Hiking Speed vs Walking Speed

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

When many aspiring hikers are interested in learning how to get into “hiking shape” for the summer, a frequent question that comes up is the issue of pace, or speed. While many people don’t care to measure their hiking speed, so long as they work up a sweat, others like to know their speed for navigational and even physical purposes – it helps them measure their progress and calories burnt. If you want to understand your hiking speed, however, you’ll also want to know how it measures against your normal walking speed.

That’s why many people are so interested in the speed at which they hike. To them, their speed reflects their results – if they can make it up a hill in an hour when they used to take an hour and a half, they know that they’ve made tangible progress in their development. So let’s take a look at how hiking speed and walking speed can tell you about the kind of shape you’re in.

A Rule of Thumb

Generally, for every hundred pounds you weigh, you’ll burn about 45 calories per hour going at a speed of two miles per hour – but that’s just on a smooth level surface. The energy output required will approximately double for every mile per hour you increase, meaning you’ll burn about 90 calories per hundred pounds at three miles an hour, and so on.

The reason so many people enjoy hiking is that the incline adds a significantly greater energy requirement to your workout routine, increasing the amount of calories you’ll need to burn in order to go the same distance or the same speed as you would on a level surface. Because an increase in speed requires a similar increase in energy on a smooth level surface, you can expect the same to happen when you’re hiking up an incline.

Don’t Measure Against Walking Speeds

A mile hike is quite different than a mile walk, so don’t try to compare your speed going up a hill with the kind of speed you can expect to see when you walk on an incline. Anyone who’s used the incline feature on a treadmill knows what kind of power requirement gravity can add to any exercise. If you find that you were hiking at two miles an hour but you still feel like you had a decent workout, it’s safe to say that you should judge the quality of your workout by how challenging it felt, not by what the numbers always say.

A good hiking speed will rival a pretty calm walk. Avoid the beginner’s mistake of hiking too fast so that you can build endurance – intermittently include periods of greater intensity.

Photo Credits: justinjohnsen