4 Ways to Add Variety to Your Rucking

Tossing on your pack and going for a ruck is fine and good, but if you want to break up the monotony of miles on miles, here are some ideas to spice up your ruck.

Go Strapless

To begin with, try a 4-minutes-on, 1-minute-off pattern. For the first 4 minutes, ruck like normal. When the clock beeps, slip your ruck off and carry it in front of you with no straps for 1 minute. After the minute, return the ruck to your back.

Play around with the time domains or select a distance as your switch matrix.

Sprinkle in Some PT

The folks over at Ruck.Training often use their Friday programming to add a “?” to their ruck. So, they’ll program a traditional ruck and add a PT movement at a set interval.

For example, ruck 2 miles and stop every minute for 5 push-ups.

You can add any PT movement in (Squats, push-ups, lunges, man-makers, flutter kicks, etc) and you can select any time or distance interval you chose.

Share the Burden

Find a buddy who is comfortable rucking at a weight similar to you. Then, load up a ruck with 2x your normal weight. Go out for a ruck, but only one of you wears the ruck at a time. Switch out and share the load at a predetermined time or as needed.

Prius Pain

Every time you see a Prius, you have to take your ruck and carry it by the top handle like a suitcase. When you see another Prius, you can put it back on.

If you have a rucking partner, you can make a game of it. First one to spot the Prius calls it out, the loser has to suitcase carry their ruck until they spot one.

This could be modified to do PT movements as well.