One exercise to rule them all?

Until I injured my knee in 2019, other than going out for a couple of walks a day, I didn’t do any other exercise. Natural strength and fitness carried me through my TGO Challenges and other backpacking trips. Since then I’ve come to realise that age catches up with you.

Over the past few years I’ve been doing fifteen to twenty minutes of strength and stretching exercises most mornings. It’s been a bit of trial and error to see what suits me. Most exercise regimes seem to recommend body squats for leg and knee strength. However, I’ve found chair squats even better.

Raising yourself slowly from a sitting position and then lowering yourself slowly, keeping your weight on your heels seems to be great for your quads, glutes and knees. I do forty reps every morning. I no longer get knee pains. Indeed, over the last few months, I’ve even lost the aches that I used to get in cold damp weather. It’s taken time to build up strength, but it’s such simple exercise. It seems to suit me better than full body squats.

If you want to try one exercise for walking and backpacking, you should try this. Ease yourself into it with less reps and maybe doing it every other day. Over time build it up. For me forty reps takes about four minutes.

I’m doing other body strength exercises such as glute bridges as well as using resistance bands. I think it’s worth doing some stretches and balance exercises too. However, if I only did one exercise, this would be it.