″) we only hauled one on each shoulder. hauled until we had enough to lay in the trenches we dug or hang in the ceiling. bx & cable was also hauled one on each shoulder (8/4 w/ ground was a bitch), sometimes up many flights of high-rise building (before the elevators were installed) … to kill the boredom we sometimes had races to see who could get to the floor we were working on the fastest.
this was during my second 2 years of apprenticeship (& beyond).
my first 2 years I jokingly referred to as my intimate relationship w/ manually operated terrain-altering implements.
‘rucksack’, my ass!
@SNS ~ don’t forget the bull that chased them through the field!
geoff the aardvark SUNDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2023, 18:48 AT 6:48 PM
“… but back then I weighed between 160 to 170 pounds and had a 32-inch waist.”
…that’s weird. If you had a 36 leg you had the same specs I did up until my 30s when I got married.
…and then the waist started expanding…
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ SUNDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2023, 22:08 AT 10:08 PM
“@SNS ~ don’t forget the bull that chased them through the field!”
…that it was hard to run from because no one could afford feet…
…I also spent some time in those leaner years wearing 40 pounds of turnouts with another 50 of SCBA and carrying hose packs, Indian pumps, K-saws, axes, pike poles, an assortment of medical bags including an airway bag with an O2 cylinder in it, ventilation fans, Jaws Of Life, cots, StairChairs, and sharing the load of bucking 300 lb blind drunk diabetic guys that fell down narrow staircases back up in a rescue basket on a wood backboard, and for some reason my knees don’t work right any more, almost like crawling around flaming buildings on them carrying all that kind of stuff wasn’t a good idea, or something…
I’ll pass.
Had back surgery in ’84 or so because of “rucking” concrete lintels, pumps, I-beams, 80# sacks of cement, 5′ and 6′ sump pumps (those heavy Weinman, not that cheap Japanese shit), cast iron and steel pipe, valves, and the rest of that trade-related heavy stuff.
Just had to step wrong once.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
SNS, you also missed the part about walking 5 miles backwards uphill to and from school in a blinding snowstorm when they didn’t have snow days and being late to school was no excuse. I always had and still have 36- inch legs (bird legs, skinny as heck when I was younger) and wore 34 long pants back then till my wife broke me of wearing high water pants. She said it made me look like a nerd.
The problem starts when one leg is 36 inches and the other is 34. Walked in circles until I was 27.
And the crooked man married a woman named Eileen.
Everyone I see carrying a backpack is “rucking” between drug houses.