Can Rucking Help Build Muscle?

Rucking can provide a modest muscle-building effect. The combination of carrying added weight for miles and the prolonged metabolic stress of rucking workouts creates mechanical tension and fatigue that can spur muscular adaptation. Some increase in muscle strength and size is certainly possible from regular rucking training. However, there are inherent limitations to the muscle growth potential from rucking alone. It does not maximize the factors known to drive maximum hypertrophy compared to dedicated strength training. Rucking is best utilized in a strategic, supplemental role alongside traditional resistance exercise to support muscle development rather than as a stand-alone muscle-building activity. While regular rucking can produce measurable gains in muscle endurance, strength, and size due to the physical challenge involved, the ceiling for growth is lower than training specifically focused on progressive overload, intensity, volume, and frequency for each muscle group. So rucking hits the threshold for stimulating hypertrophy but falls short of optimizing the muscular adaptive response.

How Rucking Stimulates Muscle Growth

Rucking offers two mechanisms that can spur muscle growth to a degree:

Rucking offers two key mechanisms that can spur muscle growth to a significant degree:

Progressive Overload

The first mechanism is progressive overload, a fundamental principle in muscle hypertrophy. Progressive overload involves gradually increasing stress on the muscles over time to promote adaptation and growth. In rucking, overload is achieved by gradually increasing the weight in your backpack. As the leg, back, shoulders, and core muscles work harder to carry the additional load, they experience increased stress compared to normal walking. This signals the body to adapt by increasing muscle strength and mass. Thus, rucking effectively satisfies the basic requirement of overload necessary for muscular development. However, the limited weight capacity of a rucksack can restrict the extent of progressive overload that rucking alone can provide.

Metabolic Stress

The second muscle-building driver in rucking is metabolic stress. Metabolic stress refers to the accumulation of metabolites such as lactate that occurs during extended periods of physical activity. Research indicates that chronic metabolic stress can enhance muscle growth beyond what is achieved through overload alone. This is because metabolites trigger the release of anabolic hormones and growth factors, which are essential for muscle hypertrophy. Given that rucking sessions often last several hours, significant metabolic stress can accumulate, thereby complementing the overload from carrying weight and providing a modest muscle-building stimulus.

Muscle Groups Targeted By Rucking

The main muscle groups subject to overload and metabolic stress from rucking include the legs, back, core, shoulders, and arms.

Legs

The quadriceps and hamstrings bear the brunt of moving your body weight plus any added load from a rucksack. These large lower-body muscle groups receive significant overload from rucking mile after mile.

Back

The muscles of the back must stabilize the spine and shoulders under load while rucking. The erector spinae group along the spine sees high tension. The lats, rear delts, and traps also work hard.

Core

The rectus abdominis and obliques are active throughout rucking to brace the torso and resist forces from loaded walking. The deeper transverse abdominis also contracts continually.

Shoulders

The deltoids assist the upper back muscles in stabilizing the shoulder girdle while carrying a loaded pack. The weight hanging off the shoulders increases tension.

Arms

The biceps help secure the shoulder straps of a rucksack in place and control swaying. The triceps assist the delts in this role as well. The forearms are also active gripping the straps. So rucking provides a moderate overload effect across many major upper and lower body muscle groups. However, the actual hypertrophic stimulus depends on the weight used.

Optimal Rucking Weight for Maximizing Muscle Growth

To increase muscle size through mechanical tension, sufficient loading is essential. Research indicates that an overload of 60-85% of your one-repetition maximum (1RM) is ideal for promoting muscle hypertrophy. For the legs specifically, heavy loading is crucial to drive muscle growth. The large lower body muscles possess a high strength potential and require strenuous activity to force adaptation.

A standard backpack typically allows for loading between 20-50 pounds safely. While walking mile after mile with a 50-pound pack will tax the muscles, it likely only provides a moderate overload of 60-70% for the legs. Moreover, the back, shoulders, and arms are supporting even less relative weight due to their smaller size and strength capabilities. Consequently, a regular rucksack does not provide enough load to maximize the hypertrophic stimulus. This explains why rucking alone often fails to prompt dramatic muscle growth, especially in the lower body. The weights involved are sub-optimal for maximally overloading the muscles, thereby limiting the extent of muscle hypertrophy achievable through rucking alone.

Rucking Frequency For Muscle Growth

Another factor in rucking's limited hypertrophic effects is training frequency. Optimal muscle growth requires working on each muscle group at least twice per week. This allows sufficient protein synthesis and recovery between sessions. But the whole-body nature of rucking only trains all the involved muscles once or twice weekly. And the extended duration of rucking sessions means more recovery time is needed. This low training frequency for each muscle group makes it hard to drive progressive overload session-to-session for maximum hypertrophy. So while the metabolic stress from long rucking workouts provides some muscle-building impetus, training each muscle too infrequently hampers optimal results.

Rucking vs. Strength Training: Which is Better for Muscle Growth?

The limitations of rucking for muscle hypertrophy become more evident when contrasted with traditional strength training. Strength training employs focused exercises at higher intensities to achieve greater overload. For instance, heavy barbell squats specifically target the leg muscles with direct, high-load resistance, allowing for significantly greater tension on the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes compared to rucking with a 50-pound pack. Similarly, exercises like deadlifts, rows, and pull-ups can overload the back muscles more effectively than carrying weight in a rucksack. Additionally, using a dedicated bench for bench presses and shoulder presses intensifies the workout for the chest, shoulders, and arms.

Strength training allows for more frequent and progressive workouts targeting each specific muscle group, thereby better satisfying the requirements for protein synthesis and muscle growth. This targeted approach is essential for maximizing hypertrophy. While rucking does provide a muscle-building stimulus, it is inherently limited compared to focused strength training that utilizes higher loads and specific exercises designed to target individual muscle groups.

Maximizing Muscle Growth From Rucking

If building muscle is the primary goal, rucking is clearly not sufficient on its own. However, it can still be integrated with traditional strength training to support hypertrophy. Here are some ways to maximize muscular results from rucking:

• Use the heaviest weight possible within safety limits - build up to 50+ pounds.

• Focus on increasing distance covered over time rather than just weight.

• Combine rucking 1-2 days a week with 4-5 days of heavy strength training.

• Periodize training to do more rucking during mass gaining phases.

• Ensure sufficient calorie intake and protein consumption to support growth.

• Use rucking as metabolic stress training by going for time rather than distance.

• Employ strategic supersets of rucking and strength training.

• Utilize rucking workouts to enhance recovery between strength sessions.

So while rucking has limitations for driving muscle growth, strategic programming can leverage it to complement and enhance traditional hypertrophy training.

Rucking Builds Modest Muscle But Has Other Benefits

In summary, rucking alone is unlikely to maximize muscular size due to insufficient loading and training frequency. However, it can still provide a moderate hypertrophic stimulus from progressive overload and metabolic stress. When combined properly with dedicated strength training, rucking can support muscle growth, particularly in the legs, back, shoulders, and core. It offers a supplemental stimulus for hypertrophy. Even if not optimizing for muscle building, rucking has many other benefits. These include:

• Improved cardiovascular endurance

• Enhanced work capacity

• Increased calorie burn

• Reduced body fat

• Greater mental toughness

So rucking can be a productive training modality for a range of fitness goals. But for maximizing muscular size, it works best as an adjunct to heavier, more frequent strength training rather than a stand-alone activity.

In Closing

Rucking provides moderate muscle-building potential through overload and metabolic stress mechanisms. However, it has limitations for driving maximum hypertrophy compared to strength training. Used strategically alongside traditional lifting, rucking can support muscle growth. But dedicated strength workouts with higher loads should remain the priority for most looking to maximize muscular results.