Exercise isn’t fun. If it was, a lot of us would look dramatically better shirtless. But, as we all know, it’s incredibly important, and we don’t do it anywhere near enough.
In 2022, a large-scale survey found almost half of British women and a third of British men openly admit to doing no exercise at all. Another study, from the University of Essex, found only one in 20 British adults meet the government guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate activity per week.
Clearly a lot of us need to be doing more. But it feels as though life perpetually gets in the way with all of its demands – between working, parenting and lying awake at night staring into the abyss, I am absolutely at capacity.
Luckily for an ageing 40-year-old husk like me, the fancy kids on the internet might have the answer. One of TikTok’s hot new fitness trends is “rucking”, or walking around with a heavy rucksack in order to burn calories.
Now, walking around with a rucksack on is not a new idea. I did that at school for years, hauling around some thick textbooks and a PE kit. Plus I rarely if ever cleared my bag out, so I was carrying around loads of stuff. I was decades ahead of these rucking kids.
Currently, as a lame suburban father, I also spend a lot of time lugging around a rucksack filled with all kinds of stuff – my daughter’s swimming kit, my daughter’s library books, my daughter’s ballet shoes, occasionally even a few objects of my own. Our local library lets people take out 12 books at a time, which my daughter sees as a target, so I am no stranger to an absurdly heavy bag.
But if wandering about with a rucksack can make me fit, then great. As going to the gym is not my bag (thanks), plus involves money and time that I simply don’t have, rucking could work instead by making myself weigh more while I move around – my body has to work harder, burn more calories and build muscle with every step.
Rucking as a sport
“If you’re looking for a cost-effective, convenient and accessible addition to your routine, rucking may be worth a go,” says fitness expert Laura Williams.
She suggests refraining from just flinging yourself into it – for people who are very much out of the habit of exercising, a few brisk walks or jogs without the weight first are a good idea, and doing some strength training exercises can help avoid back pain.
I feel like enough of a ruckhead to just go for it. As with anything fitness related, you can spend a fortune on incredibly specific equipment if you wish – an American company called Go Ruck sells £200 rucksacks with special compartments for £60 weights. I’m out of shape, not out of brains, so I opt to forego this for a more DIY approach: a rucksack I’ve had for 20 years, a cupboard filled with tinned food and a bit of maths.
Carrying a maximum of 10 per cent of your body weight is suggested for newcomers to the rucking world, but as a backpack veteran, I aim for 20 per cent. I weigh 70kg – at least some of which is muscle – so I need a 14kg load. A can of tomatoes weighs just shy of 500g, so 28 cans and I should be laughing.
Except, perhaps not: cylinders aren’t famed for slotting together elegantly. By the time my bag contains 23 tins of kidney beans, chickpeas and lentils (10kg and 648g of what will one day be several lovely casseroles), it doesn’t seem like it can take much more. The last thing I want is to be strolling down a country lane and have my bag’s structural integrity give up on me, and end up with the contents of my kitchen cupboard strewn across the road like someone dropped a harvest festival out of a plane. So off I head with 23.
Something that immediately becomes clear is that what I usually think of as a heavy rucksack isn’t really all that heavy. A few books and a PE kit have nothing on steel and legumes. Carrying 15 per cent of my body weight on my back affects my whole centre of gravity, but in what feels like a good way.
I usually slouch, but the weight pulls my shoulders back, straightening my spine and making me walk more upright than usual. I usually walk around like I’m somewhere in the middle of that diagram showing humanity evolving from apes, but with a big bag of tins on my back I’m walking like a fully finished human being.
At the same time I feel a bit silly for taking a bunch of shopping for a walk. It’s like I have the world’s largest but most undercooked packed lunch. Something about the wilful inefficiency of it all irks me slightly. Perhaps that’s what the pricey equipment is for, to legitimise it all and make you feel like a sportsperson rather than a sentient larder.
The people on TikTok who take rucking really seriously talk up its military origins, and the Americans among them seem to see “rucksack” as a significantly more exciting and exotic word than I do. My decades-old Eastpak doesn’t feel like a piece of elite athletic equipment. It’s what I keep my laptop in when I go on a train. Someone was sick on it once.
But rucking around my village for 45 minutes or so feels pretty good. I feel like I’ve done some exercise, but not in the sort of afternoon-wrecking sweaty way that a lunchtime run would bring. However, popping into the supermarket for some essentials on the way back, I am absolutely livid to realise that, despite having a bag – very, very much having a bag – I have no room for anything else in it, and have to carry my groceries home in my arms.
Rucksack fatigue
This is where it starts to be less fun. Fed up and with my arms in front of me clutching my purchases, it all gets a bit uncomfortable. Rather than the posture-improving position I set out with, for the last few minutes I feel more like I’m slumping both forwards and backwards at once and slowly crumpling.
This is something I was warned about by Laura, and cavalierly chose to ignore: “As with any exercise session, fatigue is likely, and when you’re walking with a load in this way, the tendency to slouch or lean forward is likely to be greater than when you’re walking minus the load. Even if you’re a regular exerciser, walking with added load is different to the gym – you’re not putting the weight down at any point for one thing.”
Mini-rucking
A shorter walk at school pick-up time goes fine, but it still just feels a little silly. With slow increases in weight and distance, I could potentially be a champion rucker, but I don’t think I’m going to bother. My brief dip into that world ended up somewhere between a pleasant bit of stretching and an otherwise nice walk ruined.
Neither investing in expensive equipment or continuing to walk canned goods appeals enormously, and the novelty value of being a bit tired with a bag is, for me, minimal. Yes it is free and easy compared to a gym membership, and that goes some way towards balancing out it clearly being, well, quite crap.
But if it works for some people, great. The basic idea of deliberately making everyday tasks a smidge more challenging as a way of getting fitter is awesome – far less expensive and time-consuming than joining a gym, and easy to integrate into your life.
Who knows, I might find myself popping to the shops with a less-than-empty bag every now and then, to work myself a tad harder. I won’t be spending hundreds on a special heavy bag for it though. I’m not a rucking idiot.