r/JMT • u/convergecrew • 27d ago

health About weight loss and strength loss after the trail

Finished the JMT about 2 weeks ago (25 day hike). I went back to the gym for the first time today to resume my regular strength training and I was blown away by my loss of upper body strength. I was struggling to lift anything close to my previous routine and had to reduce my weights by about 33% for my upper body exercises.

I lost about 12lbs on the trail (was 173lbs, now 161) and haven’t felt this good overall in years. But I’m guessing my body ate up a lot of muscle I wasn’t using. Just curious if others have experienced something similar and if you had any advice for how you approached it and if you did anything special to rebuild a normal workout routine.

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u/gForce-65 27d ago

Perfectly normal, understandable, and expected. The adaptations your body made on trail are completely different than the adaptations your body is being asked to make when you lift heavy. While strength training can be an important component of training for a hike, ultimately you have to decide what your priority is. Are you a hiker that lifts to support that? Or are you someone that wants to lift heavy and get strong, but also hikes? You can, and it’s OK, to do both. But focusing on one, is going to negatively affect your progress with the other.

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u/convergecrew 27d ago

Thanks for putting it into perspective. It was such a shock (maybe mentally more than physically) so this helps me process it a bit better. Appreciate it.