5 of the best exercises to cross train with your rucking workout

Rucking is a phenomenal cardiovascular workout for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the addition of weight to your back via your backpack tremendously taxes your entire muscular system. It places more strain on your legs, which are the primary drivers of the workout, while also forcing your stabilizer muscles to go into overdrive as you attempt to maintain the correct, upright posture.

Despite this, rucking can be a somewhat incomplete form of training if your big-picture goal involves maximizing overall muscle strength and endurance. Fortunately, rucking workouts require the presence of weight strategically loaded into backpacks, which creates some first-rate opportunities for some structured strength training during a ruck.

In order to help you make the most of your time as you attempt to sculpt muscles in both your upper and lower body while you’re outdoors rucking, here are some of the best exercises to throw into your routine to cross train during your rucking workout. 

PUSHUPS

In our opinion, pushups are a wonderful foundational exercise. Even if you already have an elite level of upper-body muscle endurance and can perform hundreds of pushup repetitions, they’re still a worthwhile exercise to perform, and adapting the pushups to make them more challenging is very easy to do.

Fortunately, the added weight of the rucking backpack can easily increase the challenge of performing traditional pushups. So, if you want to throw in sets of pushups before, after, or even during your rucking session (For example: A set of ten weighted pushups after every five minutes of rucking), you can certainly get more of an overall body benefit to your training time. Just make sure you can safely get down to the ground and then back up again with the weight on your back.

BENT OVER ROWS

It’s recommended that for every pushing movement you do (e.g., pushups) you should perform at least two pulling movements to make sure your body remains balanced. To accomplish this during your rucking training, you can take the backpack off your back and perform any of several variations of bent-over rows with it. 

Is the backpack too light when you're rowing with both arms? Switch things up and perform the equivalent of a one-arm dumbbell row. Whatever it takes to efficiently accomplish the goal of balancing out your musculature during your ruck, there is definitely a rowing option that can help you to accomplish this.

SQUAT & LUNGE VARIATIONS

While there are several exercises performed by Instagram models designed to maximize gluteal mass, many of these exercises are difficult to perform without elastic bands, weight benches, or other gym equipment. Fortunately, one of the very best exercises for building the backside remains the squat, and a rucker’s backpack is wonderfully situated to help ruckers achieve these benefits.

At any point during the ruck, you can stop and perform as many squats as you like without altering the position of your backpack. However, if you’d like to perform a fun squat variation that also taxes the shoulders, you could take the backpack off and perform a squatting motion right into a military press variation. It’s a very practical way of chaining together upper- and lower-body compound movements while also maximizing your time.

As another favorite of folks who like to craft attractive glutes and quads, lunges are an exercise that ruckers can perform without even breaking their strides. After every few minutes, transition over to a set of 20 lunges or so, and you’ll definitely increase the lower-body burn of your workout. 

PULLUPS

This one isn’t recommended unless you’re already in superlative shape. Also, it’s probably best not to perform this exercise unless your ruck happens to take you by a public park with either dedicated pullup bars or a set of monkey bars on site. If those bars are present, and if you’re up to the challenge, weighted pullups and chinups are among the most rapid strength developers for the lats and biceps. 

Again, this is one of those cases where you already need to be in great shape in order to reap the aforementioned benefits and get into even better shape. Unless you can comfortably perform 12 or more pullups without adding additional weight to your back, it’s probably best to take the backpack off if you wish to incorporate pullups into your training regimen.

BURPEES

If you really want to drain yourself quickly at the end of your workout, or to really make things interesting during the second half of your ruck, throw in a few sets of burpees. I know what you’re thinking, but burpees don’t need to have all of their most challenging elements in order to be worthwhile. The simple act of getting down to the ground with weight on your back, kicking your legs out so that you're horizontal, and then reversing the motion, standing up straight and ending with a calf raise is plenty for most people.

However, if you’re an overachiever and wish to throw in the pushup on the ground and the leap at the top of the movement, we won’t try to talk you out of it. Please make sure you’re comfortable with the fundamental movements, and make sure you have an appropriate amount of weight in your backpack before you add the most challenging and potentially dangerous training elements into your burpee routine.