Watch any European trail race or ultramarathon and odds are you’ll find runners huffing and puffing up insanely steep climbs or tip-toeing atop razor-thin mountain ridges with poles in their hands. Running and racing with poles is common practice in Europe. Yet, here in the United States, there seems to be a stigma that running with poles is a sign of weakness.
“I’ve had people tell me that I’m ‘cheating’ using poles when I pass them because they allow me to push with both my legs and my arms and go faster. It’s not cheating. It’s a choice,” says Hillary Gerardi, 2021 Marathon du Mont-Blanc 90km winner and professional mountain runner for Black Diamond. Despite being a perfectly acceptable and legal choice, many trail runners still shy away from using poles. But you don’t have to.
Here’s how to run with poles, why they’re helpful, and tips for using them to help your performance.
The Benefits of Learning How to Run With Poles
“If you can learn to use your poles efficiently, you’re reducing the amount of output and energy you need to use from your legs,” explains Gerardi. This is because you can push with your arms and legs (versus only your lower body without poles), thus reducing the strain on your legs, “particularly if you’re going to be doing a bit of vertical gain,” adds Gerardi. By dispersing weight between your arms and legs, it saves leg energy that can equate to running farther and faster than you could without poles.
Another benefit to using poles, especially for beginner trail runners, is that poles help you balance better, particularly through technical and rocky terrain. Instead of having two points of contact (your legs), you now have four to help keep balance.
Gerardi explains that having the two extra points of contact can help you more easily retreat to safety if you experience an injury, like rolling an ankle, so they also provide a security measure.
Trekking poles have become very popular among many hiking enthusiasts. Our trekking poles work your upper back muscles, chest, shoulders, and arms via a practical range of motion while trekking. This particular exercise is sometimes referred to as Nordic walking. Montem Trekking Poles have wrist straps for securing the poles to your arms and rubber pole tips for grabbing the ground. Walking with trekking poles comes with numerous health benefits, especially among seniors.
Improved Posture
You can significantly boost your posture while hiking or walking using our trekking poles. Walking in an upright position maximizes your breathing by increasing the amount of air getting into your lungs.
Impact Reduction and Safety
You can remove 3 percent to 5 percent of the impact from every step with each pole plant thanks to our shock-absorbing aluminum trekking poles. You can reduce knee strain, especially while hiking downhill. Using a trekking pole significantly reduces the chances of experiencing sprains and fractures because you are less likely to lose your balance. Trekking poles also prevent injuries when walking on uneven terrain because they function as extra legs.
Enhancing Body Balance
We humans are bipeds, and we spend lots of time and energy trying to maintain our balance while standing or trekking. We have to balance our upper body and torso with our feet. The trekking poles are ideal for enhancing the balancing act. Apart from boosting posture and balance, using trekking poles result in less strain on the lower back and knees.
Boosting the Number of Calories Burned
If you wish to lose weight easily, using walking poles can assist you in realizing your ideal weight quickly. Using trekking poles increases the rate of calories burned. Generally, we burn about 200 calories while walking without poles within half an hour. According to a study published in 2002, trekking with poles significantly increases the number of oxygen consumed and the number of calories burned.
Strengthening Your Core
Nordic walking or pole walking is an efficient and healthy way of strengthening the abdominal muscles. These are the muscles that you utilize for supporting yourself while walking, bending over, and lifting. When using trekking poles, the abdominal muscles are engaged every time while lifting and planting the poles in front and bringing them back to the front. You will notice a great difference over time; your abdominal muscles will greatly change in appearance. Hikers who use trekking poles while camping utilizes the upper body muscles to the maximum like the triceps, pectorals, latissimus dorsi, and biceps.
Reducing the Stress on Joints
Numerous studies have ascertained that using trekking poles prevents damage and pain caused by repetitive stress injuries. Hiking the whole day places extra stress on the hips, knees, and ankles. Walking poles recruit other body muscles which assist in transferring the weight and minimizing the strain that would have been absorbed by the muscles in your lower body and joints alone.
When to Run With Poles
While poles can be a tremendous asset, they can also slow you down on the wrong terrain, so it’s important to know what type of terrain you’ll be running before thinking about bringing poles.
Poles are most useful when climbing steep trails, however, determining how steep and long a climb needs to be to use poles largely depends on the individual. Beginners that aren’t so focused on time may find poles useful on the shorter climbs, whereas time-focused runners may not want to take the time to break out the poles for short climbs.
Another time to use poles is during descents because they can help you maintain balance through rocky and dangerous footing while lessening eccentric loading (that’s the weight you carry on a downward movement) of the muscles and joints. Poles can also be a lifesaver for some runners during long ultra-distance races when your legs are screaming and you have nothing left in the tank.
Except for vertical kilometer races (very short, steep uphill races with no downhill), where you’ll be using your poles the entire time, you’ll most likely alternate between using your poles and not using them, so you’ll need to stow your poles away when not in use, such as on nearly flat trails. Most hydration vests these days have some mechanism to carry poles when not in use. Keep in mind, it takes time to take the pole out and stow them away when not in use, so that’s part of the strategy of using them too and something to practice.
While there is no definitive rule of thumb for when to use poles, only by practicing can you develop an understanding of when poles are helpful and when they aren’t?
Tips on How to Run With Poles
Gerardi shares her best tips for mastering running with poles.
Make sure you have the right tip for the terrain
Some areas don’t allow carbide tips because it scratches up the rocks and can contribute to erosion.
Practice hand-eye coordination and good pole placement
If you place your pole tip on a rock, it can skitter off, and you lose energy. If you place it on soft ground, you’ve got a better chance that it’ll support you and help propel you forward.
Practice putting your poles away and getting them back out
You need to familiarize yourself with whatever system you’re using (across the back, belts, quivers, etc.) so that you don’t get frustrated.
Be careful when you are running uphill in a group
If you are going uphill with poles, you need to take care not to stab someone behind you. Poles should be held so that the tips point down.
Treat your poles well
When you get back from an outing, clean them off, wipe them down, and try to dry off the water that gets into the moving pieces to avoid things getting rusty or stuck.
Carbon fiber poles don’t bend
Sticking a pole between two big rocks and putting all of your weight on it at an angle can cause them to break. If they get stuck, try reversing the action/motion of how you placed the pole rather than pulling it in the direction you want to go.
Sometimes WD40 can go a long way in maintenance
Test out your poles and the folding/opening mechanisms in the days before a big race/event you care about. Sometimes they get sticky and hard to fold.
Check airline regulations
Do some research on your airline about putting your poles in your carry-on versus checked luggage when you’re traveling.
Finding the Right Running Poles
Running poles come in two configurations—fixed and adjustable. Gerardi says that if you already know your pole length, it’s probably best to go with fixed poles because they are lighter. Adjustable poles are better if you’re unsure of your length or want to share your poles with someone else.
First-time pole users should start with adjustable-length poles. This will allow you to play with different lengths to find your ideal height, which is usually when your elbows bend at a 90-degree angle when holding the handle.
Do I Need Trekking Poles?
The short answer is not always. As you can imagine, the long answer goes into a lot more detail. For short hikes that are on relatively flat ground and more like walks than actual hikes, you don’t need poles to get around. Technically there are even people who have run the Appalachian Trail or PCT, but for well over 95% of all long-distance hikers, backpackers, or thru-hikers, you’re going to need trekking poles. These not only help for keeping balance in slippery conditions, but they help over rough terrain or even in situations like crossing a fast-moving creek; the balance they provide is necessary.
If you’re just taking the occasional weekend walk, then trekking poles aren’t a necessity per se, but there’s a reason they’re considered standard equipment for anyone who is serious about backpacking or hiking and that goes doubly so for anyone who eventually wants to take on the challenge of more long-distance hikes, or even one of the big three trails in the United States.
Why Use Trekking Poles
There are a variety of reasons. One is that by getting used to trekking poles you can put some of the weight of long-term hiking and backpacking on the poles instead of your legs, knees, feet, joints, and back. They also give the arms a little bit more of a workout (known as Nordic walking) and can help maintain your core group of muscles and keep them in exceptionally good shape. In addition to this, trekking poles provide additional stability and support in a wide array of different environments and challenges that you are going to find throughout any hike.
While many people worry that trekking with poles will make them tired because they’ll use more energy since now they’re using their arms. While you will be using your arms more than you otherwise would be, that balances out your overall energy use since the stress on your legs and back won’t be nearly so heavy – allowing you to hike farther every single day without having as much pain and stiffness as you otherwise would have. You should also be sure to bring a light snack to maintain your energy throughout your hike. At first, the trekking poles might seem a little weird to you as you’re just learning how to use them but the good news is that you will quickly get used to them and that discomfort will fade.
Additional Hiking Pole Considerations
There are several other factors when choosing the right pair of trekking poles that might matter to you. Many trekking poles have a locking mechanism because they are adjustable on some level. The type of locking mechanisms used varies a lot from one set to another, and there have been some pretty spirited arguments over which are best. Your choices are:
- Twist lock
- External lever locks
- Push button lock
- Combination lock
You will most likely find it takes a little testing to figure out which lock you like best, and the same goes for testing out grips. If you’re going to be going on extremely long hikes then you need to be comfortable. Most handles will be made of rubber, foam, or even cork. Remember you might be hiking for hours and hours at a time so choose wisely!
